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- Post-War Film Movements: French New Wave, Italian Neorealism, Scandinavian Revival, and Bengali Cinema
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- Mumblecore (2000s–Present) Mumblecore is a film movement that's thematically related to the more general term "indie film." Even so, there's more to the mumblecore film movement than just that.
- Greek Weird Wave (2000s–Present) The Greek Weird Wave is one of the most complex and multilayered film movements since the turn of the millennium. Awakened during the Great Recession that started in 2007, the movies of this movement are inherently postmodern.
- New Queer Cinema (1990s–2010s) New Queer Cinema refers to a queer-themed film movement that started in the early 1990s and into the 2000s. The term "queer" refers to the spectrum of human sexuality and gender identity, and these themes were at the forefront of this film movement to promote a different kind of queer representation in media.
- Dogme 95 (1990s–2000s) Dogme 95 was an avant-garde filmmaking movement that was started in the 1990s by Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg. Through their manifesto, they developed a set of rules that were fundamental for them when creating movies: a foundation in story, acting, and theme while rejecting prominent use of special effects.
Jan 1, 2023 · Post-War Film Movements Global cinema underwent a renaissance after World War II; technically, creatively, and conceptually. We’re going to cover a few of the most prominent post-war film movements, starting with Italian Neorealism.
- Overview
- Decline of the Hollywood studios
- The fear of communism
During the U.S. involvement in World War II, the Hollywood film industry cooperated closely with the government to support its war-aims information campaign. Following the declaration of war on Japan, the government created a Bureau of Motion Picture Affairs to coordinate the production of entertainment features with patriotic, morale-boosting themes and messages about the “American way of life,” the nature of the enemy and the allies, civilian responsibility on the home front, and the fighting forces themselves. Initially unsophisticated vehicles for xenophobia and jingoism with titles such as The Devil with Hitler and Blondie for Victory (both 1942), Hollywood’s wartime films became increasingly serious as the war dragged on (Fritz Lang’s Hangmen Also Die, Jean Renoir’s This Land Is Mine, Tay Garnett’s Bataan, all 1943; Delmer Daves’s Destination Tokyo, Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat, Lewis Milestone’s The Purple Heart, all 1944; Milestone’s A Walk in the Sun, 1946). In addition to commercial features, several Hollywood directors produced documentaries for government and military agencies. Among the best-known of these films, which were designed to explain the war to both servicemen and civilians, are Frank Capra’s seven-part series Why We Fight (1942–44), John Ford’s The Battle of Midway (1942), William Wyler’s The Memphis Belle (1944), and John Huston’s The Battle of San Pietro (1944). The last three were shot on location and were made especially effective by their immediacy.
(Read Alfred Hitchcock’s 1965 Britannica essay on film production.)
When World War II ended, the American film industry seemed to be in an ideal position. Full-scale mobilization had ended the Depression domestically, and victory had opened vast, unchallenged markets in the war-torn economies of western Europe and Japan. Furthermore, from 1942 through 1945, Hollywood had experienced the most stable and lucrative three years in its history, and in 1946, when two-thirds of the American population went to the movies at least once a week, the studios earned record-breaking profits. The euphoria ended quickly, however, as inflation and labour unrest boosted domestic production costs and as important foreign markets, including Britain and Italy, were temporarily lost to protectionist quotas. The industry was more severely weakened in 1948, when a federal antitrust suit against the five major and three minor studios ended in the “Paramount decrees,” which forced the studios to divest themselves of their theatre chains and mandated competition in the exhibition sector for the first time in 30 years. Finally, the advent of network television broadcasting in the 1940s provided Hollywood with its first real competition for American leisure time by offering consumers “movies in the home.”
The American film industry’s various problems and the nation’s general postwar disillusionment generated several new film types in the late 1940s. Although the studios continued to produce traditional genre films, such as westerns and musicals, their financial difficulties encouraged them to make realistic small-scale dramas rather than fantastic lavish epics. Instead of depending on spectacle and special effects to create excitement, the new lower-budget films tried to develop thought-provoking or perverse stories reflecting the psychological and social problems besetting returning war veterans and others adapting to postwar life. Some of the American cinema’s grimmest and most naturalistic films were produced during this period, including those of the so-called social consciousness cycle, which attempted to deal realistically with such endemic problems as racism (Elia Kazan’s Gentleman’s Agreement, 1947; Alfred Werker’s Lost Boundaries, 1949), alcoholism (Stuart Heisler’s Smash-Up, 1947), and mental illness (Anatole Litvak’s The Snake Pit, 1948); the semidocumentary melodrama, which reconstructed true criminal cases and was often shot on location (Kazan’s Boomerang, 1947; Henry Hathaway’s Kiss of Death, 1947); and the film noir, whose dark, fatalistic interpretations of contemporary American reality are unique in the industry’s history (Tay Garnett’s The Postman Always Rings Twice, 1946; Orson Welles’s The Lady from Shanghai, 1947; Jacques Tourneur’s Out of the Past, 1947; Abraham Polonsky’s Force of Evil, 1948).
During the U.S. involvement in World War II, the Hollywood film industry cooperated closely with the government to support its war-aims information campaign. Following the declaration of war on Japan, the government created a Bureau of Motion Picture Affairs to coordinate the production of entertainment features with patriotic, morale-boosting themes and messages about the “American way of life,” the nature of the enemy and the allies, civilian responsibility on the home front, and the fighting forces themselves. Initially unsophisticated vehicles for xenophobia and jingoism with titles such as The Devil with Hitler and Blondie for Victory (both 1942), Hollywood’s wartime films became increasingly serious as the war dragged on (Fritz Lang’s Hangmen Also Die, Jean Renoir’s This Land Is Mine, Tay Garnett’s Bataan, all 1943; Delmer Daves’s Destination Tokyo, Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat, Lewis Milestone’s The Purple Heart, all 1944; Milestone’s A Walk in the Sun, 1946). In addition to commercial features, several Hollywood directors produced documentaries for government and military agencies. Among the best-known of these films, which were designed to explain the war to both servicemen and civilians, are Frank Capra’s seven-part series Why We Fight (1942–44), John Ford’s The Battle of Midway (1942), William Wyler’s The Memphis Belle (1944), and John Huston’s The Battle of San Pietro (1944). The last three were shot on location and were made especially effective by their immediacy.
(Read Alfred Hitchcock’s 1965 Britannica essay on film production.)
When World War II ended, the American film industry seemed to be in an ideal position. Full-scale mobilization had ended the Depression domestically, and victory had opened vast, unchallenged markets in the war-torn economies of western Europe and Japan. Furthermore, from 1942 through 1945, Hollywood had experienced the most stable and lucrative three years in its history, and in 1946, when two-thirds of the American population went to the movies at least once a week, the studios earned record-breaking profits. The euphoria ended quickly, however, as inflation and labour unrest boosted domestic production costs and as important foreign markets, including Britain and Italy, were temporarily lost to protectionist quotas. The industry was more severely weakened in 1948, when a federal antitrust suit against the five major and three minor studios ended in the “Paramount decrees,” which forced the studios to divest themselves of their theatre chains and mandated competition in the exhibition sector for the first time in 30 years. Finally, the advent of network television broadcasting in the 1940s provided Hollywood with its first real competition for American leisure time by offering consumers “movies in the home.”
The American film industry’s various problems and the nation’s general postwar disillusionment generated several new film types in the late 1940s. Although the studios continued to produce traditional genre films, such as westerns and musicals, their financial difficulties encouraged them to make realistic small-scale dramas rather than fantastic lavish epics. Instead of depending on spectacle and special effects to create excitement, the new lower-budget films tried to develop thought-provoking or perverse stories reflecting the psychological and social problems besetting returning war veterans and others adapting to postwar life. Some of the American cinema’s grimmest and most naturalistic films were produced during this period, including those of the so-called social consciousness cycle, which attempted to deal realistically with such endemic problems as racism (Elia Kazan’s Gentleman’s Agreement, 1947; Alfred Werker’s Lost Boundaries, 1949), alcoholism (Stuart Heisler’s Smash-Up, 1947), and mental illness (Anatole Litvak’s The Snake Pit, 1948); the semidocumentary melodrama, which reconstructed true criminal cases and was often shot on location (Kazan’s Boomerang, 1947; Henry Hathaway’s Kiss of Death, 1947); and the film noir, whose dark, fatalistic interpretations of contemporary American reality are unique in the industry’s history (Tay Garnett’s The Postman Always Rings Twice, 1946; Orson Welles’s The Lady from Shanghai, 1947; Jacques Tourneur’s Out of the Past, 1947; Abraham Polonsky’s Force of Evil, 1948).
Film content was next influenced strongly by the fear of communism that pervaded the United States during the late 1940s and early ’50s. Anticommunist “witch-hunts” began in Hollywood in 1947 when the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) decided to investigate communist influence in movies. More than 100 witnesses, including many of Hollyw...
May 17, 2024 · Generally, film movements organically intertwine theory and practice, with filmmakers and thinkers influencing each other, as seen in Soviet, German, and American films of the 1920s. Here is an overview of some of the most influential movements in cinema history: American Silent Comedy (1895-1920s)
Other post-war movements included Japanese New Wave, German New Cinema, and the British Free Cinema. Each of these movements, in their respective countries, represented a break from established filmmaking practices and a desire to address contemporary social and political issues through a more realistic and personal cinematic lens.
Neorealism became famous globally in 1946 with Roberto Rossellini's Rome, Open City, when it won the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival as the first major film produced in Italy after the war. Italian neorealism rapidly declined in the early 1950s.
Jul 21, 2015 · READ MORE: 10 Great Lesser-Seen World War Two Movies. It was a period that forged some of the most important, influential cinematic movements of the twentieth century, and which saw some of the...
