Discuss the relation
between scholarship,
criticism and production in
filmmaking and discuss its
impact on film style.
Definitions
Film criticism

Anybody who actively seeks to understand a film
he/she sees.
 A Critic already knows the formal patterns of a
film
– Repetitions, variations, narrative.

Film reviews
- usually based on their genres, plot, narration and
style
- Adheres to a focus.
 involved in viewing and writing about films
critically
Criticism in filmmaking





The practice of analyzing, classifying,
interpreting, or evaluating literary or other
artistic works.
What really makes a critic a critic?
Can we criticize if we do not know the subject?
Aren’t we all critics?
Two kinds of critics :
• Criticism in the affective meaning :
subjective.
• Criticism of the techniques, of the knowhow : objective.
Film Scholarship

Studies Film in general on a broader scale
 Critical of not just individual films but a
whole body of work.
 Involved in viewing and writing about films
critically; usually a thesis with a common
theme.
 Has in depth knowledge of the film
industry.
Scholarship in filmmaking

Knowledge in technique fields :
• Special effects
• Editing
• …

Knowledge in cultural fields :
•
•
•
•
Art
Literature
Cinema
…
Film Production

Entire process of making a film
 Including pre and post production but
usually means the ‘shooting’ phase
 Director is responsible for it
 Includes coordination of sets, costumes,
production designs, graphic artists, etc.
Between scholarship and
criticism

In affective criticism, scholarship does not help.
 Scholarship helps in criticism of the of the knowhow.
 Evolution :


Cultures change in the time, new fashions appear…
 Affective criticism changes
 Criticism does not like the same films than
before.
In scholarship, new techniques appear.
 Critics ask for more and more special
effects, for bigger and bigger productions…
Between scholarship and
production
It exists between direct relations and
scholarship and production :


Production needs scholarship to make films.
Scholarship needs production since if there were
not production, there would not be any scholarship
in filmmaking.
Their evolution is also linked :

Nowadays, production looks for more and more
technical skills. So that, scholarship needs to adapt
to new techniques.
Between criticism and
production

Nowadays, production does not take risks
anymore.
 Sympathize with the audience’s situation if
appropriate
Film style

Patterned and significant use of techniques
:Mise en scene
:Cinematography
:Editing
:Sound
“It’s what you call style in retrospect only. At the
time of Making the movie, it’s just about making
individual choices.”-Ethan Coen, producer, writer.
Formalism and the Soviet
Montage

Formalism
– That film should be a translation of observed
characteristics into the forms of the medium.
– Against Realism
– Concerned with with methods of restructuring reality
into aesthetically appealing designs using
: -mise en scène; or aurally, in stylized dialogue,
symbolic sound effects, and musical motifs.

Lev Kuleshov
– Montage :Shots, rather than just 'edited' together, are
constructed.
– a number of short shots woven together
– Communicate information in a short period
Soviet Montage

Sergei Eisenstein
– Dialectical Montage
– Films: Battleship Potemkin, Strike, October,
– Ex. In Battleship of potemkin, a sailor smashes a plate
and it occurs over ten cuts.
 Intellectual Montage
 Study of existing methods of film making and
introducing new ones- Adding to the text of film
making
 Eisenstein’s written theories

- work of Dziga Vertov and Lev Kuleshov
- early predecessors of Eisenstein’s montage theories
and practices
Influence:DW griffith’s Intolerance
French New Wave

A group of men from who wrote for the Paris film Journal,
Cahiers Du cinema.
Film critics and filmmakers
 Andre Bazin, Francois Truffaut, Eric Rohmer, Jean Luc
Goddard, Claude Charbrol, Jacques Rivette.
– Critical of popular French films; decided to make their
own.
– Came up with ‘Auteur theory’
– To be Auteurs themselves
Production and Style

Shooting on Location
 Using inexpensive light weight portable
cameras
 film stock requiring less light
 cheap portable sound equipment
Style

More panning and tracking shots

Favoured Mise en scene and Long takes freeze-




frames, jump-cuts, expansive camera movements i.e in
Breathless, Jules et Jim
Causal connections become quite loose
Ends ambiguously
richly complex characterizations
emotional realism
– Examining of the face; breathless, 400blows (Antoine’s
stricken face at the end), etc.
– “often emphasized the complexity of the a character’s
inner reactions”- Ian Morrison
French New Wave Directors

Claude Chabrol (Less Bonnes Femmes); Jean Luc
Godard (Breathless; My Life to Live); Alain
Resnais (Hiroshima Mon Amour; Last Year at
Marienbad); Jacques Rivette (Paris Belongs to
Us); Francois Truffaut (The 400 Blows; Jules and
Jim; Shoot the Piano Player).
Scholarship





Andre Bazin on the Soviet Montage ‘it did not
give us the event; it alluded to it.'
Eisenstein's system of Dialectical Montage
not the realistic meaning of a particular shot, but
rhythmic relationship and juxtaposition of the
shots
Bazin: reality of event is important, montage is
expressionism and probably tricks.
Impact on style

Jump cuts from Soviet Montage to Jump
cuts in French New wave
 Magnify time and Space
 French New wave films made frequent
references to Hollywood ‘Auteurs’ like
Alfred Hitchcock, Orson welles, etc.
conclusion

Films at every stage of reinvention
from German expressionism, Soviet montage to
Structuralism to post modernism
- all products of film criticism and film
scholarship.
- Impact greatly the production and style of films.
Essays, books, movies, interviews
-texts film makers refer to when making movies.