Modernist film

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Modernist film is related to the art and philosophy of modernism as early modernist film came to maturity in the era between World War I and World War II, with characteristics such as montage and symbolic imagery, manifesting itself in genres as diverse as expressionism and surrealism (as featured in the works of Fritz Lang and Luis Buñuel) [1] while postmodernist film – similar to postmodernism as a whole – is a reaction to modernist works, and to their tendencies (such as nostalgia and angst). [2]

Contents

Aesthetics

Modernist cinema has been said to have "explored and exposed the formal concerns of the medium by placing them at the forefront of consciousness." [3] The auteur theory and idea of an author creating a work from their singular vision became a central characteristic of modernist filmmaking. It has been said that "To investigate the transparency of the image is modernist but to undermine its reference to reality is to engage with the aesthetics of postmodernism." [4] [5] The modernist film has more faith in the author, the individual, and the accessibility of reality itself (and generally has a more sincere tone [6] ) than the postmodernist film.

List of notable modernist films

20th century

21th century

List of notable modernist filmmakers

Sources: [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51] [52] [53] [54] [55] [56] [57] [58] [59] [60] [61] [62] [63] [64] [65] [66] [67] [68] [69] [70] [71] [72] [73] [74] [75] [76] [77] [78] [79] [80] [81] [82] [83] [84] [85] [86] [87] [88] [89] [90] [91] [92] [93] [94] [95] [96] [97] [98] [99] [100] [101] [102] [103] [104] [105] [106] [107] [108] [109] [110] [111] [112] [22] [23] [113] [114] [115] [116] [117] [118] [119] [120] [121] [26] [122] [123] [124] [125] [126] [127] [128] [129] [130] [131] [132] [133] [134] [17] [29] [30] [135] [136] [137] [138] [139] [140] [141] [142] [143] [144] [145] [21] [31] [32]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Trent, Ann. "Characteristics of a Modernist Film". Our Pastimes. Retrieved 2025-10-24.
  2. ↑ Betz, Mark (2009). Beyond the Subtitle: Remapping European Art Cinema. U of Minnesota Press. p. 34. ISBN   978-0-8166-4035-5.
  3. ↑ Woods, Tim (1999). Beginning Postmodernism. Manchester University Press. ISBN   978-0-7190-5210-1.
  4. ↑ Dragan Milovanovic (15 March 2009). "Dueling Paradigms: Modernist v. Postmodern Thought". American Society of Criminology.
  5. ↑ "Reading the Postmodern Image: A Cognitive Mapping," Screen: 31, 4 (Winter 1990) by Tony Wilson
  6. ↑ Olsen, Cameron (2021-09-11). "The Case for Douglas Sirk as the First Postmodern Filmmaker". Collider. Retrieved 2025-10-24.
  7. 1 2 A Modernist Cinema: Film Art from 1914 to 1941. Oxford University Press. 2021. pp. 14–15. ISBN   9780199379453.
  8. ↑ "The Screen". The New York Times . 4 April 1921. p. 5.
  9. ↑ Juan A. Suarez (2002). "City Space, Technology, Popular Culture: the Modernism of Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler's Manhatta". Journal of American Studies. 36: 85–106.
  10. ↑ Graig Uhlin (2019). Modernism and Food Studies: Politics, Aesthetics, and the Avant-Garde. University Press of Florida. pp. 213–214. ISBN   9780813052496.
  11. 1 2 A Modernist Cinema: Film Art from 1914 to 1941. Oxford University Press. 2021. p. 108-119. ISBN   9780199379453.
  12. ↑ Minden, Michael; Bachmann, Holger (2002). Fritz Lang's Metropolis: Cinematic Visions of Technology and Fear. New York: Camden House. p. 125. ISBN   978-1-57113-146-1.
  13. ↑ Film and Literary Modernism. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2013. p. 21. ISBN   9781443866446.
  14. ↑ Catherine Driscoll (2010). Modernist Cultural Studies. University Press of Florida. p. 22. ISBN   9780813043203.
  15. ↑ Bernard Smith (1998). Modernism's History. NewSouth Publishing. p. 141. ISBN   9780868407449.
  16. ↑ Marcia Landy (2008). Stardom, Italian style : screen performance and personality in Italian cinema. Indiana University Press. p. 47. ISBN   9780253351081.
  17. 1 2 'And Walt Went Crazy' - Animation Obsessive
  18. 1 2 3 4 What is Your favorite "Mid Century" Designed Cartoon Short or Series?|Cartoon Research
  19. 1 2 3 Midcentury Modernism in FIlm – Metropolis
  20. ↑ "West Side Story: 60 years as a cultural barometer". Folger Shakespeare Library. October 19, 2021.
  21. 1 2 "Early Anime Features: Two 1960s Classics |". cartoonresearch.com. Retrieved 2025-10-24.
  22. 1 2 MUBI Collection: BEING GREEN: JIM HENSON'S EARLY SHORTS|MUBI
  23. 1 2 Designers in Context: Film, Advertising, and Modernism - The Visualist
  24. ↑ The Criterion Channel's February 2021 Lineup | Lineup | The Criterion Collection
  25. ↑ Jim Jarmusch on the “All-Time Greatest L.A. Crime Film” - CRITERION on YouTube
  26. 1 2 Festival Express|BAMPFA
  27. ↑ Why Do Movies Feel So Different Now? - Thomas Flight on YouTube
  28. ↑
  29. 1 2 Hoad, Phil (2022-08-22). "Bubble Bath review – hallucinogenic animated musical is a work of 70s genius". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 2025-10-24.
  30. 1 2 "Habfürdő in the 2020-2021 Season of Classic Films Catalogue". Gyorgy Kovasznai NEW. 2020-11-17. Retrieved 2025-10-24.
  31. 1 2 CINE-FILE SELECTS: SON OF THE WHITE MARE – CINEFILE.info
  32. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Modernism for the masses: the lost glories of Film on Four – Prospect Magazine
  33. ↑ Mironescu, Andreea (2017). "In-Between Histories: Intermedial Configurations in Radu Jude's Collage Film "The Dead Nation"". Jazyk a kultúra. 31–32: 103–111 – via ResearchGate.
  34. ↑ Lazar, Veronica; Gorzo, Andrei (January 2019). "An updated political modernism: Radu Jude and "I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians"". Close Up: Film and Media Studies. 3 (1–2): 7–19 – via ResearchGate.
  35. ↑ Mironescu, Andreea (2017). "In-Between Histories: Intermedial Configurations in Radu Jude's Collage Film "The Dead Nation"". Jazyk a kultúra. 31–32: 103–111 – via ResearchGate.
  36. ↑ Bleasdale, John (22 August 2025). "(Review) Dracula: It's hard to resist the irreverence of Radu Jude's overstuffed vampire parody". Sight And Sound . British Film Institute . Retrieved 18 December 2025.
  37. ↑ Lazar, Veronica; Gorzo, Andrei (January 2019). "An updated political modernism: Radu Jude and "I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians"". Close Up: Film and Media Studies. 3 (1–2): 7–19 – via ResearchGate.
  38. ↑ Jennifer Lynde Barker (December 13, 2021). "Crafting Animation: Hermína Týrlová's Fuzzy Modernism". MAI. Retrieved 18 April 2026.
  39. ↑ Perry, Ted (2006). Masterpieces of Modernist Cinema. Indiana University Press. ISBN   0253347718.
  40. ↑ Modernism and Film - Cinema and Media Studies - Oxford Bibliographies
  41. ↑ Murphy, Richard (2007). "Modernism and the Cinema: Metropolis and the Expressionist Aesthetic" . Comparative Critical Studies. 4 (1): 105–120. doi:10.3366/ccs.2007.4.1.105. S2CID   145016904.
  42. ↑ Vertigo - Cinema and Media Studies - Oxford Bibliographies
  43. ↑ "Modernism and Citizen Kane" by George R. Robinson - BMCC
  44. ↑ The Big Sleep: Cinema and Modernism > National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea
  45. ↑ German Cinema, 1920-1930 — Modernism Lab
  46. ↑ Kovács, András Bálint (2006). "Sartre, the Philosophy of Nothingness, and the Modern Melodrama" . The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. 64 (1): 135–145. doi:10.1111/j.0021-8529.2006.00235.x. JSTOR   3700498.
  47. ↑ Film Noir and the Spaces of Modernity —— Edward Dimendberg|Harvard University Press
  48. ↑ Cinema and modernism - The British Library
  49. ↑ The forgotten glamour and modernism of 1930s Italian cinema sets – Museum Crush
  50. ↑ Modernism, Montage, and Social Commentary in Early City Films — Indiana University Cinema
  51. ↑ Hollywood Modernism: Film and Politics in the Age of the New Deal
  52. ↑ How Chantal Akerman's modernist masterpiece changed cinema - BBC Culture
  53. ↑ Screening Modernism —— Cineaste Magazine
  54. ↑ Anthology Film Archives : Film Screenings
  55. ↑ American Stranger: Modernisms, Hollywood, and the Cinema of Nicholas Ray (Suny Series) (Paperback)|University Press Books/Berkeley
  56. ↑ Sirk/Fassbinder: Melodrama Mutations|White City Cinema
  57. ↑ Evans, Victoria L. (2017). Douglas Sirk, Aesthetic Modernism and the Culture of Modernity. ISBN   9781474409391. JSTOR   10.3366/j.ctt1pwt8s4.
  58. ↑ Battleship Potemkin makes us strong|World cinema|The Guardian
  59. ↑ American Stranger - Google Books
  60. ↑ Key avant-garde films from the roaring '20s :: September 2011 :: Cassone
  61. ↑ The sad and the beautiful : Val Lewton and Vincette Minnelli at the Stanford Theatre|The Stanford Daily
  62. ↑ Masterpieces of Modernist Cinema - Indiana University Press
  63. ↑ THE WORK OF IDA LUPINO EARNS SOME OVERDUE PRAISE - Chicago Tribune
  64. ↑ Table of Contents: Masterpieces of modernist cinema/ - Villanova University
  65. ↑ Modernity: A Film by Alfred Hitchcock — Senses of Cinema
  66. ↑ Established Modernism, 1962-1966 - Chicago Scholarship
  67. ↑ “ ‘Saved from the Blessings of Civilization’: Stagecoach, the West, and American Vernacular Modernism” - Michael Valdez Moses, Duke University
  68. ↑ Yasujiro Ozu: 10 essential films|BFI
  69. ↑ The Rashomon Effect|The Current|The Criterion Collection
  70. ↑ A Quickie Look at the Life & Career of Tex Avery - Bright Lights Film Journal
  71. ↑ Tex Avery: Arch-Radicalizer of the Hollywood Cartoon - Bright Lights Journal
  72. ↑ That's All, Folks - The Washington Post
  73. ↑ The 100 Most Influential Sequences in Animation History - Vulture
  74. ↑ The Cartoon Renegades - The New York Times
  75. ↑ Alternative Visions: Animation|BAMPFA
  76. ↑ Independent Spirits: Faith Hubley/John Hubley (2003) - Turner Classic Movies
  77. ↑ Wolfgram Evans, Noell K. (26 April 2011). Animators of Film and Television: Nineteen Artists, Writers, Producers and Others. McFarland. ISBN   9780786448326.
  78. ↑ Amit Chaudhuri on Satyajit Ray's very Indian modernity: Not a 'beginning' as much as a 'fruition' - Scroll.in
  79. ↑ Cinema, Emergence, and the Films of Satyajit Ray - Google Books (pg.195)
  80. ↑ The Riddle of the Chicken: The Work of Norman McLaren — Senses of Cinema
  81. ↑ The world of Len Lye|Govett-Brewster Art Gallery|Len Lye Centre
  82. ↑ "Pretty Good for the 21st Century||Keep It Moving?
  83. ↑ Film and Literary Modernism - Google Books
  84. ↑ The Statues Still Stood: The Third Man and Third Spaces|Modernism / Modernity Print+
  85. ↑ The Development of a Modernist Narrative in Selected Film of Joseph Losey - CORE
  86. ↑ Black & White & Noir: America's Pulp Modernism on JSTOR
  87. ↑ Ten Great Movies for Placemakers —— Project for Public Spaces
  88. ↑ Rabinowitz, Paula (2002). Black & White & Noir: America's Pulp Modernism. Columbia University Press. pp. 11–12. ISBN   978-0-231-11481-3.
  89. ↑ Hilliker, Lee (2002). "In the Modernist Mirror: Jacques Tati and the Parisian Landscape". The French Review. 76 (2): 318–329. JSTOR   3132711.
  90. ↑ The Case for Douglas Sirk as the First Postmodern Filmmaker|Collider
  91. ↑ Carney, Raymond (28 January 1994). The Films of John Cassavetes: Pragmatism, Modernism, and the Movies. Cambridge University Press. ISBN   9780521388153.
  92. ↑ The Daring, Original, and Overlooked "Symbiopyschotaxiplasm: Take One"|The New Yorker
  93. ↑ Blake Edwards's 'The Great Race' and 'The Party' - The New York Times
  94. ↑ The Bitter Essence of Blake Edwards|Screening the Past
  95. ↑ Filmmuseum - Program SD
  96. ↑ Hard Clarity, Vaporous Ambiguity: The Fusion of Realism and Modernism in Antonioni's early 1960s Films - Senses of Cinema
  97. ↑ Modernist Master: Michelangelo Antonioni | BAMPFA
  98. ↑ "Mr. Klein". The Criterion Collection. Retrieved 2025-10-23.
  99. ↑ Mr. Klein | BAMPFA
  100. ↑ Pierrot Le Fou’s Discourse on the Infection of Americanism in Europe and the Absurdity of Modern Society|Culled Culture
  101. ↑ "All right: where am I?" "Looney Tunes" Animation as Modernist Performance on JSTOR
  102. ↑ John Cassavetes: The First Dogma Director? - Bright Lights Film Journal
  103. ↑ McElhaney, Joe (February 2012). The Death of Classical Cinema: Hitchcock, Lang, Minnelli. State University of New York Press. ISBN   9780791481110.
  104. ↑ Klein, Scott W.; Moses, Michael Valdez (2021). A Modernist Cinema: Film Art from 1914 to 1941. Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-937945-3.
  105. ↑ Was postmodernism born with Close Encounters of the Third Kind?|Culture|The Guardian
  106. ↑ Kubrick's Total Cinema: Philosophical Themes and Formal Qualities - Google Books
  107. ↑ Time Machines: After Kubrick: A Filmmaker's Legacy, edited by Jeremi Szaniawski · Senses of Cinema
  108. ↑ Hutcheon, Linda (1990). "An epilogue: Postmodern parody: History, subjectivity, and ideology" . Quarterly Review of Film and Video. 12 (1–2): 125–133. doi:10.1080/10509209009361343.
  109. ↑ Hiroshima mon amour's Unforgettable Opening|Current|The Criterion Collection
  110. ↑ Horror versus Terror in the Body Genre | CINEACTION
  111. ↑ Emile de Antonio - Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research
  112. ↑ Lessons of Documentary: Reality, Representation, and Cinematic Expressivity - American Society For Aesthetics
  113. ↑ Agnès Varda Was a Living Work of Art - The Hollywood Reporter
  114. ↑ Eclipse Series 19: Chantal Akerman in the Seventies|The Criterion Collection
  115. ↑ "Here Is Your Life". The Criterion Collection. Retrieved 2025-10-23.
  116. ↑ Voyage into the unknown | Movies - The Guardian
  117. ↑ "A Matter of Life and Death". The Criterion Collection. Retrieved 2025-10-23.
  118. ↑ Hippie Modernism: Cinema and Counterculture, 1964-1974 - BAMPFA
  119. ↑ Theater 2 Hippie Modernism Shorts - BAMPFA
  120. ↑ Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia At The Berkeley Art Museum | East Bay Express
  121. ↑ Elegy to Ecstasy: Films from Canyon Cinema - BAMPFA
  122. ↑ Vulgar Modernism - Artfourm International
  123. ↑ Vulgar Modernism - Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism
  124. ↑ Simpson, Philip; Utterson, Andrew; Shepherdson, Karen J. (2004). Film Theory: Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies. Taylor & Francis. p. 171. ISBN   9780415259750.
  125. ↑ Five films that influenced Jean-Luc Godard|Far Out Magazine
  126. ↑ Jiří Trnka Shorts: Mature Mastery | American Cinematheque
  127. ↑ The Czech Year - Harvard Film Archive
  128. ↑ Bashara, Dan (2 April 2019). Cartoon Vision: UPA Animation and Postwar Aesthetics. Univ of California Press. ISBN   9780520298132.
  129. ↑ Global Animation Theory - International Perspectives at Animafest Zagreb - Bloomsbury Collections
  130. ↑ Sollors, Werner (2008). Ethnic modernism (First Harvard University Press paperback ed.). Cambridge, Mass. p. 8. ISBN   9780674030916.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  131. ↑ Murray, Robin L. (2011). That's all folks? : ecocritical readings of American animated features. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. pp. 85–89. ISBN   9780803235120.
  132. ↑ Why Do Movies Feel So Different Now? - Thomas Flight on YouTube
  133. ↑ Six facts about Jean-Luc Goddard – the godfather of modernist cinema|Evening Standard
  134. ↑ What Made Buster Keaton’s Comedy So Modern?|The New Yorker
  135. ↑ "The Servant". The Criterion Collection. Retrieved 2025-10-24.
  136. ↑ "La notte". The Criterion Collection. Retrieved 2025-10-24.
  137. ↑ Hoberman, J. (2021-01-01). "Hippie Medium". Artforum. Retrieved 2025-10-24.
  138. ↑ "United Productions of America and Cartoon Modernism · Bosustow Family Film Collection · Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive". collections.libraries.indiana.edu. Retrieved 2025-10-24.
  139. ↑ Troyer, Seth (2023-09-18). "12 Totally Strange and Underseen Animated Films". PopMatters. Retrieved 2025-10-24.
  140. ↑ "Modernist Cinema". Meer. 2019-01-01. Retrieved 2025-10-24.
  141. ↑ Delapa, Thom (2023-11-24). "What Makes Citizen Kane the Greatest Film of All Time?". TheCollector. Retrieved 2025-10-24.
  142. ↑ Anderson, Danny (2019-11-06). "How THE BIG SLEEP Made Detectives Postmodern". Film Inquiry. Retrieved 2025-10-24.
  143. ↑ "Theories of Modernism in Cinema | Voices | Sylff Official Website | Cultivating Leaders of Tomorrow" . Retrieved 2025-10-24.
  144. ↑ Hoberman, J. (2022-09-16). "Godard Was Cinema". ISSN   0027-8378 . Retrieved 2025-10-24.
  145. ↑ Ford, H. (2012-10-29). Post-War Modernist Cinema and Philosophy: Confronting Negativity and Time. Springer. ISBN   978-1-137-28352-8.
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