Impressionism isn’t the only late 19th-century revolution… In 1895, the Lumière brothers develop thecinematograph, an apparatus able to capture and project moving images. On 28 December of the same year, they hold the first public screening in Paris; it’s the birth of the cinema!
For the first time, images come to life on the screen! These early short films are documentaries: they seek to show reality.
However, the invention doesn’t take long to open the way to a new form of narration: fiction.
The cinema, originally a documentary medium, is born in France in 1895.
It has to be said that the Lumière brothers’ first films have a lot of themes in common with impressionist canvases! And for good reason, as Auguste and Louis The Lumière brothers have the same visual culture as the painters: they all want to depict everyday life and modernity.
Hence, the first films depict reality and its fleeting phenomena, such as plays of light…just like impressionist paintings!
The cinema and impressionist paintings are influenced by the visual culture of their day.
Off to Hollywood in the late 1930s!
Why then? Well, it’s a key time for American cinema. The Technicolor technique is taking hold: now you can make films in colour!
New perspectives are opening up for filmmakers: they can now enrich their images and visual compositions by drawing inspiration from painting.
So impressionist painting is going to influence a number of them!
With the industrialisation of Technicolor, filmmakers draw inspiration from pictorial techniques in order to enrich their palettes and visual compositions.
As we’ve seen, the impressionists completely changed the way we perceive and depict the landscape. So their compositions marked the cinema significantly…
Certain film directors in particular incorporated these concepts, each in their own way!
As in impressionist paintings, landscapes in Mann’s and Hathaway’s movies are more than just sets, they’re key elements that contribute to each film’s story and atmosphere.
With Vincente Minnelli, it’s the frame he presents his characters in that’s evocative of impressionist paintings! The film director was also very fond of the movement.
In Meet Me in St. Louis, 1944, Minnelli depicts the life of an American family on the eve of the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. The film explores the arrival of modernity and social changes as seen through the family’s eyes.
The family’s young daughters are presented in shots that make you think of portraits by Renoir or Morisot…
Minnelli uses framings that seem to be directly inspired by impressionist aesthetics.
Vincente Minnelli doesn’t just draw inspiration from impressionist paintings… he also includes them on his sets!
Made in 1953, The Band Wagon tells the story of the budding romance between Gabrielle, a classical ballet dancer, and Tony, a music-hall star. When she arrives at his apartment, the young woman is pleased to find a work by Degas on the wall.
The artist’s little dancers spark one of the film’s key conversations. The couple talk about what brings them closer yet draws them apart: their different styles of dance.
A painting by Degas contributes to the set and a plot twist in one of Minnelli’s films.
Why does impressionism influence Hollywood so much from the 1930s to the 1950s? It’s very fashionable at the time!
You find the movement:
These celebrities collect in order to make films as well as, like Edward G. Robinson, to trace the history of modern painting (from Delacroix to Matisse). Marilyn Monroe poses with William Goetz’s collection in 1956: impressionism has become the height of good taste and collecting its works is a way of distinguishing yourself socially.
In the 1950s, French impressionism is the subject of biopics: filmmakers bring the lives of Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec and (although the project is never completed) Degas to the screen. At the time, impressionism, which had been somewhat forgotten in the early years of the 20th century, is being studied once again. Thanks to several major exhibitions in the United States, it becomes the symbol of modernity and France… an image it’s kept right up to the present day!
Impressionism becomes well-known in Hollywood thanks to its presence in popular culture and private collections.
An episode produced under the academic supervision of Théo Esparon and adapted from his lecture “The Impressionist Adventure · The Cinema”.
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