Japanese director Akira Kurosawa made a number of films in the 1950s and 1960s that broke the conventions of mainstream filmmaking.

An art film (also known as art movie, specialty film, art house film, or in the collective sense as art cinema) is the result of filmmaking which is typically a serious, independent film aimed at a niche market rather than a mass market audience.^[1] Film critics and film studies scholars typically define an "art film" using a "...canon of films and those formal qualities that mark them as different from mainstream Hollywood films",^[2] which includes, among other elements: a social realism style; an emphasis on the authorial expressivity of the director; and a focus on the thoughts and dreams of characters, rather than presenting a clear, goal-driven story. Film scholar David Bordwell claims that "art cinema itself is a film genre, with its own distinct conventions."^[3]

Art film producers usually present their films at specialty theatres (repertory cinemas, or in the U.S. "arthouse cinemas") and film festivals. The term art film is much more widely used in the United States and the UK than in Europe, where the term is more associated with "auteur" films and "national cinema" (e.g., German national cinema). Art films are aimed at small niche market audiences, which means they can rarely get the financial backing which will permit large production budgets, expensive special effects, costly celebrity actors, or huge advertising campaigns, as are used in widely-released mainstream blockbuster films. Art film directors make up for these constraints by creating a different type of film, which typically uses lesser-known film actors (or even amateur actors) and modest sets to make films which focus much more on developing ideas or exploring new narrative techniques or filmmaking conventions.

Furthermore, a certain degree of experience and intellect are required to understand or appreciate such films; one mid-1990s art film was called "largely a cerebral experience" which you enjoy "because of what you know about film".^[4] This contrasts sharply with mainstream "blockbuster" films, which are geared more towards escapism and pure entertainment. For promotion, art films rely on the publicity generated from film critics' reviews, discussion of their film by arts columnists, commentators and bloggers, and "word-of-mouth" promotion by audience members. Since art films have small initial investment costs, they only need to appeal to a small portion of the mainstream viewing audiences to become financially viable.

History[link]

Antecedents: 1910–1920s[link]

The antecedents of art films included D. W. Griffith's film Intolerance (1916) and the works of Sergei Eisenstein.^[5] Eisenstein's film Battleship Potemkin (1925) was a revolutionary propaganda film which he used to test his theories of using "montage" (editing) in a manner which would produce the greatest emotional response in the audience. The international critical renown that Eisenstein garnered from this film enabled the Russian filmmaker to direct October (aka Ten Days That Shook The World) as part of a grand tenth anniversary celebration of the October Revolution of 1917, and then The General Line (aka Old and New). The critics of the outside world praised these films. However, in Russia, Eisenstein's focus on structural issues such as camera angles, crowd movements, and montage brought him and like-minded others, such as Vsevolod Pudovkin and Alexander Dovzhenko, under fire from the Soviet film community.

Art films were also influenced by films by Spanish avant-garde creators such as Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí (e.g., L'Age d'Or from 1930) and by the French playwright and filmmaker Jean Cocteau (e.g., The Blood of a Poet, also from 1930). In the 1920s, film societies began advocating the notion that films could be divided into an "...entertainment cinema directed towards a mass audience and a serious art cinema aimed at an intellectual audience". In England, Alfred Hitchcock and Ivor Montagu formed a Film Society and imported films that they thought were "artistic achievements", such as "Soviet films of dialectical montage, and the expressionist films of the Universum Film A. G. (UFA) studios in Germany."^[5]

Cinéma Pur, a 1920s and 1930s French avant-garde film movement also influenced the development of the idea of "art film." The cinema pur film movement included Dada artists, such as Man Ray (Emak-Bakia, Return to Reason), René Clair (Entr'acte), and Marcel Duchamp (Anemic Cinema). The Dadaists used film to transcend narrative (storytelling) conventions, bourgeois traditions, and conventional Aristotelian notions of time and space by creating a flexible montage of time and space.

Pure Cinema was influenced by such German "absolute" filmmakers as Hans Richter, Walter Ruttmann, and Viking Eggeling. Richter claimed that his 1921 film, Rhythmus 21, was the first abstract film ever created. This claim is not true: he was preceded by the Italian Futurists Bruno Corra and Arnaldo Ginna between 1911 and 1912 ^[6] (as they report in the Futurist Manifesto of Cinema ^[7]), as well as by fellow German artist Walter Ruttmann who produced Lichtspiel Opus 1 in 1920. Nevertheless, Richter's film Rhythmus 21 is considered an important early abstract film.

U.S. photographer and filmmaker Man Ray (pictured here in 1934) was part of the Dadaist "cinema pur" film movement, which influenced the development of art film.

1930s–1950s[link]

In the 1930s and 1940s, Hollywood films could be divided into the artistic aspirations of literary adaptations like John Ford's The Informer (1935) and Eugene O'Neill's The Long Voyage Home (1940), and the money-making "popular genre films" such as gangster thrillers. William Siska argues that Italian neorealist films from the mid- to late-1940s, such as Open City (1945), Paisa (1946), and The Bicycle Thief can be deemed as another "conscious art film movement".^[5]

In the late 1940s, the U.S. public's perception that Italian neorealist films and other serious European fare were different from mainstream Hollywood films was reinforced by the development of "arthouse cinemas" in major U.S. cities and college towns. After the Second World War, "...a growing segment of the American filmgoing public was wearying of mainstream Hollywood films", and they went to the newly-created art film theaters to see "...alternatives to the films playing in main-street movie palaces".^[2] Films shown in these art cinemas included "... British, foreign-language, and independent American films, as well as documentaries and revivals of Hollywood classics." Films such as Rossellini's Open City and Mackendrick's Tight Little Island (Whisky Galore!), The Bicycle Thief and The Red Shoes were shown to substantial U.S. audiences.^[2]

In the late 1950s, French filmmakers of the late 1950s began to produce films that were influenced by Italian Neorealism^[8] and classical Hollywood cinema,^[8] a style that critics called the French New Wave. Although never a formally organized movement, the New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of classical cinematic form and their spirit of youthful iconoclasm and is an example of European art cinema.^[9] Many also engaged in their work with the social and political upheavals of the era, making their radical experiments with editing, visual style and narrative part of a general break with the conservative paradigm. Some of the most prominent pioneers among the group, including François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Éric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol, and Jacques Rivette, began as critics for the famous film magazine Cahiers du cinéma. Auteur theory holds that the director is the "author" of his films, with a personal signature visible from film to film.

1960s–1970s[link]

Actress Lena Nyman from the Swedish film 'I Am Curious (Yellow).

The French New Wave movement continued into the 1960s. During the 1960s, the term "art film" began to be much more widely used in the United States than in Europe. In the U.S., the term is often defined very broadly, to include foreign-language (non-English) "auteur" films, independent films, experimental films, documentaries and short films. In the 1960s "art film" became a euphemism in the U.S. for racy Italian and French B-movies. By the 1970s, the term was used to describe sexually explicit European films with artistic structure such as the Swedish film I Am Curious (Yellow). In the U.S., the term "art film" is sometimes used very loosely to refer to the broad range of films shown in repertory theaters or "arthouse cinemas." With this approach, a broad range of films, such as a 1960s Hitchcock film, a 1970s experimental underground film, a European auteur film, a U.S. "Independent" film, and even a mainstream foreign-language film (with subtitles) might all fall under the rubric of "art house films."

1980s–2000s[link]

By the 1980s and 1990s, the term became conflated with "independent film" in the U.S., which shares many of the same stylistic traits with "art film." Companies such as Miramax Films distributed independent films which were deemed commercially unviable at the major studios. When major motion picture studios noted the niche appeal of independent films, they created special divisions dedicated to non-mainstream fare, such as the Fox Searchlight division of Twentieth Century Fox, the Focus Features division of Universal, and the Sony Pictures Classics division of Sony Pictures Entertainment. Film critics have debated whether the films from these special divisions can truly be considered to be "independent films", given that they have financial backing from major studios.

In 2007, Professor Camille Paglia argued in her article "Art movies: R.I.P." that "[a]side from Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather series, with its deft flashbacks and gritty social realism, ...[there is not]...a single film produced over the past 35 years that is arguably of equal philosophical weight or virtuosity of execution to Bergman's The Seventh Seal or Persona ". Paglia states that young people from the 2000s do not "...have patience for the long, slow take that deep-think European directors once specialized in", an approach which gave "...luxurious scrutiny of the tiniest facial expressions or the chilly sweep of a sterile room or bleak landscape".^[10]

Deviations from mainstream film norms[link]

Film scholar David Bordwell outlined the academic definition of "art film" in a 1979 article entitled The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice, which contrasts art films against the mainstream films of classical Hollywood cinema. Mainstream Hollywood-style films use a clear narrative form to organize the film into a series of "...causally related events taking place in space and time", with every scene driving towards a goal. The plot for mainstream films is driven by a well-defined protagonist, fleshed out with clear characters, and strengthened with "...question-and-answer logic, problem-solving routines, (and) deadline plot structures." The film is then tied together with fast pacing, musical soundtracks to cue the appropriate audience emotions, and tight, seamless editing.^[11] Mainstream films tend to use a small palette of familiar, generic images, plots, verbal expressions, and archetypal "stock" characters.

In contrast, Bordwell states that "...the art cinema motivates its narrative by two principles: realism and authorial expressivity." Art films deviate from the mainstream, "classical" norms of filmmaking in that they typically deal with more episodic narrative structures with a "...loosening of the chain of cause and effect".^[11] As well, art films often deal with an inner drama that takes place in a character's psyche, such as psychological issues dealing with individual identity, transgressive sexual or social issues, moral dilemmas, or personal crises.

Mainstream films also deal with moral dilemmas or identity crises, but these issues are usually resolved by the end of the film. In art films, the dilemmas are probed and investigated in a pensive fashion, but usually without a clear resolution at the end of the film.^[12] The protagonists in art films are often facing doubt, anomie or alienation, and the art film often depicts their internal dialogue of thoughts, dream sequences, and fantasies. In some art films, the director uses a depiction of absurd or seemingly meaningless actions to express a philosophical viewpoint such as existentialism.

The story in an art film often has a secondary role to character development and an exploration of ideas through lengthy sequences of dialogue. If an art film has a story, it is usually a drifting sequence of vaguely defined or ambiguous episodes. There may be unexplained gaps in the film, deliberately unclear sequences, or extraneous sequences that are not related to previous scenes, which force the viewer to subjectively make their own interpretation of the film's message. Art films often "...bear the marks of a distinctive visual style" and authorial approach of the director.^[13] An art cinema film often refuses to provide a "...readily answered conclusion", instead putting to the cinema viewer the task of thinking about "...how is the story being told? Why tell the story in this way?"^[14]

Bordwell claims that "art cinema itself is a [film] genre, with its own distinct conventions."^[3] Film theorist Robert Stam also argues that "art film" is a film genre. He claims that a film is considered to be an art film based on artistic status, in the same way that film genres can be based on aspects of films such as their budgets (blockbuster films or B-movies) or their star performers (Adam Sandler films).^[15]

Timeline of notable films[link]

The following list is a small, partial sample of films with "art film" qualities, compiled to give a general sense of what directors and films are considered to have "art film" characteristics. The films in this list demonstrate one or more of the characteristics of art films: a serious, noncommercial, or independently made film that is not aimed at a mass audience. Some of the films on this list are also considered to be "auteur" films, independent films, or experimental films. In some cases, critics disagree over whether a film is mainstream or not. For example, while some critics called Gus Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho (1991) an "exercise in film experimentation" of "high artistic quality",^[16] the Washington Post called it an ambitious mainstream film.^[17]

Some films in this list have most of these characteristics; other films are commercially-made films produced by mainstream studios that nevertheless bear the hallmarks of a director's "auteur" style, or which have an experimental character. The films in this list are notable either because they won major awards or critical praise from influential film critics or because they introduced an innovative narrative or filmmaking technique.

An image of a moth from Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí's surrealist 1929 film Un Chien Andalou

1920s–1940s[link]

In the 1920s and 1930s, filmmakers did not set out to make "art films", and film critics did not use the term "art film". However, there were films that had more sophisticated aesthetic objectives, such as Carl Theodor Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) and Vampyr (1932), surrealist films such as Luis Buñuel's Un chien andalou (1929) and L'Âge d'Or (1930), or even films dealing with political and current-event relevance such as Sergei Eisenstein's famed and influential masterpiece Battleship Potemkin. The U.S. film Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) by German Expressionist director F. W. Murnau uses distorted art design and groundbreaking cinematography to create an exaggerated, fairy-tale-like world that was rich with symbolism and imagery. Jean Renoir's film The Rules of the Game (1939) was a comedy of manners that transcended the conventions of the "comedy of manners" genre by creating a biting and tragic satire of French upper class society in the years before WW II; a poll of critics from the British Film Institute ranked it as the third greatest film ever, placing behind Citizen Kane and Vertigo.^[18]

Some of these early artistically-oriented films were financed by wealthy individuals rather than film companies, particularly in cases where the content of the film was controversial or unlikely to attract an audience. In the late 1940s, UK director Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger made The Red Shoes (1948), a film about ballet that stood out from mainstream genre films of the era. In 1945, David Lean would direct Brief Encounter, an adaptation of Noël Coward's play Still Life, which observes a passionate love affair between an upper class man and a middle class woman amidst the social and economical issues that Britain faced at the time.

1950s[link]

In the 1950s, some of the well-known films with artistic sensibilities include La Strada (1954), a film about a young woman who is forced to go to work for a cruel and inhumane circus performer in order to support her family and eventually coming to terms with her situation, Carl Theodor Dreyer's Ordet (1956), centering around family with a lack of faith amongst it but with a son who believes that he is Jesus Christ and convinced that he is capable of performing miracles, Federico Fellini's Nights of Cabiria (1957), which deals with a prostitute's failed attempts to find love, and her suffering and rejections, and Wild Strawberries (1957), by Ingmar Bergman, whose narrative concerns an elderly medical doctor and professor whose nightmares lead him to re-evaluate his life, and The 400 Blows (1959) by François Truffaut, whose main character is a young man trying to come of age despite the abuse from his parents, schoolteachers, and society in general. In Poland, the Khrushchev Thaw permitted some relaxation of the regime's cultural policies, and productions such as A Generation, Kanal, Ashes and Diamonds, Lotna (1954–1959), all directed by Andrzej Wajda, showed the Polish Film School style.

Asia[link]

Toshirō Mifune in Rashomon, a 1950 film by Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, that depicts four contradictory accounts of a rape and murder.

In India, there was an art film movement in Bengali cinema known as "Parallel Cinema" or the "Indian New Wave". It was an alternative to the mainstream commercial cinema known for its serious content, realism and naturalism, with a keen eye on the social-political climate of the times. This movement is distinct from mainstream Bollywood cinema and began around the same time as the French New Wave and Japanese New Wave. The most influential filmmaker involved in this movement was Satyajit Ray. His most famous films were The Apu Trilogy (1955–1959), which tells the story of a poor country boy's growth to adulthood. Bimal Roy's Two Acres of Land (1953) tells the story of a farmer during a famine in Bengal. Other acclaimed Bengali filmmakers involved in this movement include Mrinal Sen and Ritwik Ghatak.

Japanese filmmakers produced a number of films that broke with convention. Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon (1950), the first Japanese film to be widely screened in the West, depicts four witnesses' contradictory accounts of a rape and murder. In 1952, Kurosawa directed Ikiru, a film about a Tokyo bureaucrat struggling to find a meaning for his life. Tokyo Story (1953) by Yasujirō Ozu explores social changes of the era by telling the story of an aging couple who travel to Tokyo to visit their grown children, but find the children are too self-absorbed to spend much time with them. Seven Samurai (1954) by Kurosawa, tells the story of a farming village that hire seven masterless samurai to combat bandits. Fires on the Plain (1959) by Kon Ichikawa explores the Japanese experience in World War II by depicting a sick Japanese soldier struggling to stay alive. Ugetsu (1953) by Kenji Mizoguchi is a ghost story set in the late 16th century which tells the story of peasants whose village is in the path of an advancing army. A year later, Mizoguchi directed Sansho the Bailiff (1954), which tells the story of two aristocratic children sold into slavery; in addition to dealing with serious themes such as the loss of freedom, the film features features beautiful images and long and complicated shots.

1960s[link]

The 1960s was an important period in art film; the release of a number of groundbreaking films giving rise to the European art cinema. Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless (1960) used innovative visual and editing techniques such as jump cuts and hand-held camera work. Godard, a leading figure of the French New Wave, would continue to make innovative films throughout the decade, proposing a whole new style of filmmaking. Jules et Jim by François Truffaut deconstructed a complex relationship of three individuals through innovative screenwriting, editing, and camera techniques. Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni helped revolutionize filmmaking, with such films as La Notte (1961), a complex examination of a failed marriage that dealt with issues such as anomie and sterility; Eclipse (1962), about a young woman who is unable to form a solid relationship with her boyfriend because of his materialistic nature; Red Desert (1964), his first color film, which deals with the need to adapt to the modern world; and Blowup (1966), his first English-language film, which examines issues of perception and reality as it follows a young photographer's attempt to discover whether he had photographed a murder.

Swedish director Ingmar Bergman started off the 1960s with chamber pieces like Winter Light (1963) and The Silence (1963), which deal with such themes as emotional isolation and a lack of communication. His films from the later half of the decade, such as Persona (1966), Shame (1968), and A Passion (1969), deal with the idea of film as an artifice. The intellectual and visually expressive films of Tadeusz Konwicki, such as All Souls' Day (Zaduszki, 1961), and especially Salto (1962) inspired discussions about war and raised existential questions on behalf of their everyman protagonists.

Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita (1960) depicts a succession of nights and dawns in Rome as witnessed by a cynical journalist. In 1963, Fellini made 8½, an exploration of creative, marital and spiritual difficulties shot in sumptuous black-and-white by cinematographer Gianni di Venanzo. The 1961 film Last Year at Marienbad by director Alain Resnais examines perception and reality, using grand tracking shots that became widely influential. Robert Bresson's Au Hasard Balthazar (1966) and Mouchette (1967) are notable for their naturalistic, elliptical style. Spanish director Luis Buñuel also contributed heavily to the art of film, with shocking, surrealist satires like Viridiana (1961) and The Exterminating Angel (1962).

Italian director Federico Fellini

Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky's film Andrei Rublev (1966) is a portrait of the medieval Russian icon painter of the same name. The film is also about artistic freedom and the possibility and necessity of making art for, and in the face of, a repressive authority. A cut version of the film was shown at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the FIPRESCI prize.^[19] At the end of the decade, Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) wowed audiences with its scientific realism, pioneering use of special effects, and unusual visual imagery. In Soviet Armenia, Sergei Parajanov's The Color of Pomegranates, which was banned by Soviet authorities, and also long unavailable in the west, was praised by critic Mikhail Vartanov as "revolutionary" ^[20] and in the early 1980s, Les Cahiers du Cinéma placed the film in its top 10 list.^[21] In Iran, Dariush Mehrjui's The Cow (1969), about a man who becomes insane after the death of his beloved cow, sparked the new wave of Iranian cinema.

1970s[link]

In the early 1970s, directors shocked audiences with violent films such as A Clockwork Orange (1971), Stanley Kubrick's brutal exploration of futuristic youth gangs and Last Tango in Paris (1972), Bernardo Bertolucci's taboo-breaking, sexually-explicit and controversial film. Nevertheless, other directors did more introspective films, such as Andrei Tarkovsky's meditative science fiction film Solaris (1972), supposedly intended as a Soviet riposte to 2001. In 1975, Tarkovsky directed another two films which garnered critical acclaim overseas, The Mirror and Stalker. Terrence Malick, who directed Badlands (1973) and Days of Heaven (1978) shared many traits with Tarkovsky, such as his long, lingering shots of natural beauty, evocative imagery, and poetic narrative style.

Another feature of 1970s art films was the return to prominence of bizarre characters and imagery, which abound in the tormented, obsessed title character in German New Wave director Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1973), and in cult films such as Alejandro Jodorowsky's psychedelic The Holy Mountain (1973) about a footless, handless dwarf and an alchemist seeking the mythical Lotus Island^[22]The film Taxi Driver (1976) by Martin Scorsese continues the themes that A Clockwork Orange explored: an alienated population living in a violent, decaying society. The gritty violence and seething rage of Scorsese's film contrasts other films released in the same period, such as David Lynch's dreamlike, surreal Eraserhead (1977). In 1974 John Cassavetes would offer a sharp commentary on American blue-collar life in A Woman Under the Influence, which features an eccentric housewife slowly descending into madness.

1980s[link]

In 1980, director Martin Scorsese shocked audiences who had become used to the escapist blockbuster adventures of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas with the gritty, harsh realism of his film Raging Bull. In this film, actor Robert De Niro took method acting to an extreme to portray a boxer's decline from a prizewinning young fighter to an overweight, "has-been" nightclub owner. Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982), while labeled as a fast-paced action film, could rather be seen as a science fiction art film, along with 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Blade Runner explores themes of existentialism: what it means to be human. A box office failure, the film became popular in the arthouse circuit as a cult oddity after the release of a "Director's cut" became successful on VHS. In the middle of the decade, Japanese director Akira Kurosawa used realism to portray the brutal, bloody violence of Japanese samurai warfare of the 16th century in Ran (1985). Ran followed the plot of King Lear, in which an elderly king is betrayed by his children. Sergio Leone also contrasted brutal violence with emotional substance in his epic tale of a mobster's life in Once Upon a Time in America.

While extensive sets are more associated with mainstream film than with art film, Japanese director Akira Kurosawa had many sets built for his 1985 film Ran, including this recreation of a medieval gate

Other directors in the 1980s chose a more intellectual path, exploring philosophical and ethical issues. Andrzej Wajda's Man of Iron (1981) is a critique of the Polish communist government which won the 1981 Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Another Polish director, Krzysztof Kieślowski made The Decalogue for television in 1988, a largely melancholic film series that explores ethical issues and moral puzzles. Two of these films were released theatrically as A Short Film About Love and A Short Film About Killing. In 1989 Woody Allen would make, in the words of The New York Times critic Vincent Canby his most "securely serious and funny film to date" in Crimes and Misdemeanors, which deals with multiple stories of people trying to find a moral and spiritual simplicity in life facing dire issues and thoughts surrounding the choices they make. French director Louis Malle chose another moral path to explore with the dramatization of his real-life childhood experiences in Au revoir, les enfants, which depicts the Nazi occupation government's deportation of French Jews to concentration camps during World War II.

Kieślowski was not the only director to transcend the distinction between the cinema and television: Ingmar Bergman made Fanny and Alexander (1982) which was shown on television in an extended five-hour version. In the UK, Channel 4, a new television channel, financed in whole or part many films released theatrically via its Film 4 subsidiary. Wim Wenders offered another approach on life from a spiritual standpoint in his 1987 film Wings of Desire, a depiction of a "fallen angel" who lives among men, which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1982, experimental director Godfrey Reggio released Koyaanisqatsi, a film without dialogue which emphasizes cinematography and philosophical ideology. It consists primarily of slow motion and time-lapse photography of cities and natural landscapes which creates a visual tone poem.^[23]

Another approach used by directors in the 1980s was to create bizarre, surreal alternate worlds. Martin Scorsese's After Hours (1985) is a comedy-thriller that depicts a man's baffling adventures in a surreal nighttime world of chance encounters with mysterious characters. David Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986), is a film noir-style thriller mystery filled with symbolism and metaphors about polarized worlds and inhabited by distorted characters that are hidden in the seamy underworld of a small town became surprisingly successful considering its highy distubing subject matter. Peter Greenaway's The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989) is an outlandish fantasy/black comedy about cannibalism and extreme violence with an intellectual theme: a critique of 'elite culture' in Thatcherian Britain.

1990s[link]

In the 1990s, directors took inspiration from the success of 1986's Blue Velvet and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover by creating films with bizarre alternate worlds and elements of surrealism. In 1990, Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's Dreams depicted his imaginative reveries in a series of vignettes that range from idyllic pastoral country landscapes to horrific visions of tormented demons and a blighted post-nuclear war landscape. In 1991, director Joel Coen's Barton Fink, which won the Palme d'or at the Cannes Film Festival, told an enigmatic story about a writer who encounters a range of bizarre characters including an alcoholic, abusive novelist and a serial killer. David Lynch's 1997 film Lost Highway is a psychological thriller that explores fantasy worlds, bizarre time-space transformations, and mental breakdowns using surreal imagery.

Other directors in the 1990s explored philosophical issues and themes such as identity, chance, death, and existentialism. The 1990s films My Own Private Idaho and Chungking Express explored the theme of identity. Gus Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho (1991) is an independent road movie/buddy film about two young street hustlers which explores the theme of the search for home and identity. It was called a "high-water mark in '90s independent film",^[24] a "stark, poetic rumination",^[25] and an "exercise in film experimentation"^[26] of "high artistic quality".^[16] Wong Kar-wai's Chungking Express (1994)^[27] explores the themes of identity, disconnection, loneliness, and isolation in the "metaphoric concrete jungle" of modern Hong Kong. The film uses a visual style that could be seen as music video-influenced, and also bears similarities to the French New Wave. While the British Film Institute called it one of the best Asian films of contemporary cinema, it is considered to be a film for cineophiles, because it is "largely a cerebral experience" which you enjoy "because of what you know about film".

Daryush Shokof's film Seven Servants (1996), makes a most original high art cinema piece about a man who wants to "unite" the world races until his last breath. The film remains a surprising visionary experience both in form and concept for anyone who sees it for the first time ever. One year after Seven Servants, Abbas Kiarostami's film Taste of Cherry (1997),^[28] which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, tells a similar tale as in the Seven Servants with a different twist in which it is about a man trying to hire a person to bury him after he commits suicide. The film was shot in a minimalist style, with long takes, a leisurely pace, and long periods of silence. The film was also notable for its use of long shots and overhead shots which creates a sense of distance between the audience and the characters. Zhang Yimou's early 1990s works such as Ju Dou (1990), Raise the Red Lantern (1991), The Story of Qiu Ju (1992) and To Live (1994) explore human emotions through a poignant narrative. To Live won the Grand Jury Prize.

Several 1990s films explored existentialist-oriented themes related to life, chance, and death. Robert Altman's Short Cuts (1993) explored themes of chance, death, and infidelity by tracing ten parallel and interwoven stories. The film, which won the Golden Lion and the Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival, was called a "many-sided, many mooded, dazzlingly structured eclectic jazz mural" by Chicago Tribune critic Michael Wilmington. Krzysztof Kieślowski's The Double Life of Véronique (1991) is a drama about the theme of identity and a political allegory about the East/West split in Europe which features stylized cinematography, an ethereal atmosphere, and unexplained supernatural elements. Abbas Kiarostami's film Taste of Cherry (1997)^[28] about a man trying to hire a person to bury him after he commits suicide. The film, which was shot in a minimalist style, with long takes, won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

Darren Aronofsky's film Pi (1998) is a dream-like "...incredibly complex and ambiguous film filled with both incredible style and substance" about a paranoid math genius' "search for peace."^[29] The film creates a David Lynch-inspired,"... eerie Eraserhead-like world"^[30] shot in "black-and-white, which lends a dream-like atmosphere to all of the proceedings", which explore issues such as "metaphysics and spirituality"^[31] Matthew Barney's The Cremaster Cycle (1994–2002) is a cycle of five symbolic, allegorical films that create a self-enclosed aesthetic system that aims to explore the process of creation. The films are filled with allusions to reproductive organs and sexual development, and they use narrative models drawn from biography, mythology, and geology.

Some 1990s films mixed an ethereal or surreal visual atmosphere with the exploration of philosophical issues. Satantango (1994), by the Hungarian director Bela Tarr is a 7½ hour long film, shot in black and white, that deals with Tarr's favorite theme, that of inadequacy, as con man Irimias comes back to a village at an unspecified location in Hungary, setting himself up as leader and as a Messiah figure to the gullible villagers. Kieslowski's Three Colors trilogy (1993–4), particularly Blue (1993) and Red (1994) deal with human relationships, and how people cope with them alongside their day-to-day lives. The trilogy was called "explorations of spirituality and existentialism"^[32] that created a "truly transcendent experience".^[33]

2000s[link]

A number of films from the 2000s with art film qualities were notable due to their use of innovative filmmaking or editing techniques. Memento (2001), a psychological thriller directed by Christopher Nolan is about a man suffering from short-term memory loss. The film is edited so that the plot is revealed backwards in ten-minute chunks, simulating the condition of memory loss. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) is a romance film directed by Michel Gondry about a man who hires a company to erase the memory of a bad relationship. The film used a range of special effect techniques and camera work to depict the destruction of the man's memories and his transitions from one memory to another.

Timecode (2000), a film directed by Mike Figgis, uses a split screen to show four continuous 90 minute takes that follow four storylines. Russian Ark (2002), a film directed by Alexander Sokurov took Figgis' use of extended takes even further; it is notable for being the first feature film shot in a single, unedited take. Waking Life (2001), an animated film directed by Richard Linklater uses an innovative digital rotoscope technique to depict a young man stuck in a dream.^[34]

The stars and director of the film Mulholland Drive at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. Left to right: Actor Naomi Watts, Director David Lynch, and actors Laura Harring and Justin Theroux.

Several 2000s-era films explored the theme of amnesia or memory, but unlike Memento, they did so using narrative techniques rather than filmmaking and editing methods. Mulholland Drive (2001), directed by David Lynch is initially about a young woman who moves to Hollywood and discovers that an amnesiac is living in her house, although as the plot progresses it becomes apparent the film is holding something deeper in terms of its plot and characters. Oldboy (2003), directed by Park Chan-wook, is about a man imprisoned by a mysterious and brutal captor for 15 years who must then chase his old memories when he is abruptly released. Peppermint Candy (2000), directed by Lee Chang-dong, starts with the suicide of the male protagonist, and then uses reverse chronology (like Memento) to depict the events of the last 20 years which led the man to want to kill himself.

Some of the notable films from the 2000s that have been considered to have art film-qualities differed from mainstream films in controversial subject matter or in narrative form. Elephant (2003), a film directed by Gus Van Sant, for example, depicting mass murder at a high school that echoed the Columbine High School massacre, won top prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Other of his films include Gerry, Last Days, and Paranoid Park. Todd Haynes' complex deconstruction of Bob Dylan's persona, I'm Not There (2007), tells its story using non-traditional narrative techniques, intercutting the storylines of the six different Dylan-inspired characters. Mexican director Guillermo del Toro's film Pan's Labyrinth uses computer-generated imagery (CGI) technology to create a fantastical world that a ten year-old girl imagines to block out the horror of the Spanish Civil War. Encyclopædia Britannica calls del Toro's film "...a wonderful marriage of Hollywood genre [film] and European art film".^[35]

Lewis Beale of Film Journal International stated that Australian director Andrew Dominik's western film The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) is "a fascinating, literary-based work that succeeds as both art and genre film."^[36] Unlike the more action-oriented Jesse James films of the past, Dominik's unconventional epic, perhaps more accurately, details the outlaw's relinquishing psyche during the final months of his life as he finds himself succumbing to the paranoia of being captured and developing a rather precarious friendship with his eventual assassin, Robert Ford. In 2009, director Paul Thomas Anderson claimed that his film Punch Drunk Love, about a shy, repressed rageaholic was "an art house Adam Sandler film", a reference to the unlikely inclusion of "frat boy" comic Sandler in the film; critic Roger Ebert claims that Punch Drunk Love "...may be the key to all of the Adam Sandler films, and may liberate Sandler for a new direction in his work. He can't go on making those moronic comedies forever, can he? Who would have guessed he had such uncharted depths?"^[37]

2010s[link]

The CNN review of Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010) called it "an art film for everyone", unlike his earlier films, which were "considered inaccessible art house fare". This film, which won the 2010 Cannes Palme d'Or "...ties together what might just be a series of beautifully shot scenes with moving and funny musings on the nature of death and reincarnation, love, loss and karma." ^[38] Weerasethakul is an independent film director, screenwriter, and film producer who works outside the strict confines of the Thai film studio system. His films deal with dreams, nature, sexuality (including his own homosexuality)^[39] and Western perceptions of Thailand and Asia. His films display a preference for unconventional narrative structures (like placing titles/credits at the middle of a film) and for working with non-actors.

Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life (2011) was finally released after decades of being in development. It also won the Palme d'Or at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival and was highly praised by critics. In Stamford, Connecticut, a message was posted in the Avon Theater about the film and the theater's no-refund policy due to "some customer feedback and a polarized audience response" about the film. The theater stated that it "stands behind this ambitious work of art and other challenging films".^[40] Drive (2011), directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, is commonly called an art-house action film.^[41]

Related concepts[link]

Art television[link]

A television genre or style of art television has been identified, which shares some of the same traits of art films. Television shows such as David Lynch's Twin Peaks series and BBC's The Singing Detective also have "...a loosening of causality, a greater emphasis on psychological or anecdotal realism, violations of classical clarity of space and time, explicit authorial comment, and ambiguity."

As with much of Lynch's other work (notably the film Blue Velvet), Twin Peaks explores the gulf between the veneer of small-town respectability and the seedier layers of life lurking beneath it. The show is difficult to place in a defined television genre: stylistically, it borrows the unsettling tone and supernatural premises of horror films, and simultaneously offers a bizarrely comical parody of American soap operas with a campy, melodramatic presentation of the morally dubious activities of its quirky characters. The show represents an earnest moral inquiry distinguished by both weird humor and a deep vein of surrealism.

Other television shows that have been called "art television", such as The Simpsons, use a "...flurry of cultural references, intentionally inconsistent characterization, and considerable self-reflexivity about television conventions and the status of the programme as a television show."^[42] HBO's The Wire might also be qualified as "art television" as it has garnered a larger amount of critical attention from academics than most television shows. For example, the film theory journal Film Quarterly has featured the show on its cover.^[43]

See also[link]

• Auteur theory
• Czechoslovak New Wave
• Documentary films
• Experimental film
• Film genres
• Independent Film Channel
• Independent Spirit Award
• List of directors associated with art film
• Souvenirs from Earth Art TV Station
• Sundance Film Festival
• Swansea Bay Film Festival
• Television studies
• Toronto Film Festival

References[link]

This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in the French Wikipedia. (January 2012) Don't speak French? Click here to read a machine-translated version of the French article. Click [show] on the right to review important translation instructions before translating. Google's machine translation is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. After translating, {{Translated|fr|Cinéma}} must be added to the talk page to ensure copyright compliance. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. It needs additional citations for verification. Tagged since July 2010. Its citation style may be unclear. The references used may be made clearer with a different or consistent style of citation, footnoting or external linking. Tagged since July 2010. It may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Tagged since December 2009.

This 16 mm spring-wound Bolex "H16" Reflex camera is a popular entry level camera used in film schools.

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects. The process of filmmaking has developed into an art form and industry.

Films are cultural artifacts created by specific cultures, which reflect those cultures, and, in turn, affect them. Film is considered to be an important art form, a source of popular entertainment and a powerful method for educating – or indoctrinating – citizens. The visual elements of cinema give motion pictures a universal power of communication. Some films have become popular worldwide attractions by using dubbing or subtitles that translate the dialogue into the language of the viewer.

Films are made up of a series of individual images called frames. When these images are shown rapidly in succession, a viewer has the illusion that motion is occurring. The viewer cannot see the flickering between frames due to an effect known as persistence of vision, whereby the eye retains a visual image for a fraction of a second after the source has been removed. Viewers perceive motion due to a psychological effect called beta movement.

The origin of the name "film" comes from the fact that photographic film (also called film stock) has historically been the primary medium for recording and displaying motion pictures. Many other terms exist for an individual motion picture, including picture, picture show, moving picture, photo-play and flick. A common name for film in the United States is movie, while in Europe the term film is preferred. Additional terms for the field in general include the big screen, the silver screen, the cinema and the movies.

History[link]

A clip from the Charlie Chaplin silent film The Bond (1918)

Preceding film in origin by thousands of years, early plays and dances had elements common to film: scripts, sets, costumes, production, direction, actors, audiences, storyboards, and scores. Much terminology later used in film theory and criticism apply, such as mise en scene (roughly, the entire visual picture at any one time). Owing to an absence of technology for doing so, moving visual and aural images were not recorded for replaying as in film.

In the 1860s, mechanisms for producing two-dimensional drawings in motion were demonstrated with devices such as the zoetrope, mutoscope and praxinoscope. These machines were outgrowths of simple optical devices (such as magic lanterns) and would display sequences of still pictures at sufficient speed for the images on the pictures to appear to be moving, a phenomenon called persistence of vision. Naturally the images needed to be carefully designed to achieve the desired effect, and the underlying principle became the basis for the development of film animation.

With the development of celluloid film for still photography, it became possible to directly capture objects in motion in real time. An 1878 experiment by English photographer Eadweard Muybridge in the United States using 24 cameras produced a series of stereoscopic images of a galloping horse, is arguably the first "motion picture", though it was not called by this name.^[1] This technology required a person to look into a viewing machine to see the pictures which were separate paper prints attached to a drum turned by a handcrank. The pictures were shown at a variable speed of about 5 to 10 pictures per second, depending on how rapidly the crank was turned. Commercial versions of these machines were coin operated.

A frame from Roundhay Garden Scene, the world's earliest film produced using a motion picture camera, by Louis Le Prince, 1888

By the 1880s the development of the motion picture camera allowed the individual component images to be captured and stored on a single reel, and led quickly to the development of a motion picture projector to shine light through the processed and printed film and magnify these "moving picture shows" onto a screen for an entire audience. These reels, so exhibited, came to be known as "motion pictures". Early motion pictures were static shots that showed an event or action with no editing or other cinematic techniques. The first public exhibition of projected motion pictures in America was shown at Koster and Bial's Music Hall in New York City on the 23rd of April 1896.

Ignoring W. K. L. Dickson's early sound experiments (1894), commercial motion pictures were purely visual art through the late 19th century, but these innovative silent films had gained a hold on the public imagination. Around the turn of the 20th century, films began developing a narrative structure by stringing scenes together to tell a story. The scenes were later broken up into multiple shots of varying sizes and angles. Other techniques such as camera movement were realized as effective ways to portray a story on film. Rather than leave the audience with noise of early cinema projectors, theater owners would hire a pianist or organist or a full orchestra to play music that would cover noises of projector. Eventually, musicians would start to fit the mood of the film at any given moment. By the early 1920s, most films came with a prepared list of sheet music for this purpose, with complete film scores being composed for major productions.

A shot from Georges Méliès Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon) (1902), an early narrative film.

The rise of European cinema was interrupted by the outbreak of World War I when the film industry in United States flourished with the rise of Hollywood, typified most prominently by the great innovative work of D. W. Griffith in The Birth of a Nation (1914) and Intolerance (1916). However in the 1920s, European filmmakers such as Sergei Eisenstein, F. W. Murnau, and Fritz Lang, in many ways inspired by the meteoric war-time progress of film through Griffith, along with the contributions of Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton and others, quickly caught up with American film-making and continued to further advance the medium. In the 1920s, new technology allowed filmmakers to attach to each film a soundtrack of speech, music and sound effects synchronized with the action on the screen. These sound films were initially distinguished by calling them "talking pictures", or talkies.

The next major step in the development of cinema was the introduction of so-called "natural color", which meant color that was photographically recorded from nature rather than being added to black-and-white prints by hand-coloring, stencil-coloring or other arbitrary procedures, although the earliest processes typically yielded colors which were far from "natural" in appearance. While the addition of sound quickly eclipsed silent film and theater musicians, color replaced black-and-white much more gradually. The pivotal innovation was the introduction of the three-strip version of the Technicolor process, which was first used for short subjects and for isolated sequences in a few feature films released in 1934, then for an entire feature film, Becky Sharp, in 1935. The expense of the process was daunting, but continued favorable public response and enhanced box-office receipts increasingly justified the added cost. The number of films made in color slowly increased year after year.

In the early 1950s, as the proliferation of black-and-white television started seriously depressing theater attendance in the US, the use of color was seen as one way of winning back audiences. It soon became the rule rather than the exception. Some important mainstream Hollywood films were still being made in black-and-white as late as the mid-1960s, but they marked the end of an era. Color television receivers had been available in the US since the mid-1950s, but at first they were very expensive and few broadcasts were in color. During the 1960s, prices gradually came down, color broadcasts became common, and the sale of color television sets boomed. The strong preference of the general public for color was obvious. After the final flurry of black-and-white film releases in mid-decade, all major Hollywood studio film production was exclusively in color, with rare exceptions reluctantly made only at the insistence of "star" directors such as Peter Bogdanovich and Martin Scorsese.

Since the decline of the studio system in the 1960s, the succeeding decades saw changes in the production and style of film. Various New Wave movements (including the French New Wave, Indian New Wave, Japanese New Wave and New Hollywood) and the rise of film school educated independent filmmakers were all part of the changes the medium experienced in the latter half of the 20th century. Digital technology has been the driving force in change throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s. 3D technology increased in usage and has become more popular since the early 2010s.

Theory[link]

Film theory seeks to develop concise and systematic concepts that apply to the study of film as art. It was started by Ricciotto Canudo's The Birth of the Sixth Art. Formalist film theory, led by Rudolf Arnheim, Béla Balázs, and Siegfried Kracauer, emphasized how film differed from reality, and thus could be considered a valid fine art. André Bazin reacted against this theory by arguing that film's artistic essence lay in its ability to mechanically reproduce reality not in its differences from reality, and this gave rise to realist theory. More recent analysis spurred by Jacques Lacan's psychoanalysis and Ferdinand de Saussure's semiotics among other things has given rise to psychoanalytical film theory, structuralist film theory, feminist film theory and others. On the other hand, critics from the analytical philosophy tradition, influenced by Wittgenstein, try to clarify misconceptions used in theoretical studies and produce analysis of a film's vocabulary and its link to a form of life.

Language[link]

Film is considered to have its own language. James Monaco wrote a classic text on film theory titled "How to Read a Film". Director Ingmar Bergman famously said, "[Andrei] Tarkovsky for me is the greatest [director], the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream." Examples of the language are a sequence of back and forth images of one actor's left profile speaking, followed by another actor's right profile speaking, then a repetition of this, which is a language understood by the audience to indicate a conversation. Another example is zooming in on the forehead of an actor with an expression of silent reflection, then changing to a scene of a younger actor who vaguely resembles the first actor, indicating the first actor is having a memory of their own past.

Montage[link]

Parallels to musical counterpoint have been developed into a theory of montage, extended from the complex superimposition of images in early silent film^{[citation needed]} to even more complex incorporation of musical counterpoint together with visual counterpoint through mise en scene and editing, as in a ballet or opera; e.g., as illustrated in the gang fight scene of director Francis Ford Coppola’s film, Rumble Fish.

Criticism[link]

Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films. In general, these works can be divided into two categories: academic criticism by film scholars and journalistic film criticism that appears regularly in newspapers and other media.

Film critics working for newspapers, magazines, and broadcast media mainly review new releases. Normally they only see any given film once and have only a day or two to formulate opinions. Despite this, critics have an important impact on films, especially those of certain genres. Mass marketed action, horror, and comedy films tend not to be greatly affected by a critic's overall judgment of a film. The plot summary and description of a film that makes up the majority of any film review can still have an important impact on whether people decide to see a film. For prestige films such as most dramas, the influence of reviews is extremely important. Poor reviews will often doom a film to obscurity and financial loss.

The impact of a reviewer on a given film's box office performance is a matter of debate. Some claim that movie marketing is now so intense and well financed that reviewers cannot make an impact against it. However, the cataclysmic failure of some heavily promoted movies which were harshly reviewed, as well as the unexpected success of critically praised independent movies indicates that extreme critical reactions can have considerable influence. Others note that positive film reviews have been shown to spark interest in little-known films. Conversely, there have been several films in which film companies have so little confidence that they refuse to give reviewers an advanced viewing to avoid widespread panning of the film. However, this usually backfires as reviewers are wise to the tactic and warn the public that the film may not be worth seeing and the films often do poorly as a result.

It is argued that journalist film critics should only be known as film reviewers, and true film critics are those who take a more academic approach to films. This line of work is more often known as film theory or film studies. These film critics attempt to come to understand how film and filming techniques work, and what effect they have on people. Rather than having their works published in newspapers or appear on television, their articles are published in scholarly journals, or sometimes in up-market magazines. They also tend to be affiliated with colleges or universities.

Industry[link]

Cate Blanchett at the Berlin International Film Festival. Around 20,000 professionals from over 130 countries attend the event in Berlin.

The making and showing of motion pictures became a source of profit almost as soon as the process was invented. Upon seeing how successful their new invention, and its product, was in their native France, the Lumières quickly set about touring the Continent to exhibit the first films privately to royalty and publicly to the masses. In each country, they would normally add new, local scenes to their catalogue and, quickly enough, found local entrepreneurs in the various countries of Europe to buy their equipment and photograph, export, import and screen additional product commercially. The Oberammergau Passion Play of 1898^{[citation needed]} was the first commercial motion picture ever produced. Other pictures soon followed, and motion pictures became a separate industry that overshadowed the vaudeville world. Dedicated theaters and companies formed specifically to produce and distribute films, while motion picture actors became major celebrities and commanded huge fees for their performances. By 1917 Charlie Chaplin had a contract that called for an annual salary of one million dollars.

From 1931 to 1956, film was also the only image storage and playback system for television programming until the introduction of videotape recorders.

In the United States today, much of the film industry is centered around Hollywood. Other regional centers exist in many parts of the world, such as Mumbai-centered Bollywood, the Indian film industry's Hindi cinema which produces the largest number of films in the world.^[2] Whether the ten thousand-plus feature length films a year produced by the Valley pornographic film industry should qualify for this title is the source of some debate.^{[citation needed]} Though the expense involved in making movies has led cinema production to concentrate under the auspices of movie studios, recent advances in affordable film making equipment have allowed independent film productions to flourish.

Profit is a key force in the industry, due to the costly and risky nature of filmmaking; many films have large cost overruns, a notorious example being Kevin Costner's Waterworld. Yet many filmmakers strive to create works of lasting social significance. The Academy Awards (also known as "the Oscars") are the most prominent film awards in the United States, providing recognition each year to films, ostensibly based on their artistic merits.

There is also a large industry for educational and instructional films made in lieu of or in addition to lectures and texts.

Associated fields[link]

Derivative academic Fields of study may both interact with and develop independently of filmmaking, as in film theory and analysis. Fields of academic study have been created that are derivative or dependent on the existence of film, such as film criticism, film history, divisions of film propaganda in authoritarian governments, or psychological on subliminal effects of a flashing soda can during a screening. These fields may further create derivative fields, such as a movie review section in a newspaper or a television guide. Sub-industries can spin off from film, such as popcorn makers, and toys. Sub- industries of pre-existing industries may deal specifically with film, such as product placement in advertising.

Terminology used[link]

Although the words "film" and "movie" are sometimes used interchangeably, "film" is more often used when considering artistic, theoretical, or technical aspects, as studies in a university class and "movies" more often refers to entertainment or commercial aspects, as where to go for fun on a date. For example, a book titled "How to Read a Film" would be about the aesthetics or theory of film, while "Lets Go to the Movies" would be about the history of entertaining movies. "Motion pictures" or "Moving pictures" are films and movies. A "DVD" is a digital format which may be used to reproduce an analog film, while "videotape" ("video") was for many decades a solely analog medium onto which moving images could be recorded and electronically (rather than optically) reproduced. Strictly speaking, "Film" refers to the media onto which a visual image is shot, and to this end it may seem improper for work in other "moving image" media to be referred to as a "film" and the action of shooting as "filming", though these terms are still in general use. "Silent films" need not be silent, but are films and movies without an audible dialogue, though they may have a musical soundtrack. "Talkies" refers to early movies or films having audible dialogue or analog sound, not just a musical accompaniment. "Cinema" either broadly encompasses both films and movies, or is roughly synonymous with "Film", both capitalized when referring to a category of art. The "silver screen" refers to classic black-and-white films before color, not to contemporary films without color.

The expression "Sight and Sound", as in the film journal of the same name, means "film". The following icons mean film: a "candle and bell", as in the films Tarkovsky, of a segment of film stock, or a two faced Janus image, and an image of a movie camera in profile.

"Widescreen" and "Cinemascope" refers to a larger width to height in the frame, compared to an earlier historic aspect ratios.^[3] A "feature length film", or "feature film", is of a conventional full length, usually 60 minutes or more, and can commercially stand by itself without other films in a ticketed screening.^[4] A "short" is a film that is not as long as a feature length film, usually screened with other shorts, or preceding a feature length film. An "independent" is a film made outside of the conventional film industry.

A "screening" or "projection" is the projection of a film or video on a screen at a public or private theater, usually but not always of a film, but of a video or DVD when of sufficient projection quality. A "double feature" is a screening of two independent, stand-alone, feature films. A "viewing" is a watching of a film. A "showing" is a screening or viewing on an electronic monitor. "Sales" refers to tickets sold at a theater, or more currently, rights sold for individual showings. A "release" is the distribution and often simultaneous screening of a film. A "preview" is a screening in advance of the main release.

"Hollywood" may be used either as a pejorative adjective, shorthand for asserting an overly commercial rather than artistic intent or outcome, as in "too Hollywood", or as a descriptive adjective to refer to a film originating with people who ordinarily work near Los Angeles.

Expressions for Genres of film are sometimes used interchangeably for "film" in a specific context, such as a "porn" for a film with explicit sexual content, or "cheese" for films that are light, entertaining and not highbrow.

Any film may also have a "sequel", which portrays events following those in the film. Bride of Frankenstein is an early example. When there are a number of films with the same characters, we have a "series", such as the James Bond series. A film which portrays events that occur earlier than those in another film, but is released after that film, is sometimes called a "prequel", an example being Butch and Sundance: The Early Days.

Credits is a list of the people involved in making the film. Before the 1970s, credits were usually at the beginning of a film. Since then, the credits roll at the end of most films.

A Post-credits scene is a scene shown after the end of the credits. Ferris Bueller's Day Off has a post-credit scene in which Ferris tells the audience that the movie is over and they should go home.

Preview[link]

A preview performance refers to a showing of a movie to a select audience, usually for the purposes of corporate promotions, before the public film premiere itself. Previews are sometimes used to judge audience reaction, which if unexpectedly negative, may result in recutting or even refilming certain sections (Audience response).

Trailer[link]

Trailers or previews are film advertisements for films that will be exhibited in the future at a cinema, on whose screen they are shown. The term "trailer" comes from their having originally been shown at the end of a film programme. That practice did not last long, because patrons tended to leave the theater after the films ended, but the name has stuck. Trailers are now shown before the film (or the A movie in a double feature program) begins.

Film, or other art form?[link]

Film may be combined with performance art and still be considered or referred to as a "film", for instance, when there is a live musical accompaniment to a silent film. Another example is audience participation films, as at a midnight movies screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, where the audience dresses up in costume from the film and loudly does a karaoke-like reenactment along with the film. Performance art where film is incorporated as a component is usually not called film, but a film, which could stand-alone but is accompanied by a performance may still be referred to as a film.

The act of making a film can, in and of itself, be considered a work of art, on a different level from the film itself, as in the films of Werner Herzog.

Similarly, the playing of a film can be considered to fall within the realm of political protest art, as in the subtleties within the films of Tarkovsky. A "road movie" can refer to a film put together from footage from a long road trip or vacation.

Education and propaganda[link]

Film is used for education and propaganda. When the purpose is primarily educational, a film is called an "educational film". Examples are recordings of lectures and experiments, or more marginally, a film based on a classic novel.

Film may be propaganda, in whole or in part, such as the films made by Leni Riefenstahl in Nazi Germany, US war film trailers during World War II, or artistic films made under Stalin by Eisenstein. They may also be works of political protest, as in the films of Wajda, or more subtly, the films of Andrei Tarkovsky.

The same film may be considered educational by some, and propaganda by others, such as some of the films of Michael Moore.

Production[link]

At its core, the means to produce a film depend on the content the filmmaker wishes to show, and the apparatus for displaying it: the zoetrope merely requires a series of images on a strip of paper. Film production can therefore take as little as one person with a camera (or without it, such as Stan Brakhage's 1963 film Mothlight), or thousands of actors, extras and crewmembers for a live-action, feature-length epic.

The necessary steps for almost any film can be boiled down to conception, planning, execution, revision, and distribution. The more involved the production, the more significant each of the steps becomes. In a typical production cycle of a Hollywood-style film, these main stages are defined as:

1. Development
2. Pre-production
3. Production
4. Post-production
5. Distribution

This production cycle usually takes three years. The first year is taken up with development. The second year comprises preproduction and production. The third year, post-production and distribution.

The bigger the production, the more resources it takes, and the more important financing becomes; most feature films are not only artistic works, but for-profit business entities.

Crew[link]

A film crew is a group of people hired by a film company, employed during the "production" or "photography" phase, for the purpose of producing a film or motion picture. Crew are distinguished from cast, the actors who appear in front of the camera or provide voices for characters in the film. The crew interacts with but is also distinct from the production staff, consisting of producers, managers, company representatives, their assistants, and those whose primary responsibility falls in pre-production or post-production phases, such as writers and editors. Communication between production and crew generally passes through the director and his/her staff of assistants. Medium-to-large crews are generally divided into departments with well defined hierarchies and standards for interaction and cooperation between the departments. Other than acting, the crew handles everything in the photography phase: props and costumes, shooting, sound, electrics (i.e., lights), sets, and production special effects. Caterers (known in the film industry as "craft services") are usually not considered part of the crew.

Technology[link]

Film stock consists of transparent celluloid, acetate, or polyester base coated with an emulsion containing light-sensitive chemicals. Cellulose nitrate was the first type of film base used to record motion pictures, but due to its flammability was eventually replaced by safer materials. Stock widths and the film format for images on the reel have had a rich history, though most large commercial films are still shot on (and distributed to theaters) as 35 mm prints.

Originally moving picture film was shot and projected at various speeds using hand-cranked cameras and projectors; though 1000 frames per minute (16⅔ frame/s) is generally cited as a standard silent speed, research indicates most films were shot between 16 frame/s and 23 frame/s and projected from 18 frame/s on up (often reels included instructions on how fast each scene should be shown).^[5] When sound film was introduced in the late 1920s, a constant speed was required for the sound head. 24 frames per second was chosen because it was the slowest (and thus cheapest) speed which allowed for sufficient sound quality. Improvements since the late 19th century include the mechanization of cameras – allowing them to record at a consistent speed, quiet camera design – allowing sound recorded on-set to be usable without requiring large "blimps" to encase the camera, the invention of more sophisticated filmstocks and lenses, allowing directors to film in increasingly dim conditions, and the development of synchronized sound, allowing sound to be recorded at exactly the same speed as its corresponding action. The soundtrack can be recorded separately from shooting the film, but for live-action pictures many parts of the soundtrack are usually recorded simultaneously.

As a medium, film is not limited to motion pictures, since the technology developed as the basis for photography. It can be used to present a progressive sequence of still images in the form of a slideshow. Film has also been incorporated into multimedia presentations, and often has importance as primary historical documentation. However, historic films have problems in terms of preservation and storage, and the motion picture industry is exploring many alternatives. Most movies on cellulose nitrate base have been copied onto modern safety films. Some studios save color films through the use of separation masters: three B&W negatives each exposed through red, green, or blue filters (essentially a reverse of the Technicolor process). Digital methods have also been used to restore films, although their continued obsolescence cycle makes them (as of 2006) a poor choice for long-term preservation. Film preservation of decaying film stock is a matter of concern to both film historians and archivists, and to companies interested in preserving their existing products in order to make them available to future generations (and thereby increase revenue). Preservation is generally a higher concern for nitrate and single-strip color films, due to their high decay rates; black-and-white films on safety bases and color films preserved on Technicolor imbibition prints tend to keep up much better, assuming proper handling and storage.

Some films in recent decades have been recorded using analog video technology similar to that used in television production. Modern digital video cameras and digital projectors are gaining ground as well. These approaches are preferred by some moviemakers, especially because footage shot with digital cinema can be evaluated and edited with non-linear editing systems (NLE) without waiting for the film stock to be processed. Yet the migration is gradual, and as of 2005 most major motion pictures are still shot on film.

Independent[link]

Independent filmmaking often takes place outside of Hollywood, or other major studio systems. An independent film (or indie film) is a film initially produced without financing or distribution from a major movie studio. Creative, business, and technological reasons have all contributed to the growth of the indie film scene in the late 20th and early 21st century.

The Lumière Brothers

On the business side, the costs of big-budget studio films also leads to conservative choices in cast and crew. There is a trend in Hollywood towards co-financing (over two-thirds of the films put out by Warner Bros. in 2000 were joint ventures, up from 10% in 1987).^[6] A hopeful director is almost never given the opportunity to get a job on a big-budget studio film unless he or she has significant industry experience in film or television. Also, the studios rarely produce films with unknown actors, particularly in lead roles.

Before the advent of digital alternatives, the cost of professional film equipment and stock was also a hurdle to being able to produce, direct, or star in a traditional studio film.

But the advent of consumer camcorders in 1985, and more importantly, the arrival of high-resolution digital video in the early 1990s, have lowered the technology barrier to movie production significantly. Both production and post-production costs have been significantly lowered; today, the hardware and software for post-production can be installed in a commodity-based personal computer. Technologies such as DVDs, FireWire connections and non-linear editing system pro-level software like Adobe Premiere Pro, Sony Vegas and Apple's Final Cut Pro, and consumer level software such as Apple's Final Cut Express and iMovie, and Microsoft's Windows Movie Maker make movie-making relatively inexpensive.

Since the introduction of DV technology, the means of production have become more democratized. Filmmakers can conceivably shoot and edit a movie, create and edit the sound and music, and mix the final cut on a home computer. However, while the means of production may be democratized, financing, distribution, and marketing remain difficult to accomplish outside the traditional system. Most independent filmmakers rely on film festivals to get their films noticed and sold for distribution. The arrival of internet-based video outlets such as YouTube and Veoh has further changed the film making landscape in ways that are still to be determined.

Open content film[link]

An open content film is much like an independent film, but it is produced through open collaborations; its source material is available under a license which is permissive enough to allow other parties to create fan fiction or derivative works, than a traditional copyright. Like independent filmmaking, open source filmmaking takes place outside of Hollywood, or other major studio systems.

Fan film[link]

A fan film is a film or video inspired by a film, television program, comic book or a similar source, created by fans rather than by the source's copyright holders or creators. Fan filmmakers have traditionally been amateurs, but some of the more notable films have actually been produced by professional filmmakers as film school class projects or as demonstration reels. Fan films vary tremendously in length, from short faux-teaser trailers for non-existent motion pictures to rarer full-length motion pictures.

Distribution[link]

When it is initially produced, a feature film is often shown to audiences in a movie theater or cinema. The identity of the first theater designed specifically for cinema is a matter of debate; candidates include Tally's Electric Theatre, established 1902 in Los Angeles,^[7] and Pittsburgh's Nickelodeon, established 1905.^[8] Thousands of such theaters were built or converted from existing facilities within a few years.^[9] In the United States, these theaters came to be known as nickelodeons, because admission typically cost a nickel (five cents).

Typically, one film is the featured presentation (or feature film). Before the 1970s, there were "double features"; typically, a high quality "A picture" rented by an independent theater for a lump sum, and a "B picture" of lower quality rented for a percentage of the gross receipts. Today, the bulk of the material shown before the feature film consists of previews for upcoming movies and paid advertisements (also known as trailers or "The Twenty").

Historically, all mass marketed feature films were made to be shown in movie theaters. The development of television has allowed films to be broadcast to larger audiences, usually after the film is no longer being shown in theaters.^{[citation needed]} In 1967, videocassettes of movies became available to consumers to watch in their own homes.^[10] Recording technology has since enabled consumers to rent or buy copies of films on VHS or DVD (and the older formats of laserdisc, VCD and SelectaVision – see also videodisc), and Internet downloads may be available and have started to become revenue sources for the film companies. Some films are now made specifically for these other venues, being released as a television movie or direct-to-video movies. The production values on these films are often considered to be of inferior quality compared to theatrical releases in similar genres, and indeed, some films that are rejected by their own movie studios upon completion are distributed through these markets.

The movie theater pays an average of about 50-55% of its ticket sales to the movie studio, as film rental fees.^[11] The actual percentage starts with a number higher than that, and decreases as the duration of a film's showing continues, as an incentive to theaters to keep movies in the theater longer. However, today's barrage of highly marketed movies ensures that most movies are shown in first-run theaters for less than 8 weeks. There are a few movies every year that defy this rule, often limited-release movies that start in only a few theaters and actually grow their theater count through good word-of-mouth and reviews. According to a 2000 study by ABN AMRO, about 26% of Hollywood movie studios' worldwide income came from box office ticket sales; 46% came from VHS and DVD sales to consumers; and 28% came from television (broadcast, cable, and pay-per-view).^[11]

This section requires expansion with: optical disc distribution.

Animation[link]

Animation is the technique in which each frame of a film is produced individually, whether generated as a computer graphic, or by photographing a drawn image, or by repeatedly making small changes to a model unit (see claymation and stop motion), and then photographing the result with a special animation camera. When the frames are strung together and the resulting film is viewed at a speed of 16 or more frames per second, there is an illusion of continuous movement (due to the persistence of vision). Generating such a film is very labor intensive and tedious, though the development of computer animation has greatly sped up the process.

Because animation is very time-consuming and often very expensive to produce, the majority of animation for TV and movies comes from professional animation studios. However, the field of independent animation has existed at least since the 1950s, with animation being produced by independent studios (and sometimes by a single person). Several independent animation producers have gone on to enter the professional animation industry.

Limited animation is a way of increasing production and decreasing costs of animation by using "short cuts" in the animation process. This method was pioneered by UPA and popularized by Hanna-Barbera, and adapted by other studios as cartoons moved from movie theaters to television.^[12]

Although most animation studios are now using digital technologies in their productions, there is a specific style of animation that depends on film. Cameraless animation, made famous by moviemakers like Norman McLaren, Len Lye and Stan Brakhage, is painted and drawn directly onto pieces of film, and then run through a projector.

Future state[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

While motion picture films have been around for more than a century, film is still a relative newcomer in the pantheon^{[clarification needed]} of fine arts. In the 1950s, when television became widely available, industry analysts^[who?] predicted the demise of local movie theaters.^{[citation needed]} Despite competition from television's increasing technological sophistication over the 1960s and 1970s^{[citation needed]} such as the development of color television and large screens, motion picture cinemas continued. In fact with the rise of television's predominance, film began to become more respected as an artistic medium by contrast due the low general opinion of the quality of average television content.^{[citation needed]} In the 1980s, when the widespread availability of inexpensive videocassette recorders enabled people to select films for home viewing, industry analysts again wrongly predicted the death of the local cinemas.^{[citation needed]}

In the 1990s and 2000s, the development of DVD players, home theater amplification systems with surround sound and subwoofers, and large LCD or plasma screens enabled people to select and view films at home with greatly improved audio and visual reproduction.^{[citation needed]} These new technologies provided audio and visual that in the past only local cinemas had been able to provide: a large, clear widescreen presentation of a film with a full-range, high-quality multi-speaker sound system. Once again industry analysts predicted the demise of the local cinema. Local cinemas will be changing in the 21st century and moving towards digital screens, a new approach which will allow for easier and quicker distribution of films (via satellite or hard disks), a development which may give local theaters a reprieve from their predicted demise.^{[citation needed]} The cinema now faces a new challenge from home video by the likes of a new high definition (HD) format, Blu-ray, which can provide full HD 1080p video playback at near cinema quality.^{[citation needed]} Video formats are gradually catching up with the resolutions and quality that film offers; 1080p in Blu-ray offers a pixel resolution of 1920×1080, a leap from the DVD offering of 720×480 and the 330×480 offered by the first home video standard, VHS.^{[citation needed]} Ultra HD, a future digital video format, will offer a resolution of 7680×4320. However, the nature and structure of film prevents an apples-to-apples comparison with regard to resolution.^[13] The resolving power of film, and its ability to capture an image which can later be scanned to a digital format, will ensure that film remains a viable medium for some time to come.^{[citation needed]} Currently the super-16 format is seeing use as a capture medium, with digital scanning and post-production providing good results.^[14][15] Despite advances in digital capture, film still offers unsurpassed ability to capture fine detail beyond what is possible with digital image sensors. A 35 mm film frame, with proper exposure and processing, still offers an equivalent resolution in the range of 500 mega pixels.^[13]

Despite the rise of all-new technologies, the development of the home video market and a surge of online copyright infringement, 2007 was a record year in film that showed the highest ever box-office grosses. Many^[who?] expected film to suffer as a result of the effects listed above but it has flourished, strengthening film studio expectations for the future.^{[citation needed]}

See also[link]

• Genre
• Fiction film basic genre
• Documentary basic genre
• Docufiction hybrid genre

• Lists

Film portal

• List of film awards
• List of film festivals
• List of film journals and magazines
• List of film topics
• List of video-related topics
• List of years in film
• Lists of films

Related topics

• Cinematic techniques
• Digital cinema
• Lost film
• Web film

Notes[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Find more about Film on Wikipedia's sister projects:
	Definitions and translations from Wiktionary
	Images and media from Commons
	Learning resources from Wikiversity
	News stories from Wikinews
	Quotations from Wikiquote
	Source texts from Wikisource
	Textbooks from Wikibooks

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• Allmovie – Information on films: actors, directors, biographies, reviews, cast and production credits, box office sales, and other movie data.
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Lindsay Lohan
Lohan at a New York Fashion Week fashion show, September 2011.
Born	(1986-07-02) July 2, 1986 (age 25) New York City, United States
Occupation	Actress, singer, model
Years active	1989–present
Parents	Michael Lohan Dina Lohan
Relatives	Aliana Lohan (sister)
Website
www.lindsaylohan.com

Lindsay Lohan ( /ˈloʊ.ən/;^[1] born July 2, 1986)^[2] is an American actress, recording artist, and model. She began her career as a child fashion model before making her motion picture debut in Walt Disney's 1998 remake of The Parent Trap at the age of 11. Lohan gained further fame with leading roles in the films Freaky Friday (2003), Mean Girls (2004), and Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005). In 2006 she appeared in independent films including Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion and Emilio Estevez's Bobby. In 2004, Lohan launched a second career as a recording artist with her debut album Speak, which was followed by A Little More Personal (Raw) in 2005.

In 2007, her career was interrupted when two driving under the influence (DUI) incidents and three visits to rehabilitation facilities led to the loss of several movie deals. Resuming her career, she guest starred in the TV series Ugly Betty in 2008, and starred in the TV comedy film Labor Pains in 2009. In 2010, she appeared in Robert Rodriguez's film Machete. She has attracted a great deal of publicity, particularly surrounding her personal life.

Life and career[link]

Early life and education[link]

Lohan was born in New York City and grew up in Merrick and Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island, New York.^[2][3] She is the eldest child of Donata "Dina" (née Sullivan) and Michael Lohan. Lindsay has three younger siblings, all of whom have been models or actors: Michael Jr. (who appeared with Lindsay in The Parent Trap), Aliana "Ali", and Dakota "Cody", the youngest Lohan child. Lohan is of Irish and Italian heritage and was raised as a Catholic.^[4] Her maternal family were "well known Irish Catholic stalwarts" and her great-grandfather, John L. Sullivan, was a co-founder of the Pro-life Party in Long Island.^[5] Lohan attended Cold Spring Harbor High School, where she did well in science and mathematics,^[6] until grade 11, when she started homeschooling.^[7]

Lohan's parents have a turbulent history. They married in 1985, separated when she was three, and later reunited.^[8][9] They separated again in 2005 and finalized their divorce in 2007.^[10][11] Her father, Michael, is a former Wall Street trader who has been in trouble with the law on several occasions,^[8][12] while her mother, Dina, is a former singer and dancer.^[6]

[edit] 1989–2002: Early career and The Parent Trap

Lohan began her career as a child model with Ford Models at the age of three.^[13][14] She modeled for Calvin Klein Kids and Abercrombie kids, and appeared in over 100 television commercials,^[6] including those for Pizza Hut and Wendy's, as well as a Jell-O spot with Bill Cosby. By the age of 10, when Lohan played Alexandra "Alli" Fowler in the series Another World, Soap Opera Magazine said she was already considered a show-business veteran.^[13][14]

Lohan remained in the role for a year, before leaving to star in Disney's 1998 family comedy The Parent Trap, a remake of the 1961 movie. She played dual roles of estranged twins who try to reunite their long-divorced parents, played by Dennis Quaid and Natasha Richardson.^[4][13] The film earned $92 million worldwide, and critic Kenneth Turan called Lohan "the soul of this film as much as Hayley Mills was of the original", going on to say that "she is more adept than her predecessor at creating two distinct personalities".^[15][16] The film won Lohan a Young Artist Award for best performance in a feature film^[17] as well as a three-film contract with Disney.^[6]

At the age of 14, Lohan played Bette Midler's daughter in the pilot episode of the short-lived series, Bette, but resigned her role when the production moved from New York to Los Angeles.^[4][18] She also starred in two Disney television movies: Life-Size opposite Tyra Banks in 2000, and Get a Clue in 2002.^[13][14]

[edit] 2003–04: Freaky Friday, Mean Girls and Speak

Lohan in 2002

Lohan starred as Anna Coleman alongside Jamie Lee Curtis in the 2003 family comedy Freaky Friday. At Lohan's own initiative, her character was rewritten and changed from a Goth style to be more relatable.^[19] Critic Roger Ebert wrote that Lohan "has that Jodie Foster sort of seriousness and intent focus beneath her teenage persona."^[20] Freaky Friday earned Lohan the award for Breakthrough Performance at the 2004 MTV Movie Awards^[21] and, as of 2010^[update], it remains her most commercially successful film, earning $160 million worldwide^[22] as well as an 88 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.^[23]

Aiming to become a triple threat — actor, singer and dancer, similar to Ann-Margret and Marilyn Monroe — Lohan began showcasing her singing through her acting.^[24] For the Freaky Friday soundtrack, she sang the closing theme, "Ultimate,"^[6] as well as recording four songs for the Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen soundtrack. Producer Emilio Estefan, Jr. signed Lohan to a five-album production deal in 2002.^[6] Two years later, Lohan signed a recording contract with Casablanca Records, headed by Tommy Mottola.^[25]

In 2004, Lohan had two lead roles. The first, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, earned a domestic box office total of $29 million, with Brandon Gray of Box Office Mojo commenting that it was "well above expectations as it was strictly for young girls."^[26] The film overall, however, did not meet with critical acclaim.^[27] Robert K. Elder of Metromix wrote that, "though still a promising star, Lohan will have to do a little penance before she's forgiven for Confessions."^[28]

The teen comedy Mean Girls was Lohan's first movie independent of Disney. The film was a critical and commercial success, grossing $129 million worldwide and, according to Brandon Gray, "cementing her status as the new teen movie queen,"^[26][29][30] while Steve Rhodes wrote that "Lohan dazzles us once more. The smartly written script is a perfect match for her intelligent brand of comedy."^[31] Lohan received four awards at the 2004 Teen Choice Awards for Freaky Friday and Mean Girls, including Breakout Movie Star.^[32] Mean Girls also earned her two awards at the 2005 MTV Movie Awards, Best Female Performance and Best On-Screen Team along with several other cast members.^[33]

Lohan, then 17, became the youngest host of the MTV Movie Awards in 2004.^[34] Following Mean Girls, which was scripted by Tina Fey and featured several alumni of Saturday Night Live, Lohan hosted the show three times between 2004 and 2006, as well as hosting the 2006 World Music Awards.^[35]

Speak, Lohan's début album, was released in December 2004, peaking at number four on the Billboard 200^[36] and earning Platinum certification by early 2005.^[6] Lohan cowrote six of the twelve songs on the album. The album was praised by Linda McGee of RTÉ, who awarded it 4 out of 5 stars and commented that "Speak opens with all the raw emotion and teenage angst that you'd expect from an artist of Lohan's age," and that, "while her vocals are not sensational, their gritty edge keeps Lohan more than afloat throughout this album"^[37] as well as comparing the album to the early music of Avril Lavigne.^[37] Allmusic, however, awarded it 2 out of 5 stars and claimed the album "feels more like a byproduct of an overdriven, overamplified celebrity culture than an actual album."^[38] Though primarily a pop album, Speak was introduced with the single "Rumors." Described by Rolling Stone as "a bass-heavy, angry club anthem,"^[39] "Rumors" details Lohan's complaints with the paparazzi^[40] and eventually earned a Gold certification in the United States.^[41]

While shooting Herbie: Fully Loaded in 2004, Lohan was hospitalized with a kidney infection brought on by stress in her personal life and of recording her first album while the film was in production, prompting Vanity Fair to label it Lohan's "first disastrous shoot."^[42] The magazine also described how Lohan terminated the promotional tour and was de-emphasized on the movie poster due to "un-Disney-like behavior."^[42] Lohan began dating actor Wilmer Valderrama in 2004, guest-starring in an episode of That '70s Show, of which Valderrama was a regular.^[43] According to Vanity Fair, the breakup with Valderrama contributed to Lohan's issues during the shooting of Herbie: Fully Loaded.^[42]

With Mean Girls, Lohan's public profile was raised significantly and paparazzi began following her.^[44] She spent several years living out of hotels in Los Angeles, of which two years were spent at Chateau Marmont. In late 2007, after settling down in more permanent residence, she explained that she spent so much time in hotels because she "didn't want to be alone" but that "it wasn't a way of life ... not very consistent."^[45][46][47] Lohan has had a series of car accidents that have been widely reported, with minor crashes in August 2004,^[48] October 2005,^[49] and November 2006, when Lohan suffered minor injuries because a paparazzo who was following her for a photograph hit her car. Police called the crash intentional, but prosecutors said there was not enough evidence to file criminal charges.^[50]

[edit] 2005: Herbie: Fully Loaded and A Little More Personal (Raw)

Herbie, the car that appears with Lohan in Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005)

Lohan returned to Disney in 2005 for Herbie: Fully Loaded, the fifth film in the series with the anthropomorphic car Herbie. Fully Loaded earned $144 million worldwide and received mixed reviews.^[51][52] Stephen Holden of The New York Times called Lohan "a genuine star who ... seems completely at home on the screen",^[53] while James Berardinelli wrote that, "as bright a starlet as she may be, Lohan ends up playing second fiddle to the car."^[54] In 2005, Lohan became the first person to have a My Scene celebrity doll released by Mattel. She also voiced herself in the animated direct-to-DVD film My Scene Goes Hollywood, based on the series of dolls.^[55]

Lohan's second album, A Little More Personal (Raw), was released in December 2005, debuting at number 20 on the Billboard 200 chart, falling under the top 100 within six weeks.^[6] Lohan cowrote six of the twelve songs on the album. Slant Magazine called the album "contrived ... for all the so-called weighty subject matter, there's not much meat on these bones."^[56] The album was certified Gold in early 2006.^[57] The music video for the album's first single, "Confessions of a Broken Heart (Daughter to Father)", was directed by Lohan and featured the acting debut of her sister, Ali Lohan.^[6] The video was a dramatization of the pain Lohan says her family has suffered at the hands of her father.^[58] It was Lohan's first song to chart on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 57.^[59]

Lohan's parents legally separated in December 2005 and finalized their divorce in 2007.^[10][11] Lohan spoke in 2007 about her childhood: "I feel like a second parent in the sense that I helped raise my family...I was put between my mother and father a lot. Well, I would put myself between them to try and keep the peace, and I felt good doing that."^[60] Despite the conflicts, Lohan calls herself "a family girl" and has spoken very fondly of her family, including her father.^[61][62] However, in 2007 and again in 2008 she stated that she was no longer in contact with him, describing his unpredictable behavior as hard to deal with.^[63][64][65] In November 2009, her father released recordings of private phone calls with and about Lohan to the media.^[66] She commented on Twitter: "I haven't had a real relationship w/Michael Sr. in years."^[67]

Lohan's next widely released film, the romantic comedy Just My Luck, opened in May 2006 and, according to Variety, earned Lohan over $7 million.^[68] The opening weekend box office takings of $5.7 million "broke lead actress Lindsay Lohan's winning streak" according to Brandon Gray.^[69] The film received poor reviews and earned Lohan her first Golden Raspberry nomination for worst actress.^[70][71]

2006–07: Independent movies and career interruptions[link]

Lohan in 2006

Following Just My Luck, Lohan focused on smaller roles in more mature, independent movies.^[72] Robert Altman's ensemble comedy A Prairie Home Companion, in which Lohan co-stars with Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin, had a limited release in June 2006. Peter Travers wrote for Rolling Stone that "Lohan rises to the occasion, delivering a rock-the-house version of 'Frankie and Johnny'."^[73] Co-star Streep said of Lohan's acting: "She's in command of the art form" and "completely, visibly living in front of the camera."^[74] The Emilio Estevez drama Bobby was released in theaters in November 2006. Lohan received favorable comments for her performance, particularly a scene opposite Sharon Stone.^[75][76] As part of the Bobby ensemble cast, Lohan was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award and won an award for Ensemble Acting at the Hollywood Film Festival where she also won a Breakout Award for her work in 2006.^[77][78]

Lohan's next appearance was in Chapter 27 as a John Lennon fan who befriends Mark David Chapman (Jared Leto) on the day he murders Lennon. Filming finished in early 2006, but was not released until March 2008 due to difficulties in finding a distributor.^[79][80][81] In May 2007, the drama Georgia Rule, in which Lohan stars alongside Felicity Huffman and Jane Fonda, was released. Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly wrote that "Lohan hits a true note of spiteful princess narcissism."^[82] During filming in 2006, Lohan was hospitalized, her representative saying "she was overheated and dehydrated."^[83] At the time Lohan was going through a breakup with restaurant owner Harry Morton.^[84] This contributed to her problems on the set according to Allure.^[60] In a letter that was made public, studio executive James G. Robinson called Lohan "irresponsible and unprofessional." He mentioned "various late arrivals and absences from the set" and that "we are well aware that your ongoing all night heavy partying is the real reason for your so-called 'exhaustion'."^[85] Co-star Fonda later commented that "when she showed up on the set, she was always great."^[86]

In 2006, Lohan attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.^[87] Lohan, who has suffered from asthma since the age of two, is also a smoker.^[88][89] In early January 2007, production on the film I Know Who Killed Me was put on hold when Lohan underwent appendix surgery.^[90][91][92] Later in the month, Lohan admitted herself to the Wonderland Center rehabilitation facility. Lohan checked out on February 16, 2007 after completing a 30-day stay.^[93][94] During the stay she continued shooting the film, returning to the facility at night.^[95][96] Shortly thereafter, Lohan withdrew from a film adaptation of Oscar Wilde's A Woman of No Importance, her publicist stating that Lohan needed to "focus on getting better."^[97][98] Lohan was replaced in The Edge of Love in April 2007, shortly before filming was to begin, with the director citing "insurance reasons" and Lohan later explaining that she "was going through a really bad time then."^{[99][100][101]} In May 2007, Lohan first dated British TV personality Calum Best.^[102]

Lohan was then cast in the film Poor Things.^[103] On May 26, four days before production was set to start, she was arrested for DUI and subsequently re-entered rehab. The film's producers initially voiced support and production was put on hold.^{[104][105][106]} Lohan had lost control of her car and run the vehicle up a curb. Beverly Hills police also found what they preliminarily identified as a "usable" amount of cocaine in her car. After receiving treatment for minor injuries, Lohan was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of driving under the influence of alcohol.^[107] She subsequently entered the Promises Treatment Center rehabilitation facility, where she stayed for 45 days.^[108][109] Upon her release to outpatient care, Lohan was voluntarily fitted with a SCRAM bracelet to monitor her sobriety.^[110][111]

On July 24, 2007, three weeks before filming was scheduled to resume on Poor Things, Lohan was arrested for a second DUI and again returned to rehabilitation.^[112] Lohan refused a field sobriety test in Santa Monica and was taken to a police station where her blood alcohol level was found to be above the legal limit. While conducting a search, the police found a small amount of cocaine in her pocket.^{[110][111][113]} Lohan was booked on a felony charge of possession of cocaine and misdemeanor charges of driving under the influence and driving with a suspended license.^[113][114] In August 2007, Lohan entered Cirque Lodge Treatment Center in Sundance, Utah for a third stint at rehabilitation, staying until discharge on October 5, 2007.^[115] Ultimately, The Hollywood Reporter said, she "fell out of" the Poor Things production.^[116] Later in 2007, Lohan dated then snowboarder Riley Giles, whom she met during rehab.^[117]

In the wake of her second DUI arrest, Lohan withdrew from a scheduled appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in which she had been due to promote I Know Who Killed Me, a low-budget thriller-mystery in which she stars as a stripper with a dual personality.^[118] The film premiered to what Entertainment Weekly called "an abysmal $3.5 million."^[119] It earned Lohan a dual Razzie nomination for Worst Actress, with Lohan coming first and second, tying with herself.^[120]

Hollywood executives and industry insiders commented that it would be difficult for Lohan to find employment until she could prove that she was sober and reliable, citing possible issues with securing insurance.^{[121][122][123]} Robinson, the producer who previously criticized Lohan's work ethic on Georgia Rule, said that he would work with her again if she got the proper medical care, and went on to describe her as "one of the most talented young women in the movie business today."^[119]

On August 23, 2007, Lohan pleaded guilty to misdemeanor cocaine use and driving under the influence and was sentenced to one day imprisonment and 10 days' community service. She was also ordered to pay fines and complete an alcohol education program, and was given three years probation. Lohan released a statement in which she said "it is clear to me that my life has become completely unmanageable because I am addicted to alcohol and drugs."^[124] On November 15, 2007, Lohan served 84 minutes in jail. A sheriff spokesman cited overcrowding and the nonviolent nature of the crime as reasons for the reduced sentence.^[125] The probation was extended by an additional year in October 2009, following several instances in which Lohan failed to attend the court-ordered substance abuse treatment classes.^[126]

Following a switch to Universal Motown, Lohan began working on a third album, tentatively titled Spirit in the Dark, in late 2007. In May 2008 the single "Bossy" was released, which reached number one on the US Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart.^{[127][128][129][130][131]} In November 2008, Lohan said that work on the album had stalled and that she wanted to avoid the stress of working on movies and music at the same time.^[132]

2008–09: Television appearances and fashion[link]

In May 2008, Lohan made her first screen appearance since I Know Who Killed Me, on ABC's television series Ugly Betty.^[133] She guest starred in four episodes, spanning seasons two and three in 2008, as Kimmie Keegan, an old schoolmate of the protagonist Betty Suarez.^[133] Lohan made a cameo appearance in the drug themed music video for the May 2008 N*E*R*D song "Everyone Nose."^[134] Lohan has featured in various men's magazines. She was voted No.10 on the list of "100 Sexiest Women" by readers of FHM in 2005,^[135] No.13 in 2006, No.30 in 2007, and No.41 in 2008,^[136] while Maxim placed her third on its "Hot 100" list in 2006^[137] and first in 2007.^[138] In a poll by The Daily Mirror in February 2010, Lohan was voted tenth on a list of "sexiest redheads ever."^[139] Lohan has been the face of Jill Stuart, Miu Miu, and Dooney & Bourke, as well as the 2008 Visa Swap British fashion campaign^[140][141] as well as being the face of Italian clothing company Fornarina for its Spring/Summer 2009 campaign.^[140]

Lohan named her clothing collection 6126 after the birthdate of Marilyn Monroe (pictured) whom Lohan greatly admires

Lohan has a long-lasting fascination with Marilyn Monroe going back to when she saw Niagara during The Parent Trap shoot.^[142] In the 2008 Spring Fashion edition of New York magazine, Lohan re-created Monroe's final photo shoot, known as The Last Sitting, including nudity, saying that the photo shoot was "an honor".^[142] The New York Times critic Ginia Bellafante found it disturbing, saying "the pictures ask viewers to engage in a kind of mock necrophilia. ... At 21 [Lohan] seems even older than Monroe, who was 36 in the originals ... [and] the photographs bear none of Monroe's fragility".^[143] In 2008, Lohan launched a clothes line, whose name 6126 was designed to represent Monroe's birth date (June 1, 1926). The line started with leggings, before expanding to a full collection, covering 280 pieces as of April 2010^[update].^{[144][145][146]} In April 2009, Lohan released a self-tanning spray under the brand name Sevin Nyne in collaboration with Sephora.^[147][148] In September 2009, Lohan became an artistic adviser for the French fashion house Emanuel Ungaro;^[149] a collection by designer Estrella Archs with Lohan as adviser was presented in October, receiving a "disastrous" reception, according to Entertainment Weekly and New York.^[150][151] Lohan left the company in March 2010.^[152]

During the 2008 US presidential campaign, Lohan offered her services to Barack Obama's election effort, including hosting events aimed at young voters; but her offer was declined. An unnamed source within the Obama campaign told the Chicago Sun-Times that Lohan was "not exactly the kind of high-profile star who would be a positive for us."^[153] She nonetheless posted MySpace blogs with her opinions on the election, urging voters to support Obama, criticizing media coverage of vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, and describing Palin as homophobic, anti-abortion and anti-environmentalist.^{[154][155][156][157]} Lohan had previously expressed an interest in going to Iraq, during the Iraq War in 2006, on a USO tour with Hillary Clinton.^[158] Back in 2004, Lohan stated that she did not like to talk about politics in order to avoid alienating any part of her fanbase.^[159]

Lohan dated DJ Samantha Ronson in 2008 and 2009.^[160][161] Lohan co-hosted club events with Ronson and accompanied her when she was DJ-ing.^[162][163] Speaking about her sexual orientation, Lohan has said she is not a lesbian. When asked if she is bisexual, she responded "Maybe. Yeah", adding "I don't want to classify myself."^[160] In April 2009, following her breakup with Ronson, Lohan appeared in a skit on the comedy website Funny or Die. The self-deprecating video is a spoof of the personal ads on dating website eHarmony.^[164] It was viewed 2.7 million times in the first week and received favorable comments from the media.^[165]

In the 2009 comedy Labor Pains, Lohan plays a woman who pretends to be pregnant. During the shoot, Lohan's manager worked with the paparazzi to encourage the media to show her working, as opposed to partying.^[166] It was originally planned for a theatrical release, but instead appeared as a TV movie on the ABC Family cable channel in July 2009, "a setback for the star" according to Variety.^[167][168] The premiere received 2.1 million viewers, "better-than-average" for the channel according to E! Online.^[169] Joanna Weiss of The Boston Globe commented that Lohan "looks to be coasting through a part that requires little effort, anyway".^[170] Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times said "this is not a triumphant return of a prodigal child star. ... [Labor Pains] never shakes free of the heavy baggage Ms. Lohan brings to the role".^[171]