The History of Film: A Fresh Perspective

I attended the Palm Springs International Film Festival for the second year, and one of my favorite viewing experiences was an ambitious documentary series titled The Story of Film: An Odyssey. Directed by Irish filmmaker Mark Cousins, the series is a 15-hour chronicle of world film from the 1890s through the beginning of the millennium.

Godard--the "Cinematic Terrorist"

This series differs from—and, is actually more interesting—than other filmed histories I have seen because it is more personal. Cousins narrates the episodes himself, and his Irish accent is captivating and his tone is passionate. It is hard not to be enthusiastic about film after hearing his accounts of key filmmakers and his poetic descriptions of their styles and techniques. He talks of Godard as a “cinematic terrorist,” and he notes that Antonioni’s films are about “the void of modern life”—accurate descriptions but more dramatic than the banal verbiage of more formal histories. 

Even at 15 hours, Cousins could not have possibly included every important filmmaker, era, actor, etc. Instead, The Story of Film is “the first ever documentary survey of the whole history of innovation in cinema.” With this goal, he was able to focus the material on those he believes contributed to the technology, aesthetics, or practices of world cinema.

And, the emphasis is truly on world cinema; this is not a rehash of Hollywood film history with a few other countries tossed in. It’s the first survey documentary I have seen that includes cinema histories of Communist countries—such as China and Eastern Europe. I have never seen any documentary that includes a description of the Czech New Wave, which included directors such as Vera Chytilova and Milos Forman—let alone an assessment of their innovations and influence.

Cousins and actress Tilda Swinton established a not-for-profit called the 8 1/2 foundation, which sends kids classic films to watch.

 Unlike other film histories, Cousins uses no film stills, no biographical details, and no amusing anecdotes, which are generally found in conventional cinema chronicles. Instead, hundreds of clips illustrate the styles of the filmmakers, or demonstrate the points Cousins wants to make. Film authorities offer historical perspectives while world renowned auteurs dissect the styles and influences of those who have gone before them. My favorite “tool” in The Story of Film is the way Cousins illustrates the influence of past filmmakers on future ones. I would never have thought of some of the connections, but Cousins has done his research, scouring biographies of noted directors and filmmakers for titles of films mentioned in passing. He then demonstrates the influence of those films via clips. Roman Polanski had seen Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet, which likely inspired the claustrophobic compositions and tracking camera in Knife in the Water. The anticipation of change wrought by the coming of the railroad dominates Johnny Guitar, a plot point magnified to operatic proportions in Once Upon a Time in the West.

Kazuo Hara

Having worked on the Facets DVD label for several years, I was thrilled that The Story of Films discussed several movies available on DVD on the Facets label. I am proud to have had even a small hand in facilitating their release. For example, Vera Chytilova of the Czech New Wave directed Daisies, an experimental narrative about two vacuous women, which was made in a self-reflexive style with a strongly feminist theme. And, she did this in 1966 in a Communist-controlled country. Attacked by authorities for making a decadent film (that is, a modernist one), Chytilova was forbidden to direct for six years. Indian director Ritwik Ghatak was lauded in Part 3 of The Story of Film for his use of sound in his beautifully photographed melodrama The Cloud-Capped Star, an alternative to India’s Bollywood style. In the documentary The House Is Black, Iranian director Farough Farrokhzad weds poetic narration with verite-style footage of a leper colony for an eye-opening statement on humanity. In a country where women’s rights are currently restricted, Cousins rightly noted in the narration that the “founding father of Iranian cinema was a woman.” Finally, one of my favorite films that I helped bring to DVD was a Japanese documentary by Kazuo Hara titled The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On. Hara follows the mission of Okuzaki Kenzo, a WWII soldier whose bitter war experiences have compelled him to hunt down his commanding officers and hold them accountable for such atrocities as cannibalism of their own men. The importance of all these films is discussed at length in The Story of Film, and they are available to buy or rent from Facets.

The Story of Film: An Odyssey will play in its entirety next month the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It will be available on DVD in Europe in March for those of you who have an all-regions player. I can’t recommend it enough.  –Susan Doll