What I’ve Learned in Grad School

Filed Under Culture

With one more week to go before Fall Semester is over, I thought I’d look back at the past few months and dazzle you with all the interesting bits of film history I’ve learned in grad school thus far. Remember, I have to pay for this stuff. So consider yourself lucky that I’m giving you a free education here.

The first narrative film wasn’t directed by a man

Alice Guy-Blache, a French gal, directed the first film that actually told a story, a short called “The Cabbage Fairy.” It wasn’t just a single shot of people doing something or other. In the early days of film, directors simply photographed an action, like two men dancing with each other (seriously!) and so forth. Guy-Blache, who went on to become the highest paid director in the world at her peak, actually pioneered cinematic storytelling.

The first sound film was produced by black filmmakers

A couple years before the release of “The Jazz Singer” — the 1929 version, not the 1979 one — African-American filmmakers experimented with syncing the sound that occurs within the story world (also known as diegetic sound) with the visuals.

The first action film wasn’t made in the United States

Apparently, white dudes are the least innovative filmmakers in the movie business. That said, Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 film, “The Seven Samurai,” is credited with being the first action picture, one that established many of the conventions still seen in contemporary actioners, things like the introduction of the hero performing some feat of derring-do that’s completely unrelated to the story.

The last pure noir film is not “Touch of Evil”

Though many film historians credit Orson Welles’ 1958 picture with being the last “pure” film noir, it ain’t. Robert Wise’s “Odds Against Tomorrow,” starring Harry Belafonte(!), was released the following year and has all the elements of film noir, not to mention xylophone music and a huge explosion at the end. It also doesn’t have Charlton Heston as the world’s least convincing Mexican.

Hollywood and Highland was modeled after Babylon in DW Griffith’s “Intolerance”

For five fruitless years, I lived in Hollywood and frequently visited the garish shopping center at Hollywood and Highland, not knowing that the architecture of that tourist trap was designed to look like Babylon from a 1916 silent film. Who in the hell thought that was a good idea? I don’t know, but there are giant concrete elephants. That in and of itself is an architectural triumph.

CSUN will become Starfleet Academy at some point between now and the 23rd century

Imagine how much more tuition will cost when Cal State Northridge goes from being a university to training fresh-faced planet-hopping imperialists for the United Federation of Planets! It’s still endlessly entertaining for me to see exterior shots of the Oviatt Library in the new “Star Trek” movie.

I’ve learn a ton of other things during my studies in the MA Screenwriter program, but I don’t want to bore you with some lengthy explication of “critical flicker fusion.” At any rate, I’m glad I’m learning stuff. Next semester should be even more educational. It certainly cost enough.

-Brad Lohan

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