american film history 1930-60

American Film History 1930-60

The chief technological innovation during the 1930s was the development of deep focus cinematography . Deep focus involved the expansion of depth of field , resulting in images that maintained sharp focus from objects in the extreme foreground to those in the distant background . Deep focus was achieved by filming with extremely wideangled lenses whose apertures had been stopped down . This sort of cinematography was made possible by a variety of developments in related fields of film technology . In 1939 the introduction of lens coatings , which permitted 75 per cent

more light to pass through the lens to the film inside the camera , enabled cinematographers to decrease the lens aperture an additional stop facilitating greater image definition . The results of these developments can be seen in Orson Welles ' Citizen Kane (1941 . This and other films which were shot in exteriors took advantage of relatively short focal-length lenses and abundant sunlight to produce 'deep ' images According to this new code , the film stock 's greater sensitivity to the full range of colours signified a greater realism

On Citizen Kane the Toland style is most pronounced , most systematically and effectively employed , and most widely recognized . Although he had been refining his methods in the films with Wyler and Ford , Toland had yet satisfactorily to combine his technical and stylistic interests within a single picture . He saw Citizen Kane as a chance to experiment on a large scale . In a June 1941 article in Popular Photography entitled "How I Broke the Rules on Citizen Kane , Toland related that 'the photographic approach . was planned and considered long before the first camera turned , which was itself 'most unconventional in Hollywood , where cinematographers generally have only a few days to prepare to shoot a film . Robert L . Carringer , in his indepth sudy of the production , writes that Welles and Toland 'approached the film together in a spirit of revolutionary fervor , and that 'Welles not only encouraged Toland to experiment and tinker , he positively insisted on it (Nowell-Smith 45 . The work indicated something of a shift to a more documentary-style realism

Citizen Kane was , then , an opportunity for Toland to make flamboyant deep focus identified with his own work . Welles had come to Hollywood with no professional film experience , and (according to Welles ) Toland had sought out the Kane assignment . After the filming was completed Toland was at pains to claim several innovations . For greater realism he explained , many sets were designed with ceilings , which required him to light from the floor . Since the sets were also deep , he relied on the carrying power of arc lamps . Furthermore , since Welles and Toland had decided to stage action in depth , Toland sought great depth of focus by using Super XX film , increasing the lighting levels , and using optically coated wide-angle lenses (Bordwell 45 . The result shifted the traditional limits of deep space . In yielding a depth of field that extended from about eighteen inches to infinity , Toland 's 'pan-focus made it possible to have a sharp...