Ancient Greek Sculpture and the American Cinema - Essay Example

Sculptures of the Archaic Greek period are characterized by one form in particular: the standing male nude. The artistic style employed by sculptors during that time was heavily influenced by Egyptian sculpture (Richter 2); one can see immediately the similarities in the execution between Egyptian sculptures deities and statues like the Kouros (600 BC, 3 meters high). These sculptures predominantly portrayed athletic male subjects who were very structured in their appearance. Limbs were in pleasing proportion to the entire body, the bust was dealt with similarly and the entire piece might have served as something of an anatomy lesson.

Archaic sculpture would be to Classical sculpture what the drawings of an elementary student are to that of a learned sketch artist. The figures lacked life; the stiff effect of the chisels and stone abrasives of the Archaic Greek sculptor meant that aside from quite accurately depicting the human form, statues like the Aristodikos (500 BC, 1.95 meters) could not inspire the mind of the viewer like the next artistic period (Goette 116). What the Classical Greek period of sculpture brought to the world was a celebration of how the body actually functioned; the Classical period brought movement.

American cinema has followed a similar path since its inception in the early 20th century. The first films produced in the United States took one of two actions: recreating historical events or recreating classic literature on screen (Slide 151). The very first American movie was Richard III (1912), a remake of Shakespeare's 16th century classic. Three years later saw the release of The Birth of a Nation, a highly controversial film that depicted the events and atmosphere of a divided nation before and during the American Civil War from the perspective of the Ku Klux Klan and its followers.

Like Archaic Greek sculpture, it was not the subject of these early films that was lacking, it was the execution. Actors were reminiscent of the Kouros in their rigidity and although the plot and stories of early American films were often of excellent quality, there were few attempts at subplot or undertone; very little existed in these films and many movies of the following decades that was not superficial (Finn 191). The Classical period of Greek sculpture saw the creation of works like the Youth of Anticythera (340 BC, 1.94 meters), crafted in bronze and succeeding in the portrayal of something that its predecessors had failed in: motion (Lullies et all 87).

Instead of creation statues that stood straight and perfectly balanced on straight legs and flat feet with arms straight down both sides, Classical sculptors experimented with the movement of the limbs and the portrayal of the human body in more natural positions. In this way human sculpture became more geared towards the expression of beauty and of an essential aesthetic within each work of art. Curves, muscle definition and even subtle body language could be portrayed in this style where before statues were really no more than human figures carved out of stone.

Classical Greek sculptures captured the human spirit within their work.American film changed in much the same way, albeit over a much shorter time period. Instead of merely producing historical