In general, the history of cinema seems to be more significantly linked to dieselpunk and cyberpunk as opposed to steampunk. This isn’t surprising, considering cinema isn’t considered to have entered its prime until the 1920s, around the beginning of the “dieselpunk” era. However, it’s important to remember that in 1895, the Lumière brothers held their first public film screening, some thirty years before the Golden Age of Silent Film.

Those very first films were admittedly basic. Until Georges Méliès, most films amounted to simply documentary-like shots of people walking, vehicles moving, etc. These were all single shot features recording directly from real life. Aesthetically, these films have very little available to discuss. Nothing really happens beyond the very simple description of “it’s a moving picture,” emphasis on “moving.” It is thus the audience that deserve the most of our attention, and therefore why these early films can be seen as essentially steampunk.

There is a rumour that, while watching the Lumière Brother’s film Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station (1895), audience members believed the train approaching the camera was in fact about to ram through the screen and into the crowd. Legend has it that they fled from their seats in terror. Of course, this is just a myth. Everyone knew the train was not a real threat—it was flat, black & white, soundless, and started out as a stationary projection before beginning its motion. However, the hidden truth to this myth is that this new technology was frightening and astounding. It wasn’t the train that scared people, nor did they flee the theatre, but they were shocked the moment that static projection begins to move, as if by magic. They had never really seen this before.

These first years of cinema were all about spectacle, which also lies to some extent in the appeal of steampunk. Both share an optimistic fascination with the rapid progression of technology. The same wonderment towards the scientific world that gave birth to such fanciful creations as the airship lies in the initial appeal of cinema. People did not go to the theatre to see “a good movie,” they went to marvel at the process itself.

It is then, perhaps, with even greater clarity that we can look at Georges Méliès and his infamous films, such as A Trip to the Moon (1905). At this point, the pure novelty may have been dying out, but his films gave the media fresh life. No longer was it simply the spectacle of movement, but of the special effects, the tricks of the lens. Like a magic show, people knew the images before them were fabricated, but they didn’t always know how. While his tricks seem basic now, such as jump cuts (where the camera is turned off, an object or person added or removed to the frame, and then turned back on) where the first special effects, and they left audiences in awe. The moon dwellers would seem to vanish in a puff of smoke when struck with a weapon. And by golly, they were walking about on the moon.

Of course, such narratives also reflected a steampunk sensibility. A Trip to the Moon is a story of space conquest at a time when such an event was merely a dream in the hearts of men. Like the moving picture, it represented something unworldly and incredible. Perhaps they didn’t realize they might live to see man really set foot on the moon, but as they sat there watching the projected likenesses of men move and gesticulate before them, they most likely thought to themselves, “Perhaps this isn’t so impossible a dream either.” Within them was a sense of both adoration and fear—technology was advancing exponentially. It was alive and moving. For the first time in history, the sky really was the limit.

If asked what my favourite movement in American cinema was, the answer would definitively be, “Well, film noir, of course!” Honestly, what movement is more of an American classic? Just like its French-given name of “film noir” demanding those silly italics, it’s likewise ironic that my favourite film noir is ostensibly British in origin: The Third Man (1949). I say ostensibly because The Third Man could be considered a transnational production. Yes, the producers and director Carol Reed were British, and the story and script belongs to Graham Greene, but the setting of post-war Austria helps to create an transnational appeal. The roster of actors include not only the English Trevor Howard; but also Italian Alida Valli; Austrian-Hungarians Paul Hörbiger, Ernst Deutsch, and Siegfried Breuer; German Erich Ponto; and in two of its most important and pivotal roles, Americans Joseph Cotton and Orson Welles. Not to mention the fantastic zither soundtrack by Austrian Anton Karas and the beautiful cinematography by Australian Robert Krasker.

If you can’t tell, I love this film, and I love it precisely for all those names above. This is not the work of a single, great mind. Arguably no film is, but this is easy for me to forget when the directors are such legends of cinema as Akira Kurosawa or Ingmar Bergman. I sometimes forget when watching Rashomon (1950), that it’s not just the direction of Kurosawa that made it great. The cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa had a large role to play, along with the stellar performances by Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyo, Masayuki Mori, Takashi Shimura, and Minoru Chiaki.

The Third Man comes forth as a collaboration of so many greats. Of course, I have to give plenty of credit to Greene. It is his writing that, in my opinion, helps set this film apart from other films noir, for the mysteries and themes are complex and deeply woven in the expertly crafted story. Yes, I love film noir for its shadowy aesthetics and ambiguous morality, but that is precisely because it reflects the dark, complex storytelling. Well, sometimes. Not all films noir are the greatest examples of masterful storytelling. I still love it for its look, drama, and suspense, but all those things are heightened to pure excellence when portrayed through a script by a skilled writer like Greene. I cannot state enough how much this makes The Third Man an absolute favourite for me.

That said, I can’t discredit the cinematographer Krasker, whose at times criticized love of dutch angel shots (where the floor is no longer level with the bottom of the frame) and excellent handling of the chase scenes creates a true treat for the eyes. Nor should I forget the fantastic acting in the film, with the unforgettable characters of Holly Martins (Cotton), Harry Lime (Welles), Anna Schmidt (Valli), and Major Calloway (Howard). For that matter, all those names above and many others went into making this film a classic, as it is with most classics.

Honestly, I could go on about this film, but I feel I’ve hyped it enough. Hopefully, those of you who have not seen this film yet will not expect too much from The Third Man. That said, I cannot recommend it enough, and for me, this film ranks up with Citizen Kain and Casablanca as some of the biggest classics of the Golden Era of Cinema.

As a final note, I watched this movie on Criterion Collection’s BluRay release, and I have to say that while certainly a bit sharper, I didn’t feel like it was adding anything I had missed on DVD format. Perhaps it’ll allow those two-disc sets with the film on one disc and special features on the other to be condensed onto the larger data storage space of a single BluRay. Of course, regardless, BluRay is the future. Just as with VHS to DVD, new DVD releases will slowly be phased out, and by then the price difference will reach such a point that none of us will really care. Perhaps then, when I have an extensive BluRay collection and I watch my old DVDs again, they will look as poor in quality as my old VHS tapes look now. But for an old black & white classic like The Third Man, well… don’t rush out to buy a BluRay player just yet. But if you’ve got a PS3 already and you’ve got a chance to watch the BluRay version, I must admit, the menus were very pretty.

While perhaps not as widely referenced as Casablanca, Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976) is a classic in its own right. Certainly, this is a different era of filmmaking altogether. A lot of time has passed; new techniques, technologies, and styles have developed, flourished, and sometimes faded; this is a new generation of directors.

Most notably, this marks a generation of filmmakers who have been constantly submerged and aware of cinema their entire lives. I recall seeing an interview with Scorsese, which I unfortunately was not able to dig up, in which he spoke about growing up watching films noir at a very young age. It’s not surprising, then, that this genre (or is it a movement? I haven’t defined this for myself yet) would later influence his works.

Arguably, Taxi Driver is his best known and most noir work. It’s also one of the greatest and most quintessential films to feature Robert DeNiro, who stars as the film’s bizarre lead, Travis Bickle.

The film is undeniably all about Travis, whose real life idolizers never cease to amaze me. While I would certainly call Travis an interesting and surprisingly likeable character, one worthy of praise he isn’t. Simply put, the case of Travis Bickle is a view into the mind of an antisocial. Keep in mind that I’m using that word scientifically—not the “shy kid,” but rather the one who blows frogs apart with firecrackers and seems to lack any sense of remorse for hurting his fellow man. Antisocial disorder is defined in the APA’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual as being “a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others.” Perhaps he’s not a lost case in this regard, but he definitely exhibits some of the signs.

What makes the film and the character so interesting is something with which fans of film noir should be familiar—the subjective voice. For those who don’t understand this term, let me quickly clarify. The subjective voice refers to the idea of who is “narrating” the story. In film, this may not be readily obvious, even with voice-over narration, which Taxi Driver includes through letters and diary entries by Travis. What it means is, whose point of view are we seeing in the film? Is it a general, omniscient narrator who seems impartial to the events overall, merely presenting them to us, or are the images comingled with the bias of the character or characters?

Here, we see the bias of Travis, who like many noir males is almost constantly present on the screen. In general, we as the audience receive information only as Travis learns it himself. Also, the films noir-esque visuals of dark city streets and dim interiors begins to not only act as a nod to that older style, but also to help us see things through Travis’s eyes. Like the world of those post-war classics, Travis sees New York City as disgusting, filthy, and depraved. Ten years before Rorschach’s words, “The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown,” were even written, and 33 years before they were made icon through a gruff voice, Travis uttered, “All the animals come out at night—whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets.” And in 1949, Harry Lime of The Third Man posited, “Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots [people below] stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money? Or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare?” After 60+ years, we’re still dealing with the dark side of the world, and in the process we just keep coming back to that noir flare.

Speaking of quotes, if you’ve ever wondered where “You talking to me? Well I’m the only one here,” comes from, this is it.

Of course, Taxi Driver is not a straight neo-noir (though come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a straight neo-noir). For one, Travis isn’t a detective, he’s a taxi driver. Furthermore, as in many neo-noir, the femme fatale has been altered or removed. That character archetype seems to be mostly contained within the original films noir. The plot is notably different. Really, this film is more of an aesthetic homage than an attempt to revive the genre, but in that way it is able to succeed as both something classically influenced but also new and unique.

The movie is, honestly, pure genius, though quite dark and perhaps offensive to more prudish senses. Let’s admit it, noir was a bit lewd for its time, and this has certainly updated that to a new era. Still, while I said earlier that when asked what the most quintessentially American movies were, I cited Citizen Kane and Casablanca, I’ll admit this places things in a highly “classical” light. If you want a modern film to add to the list, try Taxi Driver. I doubt you’ll be disappointed.

Coming up next, before I turn back to the international world of cinema with some essential Bergman, I plan to write a review of the Blu-Ray edition of The Third Man to round these posts out. Also, if you want some up to date info on what I’m watching and what I’m working on for Cinema is Cinema, I’ve started a less formal blog over yonder called Cinema is Cinema, Companion Edition. So if you find yourself in need of more of my writing, feel free to head on over, but don’t worry, I won’t take it personally if you don’t.

If you’ve never heard of Michael Curtiz’s 1942 classic Casablanca, it might be worthwhile to research Golden Age Hollywood a bit. Chances are, though, this is not the first time you’ve heard mention of Casablanca. In fact, given this blog’s demographic, I’d wager many of you have already seen it, and most of the rest of you probably have this on a list of movies to watch “some day.”

However, I do find it somewhat impressive that, as I discovered while talking to those who attended my organization’s on-campus screening of Casablanca, that this movie often seems to be on that aforementioned list. That is, many people, at least around my age, seem to have “always wanted to see it,” but never have. For those of you reading this who are in that boat, I strongly urge you to remedy the situation as soon as possible.

Simply put, Casablanca is a landmark film that just about everyone needs to see. I say that not because of a personal love of the film (I do love it, but there are many others I would list before it on a compilation of my favourite films of all time) but rather because it is a cultural experience one would be remiss not to be a part of. To say that Casablanca is culturally significant is an understatement. When I was asked by a foreigner what movies are the most “American,” I instantly responded, “Citizen Kane and Casablanca.” It'’s impossible to avoid at least being aware of these films and taking part in American culture.

However, cultural relevancy aside, I have to say that Casablanca is a classic for a reason. In particular, it recalls a beautiful time in the history of Hollywood. Here we see, as Jay Sherman in The Critic puts it, “stories about people, not a hundred million dollars of stunts and explosives.” It’s a reminder that good cinema was once greatly appreciated, films driven by meaningful plots with personally relatable, human characters.

And speaking of The Critic, I think it’s important to note that Casablanca was parodied in one episode as having an ending that was too “depressing” in a scene where the finale is changed so that everything works out perfectly. It comically ends with Rick and Ilsa together, while Sam plays another song on the piano. This may seem slightly funny to those who have seen the movie, as the ending is far from a downer. Still, it suggests a time in filmmaking where a somewhat ambiguous ending was allowed. Things could end well if the character improved as a person, even if it meant he didn't get the girl.

Unfortunately, Casablanca was not the beginning of a beautiful friendship between Hollywood and good storytelling. So if, like me, you’re sick of this new trend in films, now’s the time to finally watch this classic. Furthermore, I also urge you to continue reading Cinema is Cinema for suggestions on more classics in the world of cinema.