Many aspects of film style were used in similar ways internationally. French, Italian, Danish, English, and American films and, to a lesser extent, films of other countries circulated widely outside the countries in which they were made. Two examples from very different places should suffice to suggest how widely some techniques were disseminated.
The chase film, so typical of the years from 1904 to 1908, was an international genre. In the Netherlands, where production was miniscule, a chase film called De Mesavonture van een fransch Heertje zonder Pantalon aan het Strand te Zandvoort (“The Misadventures of a Frenchman without Pants on the Beach of Zandvoort,” c. 1905, Alberts Freres) followed a comic formula: a man falls asleep on the beach, the tide rises to wet his trousers, he removes them, and indignant bystanders
2.44, 2.45 In De Mesavonture van een fransch Heertje zonder Pantalon aan heet Strand te Zandvoort, a pair of shots show the unfortunate hero being chased along the beach.
2.46 In the Indian fantasy film, Raja Harischandra, the king explains to his queen that he has given his kingdom to an old sage whom he had offended. The shot uses a close framing typical of western filmmaking.
2.47, 2.48 In Raja Harischandra, Phalke uses consistent screen direction as the king walks rightward through the forest and, in a cut to a contiguous space, arrives at the hut of the villainous sage.
And police chase him through a series of adjacent locales (2.44, 2.45).
The early techniques of continuity developed later in this period also proved widely influential. The earliest Indian fiction feature film, Raja Harischandra, was made in 1912 and released in 1913; its director was the first major Indian filmmaker, D. G. Phalke. Like many later Indian films, its subject matter was derived from traditional mythology. Only the first and last of the film’s four reels survive, but they indicate that Phalke had grasped the 9-foot line, contiguity cutting, and other current principles of western filmmaking (2.46-2.48).
After 1912, filmmakers continued to explore techniques for telling stories clearly. As we shall see in the next chapter, however, World War I interrupted the international circulation of films, and some nations developed distinctive film styles.
World History
