American Cinema

Страница: 13/14

Later his face changed. His head got as big as his body or almost, his eyes got bigger, too. He got younger instead of older. That makes him cuter. Now it is an acceptable symbol for the USA. Donald Duck was created in 1936. Walt Disney took the biggest risk of his career and spent a fortune on a full-length cartoon. Finally, the first full-length cartoon feature film “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” was brought out in 1935, which the public paid millions of dollars to see The songs to the cartoon were written by Frank Churchill. After the Second World War Disney turned his attention to real — life nature studies and non-cartoon films with living actors.

In the 1950’s and 1960’s, Walt Disney began developing the family-entertainment parks, Disneyland and Disney World. The first Disneyland was opened in southern California in 1955. It is situated 27 miles south of Los Angeles, at Anaheim. Of all the show-places none is as famous as Disneyland. This superb kingdom of fantasy linked to technology was created by Walt Disney. The park is divided into six themes and there is so much to see and do in each that no one would attempt to see all of them in one visit. For extended visits, there are hotels nearby. In 1971 Disney World was opened in Florida.

Walt Disney died in California at the age of 65. But his films are still shown regularly at the cinema, because of their time1esS quality and will be shown for years to come.Walter (Walt) Elias Disney has won more “Oscars” — the awards of the United States Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, instituted on May 16, 1929 and named after Oscar Pierce of Texas, USA — than any other person:20 statuettes and 12 other plagues and certificates, including posthumous awards.

Titanic.

The shooting of ‘Titanic’ in 1997 brought people flocking to the cinemas. It has become a blockbuster and brought big profits to the producers. The reasons are:on the one hand, the thrilling plot of the film, depicting the first of the greatest disasters of the 20th century, and, on the other hand, new technologies of film making, used by James Cameron, the producer. Everybody wanted to see if the film was really worth eleven ‘Oscar’ awards.

‘Titanic’ is the latest screen version of the tragedy happened on April 14-15, 1912 during the maiden voyage of the British luxury passenger liner. The vessel sank with a loss of about 1,500 lives:men, women, children. Their voyage on board the dream ship ended in a nightmare. It revealted all human vices: arrogance, self-satisfaction, greed, selfishness and self-confidence. But at the same time this tragedy showed the best traits of humancharacter: the sense of duty and responsibility, self-sacrifice and short but immortial love. The love-story about Jack and Rose, a young poor artist and a 17-year old girl from the upper society, arouses uor sympathy and admiration. Paired with the main story-line, it adds much to the impression of the film. ‘Titanic’ made the leading actors Leonardo Di Caprio and Kate Winslent international celebrities. The music of James Horner created a special atmosphere in the film and has become popular with the public.

The film is interesting not only from the artistic point of view, but from the technical ones as well. Both the ship and the ocean are virtual, created by computers. Besides, we can see unique pictures of ‘The Titanic’ buried in the depth of the ocean. Its wreck was found lying in two pieces on the ocean floor at the depth of about 4,000 metres. The pictures were taken with the help of the Russian ocean-explores and shown to the whole world.

By the way, the film was directed by James Cameron, famous for creating very expensive films with new special effects, which were the biggest box-office success. ‘Titanic’ is not an exception. Critics say the film has opened a new era in film production. I think they are right.

Реферат опубликован: 15/02/2010