The French Impressionism Movement

Within this essay I’m going to discuss the history of the French Impressionism movement and further my discussion on this topic by focusing on two different sources, my first source of David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson discusses the art movement in Film Art: An Introduction and secondly, in the Mists of Regret: Culture and Sensibility in Classic French Films by Dudley Andrews. The art movement of French impressionism founded by artists within Paris during the early 1860’s. While the primary form of impressionism was presented through open air paintings, it was such a success it continued to impact on other platforms of art, particularly film after the First World War, filmmakers used impressionism to expose the psychological depth of what

Impressionist cinema is giving the audience a chance to explore things that are far from reality; surrealism. Also, photogenie represents the filmmaker’s vision and expression that cannot be found in reality. The French’s styles are a certain “precision of contour and rhythm, a mixture of darkness and poetry, occasionally a quality of eloquence” that seems to reflect upon the spectator and be theirs alone and above all, “a sense of architectural like, genius for simple sturdy

Bordwell and Thompson continue to explain how independent films was replaced with American films that were exported over developing into “Hollywood cinema dominated the market by the end of 1917.” France strived to emulate films through Hollywood production methods however was unsuccessful causing Impressionism to “emerge consisting of younger directors: Abel Gance, Louis Dellac…” It could be suggested that from Bordwell and Thompson that the war had a greater effect psychologically upon the younger generation who turned to art to express their inner turmoil. To recover its cinematic mission France needs “two elememts, organization and style, both of which aim at unity of expression, something that is practically a national instinct.” From this context is it identified that, in the same way as German Expressionism, French Impressionism was profoundly influence by the impact of the First World War developing the aesthetic theory grounded in the need for liberation from such future barbarism. Demonstrating the movement of Impressionism was to emulate the internal state of mind the audience would have experienced through that time. Chapter 12 from the source allows the