Printable Text: Film and the Fine Arts (SRP/ART/THR 428)
Class schedule: Fall 2006
Week 1 (August 29) Course goals and requirements; the vocabulary and art of film
Feature film: Visions of Light, a History of Cinematography
Week 2 (Sept. 5) Cinematography Favorite movie due Quiz over course objectives due today
Feature film: The Red Violin (Francois Gerard, 1998, 130 minutes)
Week 3 (Sept. 12) Narrative
Feature film: Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941, 120 minutes)
Week 4 (Sept. 19) "From Russia with Love": the art of editing
Feature films: Frida Kahlo (Julie Taymore, 2002, 123 minutes) and scenes from Alexander Nevsky and Russian Arc
Week 5 (Sept. 26) Mise en scène and film style Plot segmentation due
Feature film: Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942, 102 minutes)
Week 6 (Oct. 3) Sound: sfx, “diegetic”and “non-diegetic” sound
Feature Film: Amelie (France: Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 122 minutes)
Week 7 (Oct. 10) Sound and music: Wagner and the leitmotif Editing paper due
Feature film: Amadeus ( Milos Forman, 1984, 160 minutes)
Fall Break Continue working on term papers! Term paper assignment You may NOT write about any movies we
see in class. Remember that the final paper needs a research dimension, so find some aspect of your movie that we would
like to know more facts about. Aikin writes his own term paper (published in Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 2004)
Week 8 (Oct. 24) Sound and music continued: musicals
Feature film: Chicago (Rob Marshall, 2002, 113 minutes)
Week 9 (Oct. 31) Conventions and style in foreign cinema Essay on music in film due
Feature film: The Bicycle Thief (De Sica, 1949) or Amarcord (Fellini, 1973, 127) (3298 VHS LBX)
Week 10 (Nov. 7) Film styles and genre theory First draft of term paper due (if and only if you want a re-write)
Feature film: High Noon (Fred Zinneman, 1952, 85 minutes) OR The Magnificent Seven (John Sturges, 1960, 128
minutes)
Week 11 (Nov. 14) Beauty, gender, sex, and censorship; movies and morals
Feature film: Lola Rennt ["Run, Lola, Run"] (Tom Twyker, Germany, 1999)
Week 12 (Nov. 21) From Russia with love, part deux: acting for the camera Censorship essay due today
Feature film: 12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet, 1957, 96 minutes, black and white)
Week 13 (Nov. 28) More on style, color, and production design
Feature film: The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938, Michael Curtiz, 102 minutes)
Week 14 (Dec. 5) Summary and review: ethical and critical aspects of film
8 Film reviews due Term papers due! (Please turn in both first draft and the final draft.)
Feature films:
The way Things Go (Das Weg der Welt--Fischli and Weiss, 1987, 30 min.)
The Cog! The Ka's Evil Twin also here a parody of the cog
Early Cinema (if time): A Trip to the Moon; The Great Train Robbery
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Final Exam: 3:30 Tuesday, December 12
The final will be objective, and will cover the texts, films shown in class, the class website, and film terms. link
Study Guide for Final Exam:
1. Sample Final Exam Questions
2. Film Terms Final Exam Vocabulary and printable vocabulary Glossary of film
3. Complete list of feature films and discussion questions
4. A Checklist for Analyzing Movies
Message Board:
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Check here for updates, cancellations, exhortations, etc.
Welcome to Film and the Fine Arts. Class meets 3:30-6:30.
How to find this website: Google "Roger Aikin" ("two eyes") or "Film and the Fine Arts"
DVD's are on reserve in the library under "Aikin" and "SRP 428"
There is no food in this classroom.
The textbook is this website. Bordwell, Film Art, is "recommended"
Final Exam: 3:30 Tuesday, December 12. Put it on your calendar.
You already know everything you are going to learn in this course (but not the vocabulary).
Sample questions:
Which two aspects of movies appeal most directly to the emotions?
The movie screen is flat. What aspect of film art provides a third dimension--space--to movies?
Assignments: Course goals and requirements Writing Assignments Honesty Huge Film Glossary
Study Aids: Film Terms Final Exam Vocabulary A Checklist for Analyzing Movies Film Discussion Questions
Data Bases: IMDB Filmsite 100 Greatest Films 220 emotions TCM
IMBD viewers choice top 250 films
Special Sites: Dazzle Index Rotton Tomatoes! Filmtracks.com Web Resources Aikin's home page
Course Objectives
Dr. Roger Aikin, Associate Professor of Fine Arts, x1455, room 129 LECA, raikin@cu
Catalogue Description: SRP 428, Film and the Fine Arts (3) (Same as ART/THR 428) Certified Writing Course. Film as an
art form and its relationship to art history, music, and theatre history; styles of acting, design, music, and art in film in the 20th
century. Criticism of film art. Course requirements include discussion, examinations, and critical writing. Extensive use of
the Internet.
Course Objectives:
1. To become familiar with the basic vocabulary of film art and the principle styles of acting, visualization, music in film.
2. To learn the history of film styles and their relationship to the fine and performing arts.
3. To integrate modes of analysis and critical vocabulary of the several artistic disciplines.
4. To engage in personal reflection and learn to make and express critical and ethical judgments about film art.
5. To examine film art for expressions of major areas of human and social concern, especially the ways in which human
actions and moral choices are represented and critiqued. It is hoped, as a final outcome of this course, that students will learn
to recognize the ways that art media are used in film to create meaning and influence viewers, and will learn to criticize both
the effectiveness and purpose of artistic expression in film.
Assignments: There are several writing assignments and a final exam that 500 total points (See Writing Assignments) All
*Certified Writing* courses must require at least 20 pages of writing.
We are studying film mechanics and film "art," that is, the technical ways that film makers create meaning--camera issues
(film size, color or lack of it, lenses, framing, lighting), mise-en-scene (setting, costumes, makeup, etc.), editing (shot
selection and duration, etc.), sound, music, acting, and directing. But we should not forget the purpose all these tools serve,
namely, to represent human moral choice, right and wrong, virtue and vice. The main goal of the Senior Perspective Program
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is "ethical or moral understanding," and movies are above all representations good or bad behavior. Movies are visualized
fictional dramas about human moral choice, and the goal of drama has not changed since Aristotle--they are an opportunity
for us to observe and critique human behavior, to identify with, praise, condemn, and/or pity the characters. (Then we wipe
our brows and walk out of the theater into the sunlight!) We must inevitably ask ourselves if they made the right choices, and
whether we would have made the same ones, in the same. Movies are about virtue. (Question: what is virtue? For example,
what are the seven traditional virtues and vices? I have a dollar in my pocket for anybody who actually knows all 14 of
them!) Someone said that character is destiny. The fictional people we see represented in movies all have strengths and
weakness, and it is the revelation and development of character that movies do best. In this respect movies do exactly the
same thing that novels do--except that the film medium has even more tools available to do the job.
Caveat:
Some students may complain that the films we screen are not the sort that they are used to, and black-and-white, subtitled, foreign,
and silent films are often a challenge. First, no student will like all the films that will be shown in the class (just as you would
probably not like all the books assigned in a literature course). The point of this course is not to entertain or to show only the
sorts of films we are already used to watching. Rather, we want to expand our horizons and learn something about the wide
range of films available that have been created in the 100 plus years of the medium. Watching unfamiliar films is a requirement
of this course.
Texts:
Bordwell and Thompson, Film Art (recommended main text), 1997, and the class website.
Robert Benedetti, Acting for Film and Television, 2001
Claudia Gorbman, Unheard Melodies: Narrative Film Music, 1987
D. Bordwell, On the History of Film Style, 1998
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Writing Assignments in SPR 428, Film as Art
We regret that we cannot accept work by email.
(Top Ten Excuses Why my Paper is Late)
Week 2: Quiz over course objectives and requirements--download here (10 points).
Week 2: Favorite movie essay (10 points). 100 words only: What is your favorite movie and why?
For comparison, try to find two reviews of your movie (check Ebert, rottentomatoes, and the IMBD).
Week 5: Plot "segmentation" exercise on The Red Violin Assignment here (50 points) (2-3 pages)
Week 7: Editing and cinematography essay Assignment here (50 points) (2-3 pages)
Week 9: Music in film essay Essay Assignment on Music in film (50 points) (2-3 pages)
Week 10: First (optional) draft of research paper
Assignment here (100 points) (8 to 12 pages)
Week 12: Essay on censorship Assignment (50 points) (2-3 pages)
Week 14: Eight (8) film "reviews" or "responses" (10 points each=80 points).
Write a one paragraph (100 to 200 word) response to eight (8) of the films shown. Keep these pages and turn
them all in at the end of class on one document (to save paper: put more than one review on each page), but be
working on them all semester. These short essays can deal with any aspect of the film which interested you, or
which you liked or disliked. Make them argumentative and fun to read. For examples see Roger Ebert's hompage,
especially the "one-minute movie reviews." Roger Ebert's review of Sideways Extremely judgmental and emotional
reactions using vivid language are encouraged, and a good model to follow would be Roger Ebert's famous review
of the movie North:
"I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant
audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult
to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it."
Week 14: Final draft of research papers due! Assignment (400 points total for all writing assignments)
Creighton University's policies on academic honesty Danger! Borrowing stuff from the web-Citing the internet in footnotes: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/cgos/idx_basic.html (Our grading philosophy)
Paper Writing Aids:
Read this: Writing papers (by Aikin)
Common errors in English Always proofread after spell-check (homonyms and homophones!)
The Postmodern Generator!
(a sample "generated" paper) (another sample paper)
"How to Talk About Film"
Web dictionaries and word finders (thesauruses):
Plumbdesign is a fabulous 3-d tool for finding the right word.
Allwords is has multiple dictionaries, slang, quotes, etc. (lots of fun here)
Bartleby's quotations and thesaurus is terrific.
Your Dictionary is also a good synonym source, with foreign language searches.
The Rhymezone is cool. (Type in "orange")
Word power: many dictionaries
Roget's Thesaurus
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Humor:
"An antidote to The Elements of Style"
"How to talk about art" (actually does have useful vocabulary)
Actual analogies used by High School students!
Slang:
Top 20 college slang words of 2003 [now out of date!]
London slang
Cockney slang
Alternative foreign dictionaries homepage
Grading criteria for short essays:
(All papers must exhibit acceptable grammar, spelling, and style.)
Lacking in analysis, insights, point of view, organization, and coherence, and also lacking in basic editing
and proofreading—F
Lacking in analysis, insights, point of view, organization, and coherence--D
A coherent point of view, but lacking useful or creative insights, analysis, and clear, careful expression—C
Good analysis, some insights, clear expression of ideas, and a clear theme or point of view—B
Careful analysis and attention to detail, useful or creative insights, clear expression or ideas, and a an important
and interesting theme or point of view—A
Grading criteria for the final paper:
(All papers must exhibit acceptable grammar, spelling, and style.)
No research, citations, ideas, or clear thesis—F
Little research, improper citations, and no clear thesis—D
Minimal research and citations with no original ideas or insights but a clear thesis—C
Thorough research and citations with some original ideas and a clear and interesting thesis—B
Exemplary research and citations, with an original, important, and well developed thesis--A
Creighton University policies concerning academic honesty apply.
Citing the internet in footnotes: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/cgos/idx_basic.html
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Film Vocabulary by Topic
Look up all these words at Film Terms --A Film-Making Glossary and Dictionary.
Complete printable text of the vocabulary below (Find definitions at the Glossary) page.
Basic web resources: IMDB Filmsite Filmsound.org TCM AMC
Basic concepts
Film criticism
Cinematography and Editing
Narrative
Editing
Sound
Music
Film Genres
Acting and Production Design
Basic concepts:
The audio-visual contract
The Kuleshov effect
Film/cinema/movie
Mise-en-scene
Pre-production, production, and post-production (preparation, shooting, assembly, distribution, and exhibition)
Some terms and roles in film production:
The writer ("The starlet was really dumb. How dumb was she? . . . .")
The script and storyboard:
pitch session; adaptation; treatment; shooting script;
screen credit; the Screen Writers Guild; Alan Smithee
Continuity ( For fun with "continuity" see: http://www.movie-mistakes.com
More goofy mistakes at: http://www.moviecliches.com
The director (auteur) and his crew; assistant director/girl Friday; "second unit" director
The producer(s) (mainly financial and organizational)
associate producer and his assistants (Luca Brazzi)
investors/angels/bankers/accountants
the "studio" and its "mogul" (Louis B. Mayer and his "stable" of stars in 1942)
The production designer(s); scene or set designer; lighting design, electricians, fabricators
The costume designer and cutters
The makeup artist: Marlon Brando in The Godfather
The composer, arranger, conductor, musicians
The sound designer and sound recording (not so easy!); "foley" artists; post-production, etc.
The film editor and technicians (color "balancing")
Special effects artists ("fx"); computer designers; animatronics, blood and gore, etc.
The cameraman or cinematographer; key grip, boom operator, dolly, focus, gaffer, best boy, etc.
The casting director (and his couch)
The actors; stand-ins/doubles/body doubles; stunt men; agents (William Morris); personal assistants, chefs,
trainers, dressers, etc.
Post-production:
Film Editor: dailies or "rushes," rough cut" and final cut or "directors cut" (now largely electronic editing), "outtakes;"
[John Ford frequently made only one "take" so the editor and film editor had to use his version!]
Sound Editor: the sound track, "re-recording," dubbing" or "looping," sound effects, foley artists, "walla;"
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sanitized versions for TV or airlines: "This film has been edited for time and content and modified to fit the screen."
Composer and conductor write the score
Final sound track: rerecording mixer, equalization etc.
Vocabulary: Film Criticism
the audio-visual contract
willing suspension of disbelief
actor or principal actor supporting actor
animation
art, the fine arts: music, dance, theater, painting, sculpture
art house
aspect ratio
auteur (French for "author")
cinema (moving picture)
cinema verite
classical Hollywood style
closure
color
continuity editing, transparency editing (similar to "inaudibility" for film music), classical Hollywood practice
commands ("quiet, roll film (camera), speed, slate it, action, cut, print, lunch!")
composition
conventions (forms and symbols in language, art, and culture that have an agreed-upon meaning)
credits: director, producer, writer, composer, actor, publicist, second unit, production designer, costumer, makeup,
key grip, best boy, focus pullers, Foley artists, extras, property master, wrangler
crosscutting, parallel editing
cultural studies
diegesis, diegetic sound, nondiegetic sound, nondiegetic insert, external diegetic sound, internal diegetic sound)
director's cut, rushes, rough cut.
ellipsis, elliptical editing, temporal ellipsis, temporal extension or temporal hyperbole, overlapping editing
epic melodrama
expressionist
femme fatale
film noir (featuring low-key lighting, and also often voice over narration and flashback), Neo-noir
flashback
flashforward
form:
associational form A type of organization in which the film's parts are juxtaposed to suggest similarities, contrasts,
concepts, emotions, and expressive qualities.
abstract form A type of filmic organization in which the parts relate to each other through repetition and variation
of such visual qualities as shape, color, rhythm, and direction of movement.
narrative form A type of filmic organization in which the parts relate to each other through a series of
causally related events taking place in a specific time and space.
categorical form A type of filmic organization in which the parts treat distinct subsets of a topic. For example,
a film about the United States might be organized into fifty parts, each devoted to a single state. (See Bordwell)
framing situation (also "bookends" or brackets)
frequency
function
genres Film genres and the history of each type at Filmsite
Gesamtkunstwerk
intertextuality
ideology
indulgence or indictment, representation, audience
ultrathematic reading form, context, content, from Words of Art: Film Studies
interpretation
Kuleshov effect.
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McGuffin
meaning 1. Referential meaning: Allusion to particular pieces of shared prior knowledge outside the film which the
viewer is expected to recognize. 3. Explicit meaning: Significance presented overtly, usually in language and often near the
film's beginning or end. 3. Implicit meaning: Significance left tacit, for the viewer to discover upon analysis or reflection. 4.
Symptomatic meaning: Significance which the film divulges, often "against its will," by virtue of its historical or social
context.
melodrama
method (the)
mise-en-scene [meez on sen]
montage
Soviet montage
montage sequence
morphing
motif
Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA),
The 1930 Producers Code ("The Hays Code"): The 1930 Hays Code and its origins; movies and morals
gender, beauty, sex, and censorship; prior restraint
motivation
myth
narration, narrative: characters, actions, incidents, problems, or conflicts, and a final state, resolution, or insight.
curiosity, suspense, and surprise; closure, parallelism; unity, closure, and "imaginariness"
direct or continuous sequential narrative, interrupted sequence, alternating past and present, arbitrary, ass-backwards
New Wave
Neorealism
point-of-view shot (POV shot): birds eye view, worm's eye view, objective point of view, subjective point of view
post-studio period
Postmodern
offscreen space
nondiegetic insert
plot and story
screen or viewing time, plot time, story time
production, distribution, exhibition
propaganda
rhythm
screenplay, script, shooting script, treatment, synopsis
scene
segmentation
setting, set, "location"
silent era
single camera, multiple cameras
storyboard
studio system
style
space
special effects (fx)
sound effects (sfx)
story: duration, ellipsis, frequency, order, space, viewing time, plot time, and story time
talent agency
technique
time: screen time or viewing time, plot time, and story time
temporal duration, temporal frequency, and temporal order.
turning point
flashback or flash-forward
typage
ultrathematic reading
unity
variation
voyeurism
voice over narration
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Vocabulary: Cinematography and Editing:
ASC (American Society of Cinematographers--the British equivalent is the BSC)
"DP" (director of photography)
the five "C's" of cinematography: camera angles, continuity, cutting, close-ups, and composition.
lenses: depth of field, fast and slow lenses; wide-angle lens, normal lens, telephoto lens, zoom lens, exposure, f-stop
deep focus, shallow focus and shallow space, rack focus, freeze frame,
film rate (fast and slow motion: 24 fps, 48 fps, etc.); apparent motion; persistence of vision
camera moves: panning, tilting, tracking, craning, zoom, dolly, zoom and dolly
aspect ratios: academy ratio, widescreen, "anamorphic" ratios and lenses (Cinemascope), Cinerama
the frame, mobile frame, hand-held or "nailed down", the steadicam, angle of framing, canted framing,
distance of framing, also called "camera distance" and "shot scale."
the 180 degree rule, axis of action, 30 degree rule, screen direction,
shots:
extreme long shot, medium shot (plan americain), medium close-up, close-up, extreme close- up, two shot
("els, ls, ms, mcu, ecu")
establishing and re-establishing shot,
eyeline match, POV (point-of-view) shot, following shot, match-on-action
shot/reverse shot
perspective, forced perspective, aerial or atmospheric perspective; birds eye view, objective point of view
take, long take (also called "travel shot," "plan-sequence," or "sequence shot")
clapper boy: "roll film, speed, slate it, action, cut, print," synchronization
process shot, special effects (fx), front projection and rear projection (now obsolete--"green screen") video assist
mask, masking, matte artist, matte shot, composite shot
serendipity or "happy accident"
the "studio look" Gloss, Grit, Glamour. Gregg Toland; "New York Style"
lighting: three-point lighting, key light, high-and low-key lighting, fill light, backlighting, side lighting, soft lighting,
frontal lighting, hard lighting, star lighting, iris, chiaroscuro, exposure, film stock, filter,
color: hue, value, saturation, complementary colors, monochromatic color design, flashing, filters
color balancing, flashing, the "prince of darkness"
magic hour, day for night
the visual elements of film: color, light, composition, space, perspective, movement
Vocabulary: Narrative
diegesis, diegetic, non-diegetic
screen time/plot time/story time
temporal order, duration, and frequency
flashbacks and flash-forwards
plot segmentation
montage, montage sequences
temporal ellipsis and temporal extension
time: sound and images (continuous and discontinuous)
characters
unity, closure, and "imaginariness"; tight and open closure
curiosity, suspense, and surprise
causality, "rubber ducky" gimmick
parallelism ("cross-cutting" and "parallel editing")
narrator, narration
narrative genres: comedy, tragedy, tragicomedy, epic, melodrama, allegory.
framing devices--narrative, visual, and sound
motifs and symbols
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irony (dramatic, comic, and unintended)
motivation
protagonist/antagonist, blocking figure
inciting incident
types of stories: Quest, Adventure, Pursuit, Rescue, Escape, Revenge, The Riddle, The Rivalry, Underdog, Temptation,
Metamorphosis, Transformation, Maturation, Love, Forbidden Love, Sacrifice, Discovery, Wretched Excess,
Ascension and Descension
roman a clef, cinema a clef
realism and abstraction, documentary film, form and content
genres, styles, conventions, conventional
Editing Vocabulary:
visual elements of film: color, light, composition, space, perspective, movement
relations: graphic relations, rhythmic relations, spatial relations, temporal relations
graphic match (e.g., color, shape), sound match
time:
ellipsis (temporal ellipsis), or elliptical editing (omitting part of an event), as transition: Lambs, Contact, Kane
temporal expansion (making an event last longer) by editing or film rate
editing:
transparency editing, continuity, and continuity editing (verisimilitude), discontinuity editing, verisimilitude
parallel editing or crosscutting (two stories told simultaneously with inter-cutting)
montage, montage sequence (dissolves, fades, superimpositions, and wipes)
types of shots: els, ls, ms, mcu, cu, ecu, etc.
types of joins, cuts, or edits:
Establishing shot and re-establishing shot, shot/reverse shot, zoom in or cut in
the 180 degree rule
insert, fade, fade in, flash, dissolve, wipes (swish pans, flash pans, zip pans), cheat cut, jump cut (jump cut in 2001),
shock cut, overlapping editing, cut-in, eyeline match or POV shot, match-on action,
(What kind of temporal relations does each type of edit imply? E.g. dissolves or wipes?)
example: a conversation between two people. How would you film and edit that?
An "establishing shot," followed by a "two shot," followed by talking heads. Do you follow the 180 degree rule?
How could you edit such a conversation? Very conventionally? Or very radically? See this quote.
space, onscreen and offscreen space (six kinds), story space, plot space,
motif (repeated object, form, or color)
nondiegetic insert
over-the-shoulder cutting pattern
panning and scanning
take, long take (sequence shot, or plan-sequence)
rhythm, beat (or pulse), accent (or stress), and tempo (or pace)
sequence, scene
single camera, multiple cameras (sitcoms)
storyboard
style (personal or national)
unity and variation
Sound vocabulary:
(See Filmsound.org)
dialogue, music, and effects ("sfx" and "fx")
sound flashback and flashforward
image flashback and flashforward
Foley artists
ADR, "Automated dialogue replacement"
ambience
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direct sound & Reflected sound, location sound
characteristic sound
dialogue editor
dialogue overlap
Looping, dubbing, postsynchronization
external diegetic sound, internal diegetic sound
emotional realism
establishing sound
MOS
natural sounds
location sound
room tone
sound designer and sound editor
sound motif
sound loop (dubbing)
sound bridge
sound perspective, stereophonic
soundscape
sweeten
THX
walla
Music:
invisibility (the technical apparatus of nondiegetic music must not be visible)
“inaudibility” (nondiegetic music is not meant to be heard consciously)
signifier of emotion
narrative cueing: —referential and connotative: music “interprets” and “illustrates” narrative events.
opera [di musica]
leifmotif
epic melodrama: "melody drama"
gesamtkunstwerk (“total work of art”)
musicals: book, lyrics
Mickey-Mousing
mixing, tracks
intertextuality
A basic vocabulary of Music (courtesy Carole Seitz)
overture
conventions
continuity
harmonies or "chords"
pitch, scales
rhythm and mete, beat (or pulse), accent (or stress), and tempo (or pace)
tone color or timbre
dynamics (loud and soft--"piano" and "forte")
melody, "recitative" vs. "aria"
harmony
rhythm or tempo
key (major, minor)
texture (dense, open, etc.)
instrumentation (affects texture)
form or structure: sonata form
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Film Genres:
Action: blaxploitation, martial arts and Jackie Chan, Ultra-Violent, Disaster and End of the World,
Good-Ol' Boy Films in the 70s and 80s
Adventure: swashbuckler, epic melodrama/historical
Comedy: slapstick, deadpan, verbal comedy, screwball, balck or dark comedy, Parody or Spoof - also Satire,
Lampoon and Farce
Crime/Gangster: noir, prison, organized crime,
Drama, social problem, illness, alchoholism, juve delinquents, courtroom, political, journalism, history, sports,
religious, show biz, literature
Epics/Historical biblical, sword and sandal, biopics, royalty, war
Horror monsters, vamps, dracula, Frankenstein, wolfman/werewolf, mummy, cat people, zombies,
devil-possession, teen, poe, Hitchcock,
Musicals Busby Berkeley, revue, backyard, biopic, song and dance, teen, flag wavers and Americana, Disney,
Rock and Roll, Muppets, horror
Science Fiction: alien, space, mutant, Japanese monsters, Verne and Wells, time travel, apes, robots, Lucas and
Spielberg, Utopia and Dystopia
War and anti-war, spy, holocaust
Westerns singin' cowboy, John Ford and John Wayne, film-noirish westerns, comic, cult, spaghetti, Peckinpagh,
Eastwood, revisionist, spoofs
Film sub-genre categories
Biographical Films ("Biopics")
'Chick' Flicks (or Gal Films)
Detective/Mystery Films
Disaster Films
Fantasy Films
Film Noir
'Guy' Films
Melodramas or Women's "Weepers"
Romance Films
Sports Films
Supernatural Films
Thrillers/Suspense Films
Non-genre categories
Animated Films
British Films
Childrens/Kids/Family Films
Classic Films
Cult Films
Documentary Films
Serial Films
Sexual/Erotic Films
Silent Films
Here is the list of genres from the current Critics Choice catalogue:
Action/Die Hard
Adventure/Travel/Epic/Epic Melodrama
Black Cinema
Blaxploitation
British Comedy and Drama
Buddy Film
Cartoons
Chick Flick
Cliffhanger/ Cliffhanger Serials
Cops and Robbers
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Comedy/Slapstick/Screwball/Burlesque/Backstage/Remarriage/Three Stooges/Abbot&Costello
Cult
Disaster/Airport/Eathquake/Asteriod
Espionage and Intrigue
Film Noir
Foreign
Holiday
Horror
Martial Arts
Musicals
Sex/Erotic/Pornography/Educational
Religious Drama
Road Picture
Roadhouse
Romance
Sci-Fi/Horror
Shakespeare
Silent
Sports
Suspense
Thrillers/Monsters/Sci-Fi
War
Westerns/MatineeWesterns/B Westerns/Spagetti Westerns/Wayne/Eastwood, etc.
Weepie/Romance
Worst Films of all Time (John Wayne as Ghengis Kahn!)
Acting:
Pilot script, shooting script
Sides
Blocking
Gaffer
Master shot
Roll it, Speed, Slate it, Action, Cut
Upstage/Downstage
"slice of life" acting style
the "method" of Stanislavsky
the magic "If"
doing (actions) vs. being (Indicating)
inner monologue [Michael Caine: actors who have no lines are thinking of lots of interesting things to say-but not actually saying them!]
memory of emotion
character: decisions, choices, consequences
melodrama vs. realism
Production design:
setting
property, props
makeup and costumes
"location" vs. "studio"
model makers, matte painters, computer and software designers (Industrial Light and Magic)
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Film History or film movements (Chapter 12)
Early Cinema (1893-1903)
The Development of the Classical Hollywood Cinema (1908-1927)
German Expressionism (1919-1926)
French Impressionism and Surrealism (1918-1930)
Soviet Montage (1924-1930)
Classical Hollywood after Sound (1927ff)
Italian Neorealism (1942-1951)
French New Wave (1959-1964)
New Hollywood and Independent Filmmaking (1965ff)
Important Names in Film History?
Credits and mise-en-scene:
What are the first images in the film (often while the credits are rolling), and what do they tell you.
Where and when is the film set and how do you know this?
Do you know yet how the film will end?
Cinematography and visual style: color, space, focus, depth of field, camera angles, POV, composition,
movement, aspect ratios, light and lighting, atmosphere. Is there a "style" or overall look and feel of the film?
Editing: continuity, cutting, montage, pace; graphic, rhythmic, spatial, and temporal relations; ellipsis and hyperbole.
Production design, costumes, and fx: color, light, set design. "Realism" or "Fantasy"?
Narrative: dialogue; story, plot, and screen time; narrative structure (flashbacks and flash-forwards)
Acting, dialogue, and movement: styles of acting, dancing, etc.
Sound and music: diegetic and non-diegetic sound; leitmotifs; fx
Genre: what "kind" of movie is it, and how do you know?
Intertextuality: what other films, music, works of art, or "texts" are referred to in the film and why?
"Critical" aspects of film: historical, moral, social, gender, and economic issues.
Opinions: is the film "good" or "bad"? Justify your opinions.
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A Checklist for Analyzing Movies
Credits and mise-en-scene: what are the first images in the film (often while the credits are rolling), and what do they tell
you. Where and when is the film set and how do you know this? Do you know yet how the film will end? Genre?
Cinematography and visual style: color, space, focus, depth of field, camera angles, POV, composition, movement, aspect
ratios, light and lighting, atmosphere. Is there a "style" or overall look and feel of the film?
Editing: continuity, cutting, montage, pace; graphic, rhythmic, spatial, and temporal relations; ellipsis and hyperbole.
Production design, costumes, and fx: color, light, set design. "Realism" or "Fantasy"?
Narrative: dialogue; story, plot, and screen time; narrative structure (flashbacks and flash-forwards)
Acting, casting, dialogue, and movement: styles of acting, dancing, etc.
Sound and music: diegetic and non-diegetic sound; leitmotifs; sfx
Genre: what "kind" of movie is it, and how do you know?
Intertextuality: what other films, music, works of art, or "texts" are referred to in the film and why?
"Critical" aspects of film: historical, moral, social, gender, and economic issues.
Opinions: is the film "good" or "bad"? Justify your opinions.
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List of Feature Films and Discussion Questions (SRP 428)
Short Feature films:
The way Things Go (Das Weg der Welt--Fischli and Weiss, 1987, 30 min.), and
The Cog! (Honda Commercial)
The Ka's Evil Twin (at http://www.kaklub.co.uk/downloads/downloads.htm)
Parania (Maureen Timpa Hendricks) [at 4:50]
Alien Song (Victor Navone)
Un Chien d’Andalu, (Luis Bunuel, France, 1929, 16 minutes)
Allegro Non Troppo (Italy, Bruno Bozzetto, 1971, 75 minutes)
Early films: A Trip to the Moon (France, 1902); The Great Train Robbery (1903)
Visions of Light, a History of Cinematography
(Chapter index)
ASC (American Society of Cinematographers--the British equivalent is the BSC)
"DP" (director of photography)
Lenses and film: "fast" and "slow"; what is "depth of field"?
Lighting: what are "key" lights, ambient light
How can you recognize a "film noir"?
What "hour" is only 20 minutes long?
When was the first color movie? What process?
Camera terms: "nailed down," hand-held, stedicam; "mobile frame"
What was the effect of sound on cinematography?
Color: The Last Emperor? Who said green means knowledge, etc.? What is "flashing"?
What two elements of film art appeal most directly to the emotions?
What is the scientific word for a "happy accident"--as in the rain scene In Cold Blood?
What is an "anamorphic" ratio?
What was the "studio look"? Which studios strived for "Gloss, Grit, and Glamour"?
Who was Gregg Toland?
What is "New York Style"?
What is "zooming and dollying" (as in Goodfellas)
Who was the "prince of darkness" Why?
The Red Violin (Francois Gerard, 1998, 130 minutes)
Paper assignment: analyze the narrative structure (Assignment here)
There are two stories being told here. What are they?
How does the director get back and forth between the two? What VISUAL keys are used?
Why did the director choose this particular narrative structure? Does it engage us? How else could the story have been told?
How is the narrative structure of Red Violin like that of Citizen Kane?! Plot segmentation of Citizen Kane.
Are the main plot segments flash backs or flash forwards?
How does the narrative create suspense and surprise (a punch line)? Does Kane have suspense or surprise? Why not?
What are the roles of music in this movie?
What editing techniques are used to create excitement and involvement in Red Viiolin?
Whose fortune is being told by Cesca? What is the cinematic or narrative purpose of the Tarot/fortune telling scene?
Discuss the scene when Maestro Reselsky plays the violin. What exactly is happening? How is Morritz feeling? How has
he been behaving?
How does the Kuleshov Effect apply in this scene?
So, what happens to the Red Violin now? Is the violin evil? How many people has it killed?
Identify and discuss the various "montage sequences." How were they done and how are they handled?
Name some of the cinematography and editing techniques used.
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How about "symbols"? The moon? The Tarot? Are colors used as symbols?
What did you think about the scene in Red China when they "denounced" Western music?
Cremona: (the great violin making town of Italy--by Stradivarius, Guarneri, etc.)
Nicolo Bussotti, the violin master
His wife, Anna Bussotti
The fortune teller Cesca ("cheska")
Vienna:
Georges Poussin, the teacher
Kaspar Weiss, the boy violinist
Monks of the Viena monastery, past and present
Un-named Gypsy violinists
Oxford:
Frederick Pope--the great Romantic virtuoso
Victoria--his mistress and muse (Greta Schacchi, of course)
Shanghai:
Xiang Pei, the man
Chou Yuan, his wife
Montreal:
Charles Morritz--the violin appraiser (played by Samuel L. Jackson)
Evan Williams--the violin mechanic
Madame Leroux--the auction house
The Auctioneer
Mr. Ruselsky--the violin virtuoso
(Full cast and characters at IMDB.)
Citizen Kane
(Orson Wells, 1941, 2 hours) The topic is narrative
structure
Background expectations:
Viewers in 1941 knew Citizen Kane was a disguised biopic (biographic picture) of the publisher William Randolf
Hearst and his companion Marion Davies.
Hearst tried to stop production and even tried to have the film and negative destroyed!
(A disguised biography in a book is called a roman a clef, or a "novel with a key." So, is there "cinema a clef.")
But what genre IS it? ("News on the March" is a great parody of contemporary newsreels.)
Citizen Kane is much more ambiguous in many ways than films than 1941 audiences were used to.
How are plot and story related? An outline of the plot and story in Kane segmented into sequences
How does the narrative present information to us?
Is narration restricted to one, or a few character's knowledge, or does if range freely in time and space?
Does it give depth by exploring mental states?
How closely does the film follow the conventions of classical Hollywood cinema?
Does the closing relate to the beginning?
Do all narrative lines achieve closure, or are some left open?
Causality in Kane: two distinct sets of characters cause events to occur because there are two stories.
Time in Kane: Story duration, plot duration, and screen duration are how long, respectively?
Screen duration compresses time, often through montage sequences: (4d, 5c, 7e. 7h)
Some events in the story appear several times in the plot. Examples? (6i and 7c)
Motivation Is the search for Rosebud a flaw because the answer is a trivial gimmick?
What is Kane's mother's motivation? Is it plausible?
Why does Kane insist on stuffing Xanadu with hundreds of artworks he never unpacks?
Who IS this guy? Is he an "American"? What is "American" about him?
Identification, suspense, and surprise--key elements of narrative--seem absent. Why?
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Parallelism. Several parallel structures are present in Kane's narrative form:
The Newsreel parallels the film's plot as a whole. Kane's life parallels Thompson's search
Patterns of plot development There are 5 narrators and 5 flashbacks with a clear order; but both "searches" fail
The ending of the film strongly echoes the beginning. [In fact, the images are the exact reverses of the beginning.
Can you think of another film we have seen that does this?] How is the narrative structure of Red Violin like
that of Citizen Kane?!
Kane Trivia:
When is the only time we actually see Kane directly--without narrators?
What concrete image are we shown repeatedly in the film that symbolizes the film's search?
Why is Thompson faceless--and pretty much without character traits?
When is there "omniscient" narration, that is, when do we and only we know something?
Alexander Nevsky [Battle Scene] (Sergei Eisenstein, 1938, 112 minutes)
On Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky
Alexander Nevsky has been called "the greatest score ever written trapped inside the worst sound track ever recorded."
(Andre Previn)
Cinematography and formal issues: be aware of camera placement, composition, and framing.
Does the camera ever move?
How long does each shot last?
(Eisenstein invented the concept of Montage--the placement of one "shot" next to another to tell a story or
create emotion.)
The "Battle on the Ice" is a classic battle sequence in film.
Can you recognize elements that later directors copied?
Does the music sound familiar? [Hint: "You're going to need a bigger boat."]
Sound and music. How does the music complement and enhance the images?
Acting: How would you describe the "style" of acting? Is this a "period style"? Gestures?
Language? Did you notice the rhetoric and word order?
Historical issues: How does the film work as propaganda? How does it represent good and evil?
Russian Ark (Russia, 2002, A. Sokurov, photography by Tilman Buettner, 96 minutes)
There is something extraordinary about this film. See how long it takes you to figure it out.
What problems did the director--and camera operator!-- face, and how did they overcome these problems.
What does the title mean? See Rottontomatoes for reviews:
"Might well be the first real masterpiece of the 21st Century." -- Robert Denerstein, ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS
"'What's the Russian word for Wow!?'" -- Richard Corliss, TIME MAGAZINE
"As the film begins, an invisible narrator (Sokurov), whose point of view we assume, finds himself suddenly transported
back to the early 1700s. No one can see him except the French Marquis de Custine (Sergey Dreiden), who has himself been
transported there from the 19th century. The Marquis was a real person, who, among other things, worked as a travel writer.
Together our two guides enter the Hermitage museum in St. Petersberg, maneuver through 33 rooms, and exit again. They
witness great works of art, meet people from both the past and the present, and they bicker over what they've seen from two
points of view: the Marquis from a Western outsider's view, and the narrator with the hindsight of history. But again, even
if you don't know this stuff, "Russian Ark" is easy enough to follow. It transfixes us effortlessly as we glide from room to
room, looking at stunningly beautiful paintings and architecture. In some scenes, Sokurov tries to play with us, as when a
blind woman describes a painting of the Madonna and child to our guides. And a sojourn into the wrong room gets our heroes
reprimanded for treading upon the corpses of World War I. But even casual observers should be able to pick up references to
Anastasia and poet Alexander Pushkin. And Catherine the Great (Mariya Kuznetsova) probably gets more screen time than
anyone besides our guide. The final masterstroke comes in the last room in which a great ball takes place -- supposedly the
Hermitage's final ball, held in 1913. The scene must have utilized hundreds of extras, each moving in a specific pattern. This
sight is so dazzling and transcendent that even the narrators stop talking for a while just to watch. (The Marquis joins the
dance.) When the ball ends, our narrator merges with the hundreds of costumed revelers as they descend a great staircase,
headed for the exit. We're swept up in the mass of humanity with a mix of sadness and awe." Jeffrey M. Anderson, SAN
FRANCISCO EXAMINER
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Frida
(Julie Taymore, 2002, 123 minutes)(Use the Checklist for Analyzing Movies)
Credits and mise-en-scene:
What are the first images in the film (often while the credits are rolling), and what do they tell you.
Where and when is the film set and how do you know this? Do you know yet how the film will end?
What is this film "about"? Is it a "love story" or something else?
Cinematography and visual style: color, space, focus, depth of field, camera angles, POV, composition, movement, aspect
ratios, light and lighting, atmosphere.
Is there a "style" or overall look and feel of the film?
Production design and fx: costumes, color, light, set design. "Realism" or "Fantasy"?
Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera were artists. How does the film use their paintings in the narrative and special effects?
Editing: continuity, cutting, montage, pace; graphic, rhythmic, spatial, and temporal relations; ellipsis and hyperbole.
How are modern movies like Frida different from older ones like Kane and Casablanca?
Narrative: story, plot, and screen time; narrative structure (flashbacks and flash-forwards)
What kind of narrative structure is Frida? Any flashbacks?
Acting, dialogue, and movement: styles of acting, dancing, etc.
Discuss the characters and their motivation.
Sound and music: diegetic and non-diegetic sound; leitmotifs; fx
Genre: what "kind" of movie is it, and how do you know?
Intertextuality: what other films, music, works of art, or "texts" are referred to in the film and why?
"Critical" aspects of film: historical, moral, social, gender, and economic issues.
Opinions: is the film "good" or "bad"? Justify your opinions.
What do you think of the relationship of the two main characters?
Casablanca
(Michael Curtiz, 1942, 102 minutes)
Starring--Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Sidney Greenstreet)
What makes a great movie? Famous quotes and trivia from Casablanca
(Casablanca was filmed in early 1942--after Pearl Harbor.)
Screen time: 102 minutes. Plot time? Story time?
Watch for the "old style" montage sequence at the beginning
What is this movie "about"? What big human issues and conflicts are present? See this explanation.
What is the most energetic and moving scene in the movie? (Notice the little "plot within a plot" here with Yvonne.)
What are some of the famous quotes from this movie.
Why has this movie remained so popular? Hint: timing! Exactly when did it come out?
If you agree that this an exceptionally good movie, why is it so good? What film professional did his job especially well?
(Steve Trilling)
Discuss narrative structure and plot. What do we call this particular narrative structure?
There is a long flashback. What editing device is usually used to introduce and end flashbacks?
There is a good example of mise-en-scene in this movie. Where? (Mise-en-scene means "placement and movement
within the frame")
Discuss cinematography, editing, and lighting. How is Ingrid Berman seen and lit?
What part of the frame is she usually on? Why?
The "censorship code": what happens in Rick's room? ("temporal ellipsis")
"Casablanca" remains Hollywood's finest moment, a film that succeeds on such a vast scale not because of anything
experimental or deliberately earthshaking in its design, but for the way it cohered to and reaffirmed the movie-making
conventions of its day. This is the film that played by the rules while elevating the form, and remains the touchstone for those
who talk about Hollywood's greatness." Bill Slocum
"If a face like Ingrid Bergman's looks at you as though you're adorable, everybody does. You don't have to act very much."
- Humphrey Bogart
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"The minute I looked at her, I knew I had something. She had an extraordinary quality of purity and nobility and a definite
star personality that is very rare." - David O. Selznick
Ingrid Berman quotes
A very good (and long) essay on Casablanca as art
Koyaanisqatsi (Godfrey Regio, 1983, 87 minutes)
[one view] [another view]
What does the word "Koyaanisqatsi" mean? What language is it?
Exactly what kind of movie is it? (Drama? Documentary? Experimental cinema?)
Does Koyaanisqatsi have a story? a plot? a structure? Describe the structure.
How is time in this movie different from what you usually expect in a normal "Hollywood" movie?
What cinematographic techniques does the director employ, and to what purpose?
Are the any "graphic matches"?
Obviously the music is important. What kind of music was it? What function or effect does the music have?
What is this movie "about"? Does it have a "plot" or a "story"? Does it have a theme or a message? Is it "propaganda"?
What was the physical effect of watching it? Does it appeal to the mind, the emotions, or the senses?
Did you like this movie? Why or why not?
Amelie (France: Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 122 minutes)
Discuss cinematography, editing, fx
Gender issues?
What problems do these wretched people seem to have.
Have you noticed that the "gnome" made an encore as a commercial!
See this interesting allegorical/Biblical interpretation of Amelie at textweek
Amadeus (Milos Forman, 1984, 160 minutes)
(F. Murray Abraham won "best actor" for his performance.)
Analyze the first scene of Amadeus. What does the music tells us about point of view and narrative structure?
How do the "Seven Principles of Film Music" apply: (Invisibility, “Inaudibility," Signifier of Emotion, Narrative Cueing,
Continuity, Unity,
and Breaking the Rules)
When is the music "diegetic" ("actual") and when is it "non-diegetic" ("commentary")?
Take the first scene, for example: where are the various kinds of music "coming from"? See the Time and sound diagrams
Antionio Salieri: Discuss his character. What is his main problem? What do you think of his solution?
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Analyze his character? Is this the "real" Mozart?
Plot and story: Draw a "plot-story diagram on x/y axis." How to story, plot, and screen time relate? Narrator?
Flashbacks?
[Notice the interesting relationship between past perfect tense and "double flashbacks." Recall diagram of time "Doc"
Brown draws in BTTF Part III.]
Film Art issues: Editing, cinematography, light, costumes, production design?
How was the acting? The writing?
Did you like this movie? Why or why not?
How accurate is Amadeus? See http://www.unomaha.edu/~wwwjrf/robbins.htm
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Chicago (Rob Marshall, 2002, 113 minutes)
IMDB
Story time, plot time, and screen time?
What is the narrative structure?
Discuss mise-en-scene, cinematography, sound, editing, and lighting
How would you describe the visual style of this film?
Are there examples of "moral choice" in this movie?
The music--comment
Discuss the problems involved in recording the sound and singing of a musical. What is ADR?
Historical context: What were the "sob sisters"?
Who or what was Roxy?
Requiem for the Roxy auditorium picture Historic movie theaters
Guess who was pregnant while the movie was being filmed. Right--Richard Gere!
How many pounds did RZ lose between Bridget Jones and this movie? What is the all-time record?
Ladri di bicicletti (The Bicycle Thief)
(Vittorio de Sica, 1948, 95 minutes)
Discuss mise-en-scene, cinematography, sound, and lighting
How would you describe the visual style of this film?
Discuss the actors and acting style. Discuss the use of non-professional actors.
Describe the "dialogue."
Is the narrative structure simple or complex? Flashbacks? Which type of narrative fits best?
"Direct or continuous sequential narrative"
"Interrupted sequence narrative"
"Alternating past and present narrative"
What is the exact brand name of the bicycle? Why?
What institutions are represented? What is the "social consciousness" of this film?
Does this film have "closure"? Is this a "comes to realize" movie?
What is "Neorealism"?
High Noon (Fred Zinneman, 1952, 85 minutes)
Story time, plot time, and screen time?
What institutions in society are represented, and what answers do they give Sherrif ___?
How is this film like The Bicycle Thief?
What does the film say about pacifism?
Who is America's most popular male movie star?
What is a "Western"? What do you expect (or demand) to see in a Western?
What are the types of characters and settings do you expect to see?
What are the character traits of the Western hero?
Are there examples of "moral choice" in this movie?
What is the narrative structure?
The music--comment
How many speaking roles are there for women in this movie?
Can there be "Westerns" that are not set in the West?
What do westerns say about their historical time period? 1950's and 1960's
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Lola Rennt [Run, Lola, Run] (Tom Twycker, Germany, 1999, 81 minutes)
Starring Franka Potente. "A thrilling post-MTV roller-coaster ride!" "Lola is like a human stun gun!" "Set to a throbbing
techno Euro-trash score!" "We get fast and slow motion, crane shots, split screens, handheld cinematography, tracking shots,
lateral wipes, jump cuts, candy coloring, MTV-style editing, whip pans, still photographs and rapid-fire montages. You
name it." -- Joe Baltake, SACRAMENTO BEE Lots more reviews at Rotton Tomatoes!
Discussion Questions:
Contrast Lola to Magnificent Seven, Kane, High Noon, and Frida: another film with a female hero
Story time, plot time, screen time!
What happens in this movie? What is "real" and not real? One way of explaining the plot by Marty Mapes
How is time manipulated and to what purpose?
What different film and video "media," are used? 35mm, video, animation? When and to what purpose?
List all the different cutting and editing techniques.
The jigsaw puzzle in Citizen Kane functioned as a symbol or metaphor for Kane's life? Are there any similar objects or
events in Lola?
Do you want to change your hair color after seeing this movie?
Is this movie "German" or "Euro"? Why? How would Hollywood "remake" this movie? (Note the remake of Wings Over
Berlin)
12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet, 1957, 96 minutes, black and white)
What kind of narrative is this? Story time, plot time, and screen time?
Discuss mise-en-scene and cinematography issues. Lighting, editing, camera work? Any long takes? Closeups? Hands.
Comment on the acting. How does each character "develop"? Was there anything unusual? (Think of the last scene.)
How does the film portray moral choice? Who do you respect and not respect? What would you have done?
Compare to other courtroom dramas. Similar situations?
Who are "those people" that juror 10 keeps talking about? How do the other men react?
Are there any speaking parts for women in this film? Why not?
So--was the kid guilty?
Films not shown this semester:
Un Chien d’Andalu, (Luis Bunuel, France, 1929, 16 minutes)
With Salvador Dali
Surrealist nightmare with legendary gross-out scene.
Allegro Non Troppo (Italy, Bruno Bozzetto, 75 minutes)
Title means "fast but not too [fast]" (a common musical term)
This film is a "poor man's" version of the Disney classic, Fantasia, with more adult themes.
It "sets" music to images, rather than the other way around.
How does the movie "take off," "send up," or critique Fantasia?
What themes or commentary on the human condition can you identify?
How are music and images related?
The animation style is wonderful. Any comments on the visual images and design of the fim.
The Magnificent Seven (John Sturges, 1960, 128 minutes)
Who is America's most popular male movie star?
History: This film is a "remake" of The Seven Samurai by Kurasowa
What is a "Western"? What do you expect (or demand) to see in a Western?
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What are the types of characters and settings do you expect to see?
What are the character traits of the Western hero?
Are there examples of "moral choice" in this movie?
What is the narrative structure? Story time, plot time, and screen time?
Note the excellent music by Elmer Bernstein, leitmotifs, the mise-en-scene, and the acting.
How many speaking roles are there for women in this movie?
Can there be "Westerns" that are not set in the West?
What do westerns say about their historical time period? 1950's and 1960's
Victor/Victoria (Blake Edwards, 1982, 132 minutes)
"Victoria is a poverty-stricken soprano trying to find work in turn-of-the-century Paris. With the help of a worldly-wise
nightclub singer, she invents her alter-ego, Victor, a female impersonator who is hired to sing at a fashionable night spot:
"You want me to be a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman?" Interwoven throughout the comedy and
musical numbers are some surprisingly astute observations about gender perceptions, discrimination and the battle of the
sexes."
Questions:
How does music function in this film? Does this film have to be a musical? How would it be different without music?
What does this movie say about the state of gender identity in America in 1982?
How has the debate on gender progressed since 1982?
Give examples gender portrayals in 2005 in TV and film that would you would probably not have seen 20 years ago?
What gender roles are presented in VV? Who are the most "manly" and the most "feminine" characters in the movie?
What is a "foil"? and how do these characters "foil" each other?
Check out the great production design. Even the titles are exquisite!
Do you think anybody could really be fooled by "Victoria"? Well, you're lookin' at him!
Compare Leslie Ann Warren's musical number "Chicago, Illinois!" with the recent musical of the same name!
What other movies have Julie Andrews, Robert Preston, and James Garner been in? Who was Alex Karras?
Julie Andrews
.... Count Victor Grezhinski/Victoria Grant
James Garner
.... King Marchand, Chicago Nightclub Owner
Robert Preston
.... Carroll 'Toddy' Todd
Lesley Ann Warren .... Norma Cassady, King's Moll
Alex Karras
.... Squash Bernstein, King's Bodyguard
John Rhys-Davies .... Andre Cassell, French Theatrical Agent
West Side Story (Robbins and Wise, 1961, 2 hours, 30 minutes) Class at 6:30
How do the "Seven Principles of Film Music" apply to West Side Story:
Invisibility, “Inaudibility," Signifier of Emotion, Narrative Cueing, Continuity, Unity, and Breaking the Rules
Are the any "rules" that film musicals usually follow?
When is the music "diegetic" ("actual") and when is it "non-diegetic ("commentary")?
Plot and story: How to story, plot, and screen time relate? Narrator? Flashbacks?
Film Art issues: Editing, cinematography, light, costumes, production design?
Was this shot in a studio? How was the movie different from a stage production?
Did you notice any "cross-cutting" or "parallel editing"?
How was the acting, singing, and dancing? The writing?
Did you like this movie? Why or why not?
If you are interested, the lyrics to songs from West Side Story are in the web site week 7
Wings of Desire ("Der Himmel über Berlin"--"Angel over Berlin") (1987)
(Germany: Wim Wenders, 1987, 128 minutes) starring Peter Falk and Bruno Ganz
Things you need to know about Wings of Desire:
City of Angels (with Nicholas. Cage and Meg. Ryan) is a "remake" of Wings of Desire. How are they different?
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German films are strange. There is no real plot. Things move slowly. Don't worry about it.
There is a lot of poetic talking in this movie. In fact, people never seem to stop talking. Don't worry about it.
This movie is about Berlin before the wall came down. Berliners can never forget their history and politics.
Berlin is a metaphor for the human condition: look for images of the wall and isolation.
Point of view is important in this movie: think about whose point of view we are seeing in each shot.
Who can see the "angels" and who can't?
Why does the film alternate between black-and-white and color?
What "framing device" is used?
This Wim Wenders film centers around the story of two angels wandering post-war Berlin. Invisible to humans, they
nevertheless give their help and comfort to all the lonely and depressed souls they meet. Finally, after many centuries, one of
the angels becomes unhappy with his immortal state and wishes to become human in order to experience the joys of everyday
life. He meets a circus acrobat and finds in her the fufillment of all his mortal desires. He also discovers that he is not alone in
making this cross over, and that a purely spiritual experience is not enough to satisfy anyone.
Roger Ebert review says-- "The film evokes a mood of reverie, elegy and meditation. It doesn't rush headlong into plot, but
has the patience of its angels. It suggests what it would be like to see everything but not participate in it. We follow two
angels: Damiel (Bruno Ganz) and Cassiel (Otto Sander). They listen to the thoughts of an old Holocaust victim, and of
parents worried about their son, and of the passengers on trams and the people in the streets; it's like turning the dial and
hearing snatches of many radio programs. They make notes about the hooker who hopes to earn enough money to go south,
and the circus aerialist who fears that she will fall, because it is the night of the full moon.
"You're seduced into the spell of this movie, made in 1987 by Wenders, who collaborated on the screenplay with the German
playwright Peter Handke. It moves slowly, but you don't grow impatient, because there is no plot to speak of, and so you
don't fret that it should move to its next predictable stage. It is about being, not doing. And then it falls into the world of
doing, when the angel Damiel decides that he must become human."
The Last Picture Show (Peter Bogdanovich, 118 minutes)
Both Ben Johnson and Cloris Leachman won Best Supporting Actor awards, and the film was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best
Screenplay.
Questions about The Last Picture Show:
What is the film "about"? What is the major subject or theme of the film? What is the relationship of the title to the subject? [Note: the theme of a film or book is not
the same as its plot or story. Thus Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men is about "man's inhumanity to man" or "friendship"--themes are always expressed as a predicate
nominative--while its plot is about two drifters during the depression who get into trouble.]
This kind of film and its acting style is called a “slice of life.” What specific qualities or characteristics of this film illustrate that genre?
Who is the main character in the film? Why? Is there an antagonist? Why or why not?
Why do you think this film was made in black and white?
What function does music play in this film?
What kinds of choices do the characters make, and what do you think of them?
Singin' in the Rain (1952, Gene Kelly)
What aspects of early sound motion pictures are the subject of comedy?
Early German cinema.
Robert Wiene, Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari, Germany, 1920;
Walter Ruttmann, Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt and Opus I, Germany, 1927 and 1923;
Dziga Vertov, The Man with a Movie Camera, 1929
Cabaret, 1972, 2 hours, 4 minutes. Liza Minnelli
Oklahoma!, 1955, 2 hours, 25 minutes.
The Adventures of Robin Hood, 1938, 102 minutes, Errol Flynn. Score by Erich Korngold [fabulous color!]
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Week 1: Course Mechanics and Vocabulary of Film
Announcements:
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Welcome to Film and the Fine Arts. Class meets 3:30-6:30.
DVD's are on reserve in the library under "Aikin" and "SRP 428"
There is no food in this classroom.
The textbook is this website. Bordwell, Film Art, is "recommended"
We regret that we cannot accept work by email. (Top Ten Excuses Why my Paper is Late)
Final Exam: 3:30 Tuesday, December 12.
You already know everything you are going to learn in this course.
Sample questions: Which two aspects of movies appeal most directly to the emotions?
The movie screen is flat. What aspect of film art provides a third dimension--space--to movies?
Read:
Do:
Familiarize yourself with the course website and preview this week's topics-Introduction" and "Film as Art"
An industry facing meltdown, by director J. Boorman
"High Concept" defined
Course Mechanics:
Course goals and requirements
Writing Assignments (two due next week)
Web Resources
Weekly Feature Film Discussion Questions
Start studying Film Terms (at the filmsite.com) and the Final Exam Vocabulary
Glossary of film terms
What is your favorite movie and why? (one paragraph due next week) Writing Assignments
Quiz over course objectives and requirements (due next week--download here (10 points).
Films:
Tonight: Visions of Light (History of Cinematography) Chapter Index
Weekly Feature Film Discussion Questions
Topics for Today:
1. Introduction:
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The Russian Wheelbarrow Joke
100 Years at the Movies (How many of these famous actors and films can you identify?)
This course ought to be illegal (Should we study film in college? Is it too much fun!? The Premise of FatFA)
Course goals and requirements (This course has to do many things!)
The Senior Perspective program; certified writing
Writing Assignments (two due next week) concepts and vocabulary; the texts and class webpage
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The vocabulary of movies: Film Terms (at the www.filmsite.org) and the Final Exam Vocabulary
Here is a huge alphabetical Glossary of film terms and Web Resources
The Audio-Visual Contract 20th Century Fox corporate logo ("Where is the music coming from"?)
Why we need to watch movies in this room: "pan and scan"
[Nota Bene: In past classes some students did not actually watch all the films (or sort-a thought they might maybe
have seen some of them sometime). That is not good. We start each class by discussing last week's film, and we
need all students to participate. Rather than give quizzes at the beginning of the class to test whether we have all
seen the film (which wastes time), we have another solution-- The final exam is the only examination in this course
and is comprehensive: it will include many questions that you will not be able to answer if you did not see the films
recently.]
2. A typical class:
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Discuss last week's movie. You must read the Feature Film Discussion Questions and prepare comments.
Topics for the day. Prepare by reading the course web pages for. Be sure to note the vocabulary for each day.
Introduce this week's movie by reviewing the discussion questions
Comic relief: Ten Commandments remixed (with Samuel L. Jackson)
3. Film as Art:
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What is a movie? The Arts of Film (or, how this class is organized):
Short feature film: Paranoid Analyze this short film and list "the arts of film."
(What is "Oscar's" full name?
"The Academy of . . . ?)
Rule #1: Movies do not make themselves. Somebody has to invent everything you see or hear.
Film credits What are the various "fine arts" and which ones do movies employ? Who is always the last person
listed in credits? The premise of this course is that movies are a collaboration of many arts-- cinematography,
lighting, scene and production design, acting, music and sound design, dance, writing, and directing--and publicity!
[Who is Alan Smithee?]
What is "top billing"? What order are film credits presented in, and why?
A Checklist for Analyzing Movies Pre-production, production, assembly, distribution, and exhibition.
Film/cinema/movie What exactly are movies? (see below) Are movies "art"? (What is "art"? [Link to 219 page]
What can we learn while the credits roll--genre, style, foreshadowing
The arrival of a powerful force: The Deer Hunter, Bad Day at Black Rock, The Big Country, Hoosiers
Long takes during credits: Rear Window (Hitchcock) and Back to the Future (Zimeckis)
The Kuleshov Effect (The power of juxtaposition)
Continuity A scene from the Untouchables (What is the point?)
Looking and seeing [link to Art 219] (Developing our powers of observation; learning to "double track")
Watch this short film clip from The Natural and then answer some questions.
Two key concepts: Time and Intertextuality
How have movies changed in the past century? The current state of movies:
Picture palaces! What did it used to be like to go to movies? Why did people used to go to movies?
Who owns what? The mechanics of movies, distribution, and exhibition.
High Concept Pitches How do movies get "green-lighted"? Filmsite definition High concept book
An Industry Facing Meltdown, by director J. Boorman (The business of movies; video games as movies)
Money: How do corporations make money on movies today? (List the various ways.) "Blockbusters"
and "the age of excess."
Early Cinema: A Trip to the Moon; The Great Train Robbery
4. Preview: Visions of Light (History of Cinematography)
Chapter Index Weekly Feature Film Discussion Questions
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In-class movies and scenes: Pan and scan, Paranoia (in 'horror"), 20th Century Fox Intro (Moulin Rouge), Jurassic
Park (reaction shot), Untouchables, (Frankenstein and Ace Ventura), Deer Hunter, Hoosiers, Big Country, Bad Day at Black
Rock, A Trip to the Moon; The Great Train Robbery
More in-class movies and scenes: The Movies Begin - A Treasury of Early Cinema, 1894-1913: Napoleon; A Trip to the
Moon; The Great Train Robbery
If time: early German cinema Scenes from--Robert Wiene, Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari, Germany, 1920; Walter
Ruttmann, Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt and Opus I, Germany, 1927 and 1923; Dziga Vertov, The Man with a Movie
Camera, 1929
Types of shots:
Extreme long shot (els)
For purposes of framing the environment. This is often used as an establishing shot, taking in the general area before the
action concentrates on one part of it. It can be a city, landscape, even a solar system.
Long shot (ls)
Individual characters have presence, but the general environment is still the more prominent. Imagine a long shot used in a
train station, or supermarket.
Medium shot (ms)
The human body is framed from the waist up, making gestures and expressions now very visible.
Medium close-up (mcu)
The body is framed from the chest up, used in quite intimate conversations, for example.
Close-up (cu)
("Mr. Demilles, I'm ready for my close-up")
Individual parts are shown, such as the head, hands, or the whole of an object.
Extreme close-up (ecu)
Individual parts of an object are shown - hands playing a piano, one of the traffic lights, a clock face, a mouth eating.
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The Audio-visual Contract:
Composer David Raksin says that Alfred Hitchcock wanted no music for the 1944 film Lifeboat, because the
characters are ''out on the open ocean. Where would the music come from?'' Raksin replied, ''Go back and ask him
where the camera comes from and I'll tell him where the music comes from!'' (Kalinak xiii).
[Show the opening credits of any movie (Star Wars) and stop it abruptly. What are we feeling? Where is the sound "coming
from?"]
What is happening to us? What is the state of mind of a film viewer when the lights go down? What does it feel like when
you begin to watch a movie?
The movie experience (especially in a theater setting) encourages us to enter a special oneritic mental state. Words that we
might use to describe our mental/emotional state are--"relaxed," "suggestible," " trancelike," "hypnotized," "receptive,"
"childlike," and "dreamlike," or oneritic. Dreams, as Freud says, are expressions of wishes and fears. We do not resist the
dream state of the movie theater: in fact we want to sink into it, because it is pleasurable.
We experience not only psychological but physical changes as we "give ourselves up" to the movie: our eyes dilate, heartbeat
slows, our breathing becomes deeper and regular, etc. [are there more?]
The "agreement" we make with a movies is called the Audio-Visual Contract: we agree not to ask where are the pictures
and sound are "coming from," and happily sign on the dotted line. [In fact, the picture is "coming from" the projector and the
screen, and the sound is coming from speakers. We both know and forget this as the movie's trance takes us over, so we can
experience the emotions of the movie in comfort and safety.] When we go to a movie we happily anticipate the experience,
which is like slipping into a warm bath or being entertained. We want to enter this psychological state, because it is more
than just "fun": it satisfies deep needs.
Are the changes that happen in a movie theater instinctive or learned? The founder of experimental psychology, Pavlov, was
the first to identify the phenomenon of "conditioned response," during which involuntary physical changes occur in any
organism that anticipates a pleasurable event (in the case of Pavlov's dogs, food was associated with a ringing bell, which
caused the dogs to salivate even when there was no food). About how long does it take before these mental and physical
changes are fully developed? Ten to fifteen minutes. Can you think of other situations where "involuntary physical changes"
take place in human beings?
What physical conditions in the theater enhance or contribute to this dreamlike state? Mainly darkness and the movie's sound
and music. What else happens in our lives when "the lights go down"? Love, sleep, dreams?
The movie experience is a seduction-- something that we don’t consciously intend to happen, but that we don’t resist--and
secretly desire, something that our rational mind would likely resist. We normally associate "seductions" with love. Who or
what else seduces you? Politicians? Artists? Music?
Why is the experience pleasurable? What are we not doing when we watch a movie? We are not thinking about our
everyday lives, jobs, obligations, or problems! The movie theater offers a time of escape, and to pretend we are somebody
else.
What part of the mind does the movie access? Clearly the sub- or unconscious. [See this Freudian mind diagram.] But, to
allow that, we have to shut down the higher, rational, or "critical" mental functions, that is, reason, analysis, and detachment.
We do not want our pleasure to be interrupted by conscious thought or skepticism, and, above all, we do not want to
remember that we are sitting in comfortable seats in a room, looking at a silver screen and listening to loudspeakers. So we
agree to willingly "suspend our disbelief." We agree to pretend that what we are watching is "real," although we "know" it
isn't. We agree to be scared, angry, sad, excited, attracted--whatever the movie encourages to feel, all in the comfort and
safety of the movie theater. Movies also indulge our desire to "watch" (voyeurism), and to pretend and fantasize as we do so:
we can get the girl (or the boy), win the race, triumph over evil, or identify with a person who is rewarded for virtue or
punished for evil behavior--thereby purging the "bad" things inside of us. Aristotle's theory of drama still holds true: we
watch plays and movies to experience vicariously fear and pity, and to have these feelings purged through catharsis. There is
also a way in which we human beings enjoy watching other people screw up or suffer--what the German's call shadenfreude.
Both comedy and horror movies may satisfy these desires.
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So, what's the point?
Everything about the film experience--the "Audiovisual Contract"--conspires to lower our
resistance to the dreamlike seduction of the film, and to block our critical faculties. But, we are here in this course to think
about movies. How easy is that going to be? We need to learn a new mental state, a kind of double track, in which we go
ahead and give ourselves up, but also "watch ourselves watching."
A related issue: Is watching movies a group experience, or a solitary one? Is the movie theater an "audience" in the same
sense as live theater? Do we boo, cheer, or applaud? Consider the phenomenon of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Film Credits: Who are these people and what do they do?
How many "arts" are there in film production?
Who is presumed to be the "author" of a film? the director, writer, or producer?
Three phases of production: Preparation, Shooting, Assembly (see text, pages 10-26)
Some terms and roles in film production
A list of film "artists" or "credits" (each one has a union or "guild")
The writer ("The starlet was really dumb. How dumb was she? . . . .")
script and storyboard ("pitch session; adaptation; treatment; shooting script; screen credit; Screen Writers Guild; Alan
Smithee)
continuity (For fun with "continuity" see: http://www.movie-mistakes.com More goofy mistakes at:
http://www.moviecliches.com)
The director (auteur) and his crew; assistant director/girl Friday; "second unit" director, choreographer
The producer(s) (mainly financial and organizational)
associate producer and his assistants (Luca Brazzi); investors/angels/bankers/accountants
the "studio" and its "mogul" (Louis B. Mayer and his "stable" of stars in 1942)
The production designer(s) scene or set designer; lighting design, electricians; fabricators
The costume designer and the makeup artist
The composer, arranger, conductor, musicians
The sound designer and sound recording, "foley" artists, post-production, etc.
The film editor and technicians (color "balancing")
Special effects artists ("fx"), computer designers, animatronics, blood and gore, etc.
The cameraman or cinematographer, key grip, boom operator, dolly, focus, gaffer, best boy, etc.
The casting director and his/her couch
The actors, stand-ins/doubles/body doubles, stunt men
Agents (William Morris), personal assistants, publicists, designers, and stylists (the "red carpet")
Post-production:
Film Editor: dailies or "rushes," rough cut" and final cut or "directors cut" (now largely electronic editing), "outtakes"
[Director John Ford made only one "take" so the editor and film editor had to use his version!]
Sound Editor: the sound track, "re-recording," dubbing" or "looping,"
sound effects, foley artists, "walla"
sanitized versions for TV or airlines ("This film has been edited for time and content and modified to fit the screen.")
Note: films have to be shown, not just made, and equipment failures during projection were common,
especially in the early sound era: see the scenes from Singing in the Rain on the perils of early "talkies."
Composer and conductor write the score
Final sound track: rerecording mixer, equalization etc.
View this short scene from Oklahoma on \\bozo\roma.
Exactly in what order and when were the sounds and images made?
Camera negative, interpositive, internegative, "answer prints," release prints (often brutto by the time the reach Nome)
Films about making movies: Singin' in the Rain, 81/2, Day for Night, Blow Out
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After Production: distribution and exhibition
Packaging, Publicity, etc. (now essential for Oscar consideration)
Reviewers and the press
Modes of Production
Independent Production (text p. 23ff)
What are the implications of the different modes of production? p. 26ff
Who is the "author" of a film? the director, writer, producer?
Distribution:
The "vertical integration" of the film industry in the 1920 declared monopolistic, BUT, it's still around
Mainstream commercial cinemas, "art houses," festivals, museums and archives,
Video, and now DVD, add new problems.
A huge source of income (more than theaters!)
technological differences: different standards; less "contrast ratio" (20:1 vs. 100:1)
poor color, poor detail, poor format! problems of scale; video starts to degrade in a few years
"colorization" and "time compression"
The "panning and scanning" problem: squeezing the wide screen to fit the small screen
"The cinema is an invention without a future" - Louis Lumière
Film/Cinema/Movie:
What do these three words mean to you? What IS a movie, anyway?
The answer is not as simple as you might think. See "Movies/Film/Cinema" (from Monaco, p. 228)
A film can be defined as is "images in illusory motion" caused by "the persistence of vision"
"Cinema" is short for cinematograph, which is French for "motion picture."
Films have "apparent motion":
A beam of light is broken 50 times per second (twice per frame)
Early silent films were only 16 to 24 fps, hence "flickers" or "flicks."
The reason for apparent motion has to do with the way the brain processes information (1912: Max Wertheimer's
experiments)
Three machines are required to create and display images: camera, printer, and projector [digital changes everything] (see
diagrams)
How soon will movies be digital? See Roger Ebert's cogent comments in his otherwise "Luke-warm" review of
Star Wars II Attack of the Clones (as well as his biting comments on the awful dialogue).
Machines that mimic cinematic perception:
The Mutoscope, Thaumatrope, and the Zeotrope (F Copolla's production company is American Zeotrope.)
See the demonstrations and bizarre stuff at Cinema Prehistory
Early motion pictures: at Library of Congress. Imagine their effect on viewers at that time!
On technical Issues:
See Film History by Decade Chronology of film's history, both the technology and the artistry.
See also The History of the Motion Picture: Who invented cinema, the camera, and film?
Magic Machines: A History of the Moving Image from Antiquity to 1900
Film: emulsion, negative, sound "track"
Film sizes: see diagram Super 8mm, 16mm, 35 mm, 70mm, Imax (horizontal!), super 16
Sound tracks: magnetic or optical
Lighting: See this diagram
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Are movies "art"? What is "art"? (See Otis' What is Art? Page for many definitions)
The premise of this course is that movies are a collaboration of many arts--cinematography, scene and production design,
acting, music and sound design, dance, writing, and directing--and publicity!
Do you agree with these statements by Hilton Cramer and Sydney Lumet? "I want to begin with a modest but radical
proposal: that we get the movies out of the liberal-arts classroom. We've simply got to throw them out. There is no good
reason for the movies to be there, and there is every reason to get rid of them. They not only take up too much time, but the
very process of according them serious attention sullies the pedagogical goals they are ostensibly employed to serve. The
students are in class to read, write, learn, and think, and the movies are an impediment to that process. Students are going to
go to the movies anyway, and to bring them into the classroom--either as objects of study or as aids to study--is to destroy
precisely the kind of distinction--the distinction between high culture and popular culture--that is one of the functions of the
sound liberal education to give to our students." --Hilton Kramer, The New Criterion
"The studios just go by what makes money. If they thought they could make money from a musical about the happy life
under Joe Stalin, they'd do it." --Sydney Lumet, The Boston Globe
In "The Difference between Fake and Real Emotions in Life and Art," Ray Carney discusses the sentimentality of Hollywood
filmmaking and the difference between the emotional pandering of pop culture and the emotional education that art provides.
See the provocative web pages of Ray Carney for exemplary criticism, especially On Independent films
An exercise: Most people think they have a good memory. How good is yours?
Watch this short film clip and then answer some questions.
The "Kuleshov Effect"
[Play the scene from Jurassic Park where the scientists first see the dinosaur.]
Kuleshov was supposed to have done an experiment (possibly imaginary or "apochryphal") showing that our interpretation of
human facial expressions can be conditioned by what the person appears to be seeing. In a typical "point of view" (POV)
shot, we see an actor's face, then cut to another image--which we instinctively interpret as what the actor is looking at. Then
we return to the face to gauge its reaction to what is seen. Kuleshov showed that the "expression" on the face can appear to
change depending on emotional impact of the intercut pictures. A wide range of nuances and meanings can be created by
"juxtaposing" such film clips.
So, we tend to "read" emotions into faces we see in films, and our interpretation can be influenced not only by what the face
appears to be seeing, but also by the director's clever use of the 'arts' of film--music, setting, makup, lighting, costume, story,
etc.
The Kuleshov Effect works because we simply "fill in the blanks, or connect the dots." It is entirely possible that the actor
being filmed wasn't looking at anything or experiencing any emotion at all. In other words, the actor's "reaction" is in
our own mind, not his. Some directors like Stanley Kubrick deliberately tell their actors not to react at all. (See this
discussion of the Kuleshov Effect in 2001, a Space Odyssey.)
The actress Ingred Bergman gave this advise to her daughter Isabella Rosselini: "Just make your face a blank--the story,
music, and lighting will take care of your expression" [!]
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In fact, "overacting" is fatal for a film actor. According to Michael Caine, in his video, "Acting for the Camera," one
director kept making the actor Jack Lemon do a scene over and over again, always saying, "Take if down. Give me less,
Jack." Lemon replied, "If I do any less, I'll be doing nothing!" "Now you've got it," said the director. Great actors may
simply have the ability to do nothing very well!
An example: Here is a still picture of an actor in a movie, with three different interpretations:
1.
2.
3.
4.
The actor has is looking his father, who had returned after a long absence.
He is looking at his future wife for the first time.
He sees a hated enemy
He has heard a sound and looked up.
The wheelbarrow joke
There was an old joke in Soviet Russia about a guard at the factory gate who at the end of every day saw a worker walking
out with a wheelbarrow full of straw. Every day he thoroughly searched the contents of the wheelbarrow, but never found
anything but straw. One day he asked the worker: "What do you gain by taking home all that straw?"
"The wheelbarrows."
How does this story relate to this class?
Most people watch the "straw" (the story and actors) when they watch a movie; the "wheelbarrow" is the means or "vehicle"
(cinematography, editing, music, narrative structure, lighting, etc.)
Our default interest is usually in the content of the movie (an "ultrathematic" reading; see below), not in the method or the
art-This course is about shifting our attention from content to art.
(You already know everything you are going to learn in this class--but not the proper vocabulary.) We must learn to "doubletrack," to watch the movie and also watch ourselves watching.
An ULTRATHEMATIC READING: is an interpretation that places virtually no emphasis on either the form or the context
the form or the context of the work of art, because it is so preoccupied with its content (and usually a profoundly
unsophisticated take on even that). A classic example is the popular movie review, which consists principally of a summary
of the main plot lines. Ultrathematic interpretations run afoul of the problem of indulgence or indictment and are utterly
insensitive to paralinguistic effects.
(From Robert J. Belton, Department of Fine Arts, Okanagan University College, WORDS OF ART)
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Intertextuality
Is a "term proposed by Julia Kristeva in La Révolution du langage poétique to describe the way a single work can actually
consist of several texts and/or the transposition of one set of signs into another. Kristeva described it as a text conceived as a
'mosaic of quotations..., [an] absorption and transformation of another text.' "
The above definition is from WORDS OF ART, the huge critical dictionary of literature, art, and film compiled by Robert J.
Belton (Department of Fine Arts, Okanagan University College). In simpler terms, intertextuality means the way
artworks quote, rip off, refer to, pay homage to, or enrich each other. Movie "cliches" are the simplest form of
intertextuality. An example would be "the guy in the hospital listening to the game on the radio" as in Hoosiers and
Seabiscuit.
There are many possible reasons why a director might "quote" another movie, music, or artwork:
1. "Tried and true." The director simply thinks that the earlier director's way of doing things was so good it can't be
improved on. For example, many films begin with the credits rolling as a car, train, or stagecoach travels across a landscape
and arrives at a town (Bad Day at Black Rock, The Bog Country, Sons of Katie Elder, Hoosiers) because that is just a good
way to open a film (See "openings and closings") Many films begin and end with the same shot, or the same shot played
backwards, which is called a "framing element" (Citizen Kane, The Last Picture Show). This can also be an "homage."
2. Humor or flattery. Example "It's alive!" (Frankenstein and Ace Ventura). This is a kind of discourse we use in everyday
life, because it is fun! One of the great pleasures of being an aware viewer is noticing references to other movies. The
director flatters us and appeals to our vanity. (Example: rolling boulders are a staple in chase scenes, from Buster Keaton to
Journey to the Center of the Earth and Raiders of the Lost Arc) (See also the last shots from Raiders of the Lost Arc and
Citizen Kane.) Why do we enjoy this kinbd of intertextuality? Human beings are playful, and we especially like to play with
words and culture.
3. "In jokes" are designed to appeal to film congnoscenti (that's you--people "in the know"), as in the baby buggy scene in
Serge Eisenstein's Potemkin, repeated in The Untouchables. (To what purpose!?)
4. In "send-up," satire, or parody, an entire film or genre may be satirized, as in Mel Brooks's Young Frankenstein. Brooks
films are all satires of classic genres--Sword and Sandal, Westerns, Hitchcock, Horror, etc.
5. Homage. This is a tricky one, and requires better than average movie-viewing skills: Spielberg pays homage to
Hitchcock's editing (Jaws and The Birds). The battle scene in Star Wars copied a WWII movie. Martin Scorsese imitates Life
Magazine photos in Raging Bull. Music can also be the vehicle of intertextuality, as in Alexander Nevsky and Star Trek II:
The Wrath of Kahn. Rachmaninoff's 3rd piano concerto was borrowed for The Thomas Crown Affair at about 9:30; The last
scene in Star Wars copied the look of Leni Reifenstahl's Nazi film Triumph of the Will. Why?
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Week 2: The Art of Cinematography
Read:
The Class Website below: Cinematography
Start studying Film Terms --A Film-Making Glossary and Dictionary
Alfred Hitchcock: A Hank of Hair and a Piece of Bone
(see especially "Notorious Sequence")
Due:
1: What is your favorite movie? (We regret that we cannot accept work by email.)
2: True/False Quiz (print out and return today) See Writing Assignments
Films:
Last week: Visions of Light (Cinematography)
Feature films and Questions
Tonight: The Red Violin (Francois Gerard, 1998, 130 minutes) Questions
Topics for Today:
1. Discuss Visions of Light
2. Cinematography
Cinematography: Vocabulary and Examples
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Aspect ratios: academy ratio, widescreen, "anamorphic" ratios and lenses (Cinemascope), Cinerama
The "Five C's of Cinematography": Camera angles, Continuity, Cutting, Close-ups, and Composition.
Composition and "production shots": Lawrence of Arabia
The visual elements of film: color, light, composition, space, perspective, movement
Lenses: "fast" and "slow" lenses, wide-angle lens, normal lens, telephoto lens, zoom lens, exposure, f-stop
Focus, depth of field, deep focus, shallow focus,
Rack focus (a quick shift of focus, usually from one person to another)
The Color of Money ("dinner" and "scene in pool hall")
The Graduate --scene where Elaine realizes that Benjamin is having an affair with an 'older woman'
(her mother) by the focus shifting to the image of Elaine's mother (Mrs. Robinson) behind her
The frame, and mobile frame; hand-held or "nailed down", angle of framing, canted framing (Notorious)
Camera moves: panning, tilting, tracking, craning, zoom, dolly,
Movement along the X, Y, or Z axis: Panic Room
Zoom and dolly (or "contra-zoom"): Vertigo, Jaws, Goodfellas
("zoom/dolly" has become something of a cliche)
POV ("point of view shot" or "eyeline match"):
Jaws (beach scene)
Requiem for a Heavyweight (extended POV shot)
Spider man ("bite and web")
North by Northwest ("great height")
Take, long take (also called "travel shot," "plan-sequence," or "sequence shot")
Goodfellas (long takes like this are usually accompanied by music)
The American President (the camera gets "stuck"--so "match on action" is used)
The West Wing ("longest walk"--start at 2:00) (here the camera does not get stuck, although we expect it to!)
The West Wing ("circle shot")
The Steadicam (Russian Arc: the reatest example of steadicam)
The 180 degree rule, axis of action, 30 degree rule, screen direction
35
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Perspective, forced perspective (Ring--Frodo meets Gandolf), aerial or atmospheric perspective, birds-eye view
Graphic elements:
Red River and Searchers (opening and end)
The Last Temptation of Christ (Lazarus scene)
Modern Cinematography: Moulin Rouge (absinthe), Color of Money (final and tournament), Ali, and Undefeated
Color and Black and white [do later?--week 13?]: Dr. Strangelove (War Room), and The Hill
Film rate (fast and slow motion: 24 fps, 48 fps: Raging Bull); freeze frame, apparent motion; persistence of vision
Shots: extreme long shot, medium shot (plan americain), medium close-up, close-up, extreme close-up, two shot
("els, ls, ms, mcu, ecu")
Establishing and re-establishing shot,
Eyeline match/POV (point-of-view) shot, following shot, match-on-action (Casablanca)
Shot/reverse shot (The Color of Money dinner)
Montage or editing: cut, insert, fade, fade in, dissolve, wipe (swish pans, flash pans, zip pans),
"optical effects," cheat cut, jump cut, shock cut, fast and slow motion
montage sequence: The Natural, Casablanca ("old style")
Clapper boy: "roll film, speed, slate it, action, cut, print," synchronization
Process shot, special effects (fx), front projection and rear projection (now obsolete--"green screen")
video assist, mask, masking, matte artist, matte shot, composite shot
Serendipity or "happy accident" (the rain on the window in In Cold Blood)
The "studio look" Gloss, Grit, Glamour; The "New York Style"
Lighting: ambient lighting, three-point lighting, key light, high-and low-key lighting, fill light, backlighting, side
lighting, soft lighting, frontal lighting, hard lighting, star lighting, chiaroscuro [Italian: "light/dark"], exposure,
film stock, filter, iris
Examples: Godfather ("buonasera" and lighting ), Blues Brothers (prison)
Color: hue, value, saturation, complementary colors, monochromatic color design, flashing, filters
color balancing, flashing, Gordon Willis (the "prince of darkness") and the Godfather
Magic hour (actually about 20 minutes); day for night (shot in daylight and darkened)
Relations: graphic relations, rhythmic relations, spatial relations, temporal relations
temporal ellipsis, or elliptical editing (omitting part of an event)
temporal expansion/temporal hyperbole (making an event last longer)
Transparency editing (not meant to be noticed), also called continuity and continuity editing (verisimilitude)
Parallel editing (two stories told simultaneously with inter-cutting)
The Godfather--baptism sequence at the end: five minutes, 67 separate shots
Godfather II--the entire structure of the narrative--the parallel stories of Michael and Vito
READ Alfred Hitchcock: A Hank of Hair and a Piece of Bone: A photo study of the Master's fetishes — uh, motifs
By Alan Vanneman.
For almost fifty years, Alfred Hitchcock filled his films with a select group of images, including houses, staircases, women's
hair, the human hand, the human eye, the "uncanny," and the swirling vortex. He reworked these images over and over again,
achieving his greatest triumph in Psycho. This photo essay, a companion to "Here's Looking at You, Kid! Alfred Hitchcock
and Psycho," will present examples of these images collected from a number of Hitchcock's films, along with examples of
Hitchcock's camera movement from Notorious and The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956). To go to a specific category,
click on any of the keywords listed below: Houses † Staircases † Women's Hair † Hands † Eyes The Uncanny † The Vortex
† Notorious Sequence [use of POV and "canted" framing] The Man Who Knew Too Much Sequence
36
Visions of Light, a History of Cinematography
CHAPTER INDEX
1. In the Beginning
2. Early Days
3. The German Expressionists
4. Arrival of Sound
5. The "Studio Look"
6. Shooting Stars
7. Gregg Toland
8. Film Noir
9. Color
10. Cinematographer's Craft
11. Movies Get Wider
12. European Influences
13. Vittorio Storaro
14. Conrad Hall
15. HaskellWexler
16. Vilmos Zsigmond
17. Rosemary's Baby
18. New York Style
19. Gordon Willis: Prince of Darkness
20. Chinatown
21. Jaws
22. Days of Heaven
23. Raging Bull
24. Apocalypse Now
25. The last Emperor
26. The last Temptation of Christ
27. Eraserbead/Blue Velvet
28. Do the Sight Thing 29. Final Thoughts
30. End Credits
Vocabulary: photography, color, composition, movement, continuity; montage, aspect ratios and widescreen
Topics and Questions:
Lenses and film: "fast" and "slow"; what is "depth of field"?
Lighting: what are "key" lights, ambient light
How can you recognize a "film noir"?
What "hour" is only 20 minutes long?
When was the first color movie? What process?
Camera terms: "nailed down," hand-held, stedicam; "mobile frame"
What was the effect of sound on cinematography?
Color: The ast Emperor? Who said green means knowledge, etc.? What is "flashing"?
What two elements of film art appeal most directly to the emotions?
What is the scientific word for a "happy accident"--as in the rain scene In Cold Blood?
What is an "anamorphic" ratio?
What was the "studio look"? Which studios strived for "Gloss, Grit, and Glamour"?
Who was Gregg Toland?
What is "New York Style"?
What is "zooming and dollying" (as in Goodfellas)
Who was the "prince of darkness" Why?
37
Week 3: Narrative and Time
Read:
Fischer's paradigm (good, and short)
Time in narrative and Narrative in Movies (today's web page)
On Defining Narrative Media by Marie-Laure Ryan, in Image and Narrative
An example of Postmodernist criticism. (It reads better in the original French)
Do:
Plot segmentation Assignment on Red Violin due next week
(Two Red Violin DVD's are on reserve in the library under Aikin or SRP 428.)
Films:
TF
Last week: The Red Violin (Francois Gerard, 1998, 130 minutes)
Tonight: Citizen Kane (Orsen Welles, 1941, 120 minutes) Feature films and Questions
Topics for today:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Discuss The Red Violin (Francois Gerard, 1998, 130 minutes)
Narrative in Movies
Preview Citizen Kane (Orsen Welles, 1941, 120 minutes)
Review Cinematography
Narrative in Film and Theory
1. Principles of narrative construction
(After Bordwell, Film Art, "Narrative as a formal System in 'Classical Hollywood Cinema' ")
A narrative is "a causality in time and space"-- or, "a chain of events in cause-effect relationship occurring in time
and space." Narrative can be functional or factual (as in documentary) Types of drama or narrative genres
include Comedy, tragedy, tragicomedy, epic, melodrama, allegory. (from The UVic Writer's Guide, an excellent
dictionary of literary terms).
We see the world as a narrative, and we see ourselves as protagonists of our own lives. We need to connect events in
time and space to make sense of them. Perhaps narrative is a fundamental way that humans make sense of the world. There
is a whole academic area called "narrative theory" with its own on-line journals. Narrative Magazine and Image and
Narrative.
Fischer's paradigm:
The traditional paradigm of the rational world claims that:
o
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o
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People are essentially rational
We make decisions on the basis of arguments
The type of speaking situation determines the course of our argument
Rationality is determined by how much we know and how well we argue
The world is a set of logical puzzles that we can solve through rational analysis
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Fisher believes that this viewpoint is too limited and suggests a new paradigm:
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People are essentially storytellers
We make decisions on the basis of good reasons
History, biography, culture, and character determine what we consider good reasons
Narrative rationality is determined by the coherence and fidelity of our stories
The world is a set of stories from which we choose, and thus constantly re-create, our lives
The typical story (movie, screenplay) concerns-
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a human being whose life is more or less in balance
an "inciting incident" upsets this balance
the protagonist reacts; his/her life falls out of balance
s/he has a conscious or unconscious desire to restore balance,
launching him/her on a quest for an object of desire and against the forces of antagonism
the hero may or may not achieve the goal
[Can you think of any movies that work like this?]
Our expectations and anticipations for narratives are well known. We expect-
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characters: protagonist/antagonist, "blocking" figures"
actions
an "inciting incident" and a series of connected incidents
curiosity, suspense, and surprise
problems or conflicts (a hero in jeopardy)
a final state, resolution, or insight, also known as "closure," preceded by a denouement (where loose ends are
wrapped up)
The Classical Hollywood style, or, why we like closure
Can you give examples of "tight closure" plots vs. "open-ended" plots?
An example: "The Ka's Evil Twin" (How many of the above conditions does this film have? How long do
narratives have to be?)
Three characteristic define all narratives: Unity, Closure, and "Imaginariness"
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Unity: all film narratives are self-contained wholes, with conflict and resolution.
Closure: all films present an already completed sequence of events and the order of these events, and the relations
of cause and effect that link them are fixed and irreversible. Unless the projectionist mixes up the reels, one event
follows the next in a precise logic of causality. Every crisis will have a resolution, every problem will be solved,
every mystery will be clarified. [--unless the movie is French or German!]
Imaginariness: We take pleasure in narratives because they are fictional. Their unity, coherence, and
predetermined outcomes separate them from the prosaic, contingent, and unpredictable qualities of everyday life.
The creation of imaginary worlds by narrative was called diegesis by Aristotle. The diegesis can be as fantastic as
Oz, Xanadu, Tunetown, or the Starship Enterprise (created entirely in the studio and expressly for the camera), or as
recognizable as the town in Magnificent Seven or the freeways of Los Angeles in Speed, but it is nonetheless a
space that is chosen, ordered, worked upon to conform to the unity, closure, and imaginariness of the narrative.
Narratives often include Parallelism (e.g., in Wizard of Oz, Cabaret, or Hoop Dreams):
Parallelism creates richness, complexity, and symmetry, as well as opportunities for transitions (which are fun)
Movies are especially adept at parallelism (e.g. "cross-cutting" as in The Godfather) [Many modern "best-seller" thriller
books now employ "cross-cutting" as if they were movies (F. Forsyth; Dan Brown, etc.)
39
3. "Character is Destiny"
Characters have character traits, and are complex (well-developed) or "flat" (two-dimensional). Character traits can be-attitudes, skills, preferences, drives or motivations (from the past?), dress, appearance, etc.
Characters can be protagonists, antagonists, heroes or anti-heroes, main characters or "supporting" characters.
Some causes in films are not characters, but "character-like" things, which may acquire human like qualities like
malevolence or revenge. [Literary folks call this anthropomorphism or the "pathetic fallacy"--ascribing human motives to
natural objects.] Can you name some "things" that are characters in recent movies you have seen?
4. Cause and Effect Drives Narratives
The best example of the difference between plot and story is the detective story. We know the effect but not the causes,
which are the killer, motive, or method. Our desire to know these things--as personified in the detective--drives the
narrative. The climax of the plot is the revelation of previous events in the story--indeed events which took place before the
plot even began (because most murder mysteries begin with the discovery of a body! as in Law and Order) So----_________
!
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Story !
_____
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Plot !
!_________
!____
a. crime conceived
b. crime planned
c. crime committed
d. crime discovered
e. detective investigates
f. detective reveals a, b, and c.
Many "Backwards" plots: (Memento, Betrayal) are "mysteries" based on Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, in which "discovery" is
the goal.Films can also show causes, but withhold effects (Hooper survives in Jaws)
Some films end without resolution (The 400 blows). Can you give other examples? What is the effect of these kinds of
endings? What do contemporary American audiences usually like?
In Citizen Kane, what drives the narrative? Characters, causes, or both? Is Kane closed or open-ended?
5. Openings, Closings, and Patterns of Development
"Our formula is simple--A love story, three scenes of suggested horror and one of actual violence. Fadeout. It's all over in
less than 70 minutes." Val Lewton, producer of Cat People (1942)
"Four reels of sin, and one of punishment, and you could get away with anything!"
Cecil B. DeMilles
Most modern screenplays have 3 "acts": setup or exposition, confrontation, and resolution.
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Exposition--the first part of a film, lays out time, place, and characters, and conflict, or problem, or goal
The middle part of film often delays outcomes or raises further obstacles (Wizard of Oz). "Patterns of
development cause the viewer to form long-term expectations which can be delayed, cheated, or gratified."
Films "end" with a climax. There is always a limited range of outcomes with clear consequences which close off
the chains of cause and effect, have a high degree of tension and suspense, and create emotional satisfaction, or
40
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"closure". But, some films are deliberately anti-climactic or "open-ended" (400 blows, L'Eclisse, Castaway,
Kane?)
Many films begin "in medias res" or in "the thick of the action." That is, the plot begins when the story has already
started. Plots are pretty much the same in literature and movies (and music?)
Diagrams of plot types: happy ending and tragedy plot type 2 (plots "twists")
How have plots changed in movies since 1941? Is virtue always rewarded and vice always punished? Can you give
examples? (The Godfather? Clint Eastwood's "spaghetti" westerns?)
Some plot types:
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Change in Knowledge (a character learns something) (examples?)
Goal-oriented plots (a character tries to achieve a desired object, person, or state of affairs). An examples would be
"searches"--Raiders or the Lost Arc, North by Northwest, Sleepless in Seattle, or any investigation. Fellini's 8 1/2
would be a psychological search [that is, open-ended, like so many European films]
A "framing situation" like Citizen Kane, Amadeus, or Hoop Dreams, showing how events led up to the present
situation
Deadlines (Back to the Future)
Journeys (Wizard of Oz) create timetables and itineraries
Flashbacks. Often the main character dies just after the opening credits (Lawrence of Arabia, Kane), and the
whole film is a flashback. Amadeus is a much more complicated flashback with implications about narrative point
of view: first person or omniscient?
Some other typical plot types [can you give examples?]
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purpose achieved
purpose abandoned
purpose lost
comes to realize
doesn't come to realize
decision
character regenerates
character degenerates
villain gets away with it
the "biter"-bit (Quint in Jaws, or Fitch in Runaway Jury)
Questions literary agents ask:
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Is the hero in jeopardy?
Who is the "blocking" figure? (Is there rivalry with obstacles to overcome?)
Whose goals are in conflict?
What is the "inciting indicent"?
Does the hero undergo change? (dumb to smart, nobody to somebody, bureaucrat to whistle-blower)
If you are writing a "thriller," it must have 5 things:
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cheap surprise (usually accompanied by loud music)
false ending (the monster isn't really dead!--Terminator 2, and many more)
protagonist shown to be victim (Cary Grant in North By Northwest shown with bloody knife)
a speech made in praise of the villain
a "hero-at-the-mercy-of-the-villain" scene (Spider Man, etc.)
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6. Mythic Structure in Literature and Movies-"There are only two or three human stories and they go on repeating themselves as if they had never happened
before."
--Willa Cather in O, Pioneers
Allegory is mostly a literary term, but taken in film terms to mean a suggestive resemblance or correspondence between a
visible event or character in a film with other more significant or abstract levels of meaning outside of the film; an extended
metaphor. Examples: Metropolis (1927), Animal Farm (1955), The Seventh Seal (1957), The Piano (1993), Eat Drink Man
Woman (1994), The Matrix (1999); also Biblical or Christ-related allegories. Allegories often include archetypes.
Christopher Vogler, The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers
(This book is heavily based on Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces)
Table of Contents
A cute review of The Writer's Journey
S. Voytilla and C. Vogler, Myth and the Movies: Discovering the Mythic Structure of 50 Unforgettable Films
Table of Contents
The Stages of the Journey:
Ordinary World
Call to Adventure
Refusal of the Call
Meeting with the Mentor
Crossing the First Threshold
Tests, Allies, Enemies
Approach to the Inmost Cave
Ordeal
Reward (Seizing the Sword)
The Road Back
Resurrection
Return with the Elixer
20 Master Plots (And How to Build Them) by Ronald B. Tobias
Quest
Adventure
Pursuit
Rescue
Escape
Revenge
The Riddle
The Rivalry
Underdog
Temptation
Metamorphosis
Transformation
Maturation
Love
Forbidden Love
Sacrifice
Discovery
Wretched Excess
Ascension and Decension
45 Master Characters: Mythic Models for Creating Original Characters by Victoria Schmidt
and heroes as universal types)
The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations by Georges Polti
(uses ancient gods
42
7. Irony: there are three kinds (See this website. and Wikipedia on “irony.”)
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Dramatic Irony, when the audience knows something that the characters in the drama don't know.
(Oedipus Rex, by Sophoclese is the most famous example, also most horror films)
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Comic Irony, when characters are done in by their own stupidity. Examples:
Shawshank Redemption: "His Judgment cometh, and that right soon."
The Twilight Zone: one secret agent tries to assassinate another using a booby-trapped telephone, which will
explode only if the receiver is lifted while the phone is ringing. The intended victim escapes, then rings the phone in
the room, which is picked up by the would-be assassin's stupid assistant: Ka-boom. (old joke, "Is that you, Hans?")
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Unintended Irony, which often victimizes unreflective people. An utterance is considered an unintended irony in
case it is intended literally but is perceived as ironic by over-hearers. (President Bush referred to the "war" against
terror as a "crusade," thus insulting Muslims.
Or this: "After a quarter of a century, the lights went out in Cedar
Falls Drive-In Movie Theater for the last time on the evening of Sunday, September 3rd, Gone, all but the
memories. And we couldn't not notice the unintended irony- that on the marquee for that last and very final Triple
Feature Weekend - was listed: Gone in 60 Seconds. The property was sold, the Drive-in demolished, gone, to make
way for a housing development."
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Sarcasm is not irony. "Your new hairdo is soooo cute." "I soooo want to meet your friends!" [Is there such a
thing as visual sarcasm?]
8. Types of drama or narrative genres:
Comedy, tragedy, tragicomedy, epic, melodrama, allegory.
(UVic Writer's Guide, dictionary of literary terms)
8a. Aristotle's dramatic unities: Unity of Time, Place, and Action.
Aristotle said that a drama should happen at once, in one place, and in "one circuit of the sun."
Examples would be Oedipus Rex, or Eugene O'neill's Long Day's Journey into Night, which both happen in one day,
ending late at night. Surprisingly, many movies follow this formula, for example, Amadeus, which begins in the
morning as a priest takes Antonio Salieri's confession, and ends early the following morning when Salieri's long
narrative (which is a series of flashbacks) ends. Oedipus Rex has a very similar structure.
9. Written text vs. film: The Godfather--images vs. text
What happens to a written text when it is "translated" to film?
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Time in Film Narrative: A Key Concept
"Temporal order, temporal frequency, and temporal duration [in movies] are all variable."
(Bordwell) See this diagram
Movies can present or alter time any way they want to: events do not have to go in linear order, and can be speeded up,
slowed down, or repeated. There are at least three different kinds of time in movies--story time, plot time, and screen time
(see below). But, the events shown in a movie have already happened: there is nothing the viewer of a movie can do to
change any aspect of film time. Obvious, but important.
1. Temporal Order:
Narratives (stories) can be told in a number of ways. The simplest way to tell a story in a movie is called "direct or
sequential narrative," which simply means that the passage of time and the order of events in the movies is exactly the same
as "real" time. Events start at the beginning and go on the the end without interruption (ellipsis), extension (hyperbole),
repetition, or any change in their normal order. Theoretically, a direct narrative could be filmed without any "editing" at all,
the camera being turned on at the beginning and turned off at the end. [Do you know any movies like this?] More common is
"interrupted sequence" in which time moves forward from beginning to end, but pieces of time are LEFT OUT (ellipsis)-because they are boring or don't "advance the plot". There are obviously other ways to represent temporal order in movies,
by using flashbacks or flash-forwards, that is, by showing events out of order, or in extreme cases by the wholesale mixing
up of normal temporal order (for, hopefully, legitimate creative purposes), or by telling the story backwards.
So, temporal order can be-
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Direct or continuous sequential narrative, or "real time" --just like life.
Direct continuous sequential narrative is rare in movies, although some famous examples exist:
High Noon, where clocks on the wall frequently remind us exactly what time it is.
Interrupted sequence--temporal order is preserved with ellipses but no flashbacks or flash-forwards
Interrupted sequence is by far the most common form of plot presentation.
Alternating past and present: flashback or flash-forward
Many movies are structured with "framing elements" and begin and end in the "present" with one
long flashback (Amadeus, Lawrence of Arabia [only flashes back, not forward at the end]
Other movies are more complex, with several flashbacks and flashforwards (Red Violin, Citizen Kane?)
Movies that employ a parallel structure (two or more stories told simultaneously) usually structure time
sequentially.
Arbitrary or out of order (Citizen Kane?, Pulp Fiction, Last Year at Marienbad)
Ass-backwards (Betrayal, Memento, High Fidelity) [an "archaeological excavation" like Oedipus Rex] Class?
Other examples?
Directors must help the audience know when time has passed between two scenes (temporal ellipsis), and there are a number
of ways to do this. Using a "fade out" followed by a "fade in" is a common method--it gives the audience time to catch its
breath. A long passage of time can be indicated simply by telling the audience: "six years later" (A Beautiful Mind), or
"sixteen years later" (The Natural). In fact, as sophisticated film goers, we are usually very good at inferring when an
ellipsis has taken place. If an actor starts walking up a flight of stairs (The Godfather), we almost expect that the director
will use an ellipsis (properly called a "jump cut" in this case) and cut to the actor reaching the top of the stairs; he doesn't
want to bore us or waste film. Nowadays, all pieces of film used in movies are much shorter that they used to be, and cuts
are much more frequent. So much have our expectations changed in this respect that we often find that "old movies" move so
slowly that they are frustrating to watch. We are also much more open to complex temporal manipulation and alternating
past and present than previous audiences, because, living in the "postmodern" era, we expect actions and events to be out of
context and to connect with other actions and events that are seemingly unrelated in time or space.
44
2. Temporal duration:
Screen time (Running Time), Plot time, and Story time are the three kinds of time duration in movies.

Screen time (also "running time" or "cheek time"), is the time you actually spend in your seat. Two other common
terms are "filmic time" and "real time."
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Plot is "everything visibly and audibly present in the film before us" (the diegesis--Greek for "recounted story")
So, plot time is the period of time covered by the events you actually see on the screen (several hours to several
years, but almost always longer than screen time).
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Story is "the set of ALL events in the narrative, both explicit and implicit." So, story time is the period covered by
all the events that you see or know about. We often make inferences about events not shown, In Citizen Kane, for
example, we infer that Kane grew up as a spoiled brat, but this is not portrayed, and we only hear about the boarder
who gave "worthless" deed to Kane's mother. And what happened to Kane's first wife and son? In Amadeus we are
told many things by Salieri that we are not shown--such as? (Also Hoosiers, North by Northwest.)

Note, therefore, that plot and story are different: they overlap in one respect and diverge in others. All we the
viewer have before us is the plot--which is the arrangement of material in the film. We create the story in our minds
from cues in the plot. Thus, if you want to give a "synopsis" of a movie you can proceed in two ways: 1) you can
begin with the earliest incidents which the plot cues you to infer (the boarder who gives the worthless deed to Kane's
mother) and summarize the story, or 2) summarize the the plot starting with the earliest incident you see on the
screen (e.g. Kane dies). The very brief synopses in your TV guide: e.g. "Down-on-his luck drifter finds diamond. .
." are almost always story synopses. (See "High Concept") Could we diagram some examples in a "story/plot
axis"? (XY axis: story up, plot across)
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Montage sequences are used in movies to compress time and advance the plot quickly.
Examples of story time, plot time, and screen time:
Paranoid (short horror film)
Amadeus--many years, 24 hours (with flashbacks), 138 minutes
High Noon--several years, 1 hour and 25 minutes, 1 hour and 25 minutes
North by Northwest--several years, four days, 136 minutes
Twelve Angry Men--a few days, 95 minutes, 95 minutes
Citizen Kane ? The Bicycle Thief--?
Lola Rennt? (Is it possible for screen time to be longer than story time? Examples? Rashomon?)
The Red Violin (I dare you to try! This is a difficult film time-wise.)
3. Temporal frequency:
Scenes may appear more than once, or from multiple points of view--for example, Lola Rennt, the great Japanese film
Rashomon, and its remake with Paul Newman, Hour of the gun. The Red Violin and Citizen Kane offer a veritable feast of
interesting manipulation of time and repetition, which "recontextualizes" old information. How long are story duration, plot
duration, and screen duration in Citizen Kane?
[Space is like time in that it can be inferred or imagined (the concentration camp in Exodus), and screen space can select
portions of plot space.]
What IS time, anyway? Objectively, time seems to always move at the same pace, but the emotional speed of time can
vary tremendously (see Shakespeare!), and the way we experience time in our heads is a function of memory, in which we
can repeat events, or place them in a new order. One of the ways that movies are different from "real" life is the way that
they manipulate time.
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Closure: "This is where I came in. . ."
The part of books and movies that often satisfy us the most is closure, the relaxing part after the dramatic action is done--the
"denouement," when all the loose ends are tied up, and when you find out "what happened to that other guy." We crave
closure in movies because it is so rare in real life: most of the time you never find out "what happened"--or nothing happens.
A famous French film by Francois Truffaut, The 400 Blows, ends with a "freeze frame" of the young hero on a beach: we
don't know what will happen and are left "hanging." Many "foreign" films end this way--people from other countries don't
mind. Some American films have "open endings"--like Castaway, with Tom Hanks, which, like The 400 Blows, ends also
with the face of the hero looking at the camera as the music wells up. (Did the director, Robert Ziemeckis, have Truffaut in
mind here? See "intertextuality." The shot of the crossroads reminds us of the famous prairie bus stop scene in North by
Northwest.) We don't know which way he will go from this "crossroads," but we are satisfied and hopeful, because he has
learned something important from his ordeal and we think he has found the courage to face the future.
But the "Classical Hollywood Style" and American films usually have "tight" closure--absolutely everything is tied up or
explained--while films made in other countries tend to have much looser or completely open endings. We tend to remember
things in narrative structure, and we seek closure in our own lives, but rarely achieve it. We like to watch movies because
movie narratives--or stories in any medium--can tie up all the loose ends, and we find this very psychologically satisfying.
People in other countries seem better able to accept ambiguity, inconclusiveness, and uncertainty in their lives, but we
Americans tend to think that we can control reality and events, and make things come out right. The positive side of this trait
is that we jump in and help; the negative side is that we think we can fix any problem just because we want to, and we think
that we can solve every problem in one hour, because that's how long TV dramas last. That is one of the reasons we keep
getting into trouble. Another consequence of life in the television and movie era is that everything has become
"entertainment"--including politics, religion, and education. See this 1984 book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public
Discourse in the Age of Show Business.
Framing elements: One of the devices that movies use to emphasize closure is by ending the story in exactly the same place
it started. One way this can be done by introducing a narrator who tells the story in a flashback (or series of flashbacks) and
who then reappears at the end of the movie, as Salieri does in Amadeus: the priest who has come to hear Salieri's confession
stands in for the audience. But he--and we--get more than he bargained for. We enter the story through Salieri's mind (which
the music helps us do), listen to his "confession," and leave the story exactly where we came in, at the mental asylum we
entered as the movie began. The story is over because there is nothing more to say. We have come "full circle."
Movies are so powerful an art form because they have so many tools for creating closure--not just the narrative or story itself,
but all the elements of cinematography, sound, and music. Citizen Kane, for example, begins with a night shot of Xanadu,
slowly moves in on the single lighted window, and then shows us the last moments of Charles Foster Kane, who says the
word "Rosebud" and dies (the only time on the film that we actually see him alive!). The plot then embarks on a complicated
series of narrators and flashbacks (five in all), and returns at the end to the night shot of Xanadu, the lighted window, and the
"no tresspassing" sign. In fact, the ending scene is the exact reverse--a "mirror image" if you will--of the first scene,
providing a perfect symmetry. We know the movie is over, and are satisfied that nothing more can be learned about the
enigmatic character we have been exploring for the past two hours, even if we do not know all we would like to know.
Indeed, the visual aspects of the film create the closure, because the narrative itself does not. The Last Picture Show also
ends as it began, with a shot of the deserted main street of the small Texas town. As in Kane, the last shot in the film is in fact
the first shot played backwards, and it should come as no surprise that the director of Last Picture Show, Peter Bogdanovich,
was a great admirer of Orsen Welles, who directed Citizen Kane. Such conscious(?) imitation of any form, pattern,
composition, music, or text is called intertextuality. How many other films can you think of where the last scene is the
first scene played in reverse?
The artistic form which most nearly parallels the narrative structure we find in movies is the musical form called "sonata
form," or "sonata allegro form." (this is the name we give to the structure of large classical musical pieces such as the
movements of symphonies or concerti). Sonata form works with the same closure strategy as movies, that is, the music
usually ends where it began, having established a theme and a home key and having finally returned to it after a long and
circuitous excursion. Popular music does the same thing, but, being a much shorted and simpler form, popular music can not
explore the emotional and musical range possible in a large symphony.
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This is where I came in: The experience of going to see a movie in a theater is a lot different than it used to be. In the
days of the great picture palaces movies ran continuously, as David Niven notes in his wonderful recollection of Hollywood.
Bring on the Empty Horses. The typical program at a movie theater lasted at least four hours: first came the newsreel
(perhaps the "March of Time" satirized in Citizen Kane); then came a short feature or a cartoon, which were followed by the
"second feature." Only after about two hours did the premier attraction begin. And when that was over, they started the
whole thing again. It was all "a bum-numbing four hours," as David Niven says. People who went to the movies--which
were often the only place to get cool in town, as movie theaters were the first buildings in most towns to have air
conditioning--didn't really care at what point the entered this endless cycle, and would simply leave the theater when they had
seen the whole thing, saying "this is where I came in." Nowadays patrons are hustled out of the theater when the feature is
finished, and there are no shorts or second feature (although there are endless previews and commercials). The reason for
this change is obvious--theaters make more money when they can sell a new set of tickets every two or three hours.)
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Citizen Kane and Narrative
"Kane, we are told, loved only his mother--only his newspaper--only his second wife--only himself. Maybe he loved all of
these, or none. It is for the audience to judge. Kane was selfish and selfless, an idealist, a scoundrel, a very big man or a
very little one. It depends on who's talking about him. He is never judged with the objectivity of an author, and the point of
the picture is not so much the solution of the problem as its presentation." --Orson Welles, director
Background expectations: Viewers in 1941 knew Citizen Kane was supposed to be a disguised biopic (biographic picture)
about publisher William Randolf Hearst and his companion Marion Davies. Hearst tried to stop production and even tried to
have the film and negative destroyed! (A disguised printed biography is called a roman a clef, or a "novel with a key." So, is
there "cinema a clef."?)
Audience expectations: Newsreels and second features: "This is where I came in"
Genre: the first minutes of the film give us pertinent genre conventions,
But what genre IS it?
("News on the March" is a great parody of contemporary newsreels.)
Fictional biography? There were plenty of examples [often starring George Coulouris!]
Newspaper-reporter genre? (His Girl Friday, The Front Page).
These movies showed a "dogged pursuit of the story against great odds:
so we are prepared for the reporter to find "the truth."
Musical film? Steet kid makes good? (the Susan Alexander episodes)
Detective Genre? (what is "rosebud"?)
But, Citizen Kane thwarts easy genre identification-Citizen Kane is much more ambiguous than 1941 audiences were used to.
How are plot and story related in structure?
An outline of the plot and story in Kane segmented into sequences (after Bordwell)
The newsreel structure parallels the film's plot. See a Plot segmentation of The Wizard of Oz
Suspense and surprise are essential elements of narrative. Are they present in Kane?
Which story events are directly presented in the plot, and which must we infer?
What is the earliest story event of which we learn, and how does cause-effect relate this event to later events.
What is the temporal relationship of story events? Has temporal order, frequency, or duration been manipulated,
and to what purpose?
Does the closing relate to the beginning? Do all narrative lines achieve closure, or are some left open?
How does the narrative present information to us? Is narration restricted to one, or a few character's knowledge,
or does if range freely in time and space?
Does it give depth by exploring mental states? How closely does the film follow the conventions of classical
Hollywood cinema?
Causality in Kane: two distinct sets of characters cause events to occur because there are two stories.
What are they, and what is the initial cause of the plot? A goal is created; what is it? Who is Thompson?
So the object of the investigator's search is a set of character traits--unusual
That is, what made Kane say "rosebud"? and who or what is rosebud?
What is Kane's goal? What is he looking for, and how does this relate to rosebud? Do we ever find out?
Something he lost, or was never able to get?
What motif shown repeatedly in the film is a visual symbol for Kane?
Kane's life has already taken place; his death begins the film--as in Lawrence of Arabia [any others?]
The film is the reconstruction of that life through flashbacks.
Time in Kane:
Ebert: The Neatest Flash-Forward in Kane. Between Thatcher's words "Merry Christmas" and "... a very Happy
New Year," two decades pass.
Clearly the actual "story" is presented in an interesting way, hence the appeal of the film
The early portions of the plot tend to roam over many phases of Kane's life, while later portions concentrate on
specific (usually later) episodes.
The plot becomes more "linear."
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By placing events out of order, the plot raises expectations, anticipations, and curiosity in the audience
There is also a degree of suspence, but only about when and how something will happen
(For example, we already know Susan will leave Kane, but not when or why.)
The News on the March introduction parallels the structure of Kane's life and the film's structure:
It provides us with a "map" of Kane's life
Story duration, plot duration, and screen duration are how long, respectively?
(" Elipsis" is the shortening or elimination of details.)
Screen duration compresses time, often through montage sequences. What are some montage sequences in
Citizen Kane? (4d, 5c, 7e. 7h)
Some events in the story appear several times in the plot. Why? Examples? (6i and 7c)
What are some of the ways that movies demarcate or separates "scenes"? (fades, disolves, cuts, black screen, etc.)
Motivation:
The "rubber Ducky" gimmick: "my parents took away my rubber ducky and it made me sad/mad, so that's
why I'm doing what I'm doing." [e.g.: Pretty Woman, The Hulk, Spider Man, etc. Others?]
Is the search for Rosebud a flaw because the answer is a trivial gimmick? Bordwell says that the rosebud gimmick works-it focuses our attention on the crucial question (p.117).
Instead of investigating a crime, the reporter is investigating a character, so "rosebud" motivates the plot.
[Recall that Thatcher gives Kane a new sled for Christmas, and Kane doesn't want it.]
Roger Ebert on "Rosebud" (one way to beat the Production Code!)
Thompson visits Susan A. twice. She refuses him the first time, and motivates our return later.
[Note our stunning "entrance" into the El Rancho Nightclub via the skylight.]
What is Kane's mother's motivation? Is it plausible?
Why does Kane insist on stuffing Xanadu with hundreds of artworks he never unpacks?
Who IS this guy? Is he an "American"? What is "American" about him?
Identification, suspense, and surprise:
Most narratives depend on our sympathies being linked to characters--we identify with them and vicariously
experience their lives.
Citizen Kane appears to deliberately block our desire to identify-Likewise, our the important narrative tolls of suspense and surprise are jettisoned because we already know
what happens. Why?
Recall Brecht's theory of "alienation."
Parallelism: Several parallel structures are present in Kane's narrative form
The Newsreel parallels the film's plot as a whole
Kane's life parallels Thompson's search--they are both futile; both lines of action develop simultaneously.
Kane's mistakes (Susan's opera career, his affair, and the political campaign) are repeated:
"You're going to need more than one lesson." [Does he ever "learn"?]
Patterns of plot development
There are 5 narrators and 5 flashbacks with a clear order; but both "searches" fail.
Citizen Kane is more "open" than most of Hollywood's 1941 products, which are "tightly closed."
Give some examples of "closed" films-[Why do we in American insist on closure, when the rest of the world does not? See my essay on closure.
Framing devices! The ending of the film strongly echoes the beginning. In fact, the images are the exact
reverse of the beginning. [Can you think of another film we have seen that does this? High Noon uses one;
and The Searchers uses a visual framing device, like Kane.]
Narration in Citizen Kane
When is the only time we actually see Kane alive--without narrators? (All other times he is presented in
newsreels or memories.)
Who are the 5 narrators Thompson tracks down?--Thatcher, Bernstein, Leland, Susan, and Raymond.
What concrete image are we shown repeatedly in the film that symbolizes the film's search?
The film both reveals and conceals information--like most film plots. Thompson (always faceless) is our surrogate-he's trying to put the pieces together. Why is Thompson faceless--and pretty much without character traits?
When is there "omniscient" narration, that is, when do we and only we know something?
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Conclusion:
Narrative analysis can consider cause-effect, story-plot, motivations, parallelisms, progression, depth, and closure.
Does Kane have closure?
Cinematography in Citizen Kane
(As we said in week 1, it is impossible to separate the arts of film into components: all good films work as a
seamless whole.)
The cinematography of Gregg Toland has many innovations, especially huge depth of field (made possible by
new "fast" lenses)
Note the scene in Thatcher's office where Kane slowly shrinks in size, and the similar fireplace scene in Xanadu
(Perspective as symbolism(?), made possible by depth of field)
Fun with conventions: the fake "newsreel"
Lighting!
Shock cuts (Cockatoo scene)
Long tracking shot at the end: have you seen anything like that elsewhere? (Intertextuality Alert!)
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Week 4: Editing
Read:
Editing (today's web page)
Do:
Plot segmentation of The Red Violin due next week
Films:
Last week: Citizen Kane (Orsen Welles, 1941, 120 minutes)
This week: Frida Kahlo (Julie Taymore, 2002, 123 minutes)
Also: The battle scene from Alexander Nevsky (Russia, 1938, Sergei Eisenstein, 112 minutes),
and selections from Russian Ark (Russia, 2002, Alexander Sokurov, 96 minutes)
Topics for Today:
1. Discuss Citizen Kane and narrative
"Kane, we are told, loved only his mother--only his newspaper--only his second wife--only himself. Maybe he loved all of
these, or none. It is for the audience to judge. Kane was selfish and selfless, an idealist, a scoundrel, a very big man or a
very little one. It depends on who's talking about him. He is never judged with the objectivity of an author, and the point of
the picture is not so much the solution of the problem as its presentation." --Orson Welles, director
2. Editing
3. Preview Frida Kahlo (Julie Taymore, 2002, 123 minutes)
Editing
Main examples of editing for this class:
Psycho: policeman scene (Camera setup and shot numbers and actual shots)
The Birds: fire scene ("Rhythmic and temporal relations": pictures, text)
North by Northwest: prairie stop (Classic scene worth analyzing at length: how many "cuts" are there in this scene?)
The Birds: body (cut-ins)
Royal Tenenbaums: car crash (What do we really see, and what do we only think we see?)
Moulin Rouge (Baz Lehrman's) (A good example of modern editing)
Editing is a component of cinematography and may be thought of as "the coordination of one shot with another"
(from text p.251). The Film Editor eliminates unwanted footage, cuts superfluous frames, then selects and joins the best
shots. Editing also impacts directing and music, since musical rhythms tend to reflect editing rhythms and editing cuts.
(That is why music is usually the last element to be added to a film—but there are exceptions.) All the elements of film
should work as a seamless whole. The great theorist on the subject of editing and "montage" was the Russian director Sergei
Eisenstein, hence the title of this page.
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There are four basic areas of choice and control in editing, called relations:




graphic relations or "graphic match" [see "Graphic Match" folder in Dazzle]
rhythmic relations (as in Hitchcock's The Birds)
spatial relations
temporal relations
Review Cinematography:
The five C's of Cinematography: camera angles, continuity, cutting, close-ups, and composition.
The basic types of shots: els, ls, ms, mcu, cu, ecu. [What do these abbreviations mean?]
Editing means joining shots together. Types of joins in editing include (see Film Terms): cut, insert, fade, fade in,
dissolve, wipe, cheat cut, jump cut, shock cut, and "optical effects." In a typical scene of a conversation between two
people, the editor might begin with an establishing shot, proceed to a sequence of shot/reverse shot (probably OTS--"overthe-shoulder" shots), a re-establishing shot, and more shot/reverse shot, all while obeying the 180 Degree Rule. If the
characters are in motion, the editor might employ such techniques as eyeline match (Jaws) or match-on action
(Casablanca, or American President) Remember that most scenes like this have been filmed in numerous "takes" from
multiple points of view, and the film editor has all of these points of view to work with (most of which will never be used).
Some simple scenes take hours to film because the camera and lights have to be repositioned each time, and the director may
ask the actors to do the scene again and again--as many as 50 times--because he didn't like the acting. It has been estimated
that 100 times more film is shot during typical feature film than will actually end up on the screen. That is why-Film editors have tremendous power and their editing can have a dramatic effect on how we interpret a scene, for example,
the "conversation between two people" described above. Actors fear film editors, because an editor can concentrate on one
actor during a scene, and completely eliminate or minimize all the other actors on the set and their great speeches and
reactions can end up "on the cutting room floor." For example, how would you film and edit a "conversation between two
people"? An "establishing shot," followed by a "two shot," followed by several OTS's and talking heads. Do you follow the
180 degree rule? Would you edit very conventionally or very radically? Do you concentrate on the "talker" or the "listener"?
See editor Tom Rolf's quote (The "beat" referred to in Rolf's quote above is a term actors use for a one-second pause.)
Scenes can be connected by straight cuts, fades, or dissolves. Elliptical editing or temporal ellipsis means "omitting part
of an event," and almost all editing is in fact elliptical. Fades often signify "temporal ellipsis"--a break in time going
forward, while dissolves often signify flashbacks or suggest future action (Casablanca). Swish pans (flash pans, zip pans,
or "wipes") are used to signify a series of events--as in the "marriage sequence" in Citizen Kane. (The famous "invisible
wipe" in the opera scene is not elliptical.) Sometimes elliptical editing is combined with dialogue to create a long break in
time, as in the famous sentence in Citizen Kane that begins "Merry Christmas. . . and ends twenty years later. . ."and a Happy
New Year."[!] Some directors like Robert Zimeckis use temporal ellipsis a signature part of their overall style. See his clever
and original work in Roger Rabbit and Contact.
Temporal expansion [or--temporal "hyperbole"?] stretches out time, and is the opposite of temporal ellipsis; examples are
evident in Serge Eisenstein's classic Potemkin, Kevin Kostner's Tin Cup, and Silence of the Lambs. Explosions, falls, and
fights are often juiced up with temporal expansion, but such are often ridden with cliches.
Parallel editing or "cross-cutting" means "two stories told simultaneously with inter-cutting")
Example: The Godfather Part I --the "baptism" sequence at the end last five minutes, with 67 separate shots
The entire structure of the Godfather II tells the parallel stories of Michael and Vito Corleone. (Other examples?)
Are Citizen Kane and Red Violin examples of parallel editing, or something else?
Why is it cross-cutting effective and enjoyable?
Old style "transparency editing" or "continuity editing" amount to the same thing and can be compared to
"inaudibility" in film music: their purpose is "exclusively dramatic or psychological," and we are not supposed to be
consciously "aware" that editing is taking place. Continuity editing maintains "the verisimilitude of the space in which the
position of the actor is always determined, even when a close-up eliminates the decor. [Andre Bazin] (The opposite of
continuity editing is "framed" editing: we are aware that we are watching a film, and we're supposed to be aware. An
example of this would be many of the films of French "New Wave" "auteurs" (directors who think they are artists) like JeanLuc Goddard, who deliberately placed impossible jump cuts in his movies like Breathless. Modern editing styles
(example: Ali) are much more fluid and fast-paced , with rapid shifts of POV, camera angles, and extensive use of mobile
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frame. The steadicam has made it possible for a single cameraman to shoot a long and complex scene. Modern film
editors (perhaps influenced by MTV) also prefer a style of many rapid cuts, with single shots or clips lasting less than a
second. One could say that a modern movie (or a television drama like SCI-Miami) resembles one long montage sequence.
(Regarding cuts or edits: if you watch a movie with this in mind, you can almost anticipate when the editor will cut to a new
shot.)
POV, or "Point-Of-View" shots put the audience into the eyes of a particular character. As in traditiional written narrative,
point of view can be omniscient, first, second, or third person. Written narratives like stories or novels usually maintain a
single point of view throughout, but in movies, point of view is much more fluid and slippery, and we frequently slide back
and forth between points of view without even being aware of it. Strangely, a literal First Person point of view is rarely used,
for it requires the camera to be placed and to move as if the movie viewer actually were seeing through the eyes of the
narrator. A notable creative exception is Dark Passage, 1947 (with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall) in which the entire
first act of the film is shot literally as if through the eyes of the main character, who you do not see until he looks in a
mirror. Likewise, the opening scene of Rod Serling's Requiem for Heavyweight (with Anthony Quinn as the boxer
"Mountain Rivera") employs this device, as does Alfred Hitchcock's famous Rear Window, where Jimmy Stuart
(convalescing from a broken leg) spends his days looking out of his apartment window and into the the windows (and lives)
of his neighbors. All movies appeal to our own voyeurism, but Rear Window does especially, and it is therefore a
commentary on movie-making in general. Other examples of creative use of POV are North by Northwest ("great height"),
High Noon, and The Birds. Worth special mention is the scene on the beach in Stephen Spielberg's Jaws (where Sherriff
Brody is watching the water for sharks and keeps getting interrupted), a masterpiece of cinematography, editing for ironic
effect and shock. This scene is also a veritable homage to Alfred Hitchcock, and it employs, very consciously, several
Hitchcock trademarks such as simultaneous dolly and zoom.
A Long Take (also called "travel shot," "plan-sequence," or "sequence shot") is simply one scene shot without turning the
camera off, and is frequently allied to the mobile frame with panning, tracking, craning, or zooming. Long takes are one of
the great pleasures of educated cinema watching, because they often go un-noticed by the casual movie-goer. They give the
director, cinematographer, designers, and actors special challenges, but are often used at particular moments in a movie to
provide change-or-pace, mark a point in the plot, or to introduce or complete the movie. Some long takes become justly
famous. The steadicam now makes it possible for the camera to literally circle or dance around the actors, and long takes are
favored by some high production value television shows such as Law and Order and The West Wing, both of which almost
always begin with an extended take and mobile frame. (Such television shows are referred to as "single camera" dramas.)
Good examples of long takes:
Goodfellas, The Royal Tenenbaums, Touch of Evil, City Slickers, The American President (The West Wing)
Much Ado about Nothing, The Age of Innocence (the ballroom scene--mobile frame, POV)
The American President (opening scene, traditional "match on action")
Compare to the long walk in a later West Wing episode. (See also West Wing"voting")
Montage sequences: The Natural, The Right Stuff, The Red Violin
Graphic Match and Graphic Relations:
The Birds (fire sequence)
2001, From Here to Eternity, Right Stuff
Red River (Note the strong graphic qualities, especially powerful in black-and-white!)
Rhythmic Relations:
The Birds: body scene--compare to Jaws "Brody watches water" (Note "dolly/zoom")
Raiders: Indy shoots swordsman
Editing can be done "in the camera," when one shot follows another on the same reel of film (an extreme case would be
Hitchcock's Rope, which was photographed in a few single "takes.") The developed role of film simply IS the completed
movie, and can be projected as such. In this case, each "take" must be single and final. Obviously, editing "in the camera"
puts the film editor out of a job, as there is nothing to edit. Now that films are digital, editing in the camera is obsolete.
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Examples of editing used for this class:
Basic editing techniques and vocabulary:
Psycho: policeman scene (camera setup and shot numbers and actual shots)
The Birds: fire scene ("rhythmic and temporal relations": pictures, text)
The Birds: body (cut-ins)
Royal Tenenbaums: car crash (What do we really see, and what do we only think we see?)
Segmentation: North by Northwest (Classic scene worth analyzing at length: how many "cuts" are there in this scene?)
POV--Point-of-View: Requiem for a Heavyweight; Rear Window
North by Northwest ("great height"), Jaws, High Noon, The Birds (several classic scenes)
Eyeline match and POV: Jaws (also "dooly-zoom")
Long Take (also called "travel shot," "plan-sequence," or "sequence shot")
(frequently allied to the mobile frame with panning, tracking, craning, or zooming)
Goodfellas, The Royal Tenenbaums, Touch of Evil, City Slickers, The American President (The West Wing)
Much Ado about Nothing, The Age of Innocence (ballroom scene--mobile frame, POV)
Montage sequences: The Natural, The Right Stuff
Continuity ("continuity editing"): Untouchables
Graphic Match and Graphic Relations:
The Birds (fire sequence)
2001, From Here to Eternity, Right Stuff
Red River (graphic qualities)
Rhythmic Relations
The Birds (body scene--compare to Jaws "Brody watches water")
Raiders (Indy shoot swordsman)
Spatial Relations: Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid
Temporal Relations: The Godfather (Salozzo visits Don Vito)
Parallel editing" or "crosscutting": The Godfather
Modern editing styles: Ali
Flashing (boxing movie?)
Further Misc. examples
Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942)
Charade (stamp scene)
The Color of Money (pool table magic)
The Caine Mutiny (Queeg)
Citizen Kane (cockatoo--shock cut)
Editing Vocabulary:
visual elements of film: color, light, composition, space, perspective, movement
relations: graphic relations, rhythmic relations, spatial relations, temporal relations
graphic match (e.g., color, shape), sound match
time:
ellipsis (temporal ellipsis), or elliptical editing (omitting part of an event), as transition: Lambs, Contact, Kane
temporal expansion (making an event last longer) by editing or film rate
editing:
transparency editing, continuity, and continuity editing (verisimilitude), discontinuity editing, verisimilitude
parallel editing or crosscutting (two stories told simultaneously with inter-cutting)
montage, montage sequence (dissolves, fades, superimpositions, and wipes)
types of shots: els, ls, ms, mcu, cu, ecu, etc.
types of joins, cuts, or edits:
Establishing shot and re-establishing shot, shot/reverse shot, zoom in or cut in
the 180 degree rule
insert, fade, fade in, flash, dissolve, wipes (swish pans, flash pans, zip pans), cheat cut, jump cut (jump cut in 2001),
shock cut, overlapping editing, cut-in, eyeline match or POV shot, match-on action,
(What kind of temporal relations does each type of edit imply? E.g. dissolves or wipes?)
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example: a conversation between two people. How would you film and edit that?
An "establishing shot," followed by a "two shot," followed by talking heads. Do you follow the 180 degree rule?
How could you edit such a conversation? Very conventionally? Or very radically? See this quote.
space, onscreen and offscreen space (six kinds), story space, plot space,
motif (repeated object, form, or color)
nondiegetic insert
over-the-shoulder cutting pattern
panning and scanning
take, long take (sequence shot, or plan-sequence)
rhythm, beat (or pulse), accent (or stress), and tempo (or pace)
sequence, scene
single camera, multiple cameras (sitcoms)
storyboard
style (personal or national)
unity and variation
More on The Red Violin:
What did you think about the scene in Red China when they "denounced" Western music?
I forgot to note the best montage sequence (the gypsies) How was it done?!
Film clips on various topics:
Montage sequences : Red Violin and Casablanca; The Natural, The Right Stuff
What are the purposes of montage sequences?
To cover a lot of time rapidly; to advance the plot; change of pace; show off cinematography and editing
Composition and transition: Lawrence of Arabia, Jaws
Editing, POV, and homage: The Birds (5 body), Jaws (Beach Scene), (Rhythmic relations)
Lighting, composition and classical Hollywood "transparency" editing: Casablanca
Unplanned or spontaneous action: Roman Holiday, with Gregory Peck and Audry Hepburn
Camera moves: zoom, dolly, zoom and dolly (Jaws, Vertigo, Goodfellas)
Temporal Ellipsis (getting from place or time to another): 2001, Kane, Contact (people, and primer), Lawrence
Dissolve: Casablanca
Time: sound and images (continuous and discontinuous) The Natural
(See notes on Time)
More examples of editing:
POV--Point-of-View and voyeurish: Requiem for a Heavyweight; Rear Window ("2 POV"),
North by Northwest ("great height")
Eyeline match and POV: Jaws
Long Takes (also called "travel shot," "plan-sequence," or "sequence shot" or "production shot")
(frequently allied to the mobile frame with panning, tracking, craning, or zooming)
Goodfellas, The Royal Tenenbaums, Touch of Evil, City Slickers, The American President (The West Wing)
Much Ado about Nothing, The Age of Innocence (ballroom scene--mobile frame, POV)
"Camera dancing": The West Wing voting, etc.
Graphic Match and Graphic Relations:
2001, From Here to Eternity, Right Stuff; Red River (graphic qualities)
Rhythmic Relations: The Birds--compare to Jaws; Raiders (Indy shoot swordsman)
Flashing (Undefeated--boxing movie?)
Further miscellaneous examples
Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942)
Charade (stamp scene)
The Color of Money
The Caine Mutiny (Queeg)
Citizen Kane ("shock cut")
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Week 5: The art of mise en scène, film style, and color
Read:
Mise-en-scene, Lighting and Color
Is the blockbuster the end of cinema?
Due:
Plot segmentation due today
Films:
Last week: Frida Kahlo (Julie Taymore, 2002, 123 minutes)
and scenes from Alexander Nevsky and Russian Ark
This week: Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942, 102 minutes)
Topics for Today:
1. Discuss Frida 2. Mise-en-scene 3. Lighting and color
Mise-en-scene: setting, lighting, staging, acting, space, and time
Know these definitions:
mise-en-scene (French: "place in the scene") means "all of the elements placed in front of the camera to be photographed"
Roger Ebert says, simply: "movement within the frame" [What about sound?];
diegesis: the world of the film's story [So how is this different from "mise-en-scene" and "narrative"?]
narrative: a chain of events in cause-effect relationship occurring in time and space
plot: all of the events presented directly to us
[How is this different from mise-en-scene? Because it is about events, not places.]
story: the viewer's imaginary construction of all the events of the narrative; what we hear AND what we infer.
Classic example: Casablanca ("He's a smoker. . .") A good example of mise-en-scene is the moment at the beginning of
Casablanca when the character Rick Blain is introduced. We see a receipt delivered to his hand, then we seen him sign his
name to the receipt, then we see the table where is sitting (but not yet his face), which has an ashtray, an empty champaign
glass, and a chessboard (he is playing both sides--no opponent). Then the camera pans up to his face.
Credits as mise-en-scene: Saul Bass (short video). The graphic designer Saul Bass revolutionized the "credits" in film.
Before unions, when the number of names ballooned, one or two pages would list all the names, but as the number of names
that had by agreement to be listed at the beginning of all movies got longer and longer, Saul Bass decided that that time
should not go to waste, and the credits could introduce themes, and visual interest to the film.
Many Movies begin with the arrival of a powerful force: (Big Country, Bad Day at Black Rock, The Deer Hunter). In
other words, the relative balance or equilibrium of the town or main character is about to be upset. Remember how most
narratives are structured in this way as well. The credits can make this powerful force visual (and music also works to
establish setting, genre, and to arouse expectations).
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More examples of Mise-en-scene: Rear Window (POV2), Butch Cassidy, Star Wars, Contact, Sons of Katie Elder,
Amadeus, Otto e Mezzo, A trip to the Moon, The Color of Money, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Frankenstein.
Mise-en-scene means staging an action within the frame, according to Bordwell (Film Art, chapters 6 and 10).
Historically, it had to do with directing plays, and the term later became applied to film to express how the material in the
frame is directed. It signifies the director's control over what appears in the film frame. As you would expect, Mise-en-scene
includes aspects of film that overlap with the art of the theater: setting, lighting, costume, and the behavior of the figures.
The director stages the event for the camera. Mise-en-scene is really the sum total of all the director's choices and accidents.
Most actions are controlled, but some are unplanned--like an approaching thunderstorm in the monument valley that director
John Ford took advantage of in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. Roman Holiday, with Gregory Peck and Audry Hepburn
features a scene (The "Mouth of Truth") which was totally spontaneous (show the film clip).
Mise-en-scene can also be broken up into small elements...

Setting: The fictional and non-fictional setting of the film. The director may use a "location" or construct the set,
and these can be very elaborate. Many directors seek authenticity, as in All the President's Men, where a complete
duplicate of the newsroom of the Washington Post was constructed. The West Wing built a totally new White
House in LA, and part of the Roman Colosseum was built for Gladiator. See also the elaborate constructed sets in
Journey to the Center of the Earth or Cliffhanger. Setting shapes how we see the action.

Props (property) is another aspect of setting: Many examples would include the paper weight in Citizen Kane, the
clocks in High Noon, the curtain in Psycho. What are the most famous props in movie history? When does a
prop take on enough personality to become a character? Examples?

Costume and Makeup: See this transformation of Marlon Brando in The Godfather. Makeup originally had a
practical purpose. Do you know what that was? [Film was not "panchromatic."] Dark glasses in 8 1/2, broken
glasses in Chinatown. Makeup can aim at realism (Lawrence Olivier as Othello), or Edward Scissorhands, or The
Fly. Or the Mummy--several versions. Frankenstein's monster. Etc. Can you give more examples of outstanding
makeup? The best makeup goes unnoticed!

Staging: movement and acting. One can express emotion in movement and facial expression. Well, duh.
How did they stage R2D2 and C3PO?

Space and time How mise-en-scene creates and manipulates space and time.
Realism in mise-en-scene
The issue of "Realism" in film. Realism is not so easy to define; it varies across times and cultures, and it blinds us to other
possibilities. There are many styles of film presentation (like the "expressionistic" style in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari--and
it's imitator Frankenstein). It is better to think about the function of mise-en-scene: which can be realism, but might be
terror, comedy, beauty, or any other convention.
Méliès and the discovery of mise-en-scene: Georges Méliès, having watched the demonstration by the Lumiere brothers in
1895 of their short films, made a camera of his own. Méliès was filming the Place de l'Opera. As a bus passed, his camera
jammed. He quickly repaired it and carried on filming, although by now a hearse was passing the Place. Upon watching the
film, it appeared as if the bus had "transformed" into a hearse. So he prepared these effects in later films. This
demonstrated the power of mise-en-scene, something which was to enrapture Méliès for much of his life. (watch DVD--if
time).
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The director can choose to set the film in a real environment to suggest the quality of a documentary--as in The Grapes of
Wrath, which has a deliberate "Farm Security Administration" documentary look (see the famous photographs of the Dust
Bowl by Dorthea Lange and Walker Evans), or in a constructed one--the studio set.
Although the human characters are (usually) the most important features in the setting and narrative, they are not the only
features. The organization and manipulation of all objects in the frame are important, regardless of whether the film is shot on
set or at a "real" location. Realism is a fairly grey area in setting, as it always has been, since its incarnation by the Lumière
brothers.
Realism in mise-en-scene depends on an number of factors:
Historical period. What may have seemed very realistic and innovative at the time, may seem stylistic
and 'forced' if seen by future audiences.
Personal attributes. The director may have certain ideas, altering the overall image and portrayal. One person's
fact is another's fiction.
Visual style. The objects can possess differing colors - not only to each other, but to themselves at different
stages of the film. A character can dress with different colors, depending on her mood and feelings.
Special effects. Think of Jurassic Park, the computer-generated dinosaurs running amok around a real landscape.
More on setting and location in movies.
Choose a place where movies are made and discuss the role of that place in the total effect and meaning of the movies made
there. Sometimes the setting is a huge part of the effect of the film, as in Lawrence of Arabia, and all Westerns--a film genre
that is defined by setting, although many movies set elsewhere are really Westerns in disguise (or crypto-Westerns), like the
Dirty Harry movies or Roadhouse. Give more examples and discuss them.
Suggestions:
The City and Cities:
New York
Paris
Rome
London
Los Angeles/Hollywood/New York versus Hollywood
San Francisco
Inner cities
Suburbia
Farms
Buildings as characters:
Empire State Building (King Kong, Carey Grant movie (?), Sleepless in Seattle)
The Statue of Liberty
The Del Coronado
Mount Rushmore
The West
Monument Valley
The Prairie
Wilderness
The road
Sports arenas
The sea/ships
Trains/airplanes
The battlefield
Imaginary Places:
Space/outer space/other worlds, Utopia/Distopia
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Film Style: Lighting and color:
Lighting, Color, (and Music) are the primary sources of emotion in film.
The types of lighting (see diagram 1 and diagram 2) are Key light, Fill light and Backlight, and this system is called
"three-point lighting. There are also underlighting (often used in horror films!) and toplighting. Many female stars of the
1930's like Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich insisted that their favorite cameraman and lighting designer work every
picture, and these professionals were often paid more than the actors.
"Low-key illumination" and "High Contrast" were popular in the Film Noir movies of the 1940's and 1950's. Sharp
contrasts, soft light, the "magic hour," and very dark settings all have emotional appeals and effects. (Recall the examples in
Visions of Light.)
Examples of stark black and white cinematography for dramatic effect are Dr, Strangelove, The Hill.
Color: An essay on color theory [link to 219 essay]
Most of us are woefully ignorant about basic color theory. What do you know about color and emotion? Is the use of color a
science, or an art? How many colors are there? How many emotions? Discuss examples of color choices in some films, for
example, The Age of Innocence. What is "monochromatic" color design? Examples? What would Casablanca have been
like if filmed in color? or, worse, "colorized"?
Examples of creative use of color and color harmonies:
The Quiet Man, (note Maureen O'Hara's dress)
Wizard of Oz and Pleasantville (color and black-and-white played off against each other symbolically)
Robin Hood (the color harmony of classical Hollywood)
The Age of Innocence (monochromatic, but lush and sensuous)
Becky Sharp (the first color film, 1936! Note the intense color)
Saving Private Ryan (muted color reminds of WWII battlefield color film; also highly symbolic)
The Godfather (total darkness! Gordon Willis: "The Prince of Darkness')
7 Brides and 7 Brothers (note the use of color for costumes)
Red Blues (in Dancing)
Film Style:
Can we begin to recognize the styles of individual directors? Can we recognize when another director is imitating or
honoring ("homage") another director, as Spielberg did for Hitch in Jaws (Compare the editing and camera work in Jaws as
Brodie watches the beach to the scene in Hitchcock's The Birds, where the body is discovered. How about the " style" of
Robert Ziemeckis, John Ford, Hitchcock, Spielberg, or George Lucas?
The history of film style can be studied as a relationship to 20 th century visual arts. Bordwell, in On the History of Film Style,
writes, “We are asking the cinematic counterpart of the question that opens E. H. Gombrich’s Art and Illusion: Why does art
have a history?” “Experimental” films; film in the art gallery; (e.g. Un Chien d’Andalu and Surrealism)
59
Week 6: Sound and music
Read:
Principles and theory of film sound
Browse at Filmsound.org, especially Film Sound Terminology
See also The Soundtrack: a basic Introduction, by Dr. Fred Ginsburg C.A.S.
Do:
Begin editing paper
Films: Last week: Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942, 102 minutes)
This week: Koyaanisqatsi (Godfrey Reggio, 1983, 87 minutes)
Topics Today:
1. Discuss: Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942, 102 minutes)
2. Principles and theory of film sound
3. Preview Koyaanisqatsi (Godfrey Reggio, 1983, 87 minutes)
Principles and Theory of Film Sound
“Sound is traditionally divided into three elements: dialogue, narration, and music/effects."
"Sfx ("sound effects") are any auditory information that isn't speech or music, although sometimes it is hard to tell what is sfx
and what is music--can you think of any examples? Although much of the dialog can be recorded during principal
photography, it needs fine tuning later. Almost all other sound is added during postproduction." (From E.Weis, "Sync tanks,
The Art and Technique of Postproduction Sound.")
"Diegetic Sound" and "Non-diegetic Sound"--a key concept:
Diegetic sound ("actual sound"): "Sound whose source is visible on the screen or whose source is
implied to be present by the action of the film:"



voices of characters
sounds made by objects in the story
music represented as coming from instruments in the story space ("source music") but not necessarily on screen.
Diegesis is a Greek word for "recounted story." The film's diegesis is the total world of the story's action. Diegetic sound
is any sound presented as originated from source within the film's world. Diegetic sound can be either on screen or off
60
screen depending on whatever its source is within the frame or outside the frame. Another term for diegetic sound is
actual sound.
Non-diegetic sound (Commentary sound): Sound whose source is neither visible on the screen nor has been
implied to be present in the action:



narrator's commentary
sound effects which is added for the dramatic effect
"mood" music
Non-diegetic sound is represented as coming from the a source outside story space. The distinction between diegetic or
non-diegetic sound depends on our understanding of the conventions of film viewing and listening. We know of that certain
sounds are represented as coming from the story world, while others are represented as coming from outside the space of the
story events. A play with diegetic or non-diegetic conventions can be used to create ambiguity (horror), or to surprise the
audience (comedy). Another term for non-diegetic sound is commentary sound
Examples of "diegetic” and “non-diegetic” sound (the "diegesis" is "the world depicted inside the film")
Journey to the Center of the Earth [music by Bernard Herrmann] ("Diegetic" and "Nondiegetic" sound and music)
What do you think you see? Where exactly is this being filmed? Are you sure?
Illusion: Remember that in classical Hollywood cinema (as opposed to Surrealism or some other style) the goal is
to create the illusion that what you see is really happening in real time (aided by our desire to "willingly suspend
disbelief"). Sound and music are the principle means of creating this illusion. If the sound and music are continuous,
we will believe that almost any sequence of images is happening in sequence and in real time. But movies are not shot
in sequence, and maintaining continuity is a constant problem, as this classic sequence shows. What continuity
problems can you find in this scene?
Casablanca (Is this sound diegetic or non-diegetic?)
Blazing Saddles (a classic send up)
Transitions are a key problem (or opportunity) in movie making where great directors shine:
Movies range freely in time and space, and good directors move creatively from one place or time to another:
Graphic Match is a transition based on "rhyming" images (shape, color, etc.): From Here to Eternity,
Lawrence of A., 2001
Sound Match is any transition based in rhyming sounds: Castaway, Dr. Zhivago
Dialogue ellipsis: Citizen Kane (". . . and a happy New Year!"); Contact ("I'm going to need a bigger antenna. . .")
The Right Stuff ("You're looking at him. . .")
Examples of dialogue, singing, sound effects, and music
Star Wars sound design (great site! but do space ships really make noise?)
The Natural: sound can hold scenes together
Digital Dude (what theater sound should sound like--"teaser 3")
Bruce Lee ("sfx"-- sound effects; "MOS")
Castaway (sound transition--temporal ellipsis)
Silent Movies and piano (what the movie house experience used to be like)
Cabaret ("Where is the sound coming from?" All of it? What is the relative order of visual and sound recording? Why?)
Grand Prix (classic sound design)
The Best Years of Our Lives (sound flashback?)
Singin' in the Rain ("yes yes no no," "Make 'em Laugh)
My Fair Lady: Who is really singing, and why?
The Longest Day (What holds these scenes together?)
Time and sound diagrams
"Sound permits the filmmaker to represent time in various ways. This is because the time represented on the soundtrack may
or may not be the same that represented in the image." [at filmsound.org]
Amadeus: Mozart plays Salieri's march. Is this diegetic? Do we mind that actor Tom Hulse is not "really"
playing the instrument? Why not? ( A related question: If you are making a movie about a musician, a dancer, or a
baseball player, do you look for a musician or dancer or ballplayer who can act, or an actor who can play? Why?)
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Foley Artists Speak!
How do sound designers make fight sounds, footsteps, etc? ("mechasounds" and "singing river")
Movie sound cliches at filmsound.org
Sound Effects: about halfway down the page
and http://www.moviecliches.com
Further Sound issues:
The "language problem"--Judgment at Nuremburg
Early Sound Problems [also discussed in the cinematography DVD]--Singin' in the Rain
FX--The Right Stuff
American Experience: Chicago temporal ellipsis [very end]
More websites on sound in movies:
Film Sound History by Decades An excellent illustrated history
Motion Picture Sound Three-part illustrated essay
http://www.filmsound.org is terrific (if you can the overlook the bad spelling and grammar).
See especially the Film Sound Theory Page and The Soundtrack: a basic Introduction
Good discussion of the "audiovisual contract"?
See the interesting "glossaries of terminology"
Star Wars sound design (great site)
Sound Effects in Horror Films ! (See sound design for various films--about halfway down the page)
Animation Sound See "The Influence of Sound and Music on Images" and "Voice Acting 101"
http://filmsound.studienet.org/bibliography/littlist.htm#journals
(if you scroll down, there is a list of journal articles that looks great)
For fun with "continuity" see: http://www.movie-mistakes.com
Clint Eastwood Homepage Amelie trailer
Sound vocabulary:
(See Filmsound.org)
dialogue, music, and effects ("sfx" and "fx")
sound flashback and flashforward
image flashback and flashforward
Foley artists
ADR, "Automated dialogue replacement"
ambience
direct sound & Reflected sound, location sound
characteristic sound
dialogue editor
dialogue overlap
Looping, dubbing, postsynchronization
external diegetic sound, internal diegetic sound
emotional realism
establishing sound
MOS
natural sounds
location sound
room tone
sound designer and sound editor
sound motif
sound loop (dubbing)
sound bridge
sound perspective, stereophonic
soundscape
sweeten
THX
walla
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Film Music
Read:
Film Music
Seven principles of movie music
What sound did for silent movies
Film Music, by Aaron Copland, 1940 essay
Due:
Editing paper due
Begin Term Paper Assignment
(Email me if you would like suggestions for movies or ideas.)
(You may NOT write about any of the movies we see in class.)
Films:
Last week: Koyaanisqatsi (Godfrey Reggio, 1983, 87 minutes)
This week: Amadeus (Milos Forman, 1984, 160 minutes)
Topics Today:
1. Discuss Koyaanisqatsi
2. Film Music
3. Preview Amadeus
Film Music
Composer David Raksin says that Alfred Hitchcock wanted no music for the 1944 film Lifeboat, because the characters are
''out on the open ocean. Where would the music come from?''
Raksin replied, ''Go back and ask him where the camera
comes from and I'll tell him where the music comes from!'' (Kalinak xiii).
Useful websites:
Film Music, by Aaron Copland, 1940 essay
Filmtracks.com Hundreds of great reviews and 30 second music clips from favorite composers
Good essay on Amadeus and religion: http://www.unomaha.edu/~wwwjrf/robbins.htm
The “movie concordance” (with the bible and biblical subjects) at http://www.textweek.com/movies/movies.htm
Soundtrack.net and Filmmusic.com (appear to be the same site)
The Film Music Network and their magazine Film Music (and on-line university)
Field of Dreams (on-line publication)
Filmsound.org/filmmusic/ Several excellent essays on film music
63
The Film Music Society (for preservation of film music) List of film composers
Classicallink.com (portal to classical sites)
Music and color page, courtesy of Anna Sophia Cotton
Introduction:
"The arts of film" can be summarized as-






narrative and genre
mise-en-scene, photography and cinematography (camera, composition, movement, light and lighting, color, and
space)
editing (continuity, cutting, continuity; montage, pace, graphic, rhythmic and spatial relations, temporal relations,
ellipsis and hyperbole)
costumes, production design, and style
acting and directing
criticism: historical and social issues, gender issues, and economic issues
sound and music
Today we are interested in music.
Music and Film Basics
Music background and vocabulary (for non-musical readers):
A basic vocabulary of music
The Music Room: an excellent website on musical forms with music and illustrations
An excellent glossary of music with illustrations
A more sophisticated glossary with examples
Sonata form-what is it? (Where have we seen this diagram before?!)
What sound did for silent movies
Examples: Intolerance, and the Wurlitzer organ
Singing in the Rain (The beginnings of "Talkies" as comedy)
Seven principles of movie music:
Invisibility, “Inaudibility," Signifier of Emotion, Narrative Cueing, Continuity, Unity, and Breaking the Rules
Music and Movie Tricks:
Journey to the Center of the Earth [Bernard Herrmann].
What do you think you see? Where exactly is this being filmed? Are you sure? Who are the actors? Are you sure?
"Diegetic" and "nondiegetic" sound and music.
Amadeus (Salieri meets his confessor) What does the music tells us about point of view and narrative structure?
Radios and televisions as diegetic sound
Soundtracks can be a collection of popular songs (The Last Picture Show and Easy Rider).
(Very popular in the 1960's and 70's. Reasons for this choice? mise en scene? sense of time and place?
sound "space"? cost?)
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Opera and The Leitmotif
Opera [di musica] means "work of music" in Italian Musical terms are traditionally in Italian, because Italian were the
leading musicians of the Renaissance and Baroque era, and Italian is the best language for singing. (See this basic
vocabulary of music for examples.) Opera developed from staged drama that included musical interludes: by the year 1600,
in an opera called Orfeo, the music gradually took over, partly because singing is easier to hear than speech, and partly
because sung drama or melody drama (melodrama) was simply more exciting. As Mozart says in Amadeus, in an opera eight
people can sing at once, whereas eight people certainly can not talk at once! Grand opera is indeed one of the great
achievements of Western civilization, and there are about 100 operas that have survived the test of time to become musical
treasures comparable to works of art like The Last Supper or The Sistine Ceiling. (Here is the International opera database
with libretti (the words) if you are interested.) Like any passion, listening to and loving opera is a full time job! (Ask
Aikin about the opera he saw in Ghent, Belgium.)
In a traditional opera of c. 1700 to c. 1850, songs or "arias" (aires) were structured much like popular songs are today,
with an "A" section, a "B" section, and a final repeat of the "A" section ("from the top" or "da capo"--hence "da capo aria"),
and the songs were separated by "recitative" or "spoken singing" that moved the plot along. These set-piece arias often
were designed to bring the house down and some have become famous, like the Puccini's famous Nessun Dorma ("nobody
sleeps"--text and translation) here sung by two famous tenors, Luciano Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli. (Like sports fans who
debate who is the best quarterback or hitter, opera buffs love to compare how great tenors render famous arias. What do you
think are the "relative merits" of these two performances?) As the classical age of music developed, geniuses like Mozart (in
Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute) and George Bizet (in Carmen) made opera more complex and also more accessible to
wider audiences.
Richard Wagner (pronounced Vaag-ner) changed opera most radically (and influenced movie music). His four-part
"Music Drama," The Ring of the Nibelung was the most ambitious and important musical composition ever created.
Wagner made many important changes in "melody drama." First, he imagined his operas as a Total Work of Art
(Gesamtkunstwerk) that combined all the fine arts (much as movies do): music, acting, stage and set design, lighting,
costume, and narrative. He built a special theater at Beyreuth, Germany, for his operas, and he was the first composer/writer/
conductor to insist that the house lights be turned down! (previous opera houses had left the house lights on so that the opera
goes could see each other--and "boo the tenor"). He insisted that his operas not be interrupted with applause, as was (and
still is) customary in after most well-sung arias. Indeed, he eliminated the da capo aria altogether, employing instead a new
kind of musical writing that intertwined the voice and the orchestral lines in a fluid, flexible medium that never really came to
a stop. As this writer, who has seen all four of the Ring operas can attest, The first act alone of Twilight of the Gods (Die
Gotterdaemmerung) lasts TWO HOURS, and the music never stops: it massages you, and you enter an "oneiritic" or "dream"
state (remember the "audio-visual contract). The Wagner orchestra, in turn, is monstrously large--up to 116 musicians!--and
he had to invent the orchestra pit under the stage to get the musicians out of the way. In fact, the orchestra now took over
the most important work dramatic work of the opera, playing the most significant musical phrases, clarifying and cuing the
emotions of the actors and audience, and gluing the whole works together. There are extended stretches in Wagner's operas
where there is no singing at all, and his famous overtures (Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg, The Flying Dutchment) are large
scale musical works often performed in their own right, as are the musical introductions to single acts of the Ring (The Ride
of the Walkure, for example) Singing Wagner is exhausting, and is said to demand as much energy as running a marathon (a
Wagner opera last about twice as long as a marathon). Musically, Wagner's innovations include two that are crucial for film
music, "chromaticism" and the leitmotif. Chromaticism means simply, "color," and specifically, musical color created by
rich texture and many key changes (see the basic vocabulary of music).
The word Leitmotif was Wagner's most important contribution to music. A leitmotif (German, for "leading" motive) is a
short musical phrase that stands for a person, place, thing, idea, or emotion. So instead of songs, Wagner invented a
kind of music that weaves short musical phrases into a giant tapestry of musical characterization and meaning. There are
dozens of leitmotifs in The Ring of the Nibelung (The four operas last a total of 12 hours!), and these are gradually
introduced and developed as the opera continues. A page of examples
The only way to understand what a leitmotif is is to listen to some of them, and fortunately we can do this at the excellent
Wagner website at the University of Texas. (See also the leitmotif theme index at The Musical themes of Der Ring Des
Nibelungen.) Using the "motive indexes/alphabetical" at the Texas site, we can play mp3's and videos of the leitmotifs,
some of which immediately call to mind the similar musical phrases later film music composers like John Williams, Howard
Shore , and Han Zimmer have borrowed or adapted from Wagner.
For example: The Rhine, Fate, Annunciation of Death, Walhalla, Rainbow, Siegfried [compare to Luke Skywalker's
theme in Star Wars], Hundig [compare to Darth Vadar's theme], Giants [compare to Gladiator], Redemption through
65
Love, and The Ring [compare to Howard Shore's "Ring Motif" from The Fellowship of the Ring --click on left smaller
"listen" below]. Some Wagner leitmotifs like The Walsung race (in c-minor) may remind you of several different movie
themes compare to other themes from movies, also in c-minor: [Star Wars, Gladiator]. Wagner also builds larger edifices
out of several combined or "composite" leitmotifs, for example, at the end of Twilight of the Gods [Play videos: Siegfried's
Funeral March and Last scene of the Twilight of the Gods (the so-called "Immolation Scene")
It is obvious that modern film music owes a great debt to Wagner, in part because the music in movies requires the time
flexbility that a simple song lacks: that is, since music is the last component added to a movie, the length of the musical
phrase must be adapted to what is on the screen, and not the other way around. Leitmotifs are superbly adapted to being
lengthened or shortened at will. Also, most movies benefit when persons, places, things, ideas, emotions are identified with
their own music, which is what a leitmotif is.
Video: Star Wars ("3 Music and Premier")
Star Wars (music by John Williams) is an excellent examples of leitmotifs in movies. (Indeed, see this extended comparison
of the music in Wagner's Ring and John Williams' Star Wars.) Each person in Star Wars is introduced by music that
establishes character. [In class we will look at several scenes to see how one leitmotif is developed. We first here this motif
softly (--so softly that we are not consciously aware of the music at all. In fact, movie music is not supposed to be heard
consciously--it is supposed to be "inaudible."); we then hear the same motif repeated in several versions and more
emphatically several times before we actually find out what the music stands for--it is finally matched with a word in the
actor's dialogue. Williams is arguably the most important composer of film music of recent times (although there have been
many others), and his music for Star Wars was something of a departure from what was being done in the early 70's--which
was mainly movies with popular music soundtracks. Williams harked back to the style of earlier "classic" film composers
like Max Steiner (Key Largo, Casablanca, Gone With the Wind), who used traditional orchestral music and leitmotifs in a
dramatic way. Williams uses the same leitmotif strategy in all his films (Raiders of the Lost Arc: motif for the arc). It
would not be fair to say that John Williams or other successful movie music composers have simply copied Wagner; rather
they have absorbed the lessons of Wagner and other great composers as they attacked similar problems. However, it is well
to remember the poet T. S. Elliot's famous statement: "Immature poets plagiarize; mature poets steal."
Other examples of leitmotifs include Westerns like The Magnificent 7 (music by Elmer Bernstein: "a high-class horse
opera") and Once Upon a Time in the West (Ennio Morricone), and The Red Violin (John Corigliano; "the violin" has its
own theme; even the Gypsy melody was a variation of it).
Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf and Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals are musical examples of
characterization through short motifs that film music composers have also learned from and copied.
Film Music: Summary and Examples
Review the functions of film music (these are different from the "7 principles" above):
Signifier of emotion (see 220 emotions), narrative cuing, connotative interpretation and illustration, setting (the west, the
ocean, etc.), continuity, unity, epic feeling, codified or institutionalized meaning,
Music also-- creates space! (on and off-screen), compensates for hokey fx (Star Trek II),
begins and ends scenes, foreshadows events, mimics natural sounds, and intertextuality
Video: Star Wars (3 Music and Premier)
Movie music has conventions we intuitively recognize as cues.
Overtures tell us what kind of movie we're going to see, or where the movie is set. How many can you recognize?
Settings: space, The West, the sea, New York City, battlefiels (WWII, ancient Rome, etc.)
Genres: western, action adventure (airports, cops, etc.), espionage, love story, weepy, cartoon, horror, comedy, etc.
Emotions: hope, fear, joy, etc.
We tend to think that all emotions are points on a single line between "happy" and "sad"-But it's more complicated than that. See this list: 220 emotions
Examples:
Saul Bass video (he revolutionized credit design)
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The Big Country
Bad Day at Black Rock (Andre Previn)
The Deer Hunter
Sons of Katie Elder (Elmer Bernstein)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (Burt Bachcarach)
Contact (Horner?) (is this "music")
Examples of Leitmotifs in movies:
Star Wars [John Williams]: Wagner's Ring and John Williams' Star Wars compared
Raiders of the Lost Arc [Williams]
Westerns:
The Magnificent 7 [Elmer Bernstein]: "a high-class horse opera."
Once Upon a Time in the West [Ennio Morricone]
"Mickey-Mousing" and other basic film music strategies
Alexander Nevsky [Serge Prokofiev]: the battle scene, "Mickey-Mousing"
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn
This is a great film to identify all of the ways music functions in film.
But there is one important thing music does that we have not mentioned. $5 if you can guess what it is!
The Right Stuff [Bill Conti]: 1947 scene, leaves you "hanging" at a key change
Music as narrative and emotional or connotative cueing, temporal ellipsis, and an aid to "cross-cutting"
The Natural (Randy Newman) Play the music first without visual images.
A Beautiful Mind (Horner) Excellent example; note temporal ellipsis [compare Journey to the Center of the Earth,
mushroom scene]
Montage Sequences:
The Natural (Randy Newman)
The Black Stallion (Carmine Coppola)
Music is ideal for assisting "parallel editing" or "crosscutting":
The concept of cross-cutting was present in musical theater and opera before the age of motion pictures.
It is a standard technique in musical theater.
The Godfather (Nino Rota)
The Right Stuff (Bill Conti)-- end scene: an extended example ("you're looking at him. . .")
West Side Story--"Tonight" sequence (Bernstein)
Setting pictures to music:
Fantasia and its evil twin, Allegro non Troppo (Animation)
Aria (Live action)
Quotation ("intertextuality") in an extended example:
Star Trek II (compare to Alexander Nevsky "Battle" at 3' 00")
More extended film music examples and famous film composers:
Beautiful Mind (compare Journey to the Center of the Earth--mushroom scene)
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (ending) (Williams)
Gladiator (Han Zimmer)
Shawshank Redemption (Thomas Newman) end
Raiders of the Lost Arc [John Williams]
Robin Hood [Erich Korngold]
Dances with Wolves [James Barry]
Lawrence of Arabia [Maurice Jarre]
The Last Temptation of Christ [Peter Gabriel]
Jaws [Williams]
Men in Black
Jules et Jim
High Noon
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Discuss the American Film Musical: West Side Story
Lyrics to Songs from West Side Story: The Jet Song
Musicals 101.com: How musicals are made is superb (start with "the score").
(See also history of film musicals by decade)
Moulin Rouge official site What other movies has Baz Luhrman directed? Do you recognize his style?
Quotes from Rick Altman, The American Film Musical (especially on Oklahoma)
See also my article on Oklahoma (ask)
Brightlights Film Journal (click on music and musicals)
20th Century Fox Musicals chronicle
Review the leitmotif: '"annunciation of death." "the Wolsung race," "Siegfried," "immolation scene," etc
A Brief History of Film Music by Composer: A List of film composers
Erich Wolfgang Korngold Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
Max Steiner (fan site) Gone With the Wind, Casablanca, Key Largo (1948)
Bernard Herrmann Citizen Kane, Psycho, North by Northwest,
Journey to the Center of the Earth [bagpipes and mushrooms] (1959)
Elmer Bernstein Magnificent 7 (1960), To Kill a Mockingbird, Age of Innocence
John Williams Star Wars (1977), Jaws (1975), Close Encounters (1977),
Raiders of the Lost Arc (1981), ET 1982), Jurassic Park (1993), Harry Potter (2001), Olympic Fanfare
Jerry Goldsmith Hoosiers (1986), Patton (1970), The Omen (1978)
James Horner Titanic, A Beautiful Mind, Star Trek II
Randy Newman The Natural (1984), Seabiscuit (2003)
Thomas Newman Last of the Mohicans, Shawshank Redemption
Bill Conti, The Right Stuff
Ennio Morricone Once Upon a Time in the West, various Spaghetti Westerns
Alan Silvestri (fan site) Back to the Future, Cast Away, Contact, Forrest Gump
Hans Zimmer Gladiator
Danny Elfman Spiderman, MIB, Batman, Edward S-hands
More topics to consider:
Examples and styles of film music and the dramatic function of music in film
Film music as an art form; its relationship to other musical genres and forms in classical and 20th century music
More websites on sound in movies:
Check out this great site about sound design in Star Wars
http://www.filmsound.org is terrific (if you can the overlook the spelling and grammar). Diagrams of time and sound.
http://filmsound.studienet.org/bibliography/littlist.htm#journals (a list of journal articles that looks great)
http://www.moviesoundpage.com/
http://www.moviesoundpage.com/msp_rt.htm
Continuity:
For fun with "continuity" see: http://www.movie-mistakes.com
More goofy mistakes at: http://www.moviecliches.com
And try the "six degrees game" at PBS
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Film Music in the Silent Era
[after Gorbman, Unheard Melodies]
Music was used to accompany films in the silent era because:
1. It had accompanied other forms of spectacle before, and was a convention that successfully persisted.
2. It covered the distracting noise of the movie projector [and the audience!]
3. It had important semiotic functions in the narrative: encoded according to late nineteenth-century conventions, it
provided historical, geographical, and atmospheric setting, it helped depict and identify characters and qualify actions. Along
with intertitles, its semiotic functions compensated for the characters’ lack of speech.
4. It provided a rhythmic “beat” to complement, or impel, the rhythms of editing and movement on the screen.
5. As sound in the auditorium, its spatial dimension compensated for the flatness of the screen.
6. Like magic, it was an antidote to the technologically derived “ghostliness” of the images.
7. As music, it bonded spectators together.
So--music removes barriers to belief, it bonds spectator to spectacle,
it envelops spectator and spectacle in a
harmonious space; like hypnosis, it silences the spectator’s censor; it is suggestive; if it’s working right, it makes us a
little less critical and a little more prone to dream.
Seven Principles of Film Music
[after Gorbman, Unheard Melodies]
[The danger is that music can be so bad, or so good, that it distracts and takes away from the action. And beware of
embellishments; it’s hard enough to understand a melody behind dialogue, let alone complicated orchestrations. If it gets too
decorative, it loses its emotional appeal. I’ve always tried to subordinate myself to the picture. A lot of composers make the
mistake of thinking that the film is a platform for showing how clever they are. This is not the place for it." [Max Steiner]
1. Invisibility: the technical apparatus of nondiegetic music must not b visible.
2. “Inaudibility”: Music is not meant to be heard consciously. As such should subordinate itself to dialogue, to visuals—i.e.,
to the primary vehicle of the narrative.
3. Signifier of emotion: Soundtrack music may set specific moods an emphasize particular emotions suggested in the
narrative (cf. #IV), but fin and foremost, it is a signifier of emotion itself.
4. Narrative cueing:
—referential/narrative: music gives referential and narrative cues, e.g. indicating point of view, supplying formal
demarcations, and establishing setting and characters.
—connotative: music “interprets” and “illustrates” narrative events.
5. Continuity: music provides formal and rhythmic continuity—between shots, in transitions between scenes, by filling gaps.
6. Unity: via repetition and variation of musical material and instrumentation, music aids in the construction of formal and
narrative unity.
7. Breaking the Rules: A given film score may violate any of the principles above, providing the violation is at the service
of the other principles.
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A Basic vocabulary of Music
(courtesy Carole Seitz)
"All art aspires to the condition of music." --Walter Pater. What does this mean?
Introduction:
the overtone series; the mathematics and physics of music
the scales; how they derive -from the overtones
harmonies or "chords" based on each note of scale
tonic, dominant, etc; (alternative ways to designate these; I, V, etc.; or by keys--give examples)
[words we use to describe sounds such as "high" and "low" pitches are merely metaphors or conventions: we could as easily
say hot/cold, sharp/dull, red/blue, light/dark, sweet/sour, etc.]
The elements of music:
pitch
rhythm and meter
tone color or timbre
melody (plainsong or chant); the importance of text
[have the class both chant and sing a text: Gettysberg Address? use any text; "recitative" vs. "aria"]
harmony; Bach choral "0 Haupt voll Blut und Wunden" harmonized various ways; bass; "inner" voices
key: circle of keys (major, minor) (why are there black keys?) Sorrento; how do major and minor keys.feel different (disco)
texture (monophonic, polyphonic, homophonic) dense, open, etc.
instrumentation (affects texture)
form or structure
Form or structure: sonata; concerto; symphony based on a theme, motive, or musical idea (usually very short)
AAAA - Row Your Boat; Bob Dylan
AABA - Ach du Lieber Augustine, Beyond the Sea, etc.
ABCABC - Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
Harmonic structural patterns; establish tonality, move away and returns (usually toward the dominant); examples
Beyond the sea, Over the Rainbow, Monarch of the Sea, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
Harmonic rhythm; previous examples. Dancing in the Street; Berlioz Roman Carnival
Establishing the home key; Varsity drag, Twinkle Twinkle, Bach, Beethoven, etc.
The Fake Book ("Do you know your piano is on fire?")
Larger "classical" compositions have infinitely more complex structure; see handout on "Sonata Form." --usually two or
more "themes" or motives that are "developed" and combined playfully using repetition, contrast, variation, "sequences" etc.
Examples: Berlioz Roman Carnival overture, Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture. Beethoven's Fifth
Symphony: the development of a very simple musical idea into a great edifice.
Some musical terms (Italian is the language of music)
dynamics (volume)
pianissimo pp
piano p
mezzo piano mp
mezzo forte mf
forte f
fortissimo ff (or fortississimo fff, etc., Wagner has up to 4!)
crescendo, decrescendo
tempo (tempi)
largo
grave
adagio
andante
moderato
allegretto
allegro
vivace
presto
prestissimo
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More musical terms--indicating to musicians how a passage is to be played, and, by implication,
how the listener is supposed to feel:
Luttoso; mournful, doleful, plaintively
Dolce; sweetly
Maiestoso; majestically
Brusco/'Brutto: rough, harsh
Buffo; comically
Amorosamente; amorously
Grave: gravely
Timoroso; fearfully
MUSICAL COMPONENTS AND TERMS:
MELODY:
That which the music is about
What the ear follows
Most difficult to define.
Spontaneous creation.
Why a melody has the ability to move us is difficult to determine.
Linear aspect of music.
Consider range, contour.
Good melody must-feel inevitable
be able to arouse an emotional response
avoid unnecessary repetition
have a beginning, middle, and end.
have a climactic point somewhere'
give a feeling of resolution.
HARMONY
Everything you hear that isn't the melody.
Vertical aspect of music.
Gives depth to the sound as perspective does to painting.
Made up of a progression of chords, which gives music its forward movement.
Has tonal centers or keys. Major, minor, chromatic tonalities.
Dissonance is associated with conflict, unrest.
Consonance is associated with rest, resolution. Tonal centers also give the feeling of resolution or coining home.
Gives weight to the sound.
RHYTHM
Rhythm means "flow."
Includes Tempo, (how fast, or slow) and Meter (beat) which also includes an accent pattern.
Syncopation is an upsetting of established beat or accent pattern.
It gives the element of surprise or delight.
Constant heavy beat has a hypnotic power, as does a rhythmic ostinato.
Subtle pulsation.
Changes of tempo. Ritard, gradual slowing. Accelerando, gradually faster.
FORM
Architecture of the music.
Based upon repetition and contrast
TONE COLOR OR TIMBRE
Timbre of each individual instrument or voice is unique.
Different combinations of instruments achieve different and unique
Tonal sounds or colorations.
Tone color is very closely associated with expressiveness of the melody.
Can also be associated with warmth, coolness, etc.
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DYNAMICS
Degree of loudness or softness.
Crescendo, gradually louder
Descrescendo or diminuendo, gradually softer.
CLIMACTIC POINT IN THE MUSIC is achieved by the composer by-taking the tempo faster
making the music louder
taking the pitch higher
using more dissonance
much use of modulation
ostinato
pedal point, sometimes
use of extreme range
Week 8: Music and Musicals
Read:
Essay at the Filmsite on Musicals and The American Film Musical
How musicals are made (Peruse the score and musicals by decade)
Check out Bright Lights Film Journal's kinky articles
Do:
Essay on Music in film Due Next Week
First draft of term paper is due Week 10
Films:
Last week: Amadeus (Milos Forman, 1984, 160 minutes)
This week: Chicago (Rob Marshall, 2002, 113 minutes)
Topics Today:
1. Discuss Amadeus
2. Continue Film Music and The American Film Musical
3. Preview Chicago IMDB
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The American Film Musical:
Quotes from Rick Altman, The American Film Musical (especially on Oklahoma)
Lyrics to Songs from West Side Story: The Jet Song
Essay at the Filmsite on Musicals
Musicals 101.com with how musicals are made (See the score and musicals by decade)
Check out Bright Lights Film Journal's kinky articles
Nessun Dorma: [the concept of "relative merits"]
Compare Oklahoma, West Side Story, Cabaret-- (traditional musical editing and staging techniques)-to Baz Lehrman's Moulin Rouge.
Notice extremely rapid editing, unusual points of view, fx, and above all the intertextuality in sound and visual images.
(Lehrman has created a whole new visual language for musicals. Whether MR is a great movie is another matter.)
Moulin Rouge official site (What other movies has Baz Luhrman directed? Do you recognize his style?)
Week 9: Italian Cinema: Neorealism
Read:
Neorealism at GreenCine by Megan Ratner
The French New Wave
The French New Wave Paved the Way
"Auteur" Theory
Another Auteur Theory
On Ingmar Bergman Federico Fellini Fellini: Images and Archetypes
Do:
Essay on Music in film Due
First draft of term paper is due Week 10
Films:
Last week: Victor/Victoria (Blake Edwards, 1982, 132 minutes)
This week: The Bicycle Thief (Vittorio de Sica, 1949, 95 minutes)
Topics Today:
1. Discuss Chicago
2. Italian Cinema: Neorealism 3. Preview The Bicycle Thief
4. Review:
Written text vs. film: the "mountain goat" scene from The Godfather The text of Mario Puzo's book
Color in film (Robin Hood
Continuity (The Untouchables)
Mise-en-scene (The Deer Hunter, Psycho)
Modern Editing (Moulin Rouge, Ali, compare to classics Oklahoma! and Hitchcock's, North by Northwest)
Long takes (Goodfellas)
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Italian Cinema: Neorealism
In class: scenes from Italian and German cinema:
8 1/2 (Fellini), Fellini's Roma, l'Eclisse, Il mio viaggio in Italia
Un chien d'Andalu (The Andalusian Dog) (Salvador Dali and Bunuel, 1930) (A French Surrealist classic)
Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari, (Robert Wiene, Germany, 1920) ("Expressionism" in film)
Websites:
The French New Wave The French New Wave Paved the Way
Auteur theory Another Auteur theory
On Ingmar Bergman Federico Fellini Fellini: Images and Archetypes Interview with Fellini
A list of famous directors with links to their films
Ladri di bicicletti (Bicycle Thieves)
(Vittorio de Sica, 1948, 95 minutes)
Cast: Lamberto Maggiorani, Enzo Stajola, Lianella Carell, Gino Saltamerenda, Vittorio Antonucci
Trama: Nell'immediato dopoguerra, il disoccupato Antonio trova finalmente impiego
come attacchino, ma gli rubano la bicicletta. Dopo una denuncia senza speranza alla polizia, l'uomo inizia con il figlio Bruno
una frustrante ricerca per tutta Roma. Poi, disperato, decide di rubarne una. Ma Antonio è sorpreso in flagrante e solo le
lacrime del figlio, che commuovono la gente, gli risparmiano il carcere.
Discuss mise-en-scene, cinematography, sound, and lighting
How would you describe the visual style of this film?
Discuss the actors and acting style. Discuss the use of non-professional actors.
Describe the "dialogue."
Is the narrative structure simple or complex? Flashbacks? Which definition of narrative fits best?
"Direct or continuous sequential narrative"
"Interrupted sequence narrative"
"Alternating past and present narrative"
What is the exact brand name of the bicycle? Why?
What institutions are represented, that is, where does Antonio go for help, and what happens?
What is the "social consciousness" of this film?
Does this film have "closure"? Is this a "comes to realize" movie?
What is "Neorealism"?
"De Sica's film is about post-war unemployment in Italy. The protagonist has just found work, for which he needs a bicycle.
On his very first day, the aforementioned bike is stolen (aaahhh!). The film follows him and his son around as they try to
retrieve it. [T]his film is highly amusing in some places, and you should watch it to see the little boy, Bruno, if not for
anything else because he is really cute and funny!" (A.C.N. at Amazon)
Ideologically, the characteristics of Italian Neorealism were:
1. a new democratic spirit, with emphasis on the value of ordinary people
2. a compassionate point of view and a refusal to make facile (easy) moral judgments
3. a preoccupation with Italy's Fascist past and its aftermath of wartime devastation
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4. a blending of Christian and Marxist humanism
5. an emphasis on emotions rather than abstract ideas
6. a reaction to films of the Fascist era, challenging the Catholic Church and other powerful institutions.
7. a reaction to "white telephone" films about the bourgeoisie or upper class
Stylistically, Italian Neorealism was:
1. an avoidance of neatly plotted stories in favor of loose, episodic structures that evolve organically
2. a documentary visual style
3. the use of actual locations--usually exteriors--rather than studio sites, and thus little location sound-mostly dubbing or ADR
4. the use of nonprofessional actors, even for principal roles
5. use of conversational speech, not literary dialogue
6. avoidance of artifice in editing, camerawork, and lighting in favor of a simple "styless" style, lacking sentimentality,
irony, or chiche.
7. unprecedented use of ellipsis--these films often chose to omit the causes of the events that we observe. The films often
seem to be composed of strings of events or coincidence and often have unresolved endings that are open to different
interpretations.
(from J. Riggs, Film 101, Georgia Perimeter College)
More on Neorealism:
Webster's Dictionary - neorealism: a movement especially in Italian filmmaking characterized by the simple direct depiction
of lower-class life.
http://www.inblackandwhite.com/ItalianNeorealismv2.0/neo-intro.html
Peter Bondanella: "...Italian fimmakers were trying to develop a cinematic language comparable to the new literary language
contemporary writers aimed to create, a nonrhetorical, elemental means of expression permitting an essentially poetic
treatment of important social and political issues."
"Neorealist films are characterized by a pronounced social consciousness on the part of their makers, a concern for the lower
classes and their despair and squalor, and a stark realism of technique relying heavily on long takes and depth of field" - from
A Viewers Guide to Film Theory and Criticism by Robert T. Eberwien.
Windows on Italy: "The need to find a new style with which to deal with the recent past, the political and social upheavals of
the post-War period, the Resistance movement and the fall of Fascism, helped bring about the birth of a new cinema of
Realism which abandoned the concept of cinema as entertainment, in order to consider these themes."
"NEOREALISM, a term which over the years has been employed to describe what might loosely be defined as a trend or
movement in Italian art, literature, and cinema. The term first appeared in 1930 in an essay by Arnaldo Bocelli (1900-76)
which outlined the literary production of that year. The neorealist works were described as analyzing the human condition in
the light of the social environment and of objective psychological insights, and as avoiding the then prevalent stylistic and
formal hedonism.
"In a further analysis of neorealism, it is important to note that the general public, most of the inhabitants of the Italian
peninsula, were victimized by a continually failing Italian “system.” The struggle for these masses of Italian people was
amplified by a shortage of employment and lack of social services. Those who were not adversely affected were people who
either possessed exceptional political or financial power. Both of these powers are deeply imbedded into the fabric of Italian
history. Many families which had retained their land and power since feudal times (Aristocratic) continued to influence the
government structure and the exploitation of the masses." (J. Riggs, Film 101, Georgia Perimeter College)
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Week 10: Genre Theory and Film Styles
Read:
"Westerns" in Film Genres at Filmsite.org
Genres at GreenCine (see, e.g. "Science Fiction" or "Road Movies")
How the Western was Lost
Property, Race, and Gender in Oklahoma!
[Aikin does his own term paper assignment]
Do:
First draft of term paper
(See here for an example)
Films:
Last week: The Bicycle Thief (Vittorio de Sica, 1949)
This week: High Noon (Fred Zinneman, 1952, 85 minutes)
OR The Magnificent Seven (John Sturges, 1960, 128 minutes)
Topics Today:
1. Discuss The Bicycle Thief
2. Film Genres
3. Preview High Noon (Fred Zinneman, 1952, 85 minutes)
Genre Theory and Film Styles
1. What are genres?
2. The Western:
A good introduction: Ebert's review of The Rookie
High Noon and The Magnificent Seven
Favorite Movies Stars (guess who is #1 with men)
Character traits of the Western Hero-- qualities and archetypes
GOOD essay on the history of Westerns at the Filmsite with links to plot descriptions
Symbols and types in Western movies
Famous lines from Western Movies ("Smile when you say that.) [link to West]
Aikin's favorite Western Movie scenes
Words from the Western Frontier and cowboy lore (What is a "California prayer book"?) [link]
What was the first Western movie?
Are Westerns usually complicated in narrative structure? (Story time, plot time, and screen time?)
What is an allegory? What types of characters and institutions in society are represented in "the town"?
Setting is vital in Westerns--why?
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How are gender roles treated?
Why were there so many Westerns in the 1950's to 1960's?
What is the origin of the Western hero and myth? Why did this male hero emerge when he did (about 1900)?
Sheldon's In His Steps and Owen Wister's The Virginian [the "man with no name"]
(The full text of Sheldon's In His Steps; an analysis of Sheldon's In His Steps
(Text of Owen Wisters The Virginian; The First Virginian movie, 1929; the TV series;
Is the music of Westerns predictable? Why?
Elmer Bernstein, Magnificent Seven, Katie Elder, Barry's Dances with Wolves
Film Clips:
The Lone Ranger
The Western, parts 1 and 2, from American Cinema [in dazzle]
Shane (Come Back Shane") and Pale Rider ("He's Gone")
Red River (John Wayne)
The Birdcage (Walk like John Wayne)
The Searchers: beginning and end ("framing elements")
Broken Arrow (first sympathetic treatment of Indians?)
Cera una volta il West (Once Upon a Time in the West)
City Slickers (shock cut)
High Noon (finale and bar scene)
Blazing Saddles (diegetic music)
My Name is Nobody
Rustler's Rhapsody
(Oklahoma)?
John Wayne Made Me Cry (1/2 hour video about the Western hero)
Westerns in disguise:
Bad Day at Black Rock
Dirty Harry (moral ambiguity)
*Clint Eastwood ("Social Issues": in The Modern "Western" hero)
The Wild One
West Videos:
Mustang I and II; American Experience Chicago
The Gunslingers
Further Reading:
A good essay on Westerns at americanwest.com
Clint Eastwood Homepage music and wave files! Classic: Good, Bad, and Ugly!
The Gunfighters home page: http://www.gunfighters.com/
A suggested list of television and movie westerns
Article on the durability of John Wayne (see article in temp folder)
"How the Western was Lost" essay from Village Voice
American Film Musical and Oklahoma
Aikin's take on Oklahoma
Click here for descriptions of some videos in Reinert Library
3. Film Noir:
Film Noir [in dazzle]
Classic noir online
Martin's Film Noir Page
http://www.germanhollywood.com/noir.html
Wonderful black and white photography in noir style at moderntimes
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4. The Die Hard phenomenon: genre as "mixing" (Altman's
theories)
"High Concept": modern movies try to straddle as many genres as possible
Old catch phrases: "fish out of water" "mismatched partners"
Find more of these phrases at Ebert's review of The Rookie
Look at the brief descriptions of plots in the TV listings. Very instructive!
"Eastern Med school grad's car breaks down in rural southern town."
"School teacher gets trapped on speeding bus with bomb."
"High school nerd gets bitten by spider; develops strange powers."
Film Genres (john-ruhs)
Basic film genres:
Action: Cops, M.I., Bond, Blaxploitation, (see http://www.blaxploitation.com/index.html), martial arts and Jackie Chan,
Ultra-Violent, Disaster and End of the World, Good-Ol' Boy Films in the 70s and 80s
Adventure: swashbuckler, epic melodrama/historical
Comedy: slapstick, deadpan, verbal comedy, screwball, black or dark comedy, Parody or Spoof - also Satire,
Lampoon and Farce
Crime/Gangster: noir, prison, organized crime,
Drama, social problem, illness, alcoholism, juvie delinquents, courtroom, political, journalism, history, sports,
religious, show biz, literature
Epics/Historical biblical, sword and sandal, biopics, royalty, war
Horror monsters, vamps, Dracula, Frankenstein, wolfman/werewolf, mummy, cat people, zombies, devil-possession,
teen, poe, Hitchcock,
Musicals Busby Berkeley, revue, backyard, biopic, song and dance, teen, flag wavers and Americana, Disney,
Rock and Roll, Muppets, horror
Science Fiction: alien, space, mutant, Japanese monsters, Verne and Wells, time travel, apes, robots,
Lucas and Spielberg, Utopia and Dystopia
War and anti-war, spy, holocaust
Westerns singin' cowboy, John Ford and John Wayne, film-noirish westerns, comic, cult, spaghetti, Peckinpagh,
Eastwood, revisionist, spoofs
New genres are always being invented, for example, "Blaxploitation")
Film sub-genre categories
Biographical Films ("Biopics")
'Chick' Flicks (or Gal Films)
Detective/Mystery
Disaster
Fantasy
Film Noir
'Guy’ films’ and ‘chick flicks’
Melodramas or Women's "Weepers"
Romance
Sports Films
Supernatural
Thrillers/Suspense
Non-genre categories
Animated Films
British Films
Childrens/Kids/Family Films
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Classic Films
Cult Films
Documentary Films
Serial Films
Sexual/Erotic Films
Silent Films
Here is the list of genres from the current Critics Choice catalogue:
Action/Die Hard
Adventure/Travel/Epic/Epic Melodrama
Black Cinema
Blaxploitation
British Comedy and Drama
Buddy Film
Cartoons
Chick Flick
Cliffhanger/ Cliffhanger Serials
Cops and Robbers
Comedy/Slapstick/Screwball/Burlesque/Backstage/Remarriage/Three Stooges/Abbot&Costello
Cult
Disaster/Airport/Eathquake/Asteriod
Espionage and Intrigue
Film Noir
Foreign
Holiday
Horror
Martial Arts
Musicals
Sex/Erotic/Pornography/Educational
Religious Drama
Road Picture
Roadhouse
Romance
Sci-Fi/Horror
Shakespeare
Silent
Sports
Suspense
Thrillers/Monsters/Sci-Fi
War
Westerns/MatineeWesterns/B Westerns/Spagetti Westerns/Wayne/Eastwood, etc.
Weepie/Romance
Worst Films of all Time (John Wayne as Ghengis Kahn!)
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The Western Male Hero
Qualities of the Traditional Western hero (before changes in the 60's and 70's)
( Agree or disagree?)
Appearance and manners:
Laconic (yup. nope.), OR macho banter (like Newman and Redford in Butch Cassidy)
"Intimacy through insult" is very common in "two fun guys" flicks.
Moves stiffly, warily; has a grim or frozen expression (Yul Bryner in Magnificent 7, etc.) Is a Zombie? See below-Rarely smiles, or smiles only in confrontation.
Often seems depressed, brooding, "hurtin"
Clothing: depends on character.
Chaps, vest, "duster," serape, often old Civil War uniform.
Style of hat very important: see hat “codes” picture in "The West" (this is a whole language!)
Can be grungy--or a dandy
Sexual Orientation?
Not any more!
Character:
Most important quality: courage or daring. Fears nothing.
Has "died" or "died to life" and been reborn, either as avenging angel or madman
(Clint Eastwood's "man with no name"), OR
Has a death wish (Charles Bronson)
Has superhuman powers, skills, courage, and motivation: is implacable (Pale Rider, and most Spaghetti Westerns)
Is often obsessed, driven; lives to kill. Enjoys killing?
Revenge is often his motivating force (Once upon a time in the west)
May kill for hire, but has his own standards; can not be controlled.
Will not "draw first" (Gunsmoke). Note: the "showdown" probably never ever happened!
Violence:
Is fascinated or identified with violence, knives, firearms
Solves problems through violence ("Hey, hombre, let’s talk this out!")
Moves inevitably toward violent confrontation with implacable enemy
Conflict can only be resolved through death
The hero, family, and society:
Has no attachments or family
Is alone: rides in from nowhere, and rides into the sunset
The classic example is Shane
Curly in City Slickers (Curly talks about this issue)
James Bond: "Women hang on your gun arm."
Family often becomes a key conflict in the drama, as in High Noon,
But "family men" are considered useless ("Go on back to your wife and kids, Frank"),
The marshal/hero's life is complicated by marriage (High Noon).
So--the hero often gives up or rejects female attachments, but is attractive to females (Why is that?!)
Usually not gay. (Are there any examples of gay cowboys? Cross-dressers?)
However, where else can men go to dress up in flowered shirts and decorated clothes made of good fabrics
wear jewelry, nice shoes, and sing with a falsetto? [See Rawhide Kid above] Marshall Frank N Furter?
Has little capacity for overt emotion: does not cry, and does not talk about his problems: He’s "hurtin" but
will not discuss it.
The Western hero is emphatically NOT part of civilization or society, though society may need him.
But, after he saves them, they want him GONE.
He's a "drifter:" moves over and through the land. Stopping to settle down strips him of his powers.
(Good example at the end of Magnificent 7)
Would he be considered a sociopath or psychopath in any other context?
Can you think of exceptions or spoofs of this stereotype? (Maverick?)
Is there a Western Female hero?
Thelma and Louise? The long suffering wife of—Custer?
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Rejected betrothed of Tom Dunson (John Wayne in Red River)
Sharon Stone as a gunfighter!? (The Quick and the Dead)
Are there other "types"? The pioneer woman? (How the West was Won)
The "New Western"
Dances With Wolves: Our sympathies are drawn to the Indians, and in a famous scene,
the Indians attack the army cavalry and we "root" for the Indians!
Unforgiven: nobody is without sin in this world. ("You just shot an unarmed man!" "Well, he should have armed himself.
. .")
Questions for Discussion:
Why was the Western so popular in the 1950's and 1960's? Hint: good guys vs. bad guys
Is the typical film western hero is pathologically anti-social or just plain psychotic? Or neither?
Does the tradition of the gunfighter relate to American diplomacy and politics?
In Red River Dunson (John Wayne) is courageous, driven, and hungry for land. He uses violence, but has a code of honor or
behavior calling for honesty, proof or worth or manhood, and fairness (he won't draw first). The typical Western appears to
be exclusively male society, or at least a society where men are the ones the males want to please, and the ones who judge
conduct. It may or may not be a racist society.
Further Reading:
Favorite Movies Stars
GOOD essay on Westerns at the Filmsite with links to plot descriptions
A good essay on Westerns at americanwest.com
Clint Eastwood Homepage music and wave files! Classic: Good, Bad, and Ugly!
The Gunfighters home page: http://www.gunfighters.com/
Click here for descriptions of some videos in Reinert Library
A suggested list of television and movie westerns
The Rawhide Kid comes out of the closet
Article on the durability of John Wayne (see article in temp folder)
"How the Western was Lost" essay from Village Voice
American Film Musical and Oklahoma
Aikin's take on Oklahoma
Fast draw fanny packs!
Words from the Western Frontier and cowboy lore
The origin of the Western cowboy myth--In His Steps and The Virginian [the "man with no name"]
The full text of Sheldon's In His Steps; an analysis of Sheldon's In His Steps
Text of Owen Wisters The Virginian; The First Virginian movie, 1929; the TV series;
The Music of Film Westerns: Elmer Bernstein, Magnificent Seven, Katie Elder, Dances with Wolves
Symbols and types in Western movies
Famous lines from Western Movies ("Smile when you say that.)
Aikin's favorite Western Movie scenes
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Character types, movie types, and symbols in Westerns
Western movies typically rely on a stock cast of characters, which symbolize society in a nutshell:
Strong silent hero—loner or drifter? often has near-death experience (Who was that masked man?!)
The Stranger or “the man with no name” (Odysseus?) (Clint, Newman, Yul Bryner, etc.)
(May be Chinese Kung Foo artist)
(often has "died" and been reborn as avenging angel--Pale Rider)
The Kid (High Noon, Magnificent 7)
Sidekick (Tonto, Ickabod Mudd, etc
Horse (Trigger, Silver, Tinkerbell (jeep) or airplane (Sky King)
Evil gunslinger (or smart-ass kid—as in Johnny Ringo); in later movies of 1960's and 70's it's not so clear-cut who is evil
(may be misunderstood, neurotic, vengeful, angel of revenge, etc)
Good Guys Who Wear Black (Magnificent 7)
Faithful woman: strangely asexual schoolmarm; dance-hall girl with heart of gold, etc.
Rich, evil, landowner and his black-hatted henchmen, or-Cattle baron (Pa Cartwright)
Dancehall woman with heart of gold (Belle Watlin, Miss Kitty)
Town Doctor (crotchety, drunk)
Weak Sheriff (Corrupt Sheriff, Wise Sheriff), and his posse
Town drunk
Idealistic newspaperman (usually from the East)
Eastern writer (Unforgiven is a classic type)
Chinese cook (Hop Sing [consider the Cartwright family--no women], or Chinese Kung Foo artist as gunslinger!)
Bartender (and the Saloon Crowd--the "mob")
Dry goods store owner (Glen Ford)
Mexican Farmers (Magnificent 7)
Outlaws
Mom, Sis, and the young boy
Dogs (no cats)
Typical Movie Types or setups:
High Noon (the man against the town)
Shane (lone stranger solves farmers problems (violently) and rides off into the sunset, or moonset:
"Shane! Come back, Shane!")
Magnificent 7 (town against the outlaw gang—a Hitler parable)
Oxbow Incident (another Hitler parable--the West as crypto-WWII)
Spagetti Westerns (town against the man: lone stranger--not so innocent)
Fistfull of dollars (The man with no name)
Once Upon a Time in the West (classic: "natural" or unreconstructed man vs. civilization symbolized by the railroad)
My Name is Nobody (spoof of civilization destroying the old order when "men could me men")
The Lone Ranger (man against the town: mysterious stranger battles evil for innocents.
Note: he has "died" and been reborn as avenging angel)
How the West was Won (Turnerian overkill)
Rustler’s Rhapsody (full-blown send-up parody)
Unforgiven (revenge--a main motive in westerns--indulges our fantasy in a world without law--personal law)
Dances with Wolves and Little Big Man (reversal of affiliations: we're not sure who to root for)
Westerns in modern drag (Dirty Harry, Easy Rider, James Bond? etc. )
Oklahoma! (the complete myth in nuce)
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Symbols in Westerns
man
=
wild spirit, sexual energy, aggression
woman
=
land, fertility, marriage, family, society
railroad
=
progress (both good and bad)
water
=
life
cattle
=
ambiguous: freedom and civilization
sheep
=
civilization and domesticity
fences and farmers
=
civilization
wheat and corn
=
life, civilization
guns
=
justice and lawlessness
Indians
=
complicated: can be danger, evil, or good, as in Eden before the fall
The landscape
=
a potent symbol; complex
On the whole topic of Westerns in literature and movies see the excellent book by Jane Thompkins, West of Everything
(at Amazon)
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Week 11: gender, beauty, sex, and censorship
Read:
Gender, Beauty, Sex, and Censorship (todays web pages)
Sex in the cinema--(a long essay at Filmsite. on films, law, and culture)
Best and Most Memorable Film Kisses of All Time in Cinematic History (enjoy)
Sex in the Movies, by David Hudson
Do:
Essay on censorship due next week (Assignment)
Films:
Last week: High Noon (Fred Zinneman, 1952, 85 minutes)
This week: Lola Rennt (Lola Runs) (Tom Tykwer, Germany, 1999, 81 minutes)
Topics Today:
1. Discuss High Noon
2. Gender, beauty, sex, and censorship (and cyborgs)
3. Preview Lola Rennt (Lola Runs)
Gender, beauty, sex, and censorship (and cyborgs)
Sex in the cinema--(a long essay at Filmsite. on films, law, and culture)
Best and Most Memorable Film Kisses of All Time in Cinematic History (enjoy)
Sex in the Movies, by David Hudson
The Psychoanalytical Construction of Beauty, by Donald Kuspit, at Beautyworlds.com
Other reading: Bernard Rudofsky, The Unfashionable Human Body and Desmond Morris, The Body Human, and his other
books
Movies and scenes which treat the question of gender roles and beauty:
Sex in movies in the 20's and 30's, American Cinema and the impact of television on movies
Blaxploitation clips
North by Northwest clips (censorship and how they got around it)
Victor Victoria
Oscar Best Actress (Eyes)
Intermezzo (Ingrid Bergman)
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Fellini's Roma
Tootsie
The Magnificent Seven
Red River
The Birdcage
An Officer and a Gentleman
Un Chien d'Andalu
South Park sh*t
Other possible examples: The Crying Game, Hair, Carrie, Oklahoma, Some Like it Hot, Westerns and War movies
1. Two key concepts:
(From Robert J. Belton's, Words of Art, the best dictionary of criticism on the web)
INDULGENCE OR INDICTMENT: It is often difficult to determine if a representation, particularly of something a
given audience finds distasteful, is shown simply for the sake of indulgence, or if it chosen to draw critical attention to
some issue relating to the subject. There are no simple formulas to make this determination. Canadian censors have
unwittingly drawn attention to the issue: they banned the October 1986 issue of Playboy because they interpreted an
ambiguous photograph of a nude woman rolling in parachute cords as bondage. Yet feminist artists Carmen Coulombe and
Persimmon Blackbridge have both made images (L'Emprise sur l'univers II and Drawing the Line, respectively) which
feature much more explicit bondage. Works which blur the line between gratification on the one hand and cries of social
injustice on the other should be debated rigorously.
ULTRATHEMATIC READING: An interpretation that places virtually no emphasis on either the form or the context of
the work of art, because it is so preoccupied with its content (and usually a profoundly unsophisticated take on even that). A
classic example is the popular movie review, which consists principally of a summary of the main plot lines. Ultrathematic
interpretations run afoul of the problem of indulgence or indictment and are utterly insensitive to paralinguistic effects.
2. Gender:
When you meet or see someone, what is the first thing you want to know about them? The second thing? Gender and
gender identity have always been a major aspect of films, which are essentially voyeuristic. Discuss: Ideals of masculinity,
femininity, beauty in the history of movies, art, and modern life; the Oscars as fashion show; the Fashion/Hollywood/Music
symbiosis; publicists and "stylists." See http://www.beautyworlds.com/, for interesting essays on beauty. "Passing" for the
other gender for professional or personal reasons: Victor Victoria.
Images (from folder on desktop) of extreme or problematic gender identity and dress from the history of art and
contemporary media, film, art, sports, and advertising (in "pictures" folder). Many men and women in the 20th century have
chosen appearances which call gender identities into question--either as exaggeratedly male or female, or androgynous
(unisex)
3. What is Beauty?
Is it biological, psychological, abstract, or something else?
The idea of beauty is explored at Beautyworlds: The Culture of Beauty
The Psychoanalytical Construction of Beauty, and About Beauty, by Michael Sones, who writes:
“Over the past three decades the popular magazine Psychology Today has conducted several surveys on how people feel
about the appearance of their bodies. The changing results make for interesting reading. The dramatic changes in American
culture have significantly altered peoples' perceptions of themselves. In 1972 23% of American women were dissatisfied with
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their appearance but by 1997 that figure had risen to 56%. In 1972 15% of men were dissatisfied with their appearance but
by 1997 that figure had risen to 43%. 38% of men are now dissatisfied with the size of their chests compared to the 34% of
women dissatisfied with their breasts. Men are getting pectoral implants. Millions of women have had surgery to change the
shape of their breasts or increase their size.”
What makes a human being "beautiful"?
The ancient Greeks had three concepts that defined beauty (which are exactly the same ones used in the Mr. Olympia
contest). Guess what they are. Answer here. (Google "body building" or "fashion" to enter the world of bodybuilding.)
See this interesting photographic composite of "beautiful" women.
The ten most "naturally" beautiful women of all time Do all beautiful people make beautiful actors and actresses? Why or
why not?
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5. The 1930 "Hays Code": Movies and Morals
The text of the 1930 Code
The Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 was established by the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of
America (MPPDA), since 1945 the MPAA. In 1968 the 1930 code was replaced with the current Code and Rating
Administration (CARA) (G, PG, R, and X)
The Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, Inc. allowed Martin Quigley, a Catholic publisher, and the
Reverend Daniel A. Lord, S.J.[!], to draft the Motion Picture Production Code in March, 1930. But the code went largely
unenforced until 1934 when an Italian Bishop visited America and ripped the movie industry; a committee of Bishops
announced the formation of the Legion of Decency. The producers gave the censors the power to give or withhold a "seal of
approval" for all films. Films without the seal could not be shown in their theaters.
What historical or social factors caused the movie industry to adopt the code? What limitations did the code place on
movies? Specifically, what moral viewpoints and beliefs about American society appear to be embodied in the code?
Discussion:
Look at the code line by line and comment; e.g. if "white slavery" can not be treated, is black slavery OK?
Can you think of examples from movies made under the code that "got away" with something?
What were the purposes and the premises lurking behind the 1930 code?
What does the code imply about its author's views about the nature of human beings and the mental abilities of the movie
audience?
Are there any voluntary codes or censorship today in movies? How about in television?
What actually is the law on these matters? How has the Supreme Court's thinking on this changed?
Is anything illegal today? What is "prior restraint"?
Think of "boundaries" as an element of discourse--a way that society communicates with itself.
And if you think American movies and TV are "worse" or different from other countries, try TV in Italy, England, or
Germany.
What is "indictment or indulgence" What is an "ultrathematic" reading of a film
Further reading:
Sin in Soft Focus: Pre-Code Hollywood: movies in the "Roaring 20's" before the code
Pre-Code Hollywood: 1930-1934
Hollywood Censored : Morality Codes, Catholics, and the Movies
Movie Censorship and American Culture Today
The Catholic Crusade Against the Movies, 1940-1975
Hollywood Censored: looks at the impact of the Hays Code on Film from 1934-1968
Censored Screams: The British Ban on Hollywood Horror in the Thirties
Censored Hollywood: Sex, Sin, & Violence on Screen
6. Religion in film:
Jesus filmography: Jesus at the Movies: a list of books
Also textweek. Many films analyzed for Biblical content
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Cyborgs
"cy|borg (sêi'borg) n. a hypothetical human being modified for life in a hostile or alien
environment by the substitution of artificial organs and other body parts."
Cyborgs! A guide to the history of the cyborg
Cyborg Musik (try Aaarrrggghhh) Kraftwerk?
Cyborgs-'R'-Us: A Guide to the History of the Cyborg
Martin Irvine
[Technoculture from Frankenstein to Cyberpunk] --looks like a cool course!
The Ironic Dream of a Common Language for Women in the Integrated Circuit: Science,
Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s or A Socialist Feminist Manifesto for
Cyborgs, by Donna Haraway. Abstract: [A cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a creature of science
fiction and a creature of social reality. By the late 20th century, we are all chimeras, mythic hybrids of
machine and organism, in short, cyborgs. In recent Western science and politics, the relation between
organism and machine has been a border war. This essay is an argument for pleasure in the confusion of
boundaries and for responsibility in their construction. A socialist-feminist must pay particular attention
to the redesign of cyborgs; i.e., to genetic engineering.]
Cyborgs theory art technological developments miscellaneous fun
German Cyborg site
The Lonliness of Cyborgs, by Michele Lloyd. Essay at The Decline of Civilization: News
for the Paranoid. A Journal of the horrendous, humorous, and absurd Cyborg movie
reviews!
Cyborgs in Film, by Rachel Rein
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Cyborgs-'R'-Us:
A Guide to the History of the Cyborg
Martin Irvine, 1998
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
and Hollywood movie tradition:
Origin of the cyborg.
The first cyborg as response to
new technology: Industrial
Revolution, the body, and
electricity.
 The new body from reanimated
(electrified) body parts
 birth from asexual reproduction,
bypassing female motherhood and
sex
(Left: Advertisement for Thomas
Edison's 1910 silent "Kinetoscope"
movie, and movie poster for James
Whale's 1931 Universal Pictures
Frankenstein.)
Karel Capek, R.U.R.:
Rossum's Universal Robots (1922)
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Fritz Lang, Metropolis (1926).
Frankenstein myth meets robotics:
the origin of the dystopian, urban,
industrial context of cyborgs, and
origin of the female cyborg as
sexual fetish.
Note: The first fully-conceived film
android was female. (Other
images.)
"War is beautiful because it
establishes man's dominion
over the subjugated
machinery... because it
initiaties the dreamt of
metalization of the body."
--Walter Benjamin,
Illuminations
Cyborg as War Machine:
Terminator
(and all other cyborg warriors)
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Cyborg as War Machine, 2.
Death Machine:
Cybernetic Grim Reaper
Cyborg as Shape Shifter:
Man of Metal
(The T1000 in Terminator 2)
Cyborg as glamour and
fetish icon:
techno-body grafts as fashion
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Cyborg as sorceress, temptress, and
fetish:
the "Queen" Borg in
Star Trek: First Contact
Maria in Metropolis Remake:
Roboforce or I Love Maria
(Hong Kong film, David Chung,
Dir., 1988)
(other images)
Female Cyborg as Sexual Fetish
Thierry Mugler, French designer, realized the
fantasy of the female human robot. Inspired
by japanese artist Hajime Sorayama, he
turned a woman into a living machine in the
ultimate robosuit--a metal and plastic
construction that covered virtually the entire
body.
Female Cyborg as Sexual
Fetish:
Actress Jeri Ryan as Star Trek
Voyager's "7 of 9"
(click on images)
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Cyborg as femme fatale,
dangerous sex machine:
Daryl Hannah as Pris in Blade Runner
Self-fashioning cyborg:
Body Modification and Second
Skin Fetishes
(Tatoos, Piercing, Clothing
Fetishes)
The Body Modification Ezine
Additional Sources:




You are Cyborg: Interview with Dona Haraway (Wired Magaizine)
Declaration of Interdependence (Wired Magazine)
Robots and Space Toys
Sexy Robots
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Week 12: Acting for the Camera
Read: Acting for the Camera
Due: Censorship essay due today
Films: Last week: Lola Rennt ["Run, Lola, Run"] (Tom Tykwer, Germany, 1999)
This week: 12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet, 1957, 96 minutes)
Topics Today:
1. Discuss Lola Rennt 2. Acting for the Camera 3. Preview 12 Angry Men
Acting for the Camera
Show: History of Oscar Actresses (What do you notice?)
Michael Caine, Acting for the Camera (in three parts)
Many Case Studies in Acting (below)
Favorite Movies Stars
A working definition of acting: "Acting is taking a memorized text, almost always written by someone else, and investing
it with your own personal feelings, intelligence, communicative skills, interest in other people, and personality. All of
these are brought out by living the situation that the dramatic character experiences." (Robert Cohen, Acing One)
Stage vs, Screen: Many college and university drama departments offer no classes in film acting, or at most a class or
two offered near the end of the training sequence. This is partly because of the logistical and economic difficulties of
providing space and equipment for such classes, but it is also a matter of philosophy. Many acting teachers believe
that training for the live stage is also the best preparation for the film actor and that separate classes for the
camera are unnecessary. I have heard some of these teachers say that a well-trained stage actor can make the necessary
adjustment of the camera “in one day.” (Benedetti) So, what if any are the differences between acting on the stage and
for the camera? Are they really so few that an actor could make the adjustment in “one day”?
See "Shooting script" from Woman (in folder "pilot script") (Prof. Klem's pilot for PBS)
Discuss film organization: "Preparation, Shooting, and Assembly" --see text, pages 10-26)
Single Camera vs. Multiple Camera System:
Most films and television drama are done with a "single camera," which means that scenes are shot multiple times from
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different angles and then pieced together by the film editor. Most "live" TV sitcoms are filmed with multiple
cameras; the best shot is also selected by the editor or the director (of the show is live) from the single "take." The first
sitcom to be shot with several film cameras was "I Love Lucy" and that program set the standard for television practice.
Compare multiple camera format (Soap Opera or Sitcom on TV) to single camera format. Can you notice a difference?
Why do you think these different formats are used for each type?
Which format is most often used in film?
Why not do movies that way, with one set of actors on the set and multiple cameras?
Which type of film acting most often uses the multiple format? Why?
What are the implications of the "single camera" system for acting, directing and continuity?
Try to be aware of "single camera" TV shows with excellent production values like The West Wing or ER)
Vocabulary and concepts:
Inner and outer action
"Slice of life" acting styles vs. artificial styles
Dramatic structure and emotion
Shooting script, Sides
Blocking
Master shot
Roll it, Speed, Slate it, Action, Cut
Looping, Boom
dolly, pan, zoom, composition.
Upstage/Downstage; movement
Watch: Michael Caine, Acting for the Camera (in three parts)
Pure Talent! Oscars ("eyes" and "best pictures"), Intermezzo (Ingrid Bergman), Judy Garland
Old style acting:
Harold Lloyd (acting in silent films), scenes from Speedy, 1923
Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havolind in (Robin Hood "Hall" and "love")
Case Studies:
Morgan Freeman in The Shawshank Redemption: three scenes of his parole hearing, each ten years apart.
Compare the acting in these three scenes. How does Freeman play them differently? What is he trying to convey?
What techniques does he use to contrast the different stages of his character?
Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump ("smart"); Castaway ("Russia time," and "long speech to end"); League of their own
("prayer")
Jami Gertz in Twister ("I'm going back"): the choices an actress makes
Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces ("toast"), A Few Good Men ("truth"), Chinatown ("sister")
Paul Newman in Absence of Malice (Parts 1 and 2), The Verdict [get this!]
Samuel L. Jackson in The Red Violin: The Kuleshov Effect (See also "reaction shots" in Jurassic Park)
Dustin Hoffman in Rainman ("numbers"); Tootsie ("auditions" and "reading")
Gregory Peck and Audrie Hepburn in Roman Holiday ("improvisation")
(Robert Duval in the same movie as Boo Radley: a great performance with no dialogue at all!)
Richard Gere in Officer and a Gentleman ("d o r")
Orson Welles in Moby Dick ("sermon"), Touch of Evil ("Welles"), and Citizen Kane
Humphrey Bogart in Caine Mutiny ("Queeg")
Steve McQueen in Magnificent 7 ("none") and Cincinnati Kid ("end") with Edward G. Robinson
Michael Douglas in American President ("monologue")
John Wayne: Red River, John Wayne gives up his gun (in John Wayne folder); Ghengis Kahn worst movie ever!
Spaghetti Western style: Clint Eastwood on acting, and Once Upon a Time in the West
Oscar Winning Performances: Hanks in Gump and Castaway; Cloris Leachman in Last Picture Show
A few great scenes that summarized an era and brought out the handkerchiefs:
The Best Years of Our lives ("home")
Dueling Banjos from Deliverance
Forget Paris B-Ball
Singin in the Rain, Make 'em Laugh
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How film treats and transforms traditional theater: Shakespeare in Film: Royal Shakespeare Company lecture on
tape.
Julius Caesar; Henry V, Polansky's Macbeth, The Misfits, Zeffirelli's The Taming of the Shrew (Italy, 1967, 122
min., with E. Taylor, R. Burton), CD: "Film during the age of Television"
Comic Relief: Things you Should Know about a Terrorist Attack
From Russia with Love:
The "Method" School of Acting
"Slice of life" acting style:
How did acting become so realistic? (click here)
The Russian connection:
Stanisalvsky: See scene from Acting: The First Six Lessons
Bolesavsky: Biography of Boleslavsky
Marlon Brando's famous scene from the Waterfront (listen)
The tools of the Method actor
The magic "If"
Doing (actions) v. Being (indicating)
Inner monologue. Caine: "actors with no lines are not 'doing nothing'; they are thinking of interesting things to say--but not
actually saying them."
Memory of emotion
Choices in Twister
[Benedetti Exercise 8.3 Action in Life on page 72.]
(Select passages from previous papers about Last Picture Show are here)
watched The Last Picture Show, because he was involved with it.)
(When Professor Klem taught this course we
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Week 13: More on style, color, and the art of film as history
Read:
[link to essay on color]
Due:
Term papers due next week!
Films:
Last week: 12 Angry Men
8 film reviews due next week!
(Sidney Lumet, 1957, 96 minutes)
This week: Several Short Films:
Topics Today:
1. Discuss 12 Angry Men
2. More on style, color, and history
3. Preview Several Short Films:
The way Things Go (Das Weg der Welt--Fischli and Weiss, 1987, 30 min.) and The Cog!
Un Chien d'Andalou, ["An Andalusian Dog"] (Louis Bunuel and Salvador Dali, 1929, 16 minutes)
Early Cinema:
A Trip to the Moon (Georges Melies, 1902, 14 minutes)
The Great Train Robbery (Edwin Porter and Thomas Edison,, 1903, 12 minutes)
More on style, color, and the art of film as history
Finish discussing censorship:
Comments about "The Code"? Are we better off without it? "Indulgence or Indictment"?
Do children or adults "imitate" things they see in movies? Examples? If so, what do we do about it?
Was the real purpose of the code to maintain the status quo and patriarchal power structure?
More on "Rosebud" (one way to beat the Censorship Code!)
Color: the language of color; the art of color in film: [two folders on desktop] See also my essay and links
The Quiet Man
Musicals:
That's Dancing (Cagney/Fosse, Royal Wedding, "Red Blues," Sweet Charity)
My Fair Lady (ascot scene)
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (in dancing)
West Side Story
Moulin Rouge: 1953 version color, intro, 2 absinth, 3 love, 4 your song
Robin Hood 1938 (High intensity harmony) [The first color film was Becky Sharp (1934)]
The Color of Money
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Gladiator Rome; Gladiator final scene
Godfather: "Buonasera" and "light"
Color and Black and White:
Pleasantville
The Hill and Dr. Strangelove (high contrast)
Wizard of Oz, Wings of Desire, Butch Cassidy. .
New Film: The Life Aquatic.
Forced Perspective: Fellowship of the Ring (forced Perspective)
(How did they do that?)
Art History goes to the Movies:
James Bond sees a stolen painting in Dr. No.
Psycho: What is the subject of the painting that Norman Bates removes from the peep-hole?
The Wizard of Oz: a nice "quotation" from Renaissance painting, Huge Van der Goes' Portinari Altarpiece
See also Art Historian's Guide to the Movies (Aikin's contribution)
Graphic Match is one method of transition. What are some other methods? Sound match? (Castaway, Dr. Zhivago)
Composition and Graphic style: The Last Temptation of Christ/Lazarus scene
Creative Credits: The Art of Saul Bass
Review Time in movies: temporal ellipsis and "temporal hyperbole" [my term!]
Tin Cup
Contact
[Silence of the Lambs?]
Temporal duration-- the time span presented in the plot and assumed to operate in the story.
Temporal order-- the sequence in which the chronological events of the story are arranged in the plot.
direct or continuous sequential narrative (12 Angry Men, High Noon, The Bicycle Thief)
interrupted sequence, movies without any flashbacks or flash-forwards (Magnificent 7)
alternating past and present using flashback or flash-forward (Amadeus, Citizen Kane)
arbitrary or out of order (Pulp Fiction)
ass-backwards (Betrayal, High Fidelity) like the "archaeological excavation" in Oedipus Rex
Temporal frequency--scenes may appear more than once, or from multiple points of view (Lola Runs, Citizen Kane, Red
Violin)
Intertextuality is the way works of art in any medium are interwoven, refer to, or comment on each other. Also called
quotation. Intertextuality can be created by dialogue or text, visuals, sound, or music. Examples:
1) The musical leitmotifs in Star Wars imitate those in Richard Wagner's opera, The Ring of the Niebelung. James
Horner's music for A Beautiful Mind echoes Bernard Herrmann's music for Journey to the Center of the Earth. Horner also
quotes Prokofiev's score for Alexander Nevsky in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
2) In Field of Dreams, a disembodied voice tells Ray Kinsela (Kevin Kostner) "if you build it he will come." While
Kinsella is resisting the voice, he walks through a room where a television is showing the old movie Harvey (starring Jimmy
Stewart) which is about a man who imagines he is friends with a large rabbit that only he can see or hear. Later, we hear
"external diegetic music" in the background--the Lovin Spoonfull singing "What a Day for a Daydream."
3) Numerous films feature large rocks chasing people (Raiders, Journey to the Center of the Earth)
Film History or film movements (Chapter 12)
Early Cinema (1893-1903)
The Development of the Classical Hollywood Cinema (1908-1927)
German Expressionism (1919-1926)
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French Impressionism and Surrealism (1918-1930)
Soviet Montage (1924-1930)
Classical Hollywood after Sound (1927ff)
Italian Neorealism (1942-1951)
French New Wave (1959-1964)
New Hollywood and Independent Filmmaking (1965ff)
Question: what aspects of film art have we not discussed in this class?
Answer? Production design in film and theater; settings and décor; costumes and makeup; composition and point of view as
style; “experimental” films; film in the art gallery; [The history of film style as history art and the relationship of film to 20 th
century visual arts “We are asking the cinematic counterpart of the question that opens E. H. Gombrich’s Art and Illusion:
Why does art have a history?” --Bordwell, On the History of Film Style]
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Week 14: Summary and Review
Read:
Roger Ebert, Great Movies (skim)
Rottentomatoes: reviews of The Da Vinci Code
Words of Art: Film Studies
Due:
8 Film reviews due
Films:
and Term Papers Due
Last week: Jules et Jim (Francois Truffaut, 1962, 105 minutes)
(French "New Wave" Cinema)
This week: The way Things Go (Das Weg der Welt--Peter Fischli and David Weiss, 1987, 30 min.)
The Cog (Honda)
Topics Today:
1. Discuss Feature Film Discussion Questions
2. Review for final
Review topics
Discuss movies:
The way Things Go (Das Weg der Welt--Peter Fischli and David Weiss, 1987, 30 min.)
The Cog (Honda)
Really Short Feature Films:
Alien Song (Victor Navone)
Ka's Evil Twin
The Cog
Parania (Maureen Timpa Hendricks) [at 4:50]
Urban Legend (Aaron Hendricks) [at :28]
Afraid of the Dark
Fun Short Films: Tourist Tossed, Alien song, Blubber, terrorist interview, Ten Commandments remix
100 Years of Movies [who do you recognize?!]
Critique the course:
Which films did you think were useful, good, or bad? Which film did you like "unexpectedly"?
How about the paper assignments?
Which topic taught you the most? (That is, which of the film "arts" were you the least aware of?)
What did you learn in this course? How do you see movies differently now?
Is there one idea, concept, or term that you found especially useful?
IMBD viewers choice top 250 films
Two evaluations [Please note: SRP 1=good, 5=bad!; SIRS 1=bad, 5=good!]
Ferris Bueler: The End
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More Review Topics:
Film Terms - A Film-Making Glossary and Dictionary
Movement along the "Z" axis (as Dr. Hough explained in his lectures)
Forced Perspective: "Fellowship of the Ring forced perspective"
"Motifs": Citizen Kane--jigsaw puzzle; Bicycle Thief--bicycle; Lola--roulette wheel; any others?
Color [See previous week and picture folder] See also my essay and links
Money and Movies: (Film/cinema/movie)
What is a movie? A commercial enterprise? If movies did not make money they would look a lot different!
What are the various ways you can make money from movies?
Box office, foreign and domestic (The actual theaters make most of their money on refreshments)
DVD sales (now out-grosses box office)
Merchandize (Star Wars!)
Video games (See Sin City http://www.apple.com/trailers/miramax/sin_city/
Product placement (see website. Examples? Castaway: Fed-Ex!)
Movie Cliches: "The guy in the hospital listening to the game on the radio" (Seabiscuit "Match Race"; Hoosiers)
Modern Editing and cinematography techniques-- are so different from just 10 years ago that we almost have a new
medium
Undefeated--montage sequence
Macho Cinematography: The Eiger Sanction
Narrative issues
Written text vs. film (The Godfather--images vs. text )
Killing off the main character at the beginning of the film (Lawrence of Arabia)
Intertextuality ("rip-off," "quotation," or "homage") Examples? Possible purposes?
Examples (film to film):
"I'm melting!": Oz, Field of Dreams, Roger Rabbit
Art History at the Movies (See Art Historian's Guide to the Movies)
Wizard of Oz and Hugo Van der Goes' Portinari Altarpiece
Wall Street and C. D. Friedrich's Monk by the Seashore
Numerous examples of The Last Supper (Mash, etc.)
Music: Star Trek II and Alexander Nevsky; Rachmaninoff, Piano #3, at 14:24);
Time:
Temporal Ellipsis and Temporal Hyperbole: [see folder in dazzle]
Question: Can you do a temporal ellipsis without turning the camera off?
Roger Rabbit
Raiders of the Lost Arc (gun)
The Godfather, Part II (young Vito)
Red Violin
2001 (the ultimate temporal ellipsis--from the Stone Age to the future!)
Contact (opening scene; young girl to mature woman, scene aboard airplane; signal--2a and 2b)
Chicago documentary
A Beautiful Mind
Temporal hyperbole [my term!] or "temporal extension"
Tin Cup
Explosions: (Guns of Navarone (in fx); Contact)
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Using the Credits: The art of Saul Bass
Framing Element(s) (bookends): can be graphic, musical, or narrative
The Searchers, Kane, Last Picture Show, Black Rock, etc.
POV: Spider Man
Mobile frame: Panic Room, Contact
Mise-en-scene: Casablanca, The Deer Hunter, The Birdcage, Black Rock, Psycho, Westerns
Great cuts: "graphic match" and "sound match" Graphic Match is one method of transition. What are some other
methods?
Graphic Match:
From Here to Eternity: wave to smoke (parallel editing or crosscutting)
Lawrence of Arabia: match to desert
The Right Stuff: a parallel editing masterpiece ("You're looking at him")
2001: bone to space ship (the all time favorite--graphic match and temporal ellipsis)
Sound match: ; Castaway (ship horn to telephone), Dr. Zhivago (clank), Victor/Victoria (nose to auto horn)
"Buried Treasures" "Unknown films" that you happen to like. Any ideas? (Logan's Run)
FX: MIB Gallaxy scenes; Ben Hur, Gladiator; rear projection in King Kong (parodied in Airplane); True Lies
Humor (folder)
Who is Alan Smithee?
50 "Feel Good" Movies
Talent: Intermezzo; Judy Garland
Review credits: Compare Wizard of Oz (1939) to Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
Review vocabulary with some examples: 8 ½
Why the change?
The Caine Mutiny (Queeg)
Film History or film movements (text chapter 12)
Early Cinema (1893-1903) A Trip to the Moon (France, George Melies, 1902)
The Development of the Classical Hollywood Cinema (1908-1927)
German Expressionism (1919-1926)
French Impressionism and Surrealism (1918-1930)
Soviet Montage (1924-1930)
Classical Hollywood after Sound (1927ff)
Italian Neorealism (1942-1951)
French New Wave (1959-1964)
New Hollywood and Independent Filmmaking (1965ff)
More on continuity:
For fun with "continuity" see: http://www.movie-mistakes.com
More goofy mistakes at: http://www.moviecliches.com
Further topics:
"Blaxploitation": is it a "genre"? Film history.
Film as the “Gesamtkunstwerk”
Criticizing film art
Ethical dimensions of contemporary film art
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Final Exam: 3:30 Tuesday, December 12
The final will be objective, and will cover the texts, films shown in class, the class website, and film terms. link
Study Guide for Final Exam:
1. Sample Final Exam Questions
2. Film Terms - A Film-Making Glossary and Dictionary
Final Exam Vocabulary and printable vocabulary Glossary of film
3. Complete list of feature films and discussion questions
4. A Checklist for Analyzing Movies
Sample Final Exam Questions:
Short Answer Questions:
What cinematographic elements were employed in Jules et Jim (1962) that would not have been used in Hollywood
films of the same date?
Discuss the importance of perspective and depth of field in Citizen Kane.
What is the difference between "narrative" and "mise-en-scene"?
What was the effect of early sound on the art of cinematography?
Define the difference between “inaudibility” and “invisibility” in movie music.
What do we expect to see in a film that conforms to "classical Hollywood practice"?
Film Scene Questions:
This scene [from movie x] contains which of these?-temporal ellipsis
mobile frame
intertextuality
high key lighting
a leitmotif
rack focus
etc.
Sample essay:
In this long scene [from movie x] discuss the use of sound. What sounds
and music are used and to what purpose?
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Multiple Choice:
In a narrative film, any visual or auditory element is diegetic if -it does not contribute to the cause and effect flow of events
it is a story element rather than a plot element
it is offscreen rather than onscreen
it is part of the world of the depicted narrative
Flashbacks are typically introduced by a which cinematographic or editing device—
jump cut
wipe
dissolve
montage
a stinger
“The viewer's imaginary construction of all the events in the narrative” is called-the motivation
the story
the plot
mise-en-scene
An analysis of the plot of a film (the textbook’s outline of the plot of Citizen Kane) is called a-segmentation
storyboard
mise-en-scene
style
The narrative divisions of Citizen Kane are built around-cinematography
leitmotifs
the musical score
several “flashforwards”
a series of lengthy flashbacks
The chains of action that make up the narratives of classical Hollywood films are usually initiated and propelled by
what kind of causes?
social causes
natural causes
psychological causes
political causes
What kind of information would probably not be explicitly included in a screenplay?
setting
actions
camera angles
What is the proper sequence of these commands?
Slate it, Action, Cut, Print, Cut, Speed!
Slate it, Print, Roll film Action, Cut!
Roll film, Speed, Slate it, Action, Cut!
Slate it, Print, Roll film, Slate it, Speed, Print!
Action, Cut, Slate it, Print, Speed!
dialogue
flashbacks
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The “Kuleshov effect” concerns which aspect of film?
music
script
distribution
color
editing
Which film could be called an “epic melodrama” that employed straightforward and functional use of continuity
editing, narrative events in sequence, as well as epic music for maximum dramatic effect, with little or no deviation
from the audience’s conventional expectations.
Orsen Welles, Citizen Kane
Godfrey Reggio, Koyaanisquatsi
Peter Fischli and David Weiss, The Way Things Go
Alexander Sokurov, Russian Ark
Francois Gerard, The Red Violin
Fred Zinneman, High Noon
A Checklist for Analyzing Movies
Credits and mise-en-scene: what are the first images in the film (often while the credits are rolling),
and what do they tell you. Where and when is the film set and how do you know this?
yet how the film will end?
Do you know
Cinematography and visual style: color, space, focus, depth of field, camera angles, POV,
composition, movement, aspect ratios, light and lighting, atmosphere. Is there a "style" or overall look
and feel of the film?
Editing: continuity, cutting, montage, pace; graphic, rhythmic, spatial, and temporal relations; ellipsis
and hyperbole.
Production design, costumes, and fx: color, light, set design. "Realism" or "Fantasy"?
Narrative: dialogue; story, plot, and screen time; narrative structure (flashbacks and flash-forwards)
Acting, casting, dialogue, and movement: styles of acting, dancing, etc.
Sound and music: diegetic and non-diegetic sound; leitmotifs; sfx
Genre: what "kind" of movie is it, and how do you know?
Intertextuality: what other films, music, works of art, or "texts" are referred to in the film and why?
"Critical" aspects of film: historical, moral, social, gender, and economic issues.
Opinions: is the film "good" or "bad"? Justify your opinions.
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Web Resources:
Film Terms - A Film-Making Glossary and Dictionary
Internet Movie Database
The Filmsite: see especially the links to "film history" and "film genres"
Rottentomatoes links to movie reviews
Roger Ebert's homepage with hundreds of reviews (e.g., The Rookie on "skillful" vs. "good" films)
The Critic Doctor (a blog criticizing critics)
Common errors in English
Top Ten Excuses Why my Paper is Late
Film glossaries:
Glossary After Bordwell and others
Film Terms - A Film-Making Glossary and Dictionary
Words of Art: Film Studies--Department of Fine Arts, Okanagan University College. good
IMBD glossary
A Glossary of Film Terms written and designed for the web by Joel Schlemowitz (Very Good)
FX GLOSSARY: A compendium of common FX terms (For additional info, see our FX-FAQ page.)
All Movie Guide Glossary
Barnes and Noble Glossary—huge
Cinematic Glosssary of Terms—see Point of View Shot—good examples
Rosebud: especially glossary
More useful sites:
Turner Classic Movies Great site; all old movies eventually come up here; search the schedule
American Movie Classics homepage
Caldwell's Top 100 Movie Lists, with beaucoup links, reviews, etc.
American Film Institute (AFI)
Top 50 "feel good" movies
Ray Carney at Boston College--excellent pages of ideas and criticism
A Jesus filmography
View hundreds of trailers at this French site and alsoat http://www.apple.com/trailers/
Movie Reviews UK
Pacific Film Archive
Picture Palaces
Bright Lights Film Journal for great essays and ideas. A great essay on "Luddite" or "anti-technology" movies--that depict a
world with technology run amok (Terminator), especially The Emerald Forest. Check out the whole website,
Cyborgs!
Movies in Reinert (with call numbers)
Movies in FPA
More Web Resources:
Academy Awards list
Cinema: How are films made: screenwriting, directiong, producing, acting, editing, related resources, with excellent links!
An excellent course webpage: Modern Critical Thought with definitions of modern critical thought: Freud, Postmodernism,
deconstruction, etc.
http://www.inblackandwhite.com/ See essay on Italian Neo realism and several films
http://www.grand-illusions.com/index.htm grand illustions (same as art history site) but useful for film studies
http://freeweb.pdq.net/headstrong/control.htm bizarre stuff—fake blood, etc.
excellent pictures of early cinema at this cite: http://freeweb.pdq.net/headstrong/Persist.htm
“amination toys, 2 pages with good pics! http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Highrise/1713/film.html
maybe listed above. Superb links!
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http://www.xs4all.nl/~wichm/filmsize.html one hundred years of film sizes
Great Directors at Senses of Cinema
Film Studies: UC Berkeley Library, Selected Film Resources on the Web
Bibliography
Film course at Rochester with powerpoints on various topics
What does a screenplay look like? See published screenplays
Anatoly Antohin’s courses on film and theater
Special topics:
Cyborgs!
Willkommen zum Star Wars-Lexikon, der großen Jedi-Bibliothek. See Jedi-Lichtschwerter
Movies and Religion: on Amadeus and religion: http://www.unomaha.edu/~wwwjrf/robbins.htm
See also the “movie concordance” (with the bible and biblical subjects) at http://www.textweek.com/movies/movies.htm
Film Genres and theory of genre
Art Historian's Guide to the Movies (famous artworks in movies)
Further web resources
100 Greatest moments in movies (EW)
Purchase vhs & dvd at onlineshopping and halfdotcom
Postmodernism defined
good essay on being a film director by James Brett
What is "Fair Use" in the copyright law?
Cyberspace, Hypertext and Critical Theory
Course: Digital Narrative at Umaryland
Mise-en-scene: New York at the Movies
Photography and cinematography:
Glossary of photographic terms at Kodac.com
One hundred years of film sizes (really!)
Thomas Edison at the Library of Congress. See especially Library of Congress "American Memory"
for examples of early motion pictures
Special topics:
Art History in the Movies (http://daphne.palomar.edu/mhudelson/ArtHistoryMovies.html)
Art Historian’s Guide to the Movies (http://personal1.stthomas.edu/cdeliason/ahgttm.htm)
A search engine of Biblical Subjects in art and movies
Cinema Prehistory at "Bizarre Stuff. Thaumatropes and Zeotropes. A must read.
Fake Blood recipes! (at the same site as above)
Hollywood Highrise Great links and articles on all kinds of stuff.
inblackandwhite.com Essays on neoRealism, Fellini, and French film of the '30's
A good definition of Postmodernism
Thee theories of comedy etc. Great stuff
The Imax format at http://www.imax.com/
Art History websites:
Image Data Banks: When searching for an artist or artwork, start with--The Web Gallery of Art, from Hungary, 6000 images
Mark Hardin's Artchive organized by artists, good pictures and biographies
The WebMuseum is also a huge useful site.
The Artcyclopedia is a massive on-line resource with links.
Artlex visual arts dictionary: artists, art movements, etc
Words of Art: A glossary of theory and criticism
Research Sources in Art History by Witcombe
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Reinert Alumni Library Search Engine
The Bible: text and notes
Dictionary of Saints and Angels (but no pictures)
Internet History Sourcebook: texts in the public domain
Career Alternatives for Art Historians (very good)
General Art History Websites:
The Art History Browser is the best general art history site, with great links.
Mark Hardin Artchive is organized by artists, with good pictures and biographies
The Art Renewal Center: excellent scans of representational painting of all eras
Web resources in 19th century art by Witcombe