The film industry during the World War II underwent major changes to help change the cause of the war. The world war II affected cinematography and the story lines of various movies that were produced at that time. These movies symbolized the Cardinal impulses that later came to captivate serious audiences, filmmakers, and critics after the war.
Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942)
Rick Blaine, a businessman with a strict, but cool, cynical and efficient business man whose anger is reserved, an American expatriate is the owner of a highly rated nightclub and a gambling den in Casablanca. The movie develops complex characters who are put in complex roles; there are no heroes in the film except for Paul Heinreis’s resistant fighter. The characters are realists and survivors, and when they rise to heroism, it is not part of their makeup.
The music makes Casablanca while the visuals solidify its atmosphere, the full marketplaces of stranded migrants was used to enhance the transit scene. The shooting of the finale was affected by the WW2, and it restricted filming at night. Curtis applies the element of visual rhymes and parallelism throughout the scene, for example when Bergie and Bogie are knocking glasses in different scenes. Shadows are used in to pull noir influences on the scene. For instance, the use of a shadow is applied when Rick opens a wall safe. Mirrors are also utilized to enhance reflections for instance Ilsa, reflection on the other mirror shows that she is in love with two different men. The working space is set in three dimensions to portray that the world exists independently.
The Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio da Sica, 1948)
The post-World War II events leave Antonio Ricci, no choice but to look for work to support his family in Val Melaina, Rome. Luckily he lands a posting and advertising job that required him to have a bicycle. His wife suggests selling some of their dowry possessions so that they can buy the bicycle.
In this film, it brings a combination of characters that have different motivations in life, with the hard economic times that have just presided after WW2, it becomes hard to meet daily needs. Antonio is a hardworking man; his wife is caring and supportive. Bruno plays an innocent boy who is learning to come to terms with his harsh neighborhood. The movie applied a popular Neorealism style which emerged after world War II. The cameras filmed the story of a work routine of a normal working-class life. The application of symphony of looks draws us to Antonio’s hopeful and haunted gaze of what life beholds.
The use of space in the movie portrays a social, moral, and emotional dimension that connects De Sica's vision to Dante’s. Use of pivotal scenes is utilized when Antonio treated his son with a good meal when he realized that it was not his son who had drowned in the river. De Sica depended on variable composition and utilization of distant camera styles, to catch up with vigorous inventiveness in the film. This creates a sense that every scene is bound in moments and detail hence adding up to the film’s accruing, multivalent meanings.
Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
It is pertinent to note that United States had a guaranteed freedom of the press. In essence, it provided its populace with access to information as a right of the democratic process. Thus, when the United States became involved in WW2, it faced the issue of how to mobilize its citizens, influence morale without violating any tenets of democracy and providing accurate information. Thus, the movie business became a salient force in this process. Successful directors created films that supported the war. Directors also aimed at creating movies that would reflect the conditions as they were and fill a need current at the time; thus, the production of films such as Citizen Kane.
Citizen Kane features a story Charles Foster Ken, who dies after uttering the words “Rosebud” on his deathbed. With curiosity, a journalist named Jerry Thompson seeks to find the meaning of Rosebud/ he interviews his wives, business colleagues, and friends to find out more on Kane. Orson in this film is motivated by mystery of the World War II. He seeks a sort of comparison between two outsized Americans, Hearst, and Welles. Dating back, Hearts supported American imperialism, and he gained popularity though San Francisco Examiner in 1887. He exposed the corrupt, favored unions and taxations. His two attempts to run for congress did not succeed. The great depression blew his empire and considered Roosevelt’s new Deal developments in the 1930s as the initial step towards socialism. In May 1940, the American elite class in the eve of rallied the population for the intrusion strategies of WW2; it faced insubstantial political circumstances and was not ready to face unpatriotic disclosure of barrenness in the American dream as Citizen Kane especially in a medium with mass spectators.
Tokyo Story (YasujiroOzu, 1953)
The film, Tokyo Story features a family that has drifted apart due to the effects of modernization. The film starts with an old couple traveling to the city to visit their children and grandchildren whom they have not seen since they were born. They are too busy with their daily work routines, and it leaves the couple not happy with their lifestyles. Ozu was a military officer during the WW2, and he knew the relations between the Britons and Americans. The story clearly gives us a hint of how his life took a different turn after the WW2. Yasujiro is trying to bring out the negative effects of war on family ties given that he was one of the soldiers. His story tries to bring out, the idea that the old Japan life was no more, and things were changing too fast even for the old to adapt.
Ozu visualizes the element of a busy environment because the streets are empty, the structures have no detailed structural designs, and banners are blowing in the wind. People lack time to look at the detail of a phenomenon. He also uses camera visual strategy using two-dimensional space to illuminate depth. The use of a traveling camera that changes shooting angles in every direction allows space and environmental implications to transcend human presence. He applies elements of transistorizes in the human condition when he uses empty spaces and also focusing on speech and silence.
