The Story Of Film: An Odyssey December 19–29, 2013

With The Story of Film, Istanbul Modern Cinema invites viewers to a 15-hour documentary marathon tracing the entire history of world cinema from its beginnings to the present. The film, directed over the course of five years by Mark Cousins based on his book of the same title, explores cinematic innovations while examining how filmmakers are influenced both by the historical events of their times and by one another. Spanning from the early days of the silent era to the emergence of Hollywood and the star system, the film covers the artistic evolution of cinema in Russia, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, Britain, Scandinavia, and the USA. The Story of Film takes the viewer on an engrossing worldwide tour of the greatest films ever made while disrupting the existing perception of European and America-centric film to offer a more global approach to the history of the “Seventh Art.”

Based on the idea of writing “a more accessible, jargon-free history of film” the documentary visits the key sites in the history of cinema and features superb archive footage as well as interviews with legendary filmmakers and actors such as Bernardo Bertolucci, Jane Campion, Gus van Sant, Lars Von Trier, Claire Denis, Stanley Donen, and Claudia Cardinale.

Episode 1: Birth of Cinema (1900-1920)
In this first episode the director looks at how cinema was born. Filmed in “movie cathedrals,” where the first movies were made, the episode shows the very first movie stars, the birth of the close-up and special effects, and how Hollywood became a myth.

Episode 2: The Hollywood Dream (the 1920s)
While Hollywood became a glittering entertainment industry with directors such as Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, we also see movie makers such as Robert Flaherty, Eric Von Stroheim, and Carl Theodor Dreyer who challenged this fantasy and who maintained that films should be more “serious.”And yes, in this episode we do witness some of the greatest movies ofall time.

Episode 3: Expressionism, Impressionism, Surrealism: The Golden Age of World Cinema (the 1920s)
The 1920s were the golden age of cinema.From Moscow to Berlin, the episode explores directors who pushed the boundaries of the newly-discovered medium. German expressionism, Soviet montage, and French impressionism were the new film movements;yet the program does not forget about less well known Chinese and Japanese film masters of that time.

Episode 4: The Arrival of Sound (the 1930s)
The arrival of sound changed everything for cinema. This episode revisits film genres: Comedies, gangster pictures, horror films, westerns, and musicals.It also features the master of masters Howard Hawks. While far away from Hollywood, in England, Hitchcock charted his owncourse,French directors were becoming masters of mood.The episode also explains what three of the greatest films made in 1939 have in common.

Episode 5: Post-War Cinema (the 1940s)
This episode shows how the trauma of war made cinema more daring. It moves from Italy to Hollywood, and from Orson Wells to the dark American film, and reflects the drama of the McCarthy era. Stanley Donen, director ofSingin’ in the Rain, talksexclusively about his career.

Episode 6: Sex and Melodrama (the 1950s)
Sex and melodrama predominated in the movies of the 1950s. The episode starts with James Dean and commemorates the glossy titles of the period but also travels to countries such as Egypt, Mexico, and Japan to explore their movies full of passion and rage. The episode features interviews with the people who worked with Satyajit Ray and figures such as legendary actress Kyoko Kagawa, who starred in films by Akira Kurosawa andYasujiroOzu.

Episode 7: European New Wave (the 1960s)
From the 50s we move to the 60s.Italian movie star Claudia Cardinale talks exclusively about Federico Fellini. Meanwhile in Denmark, while Lars Von Trier describes his admiration for Ingmar Bergman, Bernardo Bertolucci recounts his work with Pier Paolo Pasolini.The episode observes how French filmmakers planted a bomb under the movies and how the new wave swept across Europe.

Episode 8: New Directors, New Form (the 1960s)
We follow the story of the dazzling 1960s in cinema around the world. While it is discussed how documentary influenced mainstream movies in Hollywood,Easy Rider and 2001: A Space Odyssey indicatethe beginnings of a new era in American cinema. African cinema is born, simultaneously with the films of Roman Polanski, Andrei Tarkovsky, and NagisaOshima.

Episode 9: American Cinema of the 1970s
In the 1970s we see a maturing American cinema. While Buck Henry, who wrote The Graduate, talks about satire in moviesat that time, Paul Schrader talks about his screenplay for Taxi Driver.

Episode 10: Movies to Change the World (the 1970s)
The story of the movies that tried to change the world in the 70s… The episode starts in Germany with WimWenders, then moves to Ken Loach in Britain, continues to the beginnings of new Australian cinema, and stops in Japan.

Episode 11: The Arrival of Multiplexes and the Asian Mainstream (the 1970s)
The episode begins by talking about the creativity of films such as Star Wars, Jaws, and The Exorcist. It then mentions the world's most famous movie star, Amitabh Bachchan, and Bollywood’s new approach to film in those years. This is followed by a look at the kinetic energy of Bruce Lee movies and Hong Kong cinemaand a talk with Master Yuen Wo Ping about his action movies and his choreography for The Matrix.

Episode 12: Fight the Power: Protest in Film (the 1980s)
With Ronald Reagan in the White House and Margaret Thatcher in Britain, the 80s brought protest to the fore in the movies. American independent director John Sayles talks about these years, during which Chinese cinema was blossoming in Beijing and Krzysztof Kieslowski emerged in Poland.

Episode 13: New Boundaries: World Cinema in Africa, Asia, and Latin America (the 1990s)
Cinema entered a new golden age in the 1990s. The episode starts in Iran with Abbas Kiarostami.Wethen meet Shinji Tsukamoto, one of the founders of the bold new Japanese horror cinema. From there we move to Paris for a talk with Claire Denis.

Episode 14: New American Independents and the Digital Revolution (the 1990s)
This episode features playful, flashy examples of Anglo-Saxoncinema while also looking at Tarantino’s dialogue and the edge of the Coen brothers. The writer of Starship Troopers and Robocop discusses the irony in his texts while in Australia, BazLuhrmann talks about Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge. The episode ends with an exploration of how the digital world will shapecinema.

Episode 15: Cinema Today and the Future (the 2000s)
With this final episode the history of film is closed for the time being. While American movies get more serious after 9/11, Romanian films come to the fore. David Lynch makes Mulholland Drive, one of the most complex dream films in history, and Inception turns film into a game.With Alexander Sokurov’s innovative language as its point of departure, this final episode attempts to look at the future of film through its present.