Foreign Films During the Golden Age

The time period we're studying this week was considered the "golden age" of art cinema.  Foreign filmmakers were forced to adapt in the television age and had to battle against Hollywood. European filmmakers began to seek alternatives and gave up on trying to beat Hollywood during this time.

European art films developed a unique sense of style. This style was purposely not easy to follow which was designed to be part of the pleasure. I appreciate the efforts by European filmmakers to do this because it was something that Hollywood would have never attempted so it was different and unique.  These films presented stories centered around psychological problems of alienation and the difficulty of communication.

Another strategy that European filmmakers used to break off from Hollywood is de-dramatizing. This was a storytelling strategy that focused on presenting both climatic and trivial moments to put an emphasis on the flexibility of film techniques instead of the norms of classical Hollywood films.

Lastly, the characters in European films were different than those portrayed in the normal Hollywood film. From studying storytelling plots for a while now I have absorbed the importance of a good story plot. In simple terms, the main character of the story is "supposed to" change, or find some resolution to a problem by the time the story is over.  Viewers of European films were encouraged to focus on the characters changing mental state throughout the film.  This happened through flashbacks, dream sequences and flash forwards to tell the viewer what the character was thinking. I personally think these characteristics  can make for a great film as they often keep the viewers in suspense.