Yasujiro Ozu's I Was Born But... (1932) uses a specific tool of moral instruction as mentioned in "Film Form: Genre and Narrative". When I viewed Ozu's early film one thing that stood out to me was the bullies. There is a complex dynamic between the two brothers and the bullies. Eventually, it changes into the two boys who were previously bullied having the upper hand; being able to play the little 'resurrection' game, and no longer being pushed around by the big kid on the block.
Simple themes and messages of Ozu's film seem to teach about reconciliation and even respect in familial settings. Aside from their situation with the neighborhood boys Keiji and Ryoichi loose respect for their father acting silly on screen while they are invited over to watch home videos with friends. They loose faith in their father for a short while and then eventually commune over food to be in good company with their father again.
The Great Train Robbery (Edwin S. Porter/ Edison Studios, 1903) involves a combination of genres that contribute to the development of narrative in cinema. As explained in this weeks context the film takes the railway genre and the chase genre and essentially puts them together to elaborate upon storytelling. The Great Train Robbery shows multiple perspectives of what is occurring over the duration of the film. For example; the moment the robbers hold the man in the room at gunpoint is much different from the perspective of the group of individuals, at what looks like a local tavern, having a ball. This film gives you the perspective of both the antagonists (the train robbers) and the protagonists (the men who have a shoot out against the train robbers).
What I like about these films is the way that they really demonstrate the diversity of approaches to the development of a screen language for narrative film. So many family dramas continue to have the shape that Ozu's thoughtful film gives us while The Great Train Robbery gives us the shape for the western specifically but the action film more specifically. Its amazing to me how quickly narrative film develops during the silent era!
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