Drama Notes

Pre-1890's:

• It was a period of experimentation, started with puppetry in ancient egypt. They used lights to project shadows.
• Everything was born out of magic lantern effect.
• Creates sense of persistence of vision

1890's:

• Edward Murray, creator of Cinema?
• Created a camera with a frame rate of 30fps
• Added motor to it
• Paris became center of cinematography
• Led to creation of CinemaScope
  

• Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince makes first film in England
  

1900's:

1910's:

1920's:

• Henry King and Alfred Hitchcock make their marks directorially
• Alan Crossland
• The Jazz Singer becomes first musical
• F.W. Murneau is widely considered best of the time period
• Charlie Chaplin, Douglass Fairbanks
• First sound films released
• Most films do not survive because they were flammable
  
• Warner Brothers creates Vitaphone to record sound
• In 1929, they still gave the oscars to a silent films

1930's:

• "The Golden Age of Hollywood"
• First drive-in theatre
• Talkies become popular
• Double-channel soundtrack
• Three Color Technicolor
• Flowers and Trees becomes first animated film.
• Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind
• "Damn" causes scandal in Hollywood in GWTW
• Snow White becomes first feature length animated film
• Clark Gable, Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney actors
• George Cooper, Jack Conway directors
• It Happened One Night sweeps Oscars
• Mr.Smith Goes to Washington
• Gangster and Horror are popular
• Charlie Chaplins continues making silent films
• The Marx Brothers and Buster Keaton dominate comedy
• Most studios die during depression
• Real world plotlines during depression

1940's:

• Charlie Chaplin surrenders in and makes first talkie(The Great Dictator)
• '40's feature star-studded extravaganzas
• Clark Gable, James Stewart, James Cagney, Bette Davis, Mickey Rooney, Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman actors
• Frank Capra directors
• Most plots take place during wartime
• A lot of wartime propaganda
• Casablanca
• Humphrey Bogart
• Film Noir

1950's:

• Drive-Ins popular featuring films that have anti-establishment themes
• Eva Gardner, John Wayne, Marilyn Monroe, and Audrey Hepburn, James Dean actors
• TV causes decline in film attendance
• Bigger Screens, 3-D's and other gimmicks attempt to bring in audience.
• Cinerama pioneers I-Max
• Epics based on Greeks, Romans, and biblical stories
• Sexuality in films becomes more significant
• Anti-Communist films
• Adult themes become more apparent in film
• Wizard of Oz(TV Version), Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, Gentlemen Prefer Blonds
• Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, and Orson Welles directors

1960's:

• Lawrence in Arabia, The Great Escape, In the Heat of the Night, To Kill a Mockingbird, 2001:A Space Odyssey, Bond films
• Julie Andrews, Audrey Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, John Wayne
• First multiplex opens in 1963 in Kansas City
• Brian DePalma's Greetings becomes first X-Rated film
• The rating system is established
• Psycho creates the slasher genre
• Pornography becomes popular
• Sex and Violence becomes popular as seen in film posters

1970's

• Tickets cost 2.50
• Jaws, Star Wars
• VHS released
• Hollywood studios no longer directly controlled productions
• Independent studios and agents were in charge of everything
• On-location filming at rented production locations
• Actors also directed, produced, and wrote their films.
• New directors create new style of art
• Look and sound surpasses plots
• Halloween changes horror
• Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather and The Godfather Part II are highly successful

1980's:

• Less experimental, more orginal
• Teenage aim
• The Brat Pack
• The Breakfast Club, Fast Times at Ridgemont High,
• Useless Sequels
  
• Film's favor Reagan's type presidency

1990's:

• Average film cost is around 53 million
• 5 dollar films
• More artistic, eccentric film
• Indy's compete with Hollywood
• VCR's owned by everyone
• 1997, first DVD made, better quality and durability.
• Special effects reach new levels
• Dreamworks is filmed in 1994
• Forrest Gump, Fight Club, Clerks, A Few Good Men
• Al Pacino, Mike Myers, Brad Pitt
• 
  

Q and A

1. Go back and reread the description of the house, the elms, etc in the beginning of the
play. How does his description match a traditional Greek play? How is it different?

It matches it because it describes things. It is different for the lack of chorus.

2. Each of the following characters suffers from definitive moments of HUBRIS. How
do each manage to overcome their HUBRIS? Abbie, Eben, and Cabot

Cabot overcomes it by dropping Abbie and Eben at the end.

Abbie overcomes it by killing her son.

Eben overcomes it by taking responsibility for his son’s death.

3. While this play is certainly not a modernization of one Greek play, it is a combination
of many. What traits and qualities of characters from Greek plays that you have read
(hint...especially a play you might have recently read...) do each of the three primary
character possess? In other words, compare the three characters in this play to
characters in classic Greek plays, and explain your answers.

Eben is to Oedipus because it is his blindness to his situation that leads to his son’s death and wife’s arrest.

Cabot is Creon because he re-enters Eben’s life and triggers the events that follows by bringing reality to him.

Abbie as Oedipus’ Mother because she dupes Eben just like how Oedipus’ mother duped him.

4. What does Eben's MAW represent? Consider what role she plays in the actions of
Eben and Abbie?

A Guardian Angel type of character

5. Why did Eben choose to have a relationship with Abbie when he all along suspected
that nothing good could possibly come from it?

It was another thing his father had. He wanted to take something that meant a lot to his father(Abbie) just like how his father took something from him(his mother).

6. Cabot is so fond of saying that "God is hard." What does he mean by that, and how
does this relate to the classic Greek plays?

Cabot means that God is a harsh God that is tough and takes nothing from anybody and punishes the soft/wicked in the eyes of Cabot and rewards people like him. How does this relate to greek plays? The Gods were always part of the fate of the person. If said-person wasn’t serving the Gods in greek theatre, they were met with a cruel fate.

BONUS: What does Californ-i-a represent, and why did Cabot want to go there, only to later say that he didn't want to go there?

Californi-a represents this new promise for a better life for Cabot. He wanted to get away from the hell he was living in to a pleasurable heaven. He changes his mind upon seeing that it would make no difference.