Lesson 08:
The Art Film
Professor Aaron Baker
Previous Lecture
• Approaches to Film
Authorship
• Steven
Soderbergh’s Film
Traffic (2000)
2
Today’s Lecture
• Art-Film Narration
-Objectivity
-Subjectivity
-Authorial Commentary
• Central Station
(1998)
• History of the Art
Film
Antonioni’s L’Avventura (1960)
3
Hollywood Vs. Art Cinema
• Continuity
• Causal, Spatial,
Temporal Clarity
• Genre
• Utopian
• Avoidance of Choice
• Invisible Style
•
•
•
•
Gaps
Ambiguity
Less Genre
Realism
-Objective
-Subjective (Form)
• Authorial
Commentary
4
Part I: Art-Film Narration Objectivity
Bicycle Thieves (1948)
5
Hollywood Realism
• Everything Fits
• Strong Cause/Effect
• Protagonists Solve
Problems, Achieve
Goals
• Justice, Love,
Reward
• Happy Ending
6
Art Film Realism
• Complexity
• World Unknown,
Absurd
• Episodic Events
• Indeterminate Form:
-Long Takes
-Abrupt Cutting
Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001)
• Viewer Interprets
7
Objective Reality
• Alienated Characters
• Challenge of
Communication
• Actual Locations
• Hand Held Camera
• Available Light
• Non Professional
Actors
8
Real Time
• Slower Pacing
• Long Takes
• Less Plot Ellipsis
of Story Time
Che (2008)
9
Less Cause and Effect
•
•
•
•
Gaps
Chance
No Deadlines
Characters Lack
Motives, Clear
Traits
Mission Impossible II (2000)
Racing to stop bioterrorism.
10
Episodic Structure
•
•
•
•
Events Simply Occur
Less Causal Linkage
Parallelisms
We Compare Agents,
Attitudes, Situations
• Viewer Judgment
The Edge of Heaven (2007)
11
Part II: Art-Film Narration Subjectivity
The desert conveys the rejection and
dislocation felt by Amelia in Babel (2006)
12
Mise-en-Scene and Character
Subjectivity
• How we see the film’s
world expresses
mental states of
characters.
• Point of View Shots
• Light, Color
• Editing
13
Character More Than Plot
Stanley Tucci’s character
chooses creativity over money in
Big Night (1996)
• Boundary Situation
• Self Discovery
• “Private Individual’s
awareness of
fundamental human
issues” – Bordwell
• Existentialism
14
Stylization
• Character Subjectivity
• Authorial Commentary
• Extreme wide angle in
Do Right Thing: Intense
feelings of character or
filmmaker’s judgment?
15
Traffic
• Blue tint in Cincinnati
scenes:
– Actual Quality Light
(Realism)
– Expression Judge’s
Temperament (Subjectivity)
– Authorial Commentary
(Character’s Arrogance)
16
Bordwell: Different Motives
Create Ambiguity
“A realist aesthetic and an expressionist
aesthetic are hard to merge. The art film
seeks to solve the problem in a
sophisticated way; through ambiguity. .
. . . . Put crudely, the procedural slogan of
art-cinema narration might be: ‘Interpret
this film . . . to maximize ambiguity.’”
17
Open Ending
• Contrasts with
Hollywood
Resolution/Happy
Ending
• Questions Not
Answers
• “The ‘open’ ending .
. . of the art cinema .
. .will not divulge the
outcome” --Bordwell
18
Director Fatih Akin:
“If the characters
returned to
Germany, perhaps
the ending would
be neater. But I like
open endings.”
19
Part III: Art-Film Narration Authorial Commentary
"I wish you a
disturbing evening!"
This is how Michael
Haneke, who won
Best Director award
at Cannes in 2005
for Caché (Hidden),
introduced his films
at a festival in
London.
20
Narration Foregrounded
• Open Ending = Story Unfinished
• Self Conscious Narration
• Film is not real life but a representation
of it.
• Flashbacks, Flashforwards
• Filmmaker as Commentator
21
Art Film Auteur
•
•
•
•
•
Interviews
Criticism
Festivals
Awards
Marketing Device
David Lynch
22
Journalistic Writing: Fatih Akin
Fatih Akin is a German film director of Turkish descent. He
was born in Hamburg in 1973 and studied visual
communications at the city's College of Fine Arts. He made
his first film, Short Sharp Shock (1998), and won the Golden
Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival with his 2004 film
Head- On, which brought him to the attention of international
audiences. His latest film, The Edge of Heaven, won the Best
Screenplay Award at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.
- From Spiegel
Online
23
Belatedness
• Arriving “Late in the Game”
• Anxiety of Influence, Harold Bloom
• Art filmmakers know history of cinema
(Filmschool, VCRs, DVDs)
• “The more you know, the more you
understand the gap that separates you from
the great tradition, and the more you fret
about what you can contribute” --David
Bordwell
24
Response to Anxiety
• References,
Allusions to Other
Films
• Films Built from
Other Movies As
Well As Reality
• Show Cinematic
Knowledge and
Taste
25
About Edge of Heaven
• “One scene
involving children
and a firearm seems
almost a direct
allusion to Iñárritu’s
[Babel]”
--Peter Keough in The Boston
Phoenix
26
Part IV: Central Station
as Art Film
27
Complexity/Unknown
• Rio de Janeiro
• Poverty
• Dora, Retired
Schoolteacher
• Josue, orphan
• How will they
survive?
28
Episodic Events
•
•
•
•
•
Dora Writes Letters .
Josue’s Mother Killed
Robbery in Station
Dora Attempts to Sell Josue
Trip to Find His Father
29
Objective Reality
• Brazil, Fifth Most Populus Country in
World
• Has One Third of Population in Latin
America
• Extreme Economic Inequality
• Most of Its 200 Million Poor
• Dora’s and Josue’s lives represent this
condition
30
Influence of Italian Neorealism
• Decade After WW II
• Italy Empoverished
by War
• Real Locations,
Available Light
• Non Professional
Actors
• Challenges Faced by
Working People
Shoeshine (1946)
31
Central Station
in Neorealist Style
• Real Locations, Available Light (Central
do Brasil)
• Non Professionals (Vincius de Oliveria)
• Challenges Faced by Working People
(Dora’s “Retirement”, Finding Josue’s
Father)
32
Clip #1: Robbery in Train Station
• Poverty and Crime
• Police Violence As
Social Control in Brazil
• Realism in subject,
Location and Long Take
• Please watch clip from
Central Station.
33
Finding Josue’s Father in
Sertao
• Escaping the City
• Backcountry in
Portugese
• Dry, desert region
of Northeast Brazil
• 67% Illiterate
• Per Capita Income
$2000
34
Director Walter Salles
on the Sertao:
“During the location scout, I was
surprised. . . .we were ceaselessly
invited to sleep over, to share a room . .
. some food, by people who barely
subsist.”
35
Subjective Landscape
• We see beautiful
landscape of Sertao
as Dora’s better side
emerges
• Trip with Josue is
her “boundary
situation” of self
discovery
• Please watch clip # 2
36
People’s Stories
What is great about the stories from the people in
Central do Brasil is that they are so forthcoming,
genuine and unfettered, . . . Only much later, . . .
Dora goes through her conversion and discovers
the need for telling those stories . . . .Dora’s
realization that the stories of the people are the
source of identity and at the same time the
expression of these neo-realist stories are
economically viable, even if it is only through her
letter writing.
--Felix Rebolledo
www.offscreen.com/biblio/phile/essays/central_brasil
37
Art Film Authorship
• Walter Salles
• MFA University of
Southern California
• Central Station
Nominated Best Foreign
Film 2003
• British Newspaper The
Guardian: Salles One of
Top 40 Directors in World
38
Part V: History of the Art Film
39
Roots in Modernism
•
•
•
•
1920s
Expressionism
Surrealism
Workings of the
Mind
• Form
40
Critical Discourse
• Analysis of Art Film
Ambiguity
• Journals and Books
• College and University
Courses
• Europe = Art
• U.S. = Commerce
Critic John Simon
41
Post WW II Existentialism
• Auteur Theory
• Director As Creative
Individual in Absurd
World
• Viewer Same Creative
Responsibility
• College Educated
Audience
• Art Houses
42
New Hollywood
• Decline of Studio
System 50s60s/Young Audience
• Influence of Art Film
Style/French New
Wave
• Bonnie and Clyde
(1967)
• Independent Cinema
43
Summary
• Art-Film Narration
-Objectivity
-Subjectivity
-Authorial Commentary
• Central Station (1998)
• History of the Art Film
Luis Bunuel’s Viridiana (1961)
44
Discussion Question
• After you see Central Station, on the
eboard answer the following question as
well as respond to a classmate.
• What is the film’s strongest art-film
tendency:
– Objective reality
– Subjective reality
– Authorial commentary
45
End of Lesson 8
Next Lecture: Documentary
46