Kennesaw State University
Department of English
Minor in Film Studies
FILM 3200: Film History and Theory
FILM 3220: Studies in Film
FILM 4200: Advanced Studies in Film
Dr. David King
GLOSSARY OF BASIC FILM TERMINOLOGY, THEORY, AND HISTORY
NB: Most of these definitions are my own, though many of them are paraphrased or
quoted from the Revised Edition of James Monaco’s excellent standard text
How to Read a Film, one of the books recommended on your course syllabus.
Visual Composition
FRAME: Any single image on the film; the compositional unit of film design.
CLOSED FRAME: The limits of the frame are considered the limits of artistic reality.
OPEN FRAME: Reality is considered as existing beyond the limits of the frame.
SHOT: A single piece of film, however long or short, without cuts, exposed
continuously.
TAKE: A version of a shot. A filmmaker shoots one or more takes of each shot or set-up.
Only one of each group of takes appears in the final film.
SCENE: A complete unit of film narration. A series of shots, or a single shot, that takes
place in a single location and that deal with a single train of action.
THE BASIC SHOTS: Shot is also used to identify approaches to filming or “shooting.”
The following list identifies the primary shots in conventional filmmaking.
1. CLOSEUP: A shot of the subject’s face only, or used more generally, any close
shot. An EXTREME CLOSE UP is also called a DETAIL SHOT.
2. MEDIUM SHOT: A shot intermediate between a closeup and a full shot.
3. FULL SHOT: A shot of the subject that includes the entire body.
4. LONG SHOT: A shot that includes at least the full figure of the subject and
usually more.
5. EXTREME LONG SHOT: A panoramic view of an exterior location, shot from a
considerable distance.
6. OVER-THE-SHOULDER SHOT: A shot commonly used in dialogue scenes in
which the speaker is seen from the perspective of a person standing just behind
and a little to one side of the listener, so that parts of the head and shoulders of the
listener are in the frame, as well as the head of the speaker.
7. POINT OF VIEW SHOT (POV): A shot which shows the scene from the point of
view of a character. Point of view shots are also often called the SUBJECTIVE
CAMERA because the image seen on screen represents what the character sees,
represents the character’s perspective.
8. OBJECTIVE SHOT or OBJECTIVE CAMERA: The image seen on screen is not
meant to stand for what a character sees but rather represents the director’s or
audience’s point of view. It is frequently associated with the establishing shot.
9. ESTABLISHING SHOT: Generally a long shot that shows the audience the
general location of the scene that follows, often providing essential information,
and orienting the viewer.
10. TWO SHOT: A shot in which two or more people are in the frame.
11. TRACKING SHOT: Any shot in which the camera moves from one point to
another. Tracking shots are also called DOLLY SHOTS, because the camera is
mounted on a rubber tired dolly that rolls on tracks. Related to the tracking shot
is the CRANE SHOT, which also depends upon camera mounting. In the case of
the crane shot, the camera is mounted on an elevated crane. The crane may as
well be moved on wheels.
12. FOLLOW SHOT: A specific form of tracking shot that follows a subject,
usually a person, as it moves.
13. SEQUENCE SHOT: A long, usually complex shot, often including complicated
camera movements and action.
14. INSERT SHOT: A detail shot that gives specific and relevant information
necessary to a complete understanding of the meaning of a scene.
15. REACTION SHOT: A shot that cuts away from the main scene or speaker in
order to show a character’s reaction to it.
16. ZOOM: A shot using a lens whose focal length is adjusted during the shot. The
adjustment may be radical. Not usually considered appropriate in the cinema
because it heightens awareness of artifice.
17. PULL-BACK SHOT: A tracking shot or zoom that moves back from the subject
to reveal the context of the scene.
DEPTH OF FIELD: The range of distances from the camera at which the subject is
acceptably sharp.
FOCUS PLANE: The plane in the scene being photographed upon which the lens is
focused.
FOCUS: The sharpness of the image.
SHALLOW FOCUS: A technique that uses depth of field to create a shallow focus plane,
usually in order to direct the attention of the viewer to the subject or action in that plane.
DEEP FOCUS: A realist favorite, this technique allows objects very near the camera, as
well as those far away, to be in focus at the same time.
SOFT FOCUS: Filters, special lenses, and even Vaseline soften the image, often for a
romantic effect.
RACK FOCUSING: A technique that uses shallow focus to direct the attention of the
viewer forcibly from one subject to another. Focus is pulled, or changed, to shift the
focus plane, often rapidly, sometimes several times within the shot.
MISE EN SCENE: Literally, the “putting in the scene” of actors, camera placement, and
design that occurs on the set. Practically, mise en scene refers to the look of the frame,
the overall visual design of the film.
CONTINUITY: Details in one shot must match details in another, even though shots may
be filmed weeks or months apart. The script supervisor is usually responsible for
continuity.
SCREEN RIGHT: Typically, the dominant side of the screen; placement of subjects on
the right usually indicates their superiority or authority.
SCREEN LEFT: Often the weak side of the screen; subjects placed here are usually
vulnerable.
BARRIER IMAGE: Any object, or use of light, that separates figure in the frame. A
barrier image indicates the psychological opposition between characters.
DIAGONAL: Figures arranged in the frame along a diagonal line are often in literal and
figurative anxiety. Landscape or objects shot along the diagonal often suggest tension or
suspense.
REAR PROJECTION/BACK PROJECTION: Process in which a background scene is
projected onto a translucent screen behind the actors so that it appears the actors are in
that location.
FRONT PROJECTION: After Kubrick’s 2001, superseded rear projection. A
complicated process that involves a highly reflective screen, mirrors, intricate lighting,
and a lack of shadow. Its complexity is rewarded by its heightened realism.
BLUE SCREN PHOTOGRAPHY: A special effects process that involves shooting live
action, models, or miniatures in front of a bright blue screen, leaving the background of
the shot unexposed.
MATTE SHOT: A shot that is partially opaque in the frame area so that it can be printed
together with another frame, masking unwanted content and allowing for addition of
another scene on a reverse matte. In a TRAVELLING MATTE SHOT, the contours of
the opaque areas can be varied from frame to frame.
The Camera
CAMERA ANGLE: The angle—low, high, or tilt—at which the camera is pointed at the
subject. High angles usually indicate a subject’s position of power or importance; low
angles typically suggest a subject’s weakness or vulnerability.
PAN: Camera moves from left to right or right to left. In the Western Cinema, a pan
from right to left is often used to build tension, anxiety, or suspense. A pan should not be
confused with a tracking shot; the camera is stationary and though it “moves,” it is not on
tracks. A SWISH PAN is a pan that moves from one point to another so fast that the
interval is blurred. The pan is the most common of the three elementary camera
movements.
TILT: Camera moves from top to bottom or bottom to top; it tilts up and down. The
second most common of the three elementary camera movements.
ROLL: Camera moves in a circular motion around the axis that runs longitudinally from
the lens to the subject. It literally makes the subject appear to revolve, though the subject
itself does not move. Because it disorients rather than providing new information, the
roll is the least common of the three elementary camera movements.
You should be familiar, as well, with three important cameras, which are listed in the
technical advances section of this glossary.
Editing
CUT: A switch from one image to another.
MONTAGE: At its simplest level, editing, or the arrangement of shots to create the
narrative pace of the film. Yet montage is far more complicated and much more involved
than this. Why are cuts made? When are cuts made? What do particular cuts suggest
about meaning? The champion of montage theory is the Soviet filmmaker and theorist
Sergei Eisenstein, who first put forward the seminal idea that adjacent shots combine to
form other meanings not actually recorded on film; that is, the way frames of films are
cut and spliced together has a direct impact on our emotions and intellect as we view the
film. As Eisenstein says in his landmark text Film Form: “montage is conflict…and the
dynamics of montage serve as impulses driving forward the total film. It is an idea that
arises from the collision of independent shots—shots even opposite to one another.” Yet
beyond this montage of collision, there is also montage of attraction, in which editing
becomes more practical, more literal, than theoretical or figurative.
LINKAGE: Soviet theorist Pudovkin’s term for montage.
THE LONG TAKE: The French theorist Andre Bazin is opposed to the whole idea of
montage, and proposes instead in What is Cinema that “because the long take shows
actual time, the very substance of the image, will anyone deny that it is thereby much
more moving than a montage? The editor who cuts for us imposes meaning on the film
by making decisions that in real life we would make for ourselves.” The long take, then,
is a shot without cuts; the camera may move, but the scene is never interrupted by a cut.
REALISTS favor the long take; FORMALISTS favor montage.
PARALLEL ACTION or CROSS CUTTING: Editing technique in which two or more
scenes are observed in parallel. By careful cross cutting, the viewer is aware that multiple
related events are happening at the same time, though they may not be occurring in the
same location. D.W. Griffith was one of the first directors to understand the implications
of effective cross cutting.
ACCELERATED MONTAGE: A sequence edited into progressively shorter shots to
create a mood of tension and excitement.
SPLIT SCREEN: A deviation of cross cutting that allows us to see separate screens at the
same time, rather than through parallel action
GAZE-OBJECT-GAZE EDITING: The Classical Hollywood system—we see a character
look; there is a cut to the object of his gaze, then a cut back to the character. An
unobtrusive interplay between subjective and objective points of view.
SHOT/ REVERSE SHOT: Another Classical Hollywood editing technique, most often
used in dialogue sequences to subconsciously alleviate boredom. We see one character
speak, then there’s a cut to another character—on the opposite side of the frame, or in
another shot altogether—who speaks, then a cut back to the original speaker. This form
of editing may also utilize over-the-shoulder shots.
CUTAWAY: Also called a reaction shot, a shot that cuts away from the main scene or
speaker in order to show a character’s reaction to it. May also be used as an abbreviated
form of cross cutting to show action at another location. Common in documentary
interviews.
INSERT: A detail shot that gives specific and relevant information necessary to a
complete understanding of the meaning of the scene.
MASTER SHOT: A long take of an entire scene, generally a long shot that facilitates the
assembly of component closer shots and details. It’s often used to make the editor’s job
easier, as the editor can borrow from it when needed.
MATCH CUT: A cut in which the two shots joined are linked by visual, aural, or
metaphorical parallelism.
JUMP CUT: A cut that occurs within a scene rather than between scenes, to condense the
shot. It can effectively eliminate dead periods of time, such as the time between a
character’s entrance into a room and his arrival at the other side of the room. Jump cuts
are usually unobtrusive, but deliberately obtrusive jump cuts may be used for debatable
aesthetic effect.
FLASH BACK/ FLASH FORWARD: Scenes inserted into scenes set in the present that
show action in the past or the future. The past and future tenses of film.
FADE IN: A punctuation device. The screen is black at the beginning; gradually the
image appears, brightening to full strength.
FADE OUT: The opposite of fade in.
DISSOLVE: A fade out superimposed over a fade in.
WIPE: An optical effect in which an image appears to wipe off the preceding image.
SEQUENCE: An ambiguous, though widely used, term that refers to a basic unit of film
construction consisting of one or more scenes that form a natural unit.
RUSHES/ DAILIES: Prints of takes that are made immediately after a day’s shooting so
that they can be examined before the next day’s shooting.
ROUGH CUT: The first assembly of a film, prepared by the editor from the selected
takes, which are joined in the order planned in the script. Finer points of timing and
montage come later.
FINAL CUT: The film as it will be released. The guarantee of final cut assures a
filmmaker that the producer will not be able to revise the film after the filmmaker has
finished it.
DIRECTOR’S CUT: Because very few Hollywood filmmakers are ever given final cut,
they often release their own final cut on video long after the film’s theatrical release, and
sometimes upon theatrical re-release.
DECOUPAGE: The final design of the film, the arrangement of its shots.
MOVIOLA: Generic trade term for an editing machine.
STEENBECK: Generic trade term for an editing desk.
Sound
ACTUAL SOUND/ DIEGETIC SOUND: Sound whose source is an object or person in
the scene.
COMMENTATIVE SOUND/ NON-DIEGETIC SOUND: Sound whose source is outside
the reality of the scene being shot.
CONTRAPUNTAL SOUND: Sound used in counterpoint to the image.
DIRECT SOUND: The technique of recording sound simultaneously with image.
DOLBY: A sound recording system that eliminates or mutes background noise inherent
in film and tape reproduction.
DOUBLE SYSTEM SOUND: Contemporary technique in which sound is recorded
separately by a recorder apart from the camera; sound and image remain simultaneous.
SINGLE SYSTEM SOUND: The sound recording device is on the camera. Used most
often in television.
DUB: To re-record dialogue in language other than the original, or to re-record dialogue
in a specially equipped studio after the film has been shot (actually quite common).
POST SYNCHRONIZATION/ WILD SOUND: Sound is recorded after the image. A
common low production value.
SOUNDTRACK: May be optical or magnetic, and includes the mix of several primary
tracks—effects, dialogue, and music.
LIP SYNC: The synchronization between the movement of the mouth and the words on
the soundtrack.
OUT OF SYNC : When sound and image are not in sync.
MONAURAL/ MONO: Sound reproduction from a single source or channel.
STEREOPHONIC/ STEREO: Sound reproduction from two or more sources onto
separate channels; the two ears naturally create a sense of dimensionality.
VOICE-OVER: The narrator’s voice when the narrator is not seen; tricky in film, as it
can be highly effective or disorientating and ridiculous.
DIALOGUE: What characters say to one another.
Lighting
AMBIENT LIGHT: The natural light surrounding the subject.
AVAILABLE LIGHT: Film shot only in natural light.
ARTIFICIAL LIGHT: Film shot in man-made light and available light.
CHIAROSCURO: Taken from the Italian words for clear and dark, the technique of
using light and shadow in pictorial representation, or the arrangement of light and dark
elements.
KEY LIGHT: The main light on a subject.
BACK LIGHTING: The main source of light is behind the subject.
TOP LIGHTING: The main source of light is above the subject.
CROSSLIGHTING: The main source of light is at the side of the subject.
FILLER LIGHT: An auxiliary light, usually on the side of the subject.
FLAT LIGHT: Low contrast lighting.
HIGH KEY LIGHTING: A lighting arrangement in which the key light is very bright,
often producing shadows.
LOW KEY LIGHTING: The key light provides little of the total illumination.
BARN DOORS: Blinders placed on set lights to direct illumination.
Film Production
BACK LOT: Huge outdoor studio lots that can be made to resemble almost any
imaginable location.
STUDIO: Similar to a back lot, and almost as large, but indoors and often equipped with
permanent technical resources.
ON-LOCATION SHOOTING: Set is in an actual location; the location itself is, or
becomes, the set.
ART DIRECTOR: Person in charge of sets and costumes.
SET DESIGNER: Works with art director, also coordinates props.
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Director of photography, responsible for the camera and
lighting, and therefore the quality of the image.
SCRIPT SUPERVISOR: Responsible for continuity.
EDITOR: The person who determines the narrative structure of the film, in charge of the
work of splicing and cutting the shots of the film together into final form. Works closely
with the director.
GAFFER: The chief electrician on the set, in charge of the operation of lights and other
electric equipment.
BEST BOY: The gaffer’s assistant.
GRIP: The person in charge of props, works closely with art director and set designer.
PRODUCER: Oversees entire production of a film, and is also the chief financial officer
who handles costs and budgeting. Assists director in the creative process, as well.
DIRECTOR: The most important person in film production, who oversees the entire
creative process—including acting, set design, sound and lighting, and editing—and who
is essentially the film’s coordinator, creator, and author.
CASTING: The process by which actors are selected for all the parts in a film.
EXTRAS: Usually the anonymous background mob.
CLAPPERBOARD: A chalkboard, photographed at the beginning of a shot, upon which
are written the pertinent information for the shot. The clapstick on top of the board is
used to synchronize sound and image.
FILMSTOCK: The raw materials of the film. Common film gauge include supper 8mm
(now usually superseded by video), 16mm, 35mm (the most common gauges for
theatrical release), 65mm, and 70mm (which are often used for big budget epic films).
SPECIAL EFFECTS: A term used to describe a wide array of processes used to enhance
or manipulate the image.
OPTICAL EFFECTS: Effects created using special camera, animation, or motion control
devices that cannot be done in front of the camera.
FOLEY EFFECTS: Live sound effects produced by performers known as Foley artists
after Universal Pictures film editor Jack Foley, who created the first studio for such
effects in the fifties.
DIGITAL EFFECTS: Effects created by the use of computer imaging, so that the actual
image is generated and manipulated by computer software.
Film Distribution
POSITIVE PRINT: A film print in which lights and darks conform to the reality of the
scene photographed.
MARRIED PRINT: A positive print of a film that includes both sound and image.
ANSWER PRINT: The first print of the completed film received back from the
laboratory.
RELEASE PRINT: A print ready for distribution and screening.
BOOKING: The rental of a film by distributors to exhibitors.
BLOCK BOOKING: The practice of requiring exhibitors to book a package of several
films at once, usually including one or two they want, and many they don’t. Ruled illegal
by the Supreme Court during the Paramount decrees in 1948.
BLIND BIDDING: Now often outlawed, the practice of requiring exhibitors to bid for a
film without having seen it.
THEATRICAL RELEASE: A film released exclusively to theatres, and usually later
targeted for video distribution, cable television, and network television.
NON THEATRICAL RELEASE: A film released to specific markets, usually
educational.
MADE FOR T.V. MOVIE: A pejorative term for a film made exclusively for television.
FOUR WALLING: Renting a theater outright at a fixed rate rather than sharing in
proceeds with the theater owner.
DAY AND DATING: Booking a film for first run release.
FIRST RUN//LIMITED RELEASE: Opening engagement of a film with 100 prints or
less in circulation.
SHOWCASE/WIDE RELEASE: Distribution of 400-800 prints.
GENERAL RELEASE: Widespread distribution with as many as 1500 prints in
distribution.
SATURATION BOOKING: Over 2500 prints in distribution.
MARKETING: Among other things, determines what sort of release will make the most
money for the film in the long term.
TIE-IN: A form of marketing. A commercial venture connected to a film—a soundtrack
album, a novelization, a toy, a Happy Meal—that helps publicize the film.
BUDGET: The amount of money allocated to a film’s complete production.
ABOVE-THE-LINE COSTS: Pre-production costs, including script, supervision,
salaries, music, royalties and commissions, taxes, and other fixed costs.
BELOW-THE-LINE COSTS: Expenses incurred during shooting and post-production,
including set design, equipment, location costs, transportation, makeup, wardrode, special
effects, filmstock, editing.
NEGATIVE COST: The sum of above-the-line and below-the-line costs that is hoped to
be recouped after distribution and exhibition.
BOX OFFICE: The amount of money a film makes in theatrical release.
BLOCKBUSTER: A film that is highly successful commercially, or one that costs an
enormous amount to make.
FEATURE: A film that runs about 90-120 minutes, the standard length for theatrical
release.
SHORT: A film whose running time is less than 30 minutes.
TWO REELER: A film running about 30 minutes, the standard length for old silent
comedies.
RATINGS: Following the collapse of the old Production Code in the late 50’s and early
60’s, the Motion Picture Association of America established the follwing ratings system
in 1968:
G- General Audiences
M- Mature Audiences
R- No one under 16 admitted without an adult
X- 16 and older
Revised in 1970and again in 1972, M became PG – Parental Guidance suggested; R and
X both raised the age requirement to 17.
Revised in 1984, there became five classifications:
G- General Audience
PG- Parental Guidance suggested for children under 17
PG-13- Parental Guidance suggested for children under 13
R- Restricted to persons 17 or older unless with an adult
NC-17 – formerly X; no one under 17 admitted
Important Technical Advances
MAGIC LANTERN: An early primitive projection system; an elementary slide projector
with one or more lens compartments.
ZOETROPE: “Life Turning.” A cylinder with a series of photographs or illustrations on
the interior, and regularly spaced slits for viewing. When spun, the images “moved.”
KINNETOGRAPH: The first viable motion picture camera, invented in 1889 by W.K.L.
Dickson for the Thomas Edison Laboratories.
CINEMATOGRAPHE: The camera-projector-printer invented by the Lumiere brothers
in 1895.
KINETOSCOPE: Edison’s peep-show device, in which short, primitive moving pictures
could be seen before the invention of the projector.
BIOGRAPH PROJECTOR: A prototype for the motion picture projector, developed at
the Biograph Labs, Edison’s chief competitor.
NICKELODEON: The first permanent movie theaters, often converted from storefronts.
Nickel theaters.
KINETOPHONE, VITAPHONE, MOVIETONE: All important prototypes for sound
films, “talkies.” The Jazz Singer (1972) was the first sound film.
TECHNICOLOR: The first successful color film system, long since superseded by
EASTMANCOLOR, the standard for today. Becky Sharp (1935) was the first color
feature.
MITCHELL CAMERA: One of several big, bulky cameras that was common on film sets
for years.
ARRIFLEX CAMERA: A hand-held camera developed in the 1950s that gave the
camera freedom and fluidity of movement. Use of the Arriflex became quite common,
but it was also conspicuous; hand-held shots often looked shaky or jerky, even when such
movements weren’t desired effects.
THE STEADICAM: A camera developed by Garret Brown that distributes weight
between the cinematographer and the camera by means of a vest, a belt, and a spring
loaded arm. The Steadicam allows the same flexibility afforded by the Arriflex without
the obvious consequences.
ACADEMY RATIO: The 1.33:1 image, the standard for most feature films prior to
1954.
CINEMASCOPE: Trade name used by 20th Century Fox for its widescreen process. First
Cinemascope film was The Robe (1954). The 35mm image is “unsqueezed” in
projection to a 70mm image.
VISTAVISION: Paramount’s response to cinemascope, an non-anamorphic process that
made the 35mm image twice as large. Because of its expense, now used primarily for
special effects.
DRIVE-IN MOVIES: A response to the automobile and television; the drive-in became
an American icon. Fewer than 600 are in operation today.
TELEVISION: It never killed Hollywood, but it wounded it forever. In fact, Hollywood
survives today because of its television markets.
PANAVISION: Replaced Cinemascope in the 60’s. The process allows 35mm negatives
to be blown up to 70mm release prints. The PANAVISION CAMERA is a widely used
camera based on the Mitchell design.
DOLBY SOUND: Invented by Ray Dolby, a recording system and reproduction system
that revolutionized sound; Dolby’s most recent innovation is surround sound. Star Wars
(1977) was the first film recorded almost entirely in Dolby.
LASER: Acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.
Developed in 1960.
VIDEO CASSETTE RECORDER: remember how it changed your life? Beta or VHS? It
didn’t kill the movies; in fact, it’s probably made us appreciate them even more. Now, of
course, we also have DVD and HOME THEATER.
Basic Film Theories, Movements, and Approaches
The definitions that follow are only brief summaries. We’ll spend more time on most of
these throughout the course of the semester.
CAMERA STYLO: Literally, “camera pen,” a phrase first used by Alexandre Astruc in
1948 to suggest that cinema could be as multidimensional and personal as the older
literary arts.
INFORMATION THEORY: According to Christian Metz, we receive information in a
film from five separate channels: Images, graphic representation, recorded speech, music,
recorded sound effects.
NARRATIVE:
Interviewer:
Surely, Mr. Godard, you recognize that a film must
Have a beginning, a middle, and an end.
Jean Luc Godard: Yes, but not necessarily in that order.
Despite Godard’s quip, film is a narrative art form, though it speaks to us in visual
imagery as well as language. A good film tells a story; it has conflict, character, and
different levels of literal and figurative meanings. You should be familiar with basic
narrative structure—exposition, complication, rising action, crisis, climax, denouement,
resolution.
REALISM: The great debate in film theory has always been between two forces: realism
and formalism. Realism stresses the mimetic theory of art, the idea that art should imitate
the real. Among the characteristics of realism are concerns for the following: continuity,
the long take, linear structure, casual narrative, documentary, history, content, and truth.
Andre Bazin, among others, is one of realism’s great apologists.
FORMALISM: Formalism understands film as text and values film according to how the
textual levels of meaning reveal themselves. It is more concerned with aesthetics, and
values characteristics like montage, rupture, diegesis, form, and beauty. The great Soviet
theorists, and French critics like Godard, have always championed formalism.
POST-MODERNISM: A complex simultaneous collision/cohesion of realist and
formalist tendencies, as though classical and modern forms had been mixed, confused,
and realigned to make something new that still seems familiar. Post-modernism is also
concerned with how film acts as a cultural record or artifact.
A useful analogy between the three is this: In realism, film becomes a window on the
world; in formalism, film is like a frame around a picture; in post-modernism, film is like
a mirror.
EXPRESSIONISM: An identifiable formal style that allows liberal use of technical
devices and artistic distortion and in which the unique personality of the director is
always obvious, always of paramount importance. Expressionism also suggests that a
character’s inner reality—his memories, his imagination, his thoughts—can be portrayed
on screen.
SEMIOLOGY: Theory of criticism pioneered by Roland Barthes in literature and
Christian Metz, Umberto Eco, and Peter Wollen in film. It uses the theories of modern
linguistics—especially the concepts of sign, signifier, and signified. For example, the
sign tree is composed of two elements: the word tree is the signifier; the idea of a tree is
the signified. In cinema, the signified—the idea of a tree—remains the same, but its
signifier, the visual image rather than a written word, becomes much more complicated.
MARXISM: the theory that film, or any art form, is valuable for what is demonstrates
about social and economic truths. The further idea that film should promote and support
the existence of fundamental social and economic truths.
FEMINISM: The theory that film, or any art form, is valuable for what it demonstrates
about the legitimacy and relevance of the female character, psyche, and experience. The
further idea that film should promote and support struggle for female equality, even as it
causes stereotypes to collapse. The idea, as well, that film should uphold the
understanding of the woman as person, even as it furthers the concept of woman as a
unique being.
PYSCHOANALYTIC CRITICISM: Finds value in film, or in any work of art, according
to how closely it supports the theories of Freud and Jung. Often concerned with
symbolism and archetypes, with the connection between the conscious and the
subconscious. In film, specifically, seeks to support the idea that cinema can portray the
invisible—the unconscious mind—as well as it can visible reality.
PHENOMENOLOGY: A theoretical method that seeks to understand consciousness
without presuppositions about the nature of knowledge or existence. For a
phenomenologist, things are valuable or real not because they exist in time or space, but
because they encourage awareness. It’s not the tree itself that matters so much, but how
the tree registers in the mind of the one who is aware of it. The physical matters little in
phenomenology; it’s the psychological that matters.
GENRE CRITICISM: Values an individual film according to its place within a specific
style, or genre, that often has strong archetypal overtones. Important genres—especially
in American filmmaking—include the Western, the Horror film, the Gangster film, the
Musical, the Science Fiction film, the Detective story, and Film Noir.
GENERATIVE THEORY: The theory that deals with the phenomenon of the production
of a film rather than the viewing of it. Important because it poses fundamental questions
about film as commerce, as well as art and entertainment.
AUTEUR THEORY: Writing in the influential French magazine Cahiers du Cinema,
Francois Truffaut and other young French critics and filmmakers proposed the theory of
the Auteur, or author, that they gleaned from appreciating American genre films like the
Western, Detective story, and Film Noir and devaluing their own tradition, the cinema of
quality, or as Truffaut put it, the cinema du papa. Quite simply, Auteur theory proposes
that the director is the primary author of a film and that good directors, like all artists,
have recognizable styles; they have a consistent oeuvre. The Auteur theory is a product of
the French New Wave, but it has had lasting influence that continues to this day, even in
the popular mainstream media. The Auteur theory fostered the Hollywood Renaissance in
America and insured that the European cinema, while remaining true to its nationalist
roots, would always be a strongly individual art form. The politique de auteurs—the
auteur policy—always argues that despite its collective creation, the film can always be
studied as an individual production, the product of a personal directorial worldview.
GERMAN EXPRESSIONISM: The German expressionists, primarily Robert Wiene and
Fritz Lang, progressed film’s visual characteristics to new heights in the early part of the
20th century. They captured on film much of the Modernist expressionistic spirit,
essentially the idea that inner experience is often more indicative of reality than physical
external experience
CLASSICAL HOLLYWOOD CINEMA: The cinema that captured the imagination of
the world from the late 1920’s to the early 1950’s. Hollywood under the studio system
became an empire of commerce and imagination and established the groundwork for
most genre filmmaking as well as a highly integrated, seamless style of editing, acting,
direction, and narration. On its most elementary level, the Classical Hollywood Cinema
functioned according to a series of codes—spoken and unspoken—that determined how
things should be done. Undone by its frequent refusal to take risks, the House UnAmerican Activities hearing, the anti-trust laws, television, and the International Film
Renaissance, Classical Hollywood Cinema conventions were borrowed by filmmakers
around the world, who often inspired Hollywood in turn to re-evaluate its own creation.
In cinema, then, there has always been a continual, cyclical dialectic between Hollywood
and the rest of the world.
ITALIAN NEO-REALISM: The work of Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica
represents the pinnacle of Italian Neo-Realism, a movement in cinema during the 1940’s
that emphasized character and environment over plot. It is characterized by its often
political aims, its studies of people impoverished and beaten by organized society and
government, the use of non-professional actors, and location shooting.
FILM NOIR: Primarily identified with the French and the Americans, Film Noir is
originally a French term that describes films most often set in gritty, urban settings that
usually deal with dark passions in a downbeat way. Private eye films and gangster
movies are good examples of the genre that also had a wide range of conventions:
contrasts between light and shadow, the femme fatale, the troubled anti-hero, the conflict
between the innocent and the corrupt. Howard Hawk’s The Big Sleep was one of the first
great Film Noir films, and Orson Welles’ A Touch of Evil one of the last, but the form is
constantly revisited and is currently undergoing a revival of sorts. Roman Polanski’s
Chinatown is probably the best reinterpretation of the form.
DIRECT CINEMA AND CINEMA VERITE: Direct Cinema originates in America
following the influence of television and the documentary film. The Maysles Brothers,
Robert Drew, Richard Leacock, and D.A. Pennebaker are notable masters.
Documentaries became more realistic and less sentimental, and their filmmakers became
less involved in voice-over narration. In France, Cinema Verite furthered the idea that the
camera could and should go everywhere. Jean Rouch was its primary master, and the
movement flourished in the early 1960’s. Both these documentary styles continue to
influence narrative and non-narrative films.
FRENCH NEW WAVE: Perhaps the most important movement in cinema, as it granted
total control to the director, the French New Wave was formally short lived, but its
influence may never diminish. The French New Wave took from Neo-Realism ideas
about location shooting and non-professional actors; it took from German Expressionism,
Welles, Ford, and Hitchcock the idea that films should display the personality of their
directors; it borrowed from the aesthetic of Film Noir and the technical proficiency of
Direct Cinema; it celebrated the accomplishment of Hollywood even as it overturned
formula and sentimentality, and it combined all of these characteristics with the arrogant
idea that the great director unites all of these wide-ranging attributes into a singular,
unified work that bears his own individual stamp. Godard, Truffaut, and Resnais were the
masters of the movement.
INTERNATIONAL FILM RENAISSANCE: An overwhelming post-WWII outpouring
of unique visions and the rise of the art film. It’s difficult to pinpoint similar
characteristics, but all the directors involved—Bergman from Sweden; Fellini, Antonioni,
Pasolini, and Leone from Italy; Bunuel from Spain; Ray from India; Kurosawa from
Japan; Godard from France—embraced the Auteur theory and pushed the envelope in
every film they made. The IFR recognized the youth movement; the Hollywood
Renaissance that followed embraced it. Furthermore, the IFR finally gave the cinema a
legitimate claim to high art status.
BRITISH SOCIAL REALISM: Hitchcock left the U.K., but in the early 1960’s the
fledgling British film industry had a new wave of its own. Two films—Saturday Night
and Sunday Morning and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, both based on
novellas by Alan Sillitoe—captured the sense of social desolation, and the uniquely
British faith in the perseverance of the individual, that gripped Britain in the late 50’s and
early 60’s. Karel Reisz and Tony Richardson were the movement’s great directors, and
they were linked with the Kitchen Sink School and the Angry Young Men, the British
novelists and playwrights whose works they frequently adapted as films.
THE CZECH NEW WAVE: Milos Forman and Jiri Menzel were the key directors in this
brief movement that carefully integrated politics with sexuality. In clever dark comedies,
the Czech New Wave spread an anti-totalitarian propaganda which authorities never
expected and rarely understood.
NEW GERMAN CINEMA: In the 1970’s and early 1980’s, a new generation of German
filmmakers, among them Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Volker Schlondorff, and Wim
Wenders, rediscovered what it meant to be German. In a series of riveting films—
including The Marriage of Maria Braun, The Tin Drum, and Wings of Desire—they
grappled with their collective past of triumph and of guilt and redefined their place
among the world’s great nation.
NEW AMERICAN CINEMA—THE HOLLYWOOD RENAISSANCE: Beginning with
the avant garde work of John Cassavetes and culminating in the blockbuster hits of
Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, a generation of young American filmmakers
educated primarily in film schools redefined Classical Hollywood convention throughout
the 60’s and 70’s. Robert Altman, Stanley Kubrick, Arthur Penn, Martin Scorsese, Mike
Nichols, Francis Ford Coppola, William Friedkin, Woody Allen, Steven Spielberg, and
George Lucas were among the finest of the new directors. They had a strong knowledge
of film history and aesthetics , and the brashness to take on the old guard. With a
powerful sense of narrative, a heightened idealism, and a fervent belief in individualism
and auteurism, they created a new set of classics for the American screen and helped
restore the place of movies in American art and culture.
THE HOLLYWOOD BLOCKBUSTER: Hollywood always loved big productions and
big box office receipts, but Coppola’s Godfather, Spielberg’s Jaws, and Lucas’s Star
Wars redefined the form and style of the blockbuster. Each of these three films broke
records; each created a marketing bonanza; each made a legitimate artistic statement, and
each has at one time or another been blamed for the subsequent decline of Hollywood.
Following these blockbusters, conventional Hollywood did seem more concerned with
money and product than with form and content.
THE LATIN AMERICAN BOOM: Along with the boom in Latin American fiction,
filmmakers in Mexico and the rest of Latin America experienced a renaissance of their
own. Looking towards the cosmopolitan style of the Spaniard Almodovar, and borrowing
from the Magic Realism of writers like Borges, Fuentes, and Garcia-Marquez, the new
Latin American directors of the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s overcame financial and political
restrictions to craft a poetic style of filmmaking that always had a social conscience.
AMERICAN INDEPENDENT FILMMAKING: A response to Hollywood’s decline, and
an acceptance of the invitation put forward by important mainstream directors like Oliver
Stone and David Lynch, American Independent Filmmaking proved throughout the 80’s
and 90’s that good pictures could get made outside of Hollywood. The surge in
independent productions opened opportunities for female, minority, and regional
filmmakers who might never have been able to work in Hollywood, and the films they
made—smart, low budget, naïve—hearkened back to the New Wave. As the conventional
Hollywood system continues to unravel, these young bright directors and their significant
little films represent a small glimmer of hope in what many believe to be a moribund
American film industry.