The Film Portal

Man working with a movie projector in a movie theater, 1958
Man working with a movie projector in a movie theater, 1958

A film, movie, or motion picture is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, since the 1930s, synchronized with sound and sometimes using other sensory stimuli.

Films are produced by recording actual people and objects with cameras or by creating them using animation techniques and special effects. They comprise a series of individual frames, but when these images are shown rapidly in succession, the illusion of motion is given to the viewer. Flickering between frames is not seen due to an effect known as persistence of vision, whereby the eye retains a visual image for a fraction of a second after the source has been removed. Also of relevance is what causes the perception of motion: a psychological effect identified as beta movement. (Full article...)

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Saturday Night Fever is a 1977 American dance drama film directed by John Badham and produced by Robert Stigwood. It stars John Travolta as Tony Manero, a young Italian-American man who spends his weekends dancing and drinking at a local disco while dealing with social tensions and disillusionment in his working class ethnic neighborhood in Brooklyn. The story is based on "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night", a mostly fictional 1976 New York article by music writer Nik Cohn.

A major critical and commercial success, Saturday Night Fever had a tremendous impact on the popular culture of the late 1970s. It helped popularize disco around the world and initiated a series of collaborations between film studios and record labels. It made Travolta, already well known from his role in the popular TV sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter, a household name. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance, at the time becoming the fourth-youngest nominee in the category. The film showcases aspects of the music, dancing, and subculture surrounding the disco era, including symphony-orchestrated melodies, haute couture styles of clothing, pre-AIDS sexual promiscuity and graceful choreography. The Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, featuring songs by the Bee Gees, is one of the best-selling soundtrack albums worldwide. Travolta reprised his role of Tony Manero for Staying Alive in 1983, which was panned by critics despite being successful at the box office. (Portal:Film/Featured content)

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Lillian Gish
Lillian Gish
Credit: Bain News Service

Lillian Diana Gish (October 14, 1893 – February 27, 1993), was an American stage, screen and television actress whose film acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912 to 1987. She was a prominent film star of the 1910s and 1920s, particularly associated with the films of director D. W. Griffith, including her leading role in Griffith's seminal Birth of a Nation (1915).

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Scorsese at the Berlinale in 2024

Martin Charles Scorsese (/skɔːrˈsɛsi/ skor-SESS-ee; Italian: [skorˈseːze, -se]; born November 17, 1942) is an American filmmaker. One of the major figures of the New Hollywood era, he is widely considered one of the greatest and most influential directors in the history of cinema. He has received numerous accolades including an Academy Award, four BAFTA Awards, three Emmy Awards, a Grammy Award, and three Golden Globe Awards. He has been honored with the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1997, the Film Society of Lincoln Center tribute in 1998, the Kennedy Center Honor in 2007, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2010, and the BAFTA Fellowship in 2012. Five of his films have been inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".

Scorsese received a Master of Arts degree from New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development in 1968. His directorial debut, Who's That Knocking at My Door (1967), was accepted into the Chicago Film Festival. In the 1970s and 1980s, Scorsese's films, much influenced by his Italian-American background and upbringing in New York City, centered on macho-posturing men and explore crime, machismo, nihilism and Catholic concepts of guilt and redemption. His trademark styles of extensive use of slow motion and freeze frames, voice-over narration, graphic depictions of extreme violence and liberal use of profanity were first shown in Mean Streets (1973). (Full article...)

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Oliver Stone
Zero sum game implies winners and losers. If somebody wins, somebody gotta lose ... I don’t agree with that. Because all boats can rise on a rising sea. Good films help other good films. Different psychology. If you’re overly competitive, you say it is exclusionary, a zero sum game: I must win so he must lose. That’s not true. We can all win without forcing the other guy to lose.

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Terms - Animation Beta movement Camera Cult film Digital cinema Documentary film Dubbing Experimental film Fan film Film crew Film criticism Film festival Film frame Film genre Film journals and magazines Film industry Film manifesto Film stock Film theory Filmmaking History of film Independent film Lost film Movie star Narrative film Open content film Persistence of vision Photographic film Propaganda Recording medium Special effect Subtitles Sound stage Web film World cinema
Lists - List of basic film topics List of film topics List of films List of film festivals List of film formats List of film series List of film techniques List of highest-grossing films List of longest films by running time List of songs based on a film or book Lists of film source material List of open content films

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