Lesson 14:
The Art Film
Professor Aaron Baker
Previous Lecture
• Documentary
-Form
-History
-Economic Context
• The New Documentary
• Errol Morris, A Thin
Blue Line (1988)
2
Today’s Lecture
• Art-Film Narration
-Objectivity
-Subjectivity
-Authorial Commentary
The Edge of Heaven
(2007)
-Central Station (1998)
• History of the Art Film
Antonioni’s L’Avventura (1960)
3
Part I: Art-Film Narration
Bicycle Thieves (1948)
4
Hollywood Realism
• Everything Fits
• Strong Cause/Effect
• Protagonists Solve
Problems, Achieve
Goals
• Justice, Love,
Reward
• Happy Ending
5
Art-Film Realism
• Complexity
• World Unknown,
Absurd
• Episodic Events
• Indeterminate Form:
-Long Takes
-Abrupt Cutting
• Viewer Interprets
Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001)
6
Objective Reality
• Alienated Characters
• Challenge of
Communication
• Actual Locations
• Hand Held Camera
• Available Light
• Non Professional Actors
7
Real Time
• Slower Pacing
• Long Takes
• Less Plot Ellipsis of
Story Time
• E.g. Last Shot of
The Edge of Heaven
Che (2008)
8
Less Cause and Effect
•
•
•
•
Gaps
Chance
No Deadlines
Characters Lack
Motives, Clear Traits
Mission Impossible II
(2000). Racing to stop
bioterrorism.
9
Episodic Structure
• Events Occur
Randomly
• E.g. Yeter’s and Lotte’s
deaths
• Less Causal Linkage
• Parallelisms
• E.g. Nejat looking for
Ayten in Turkey
• Ayten looking for her
mother in Germany
• We Compare Agents,
Attitudes, Situations
The Edge of Heaven (2007)
10
Subjectivity
The desert conveys the rejection and
dislocation felt by Amelia in
Babel (2006)
11
Form and Character
Subjectivity
• How we see the film’s world
expresses the mental states
of characters.
E.g. Jump Cut Editing in
Breathless Shows
Fragmented Identities
• Point of View Shots
E.g. Ayten driving and on
beach at end of The Edge of
Heaven
Story Shows Us His
Perspective
12
More Character Than Plot
Stanley Tucci’s character
chooses creativity over money
in Big Night 1996
• Self Discovery
• “Private Individual’s
awareness of
fundamental human
issues” – Bordwell
• Existentialism
• E.g. Characters’
Crises in The Edge
of Heaven
13
Ambiguity
• Character Subjectivity
and
• Authorial Commentary
• E.g. Extreme wide angle
in Do Right Thing:
intense feelings of
character or
filmmaker’s judgment?
14
Traffic
• Blue tint in Cincinnati
scenes
• Actual Quality Light
(Realism)
• Expression Judge’s
Temperament
(Subjectivity)
• Authorial Commentary
(Character’s Arrogance)
15
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.’”
16
“
Part II: The Edge of Heaven
and Central Station as Art
Films
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
• Clip # 1 from The Edge
of Heaven
18
Director Fatih Akin:
“If the characters
returned to
Germany, perhaps
the ending would
be neater. But I like
open endings.”
19
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
Art Film Auteur
•
•
•
•
•
Interviews
Criticism
Festivals
Awards
Marketing Device
David Lynch
21
Journalistic Writing About
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," in 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
22
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
23
Response to Anxiety
• References,
Allusions to Other
Films
• Films Built from
Other Movies As
Well As Reality
• Show Cinematic
Knowledge and
Taste
24
About The 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
25
Central Station as Art Film
26
Complexity/Unknown
• Rio de Janeiro
• Poverty
• Dora, Retired
Schoolteacher
• Josue, orphan
• How will they
survive?
27
Episodic Events
• Dora Writes Letters
• Josue’s Mother
Killed
• Robbery in Station
• Dora Attempts to
Sell Josue
• Trip to Find His
Father
.
28
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.
29
Italian Neorealism
• Decade After WW II
• Italy Empoverished by
War
• Real Locations,
Available Light
• Non Professional
Actors
• Challenges Faced by
Working People
Shoeshine (1946)
30
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)
31
Robbery in Train Station
• Poverty and Crime
• Police Violence As
Social Control in
Brazil
• Realism in Subject,
Location and Long
Take
• Clip # 2
32
Finding Josue’s Father in
Sertao
• Escaping the City
• Backcountry in
Portugese
• Dry, desert region
of Northeast Brazil.
• 67% Illiterate
• Per Capita Income
$2000
33
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.”
34
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 pause to
see clip # 3
35
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
36
Part III: History of the Art
Film
37
Roots in Modernism
•
•
•
•
1920s
Expressionism
Surrealism
Workings of the
Mind
• Form
38
Critical Discourse
• Analysis of Art Film
Ambiguity
• Journals and Books
• College and
University Courses
• Europe = Art
• U.S. = Commerce
Critic John Simon
39
Post WW II Existentialism
• Auteur Theory
• Director As Creative
Individual in Absurd
World
• Viewer Same Creative
Responsibility
• College Educated
Audience
• Art Houses
40
New Hollywood
• Decline of Studio
System 50s-60s/Young
Audience
• Influence of Art Film
Style/French New
Wave
• Bonnie and Clyde
(1967)
• Independent Cinema
41
Hollywood Vs. Art Cinema
• Continuity
• Causal, Spatial,
Temporal Clarity
• Genre
• Utopian
• Invisible Style
• Gaps
• Ambiguity
• Less Genre
• Realism
-Objective
-Subjective (Form)
• Authorial
Commentary
42
Summary
• Art-Film Narration
-Objectivity
-Subjectivity
-Authorial Commentary
• The Edge of Heaven
(2007), Central Station
(1998)
• History of the Art Film
Luis Bunuel’s Viridiana (1961)
43
End of Lesson 14
44
Next Lecture
Lesson 15: Adaptation