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Educational films are specifically intended to be shown in classrooms. Their aim is to instruct, on subjects from history to driving skills.

Notes:

1.to base on real events – основываться на реальных событиях;

2.computer-generated – созданный компьютером;

3.to deal with fact – иметь дело с реальностью.

DOCUMENTARY FILM

Documentary film is a motion picture that shapes and interprets factual material for purposes of education or entertainment. Documentaries have been made in one form or another in nearly every country and have contributed significantly to the development of realism in films. John Grierson, a Scottish educator who had studied mass communication in the United States, adapted the term in the mid-1920s from the French word documentaire. The documen- tary-style film, though, had been popular from the earliest days of filmmaking. In Russia, events of the Bolshevik ascent to power in 1917–18 were filmed, and the pictures were used as propaganda. In 1922 the American director Robert Flaherty presented «Nanook of the North», a record of Eskimo life based on personal observation, which was the prototype of many documentary films. At about the same time, the British director H. Bruce Woolfe reconstructed battles of World War I in a series of compilation films, a type of documentary that bases an interpretation of history on factual news material.

The British documentary film movement, led by Grierson, influenced world film production in the 1930s by such films as Grierson's «Drifters» (1929), a description of the British herring fleet, and «Night Mail» (1936), about the nightly mail train from London to Glasgow. The United States, too, made significant contributions to the genre. Early examples include two films directed by Pare Lorentz «The Plow That Broke the Plains» (1936), set in America's dust bowl, and «The River» (1937), a discussion of flood control.

The production of documentaries was stimulated by World War II. The Nazi government of wartime Germany used the nationalized film industry to produce propaganda documentaries.

In the early 1950s attention once again focused on the documentary in the British free cinema movement, led by a group of young filmmakers concerned with the individual and his everyday experience. Documentaries

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also became popular in television programming, especially in the late 1960s and the early 1970s.

Notes:

1.nightly mail train – ночной почтовый поезд;

2.to make significant contributions – внести значительный вклад;

3.everyday experience – ежедневный опыт.

UNDERGROUND FILM

Underground (or experimental) film is a motion picture made and distributed outside the commercial film industry, usually as an artistic expression of its maker, who often acts as its producer, director, writer, photographer, and editor. Underground films usually display greater freedom in form, technique, and content than films directed toward a mass audience and distributed through regular commercial outlets. The term underground film came into common use in the 1950s, when the greater availability of good-quality 16-millimetre film stock and equipment permitted an increasing number of nonprofessionals to engage in cinema art. The term was also applied to earlier films that were considered too experimental, too frank, or too esoteric for the general public, made both by professionals and by amateurs.

In the underground film the interplay of light and shadow basic to cinema art often takes precedence over narrative structure. The filmmaker ordinarily uses inexpensive production methods and a 16-millimetre or 8-millimetre camera. He may incorporate overexposures, underexposures, or triple exposures. Some underground films are purely abstract patterns of light and colour. Such films vary considerably in length. Robert Breer's «A Miracle» (1954) is 14 seconds long, while Andy Warhol, the most highly publicized of the underground filmmakers, did a study of the Empire State Building, «Empire» (1964), that lasts eight hours. During the 1920s filmmaking was stimulated by nonobjective art, represented by the Dadaist, Cubist, and Surrealist movements. Leading filmmakers such as Jean Renoir, René Clair, and Sergey Eisenstein made private experiments in addition to their publicly shown films. The classic «An Andalusian Dog» (1928) by the director Luis Buñuel and the Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí, financed by Buñuel's mother, was a product of this period.

Little of comparable interest was produced until the late 1950s, when a host of new cinema artists arose in the United States. Unlike their predeces-

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sors, they were strongly influenced by the techniques and personal expression of commercial films by directors such as Jean-Luc Godard, Ingmar Bergman, and Federico Fellini. Jonas Mekas, Stan Brakhage, and Stan Vanderbeek were among the creative leaders of the movement, which grew rapidly. Students from newly established film departments in universities across the country released thousands of independently produced film experiments. Outstanding examples, such as Stan Vanderbeek's «Breathdeath» (1963–64) and Kenneth Anger's «Scorpio Rising» (1962–64), were seen over the years by a vast audience. In the 1970s underground filmmakers, many of whom had a background in painting or sculpture, continued to emphasize composition and form and an intensity of feeling rather than dramatic structure. Magic and the supernatural and political protest, traditionally popular topics in the underground, remained prominent among the great variety of subjects considered.

Notes:

1.underground (or experimental) film – альтернативное кино (нетра-

диционный некоммерческий фильм, созданный без поддержки какой-либо студии или прокатной фирмы);

2.to display greater freedom in something – проявлять свободу в чем-

либо;

3.to increase number of nonprofessionals – увеличивать число непро-

фессионалов;

4.to engage in cinema art – быть занятым в кино.

ANIMATED FILMS

There is a fascinating and very specialized field of production – the animated film, a term used for cartoons and puppet films in all their various forms. In the narrow sense, the term «animated film» means the cartoon film, where the animator draws on paper or celluloid separate phases of movement. The term «puppet film is used for any form of solid animation, including not only the movements of dolls but also other three-dimensional objects.

The principal of animation is that the effect of movement on the screen is achieved through series of changes in the drawn figures of a cartoon or in the position of three-dimensional puppets and objects.

The ordinary filming of a series of drawings or a puppet show would not result in an animated or puppet film. For the animation effect, the draw-

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ings should have changed or the doll should have been moved between each single-frame exposure made by the camera.

In solid animation with puppets or objects moved about in miniature sets, a world of fantasy can be created. The creative imagination of the artists of a cartoon film, however, is more free. Drawn characters and their settings can be made to do anything the artist imagines.

If animated films had not been looked upon only as comic entertainment for children, their range would not have been so restricted in the past. Animation has now spread to most branches of film-making and especially instructional films. It can show much better than a live-action film how a complicated machine works. And certainly, the invisible physical processes taking place in the atomic reactor could never have been shown without film animation. Frequently the subject which seems dull can be made amusing through animation.

Notes:

1.solid animation – трехмерная анимация;

2.to achieve through series of changes – добиваться (достигать) через ряд изменений.

FILM GENRES

They are broad enough to accommodate practically any film ever made, although film categories can never be precise. By isolating the various elements in a film and categorizing them in genres, it is possible to easily evaluate a film within its genre and allow for meaningful comparisons and some judgments on greatness. Films were not really subjected to genre analysis by film historians until the 1970s. All films have at least one major genre, although there are a number of films that are considered crossbreeds or hybrids with three or four overlapping genre (or sub-genre) types that identify them.

The Auteur System can be contrasted to the genre system, in which films are rated on the basis of the expression of one person, usually the director, because his/her indelible style, authoring vision or 'signature' dictates the personality, look, and feel of the film. Certain directors (and actors) are known for certain types of films, for example, Woody Allen and comedy, the Arthur Freed unit with musicals, Alfred Hitchcock for suspense and thrillers, John

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Ford and John Wayne with westerns, or Errol Flynn for classic swashbuckler adventure films.

Most genres can be defined by their subject matter or setting – e. g., the western, gangster film, police thriller, science-fiction film, or social problem film. Others are classified according to the type of narrative form they exhibit. The musical, for example, often has a show business setting or theme, but it is not so narrowly restricted; it can be about almost any subject. The melodrama also encompasses many subjects and styles; it has even been combined with other genres.

Different genres have achieved popular success in different periods. Some, termed «cycles, «are short-lived, but even lasting genres go through phases of popularity. The western, for example, was well established as a genre by the 1920s. It was particularly strong in the late 1940s and early '50s but not during the '30s. It resurged in the 1960s but subsided later in the '70s. Musicals came into prominence with the introduction of sound. They remained important until the late 1960s, when a number of expensive, overblown productions flooded theatres and met financial failure.

The internal mutation of a genre reflects the changing tastes and mores of the public. The modern musical («Chicago», 2002) is more socially conscious and more serious than the colourful, vividly stylized, self-conscious musicals of the 1940s and '50s («Singin' in the Rain», 1952). Each phase can be seen as a response to the prevailing political, social, and economic conditions of its time.

While genres implicitly rely on an audience's interest in and familiarity with earlier movies of a certain kind, the serial is a type of movie that explicitly requires an audience to return episode after episode. Also called the chap- ter-play or cliff-hanger, the serial flourished in the days of silent films, when moviegoing was a weekly habit. Perhaps the most famous were Louis Feuillade's «Fantômas» (1913–14) in France. Old serials have been revived since the 1960s as period pieces of popular art, with their improbable plots, exaggerated acting, and old-fashioned decor appealing to modern, sophisticated audiences.

Notes:

1.crossbreed = hybrid – гибрид;

2.Auteur System – система авторского кино;

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3.suspense – «саспенс», интерес, напряжение (которое испытывает кинозритель);

4.swashbuckler – фильм, где главный действующий герой – головорез, сумасброд.

MAIN FILM GENRES

Action films usually include high energy, big-budget physical stunts and chases, possibly with rescues, battles, fights, escapes, destructive crises (floods, explosions, natural disasters, fires, etc.), non-stop motion, spectacular rhythm and pacing, and adventurous, often two-dimensional 'good-guy' heroes (or recently, heroines) battling 'bad guys' – all designed for pure audience escapism. Action films also include the James Bond 'fantasy' spy/espionage series, martial arts films, and so-called 'blaxploitation' films. A major sub-genre is the disaster film.

Adventure films are usually exciting stories, with new experiences or exotic locales, very similar to or often paired with the action film genre. They can include traditional swashbucklers, serialized films, and historical spectacles (similar to the epic film genre), searches or expeditions for lost continents, «jungle» and «desert» epics, treasure hunts, disaster films, or searches for the unknown.

Comedies are light-hearted plots consistently and deliberately designed to amuse and provoke laughter by exaggerating the situation, the language, action, relationships and characters. There are several forms of comedy through cinematic history, including slapstick, screwball, spoofs and parodies, romantic comedies, black comedy (dark satirical comedy), and some others.

Crime (gangster) films are developed around the sinister actions of criminals or mobsters, particularly bankrobbers, underworld figures, or ruthless hoodlums who operate outside the law, stealing and murdering their way through life. Criminal and gangster films are often categorized as film noir or detective-mystery films – because of underlying similarities between these cinematic forms. This category includes a description of various 'serial killer' films.

Dramas are serious, plot-driven presentations, portraying realistic characters, settings, life situations, and stories involving intense character development and interaction. Usually, they are not focused on special-effects, com-

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edy, or action. Dramatic films are probably the largest film genre, with many subsets. Dramatic biographical films (or «biopics») are a major sub-genre.

Epics include costume dramas, historical dramas, war films, medieval romps, or 'period pictures' that often cover a large expanse of time set against a vast, panoramic backdrop. Epics often share elements of the elaborate adventure films genre. Epics take an historical or imagined event, mythic, legendary, or heroic figure, and add an extravagant setting and lavish costumes, accompanied by grandeur and spectacle, dramatic scope, high production values, and a sweeping musical score. Epics are often a more spectacular, lavish version of a biopic film. Some 'sword and sandal' films (Biblical epics or films occurring during antiquity) qualify as a sub-genre.

Horror films are designed to frighten and to invoke our hidden worst fears, often in a terrifying, shocking finale, while captivating and entertaining us at the same time in a cathartic experience. Horror films feature a wide range of styles, from the earliest silent Nosferatu classic, to today's monsters and deranged humans. They are often combined with science fiction when the menace or monster is related to a corruption of technology, or when Earth is threatened by aliens. The fantasy and supernatural film genres are not usually synonymous with the horror genre. There are many sub-genres of horror: slasher, teen terror, serial killers, satanic, Dracula, Frankenstein, etc.

Musical / dance films are cinematic forms that emphasize full-scale scores or song and dance routines in a significant way (usually with a musical or dance performance integrated as part of the film narrative), or they are films that are centered on combinations of music, dance, song or choreography. Major sub-genres include the musical comedy or the concert film.

Sci-fi films are often quasi-scientific, visionary and imaginative – complete with heroes, aliens, distant planets, impossible quests, improbable settings, fantastic places, great dark and shadowy villains, futuristic technology, unknown and unknowable forces, and extraordinary monsters ('things or creatures from space'), either created by mad scientists or by nuclear havoc. They are sometimes an offshoot of fantasy films, or they share some similarities with action/adventure films. Science fiction often expresses the potential of technology to destroy humankind and easily overlaps with horror films, particularly when technology or alien life forms become malevolent, as in the «Atomic Age» of sci-fi films in the 1950s.

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War films acknowledge the horror and heartbreak of war, letting the actual combat fighting (against nations or humankind) on land, sea, or in the air provide the primary plot or background for the action of the film. War films are often paired with other genres, such as action, adventure, drama, romance, comedy (black), suspense, and even epics and westerns, and they often take a denunciatory approach toward warfare. They may include stories of military operations, and training.

Westerns are the major defining genre of the American film industry – a eulogy to the early days of the expansive American frontier. They are one of the oldest, most enduring genres with very recognizable plots, elements, and characters (six-guns, horses, dusty towns and trails, cowboys, Indians, etc.). Over time, westerns have been re-defined, re-invented and expanded, dismissed, re-discovered, and spoofed.

Notes:

1.to amuse and provoke – развлекать и провоцировать;

2.mobster – бандит (гангстер).

FILM SUB-GENRES

These are identifiable sub-classes of the larger category of main film genres, with their own distinctive subject matter, style, formulas, and iconography. Some are them are prominent sub-genres, such as: biopics, 'chick' flicks, detective/mystery films, disaster films, fantasy films, film noir, 'guy' films, melodramas (or 'weepers'), road films, romances, sports films, supernatural films, and thriller/suspense films.

'Biopics' is a term derived from the combination of the words «biography» and «pictures.» They are a sub-genre of the larger drama and epic film genres, and although they reached a hey-day of popularity in the 1930s, they are still prominent to this day. These films depict the life of an important historical personage (or group) from the past or present era. Biopics cross many genre types, since these films might showcase a western outlaw, a criminal, a musical composer, a religious figure, a war-time hero, an entertainer, an artist, an inventor or doctor, a politician or President, or an adventurer.

Often considered an all-encompassing sub-genre, 'chick' flicks or gal films (slightly derisive terms) mostly include formulated romantic comedies (with mis-matched lovers or female relationships), tearjerkers and gal-pal

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films, movies about family crises and emotional carthasis, some traditional 'weepies' and fantasy-action adventures, sometimes with foul-mouthed and empowered females, and female bonding situations involving families, mothers, daughters, children, women, and women's issues. This type of film became very prominent in the mid-80s and into the 90s. Their counterpart films for males are termed 'guy' films.

Detective-mystery films are usually considered a sub-type or sub-genre of crime/gangster films (or film noir), or suspense or thriller films that focus on the unsolved crime (usually the murder or disappearance of one or more of the characters, or a theft), and on the central character – the hard-boiled detec- tive-hero, as he/she meets various adventures and challenges in the cold and methodical pursuit of the criminal or the solution to the crime.

Disaster films, a sub-genre of action films, hit their peak in the decade of the 1970s. Big-budget disaster films provided all-star casts and interlocking, «Grand Hotel”-type stories, with suspenseful action and impending crises (man-made or natural) in locales such as aboard imperiled airliners, trains, dirigibles, sinking or wrecked ocean-liners, or in towering burning skyscrapers, crowded stadiums or earthquake zones. Often noted for their visual and special effects, but not their acting performances.

Fantasy films, usually considered a sub-genre, are most likely to overlap with the film genres of science fiction and horror, although they are distinct. Fantasies take the audience to netherworld places (or another dimension) where events are unlikely to occur in real life – they transcend the bounds of human possibility and physical laws. They often have an element of magic, myth, wonder, and the extraordinary. They may appeal to both children and adults, depending upon the particular film.

Film noir (meaning 'black film') is a distinct branch of the crime / gangster sagas from the 1930s. Strictly speaking, film noir is not a genre, but rather the mood, style or tone of various American films that evolved in the 1940s, and lasted in a classic period until about 1960. However, film noir has not been exclusively confined to this era, and has re-occurred in cyclical form in other years in various neo-noirs. Noirs are usually black and white films with primary moods of melancholy,, bleakness, disillusionment, disenchantment, pessimism, ambiguity, moral corruption, evil, guilt and paranoia. And they often feature a cynical, loner hero (anti-hero) and femme fatale, in a seedy big city.

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