Thinking About Movies,
Theory, and Meaning
Film Theory and Film Criticism
> Film Theory is a way at looking at movies from a particular intellectual
or ideological perspective. It is concerned with many areas of
investigation, including:
1.
The film text itself - its structural properties and meanings.
2.
The film text’s connection to culture and history.
3.
The relationship between film and reality and anti-realism
(formalist theory).
4.
The production of movies as the result of art, economics or technology.
5.
Our psychological reaction to the world projected on the screen.
>Film Criticism is generally focused on evaluating a film’s artistic merit
and appeal to the public.
The 3 Phases of Film Theory
1.
The First Phase- a formalist movement that spanned from 1916-1935
and included the work of Hugo Munsterberg, Rudolph Arnheim, and
Sergei Eisenstein.
1.
The Second Phase- a realist reaction to formalism that began with the
coming of sound in 1927 and continued to the 1960s and was
primarily influenced by Andre Bazin and Siegfried Kracauer.
2.
The Third Phase- began in the late 1950s/1960s and continues today
and includes a wide range of new interpretive approaches,
including: auteurism, feminism, psychoanalytic criticism, Marxism
and cultural studies. Among the seminal writers are
Laura Mulvey, David Bordwell, Stanley Cavell, and Christian Metz.
A Film’s Meaning I
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Explicit Meaning- everything that a movie
presents on its surface. Our ability to notice
associations and relationships among the many
pieces of information in the film.
Implicit Meaning- an association, connection,
or inference that a viewer makes on the basis
of the explicit story and form of the film.
Lying below the surface of explicit meaningclosest to the everyday sense of the word
meaning.
A Film’s Meaning II
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Ideological Meaning- body of ideas expressed
by a film that reflects beliefs on the part of
filmmakers, characters, or the time and place
of the movie’s setting.
Ideological meaning is the product of social,
political, economic, religious, philosophical,
psychological, and sexual forces that shape the
filmmakers’ perspectives.
Interpretive Frameworks
Mimesis and Catharsis
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Mimesis and Catharsis: In the Western tradition, the effect of art on
people and society begins with the Greek philosophers and dramatists.
On one side you had –most prominently Plato- who viewed the arts as
dangerous in their potential influence.
Plato opposed the idea of mimesis, the Greek word for the imitative
representation of the world in art and literature.
On the other side of the Greek debate were the defenders of art. In the
Poetics, Aristotle argued that humans acquire knowledge through
imitation. More famously, he used the term catharsis-to describe a
therapeutic by-product of watching tragedy, which, through fear and
pity, purged viewers of such emotions.
e.g. In film studies, genres like horror, b-moves, pornography and
violent films like Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers (1994) or Mel
Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (2004) generate complex issues in
discussions about film violence.
Binary Oppositions(Dualism)
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According to structuralist anthropologist Claude Levi- Strauss (b.
1908), all human cultures share an underlying reliance on dualism, the
tendency to see the world in terms of opposing binary oppositionsraw/cooked, nature/culture, man/woman, for example.
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In addition, each binary opposition reveals an underlying tension, a
potential conflict that myth or art tries to reconcile. The form of such
resolutions reflect the prevailing culture.
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e.g. In James Cameron’s Terminator films we see the machines vs.
humanity. In Terminator 2 (1991) the T-800=“human” and T1000=“machine”. In Wizard of Oz (1939) It’s A Wonderful Life (1946)
we see rural vs. urban and (“There’s no place like home”).
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Dramatic conflict, in and of itself, creates binary oppositions.
MAJOR FILM THEORIES
Auteurism
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The auteur theory postulates that the film director is the
“author” of a film.
Auteurism has roots in 1920s France; its popularity
peaked there in the 1950s with the influential film journal
Cahiers du cinema, founded and edited by Andre Bazin.
Contributors to this journal and early proponents of this
theory (both as critics and directors) included the New
Wave filmmakers Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard,
Eric Rohmer and Claude Chabrol.
A director must have made a significant body of films
(oeuvre) to be considered an auteur.
Auteurism II
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A film director’s style should be as distinctive as a
novelist’s and the cinematic style is the DNA by which
that author can be identified.
In the 1960s, this auteur theory was promulgated by The
Village Voice film critic Andrew Sarris.
In his influential book, The American Cinema:
Directors and Directions, 1929- 1968 his “pantheon”
of 14 directors has inspired a great many arguments.
Pauline Kael, a longtime critic for The New Yorker,
particularly took umbrage with Sarris and his list.
Despite its weaknesses, Auteurism is a useful approach
to film criticism and helps identify those directors whose
work displays ideological and stylistic consistency.
Psychological Film Theories:
FREUDIANISM
• Sigmund Freud, the Austrian founder of
psychoanalysis, believed that each person has a
profoundly influential unconscious.
•A
good deal of this unconscious manifests itself
through art, narratives and entertainment and the
venting of the unconscious is therapeutic and
cathartic.
Films with Notable Freudian
Influence
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Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny & Alexander(1982)
Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound(1945) & Vertigo
(1958)
Jacques Tourneur’s Cat People(1942)
Fred Wilcox’s Forbidden Planet(1956)
Ken Russell’s Altered States(1980)
Freudian Film Theory
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Art may reveal emotional dynamics not
deliberately fashioned by the artist.
Expressions of sexual desire in art are intertwined
with incompletely suppressed aggression, fear and
guilt.
A critic can link an artwork and an artist’s
biographical background within an interpretation
that reveals unconscious manifestations of desire,
aggression, fear and guilt.
Psychological Theories:
Cognitive Psychology
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Draws on perceptual psychology and aesthetic studies
to explain how we fit elements into orderly patterns,
experience joy and sadness through art.
Film scholars David Bordwell and Noel Carroll are
among the principal proponents of this movement.
A viewer is seen as an active participant in the
creation of a film’s effects and meaning.
Cognitive Psychology II
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A foundational idea of cognitive psychology is that
people use schemas to make sense of a perceptually
incomplete world.
Schemas are mental concepts that filter our
experience.
e.g. Films such as M.Night Shyamalan’s Sixth
Sense(1999) requires an active viewer to determine
the meaning of the film’s conclusion.
Ideological Theory-An Overview
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Ideological criticism attends to the formal and
informal beliefs, feelings and habits of individuals,
groups and nations.
Films reflect ideology.
e.g. Triumph of the Will (1935)
Why We Fight (1943-1945)
genre film
Marxist Film Theory
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Marxism: a body of doctrine developed by
Marx and Hegel in the mid 19th Century.
It consists of:
A philosophical view of humanity that is
non-religious.
A theory of history (thesis + antithesis=
synthesis).
An economic and political program.
Marxist Film Theory II
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The idea of the proletariat as hero, rising up
and creating a classless society with prosperity
for all was reflected in the films of:
>Dovshenko
>Eisenstein
>Pudovkin
>Vertov
>Shub
Feminism
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Feminism brings the following issues to the
forefront in the movies:
A desire for equality with men in society and the
arts.
The roles of women in society.
The patriarchal structure of society.
The stereotypes of women.
Gender discrimination.
Feminist Film Theory
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Feminist film theory focuses on how
the media, and film, in particular,
have represented women in a
condescending manner as:
Objects of desire.
Passive beings.
Dependent on men.
Feminist Film Theory II
Two of the most important issues
facing feminist film theory are:
1. Deterministic Feminist Theory
2. Liberal- Progressive Feminist Theory
Deterministic Feminist Theory
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Many feminist critiques focus on whether woman
and men can challenge patriarchy.
Laura Mulvey’s landmark essay “Visual Pleasure
and Narrative Cinema”(1975) stated patriarchy is
a systemic condition that is virtually
unchangeable because classic narrative cinema
views women as objects to be watched.
This theory was popular in the 1960’s and early
1970’s.
Liberal-Progressive Feminist
Film Theory
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Molly Haskell’s “From Reverence to Rape: The
Treatment of Women in the Movies”(1974)
surveys the unrealistic depiction of women in
films.
She states that most depictions of women in films
made before 1960 are demeaning.
Haskell argues that stereotypes should be replaced
with images that are real and positive.
Today we embrace this form of feminist theory.
Cultural Studies
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In the 1920’s The Frankfurt Institute attempted to
incorporate politics, culture, psychology and sociology into
a single discipline. (i.e. cultural studies)
Works by intellectuals such as Siegfried Kracauer’s “From
Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of German
Film”(1947) opened a new perspective on movies as a
popular art rather than a traditional one.
A branch of cultural studies called reception theory studies
how the audience received the movie (not its director or
theme) evaluating age, politics, sex, class, ethnicity, socioeconomics etc.
Cultural studies goes deep beneath the surface of a movie to
explore implicit and hidden meanings.
Applied Readings
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Let’s now look at a number of films that are
well suited to specific critical and
theoretical approaches.
Although all approaches are broadly
applicable to almost any film, some movies
yield more interesting answers to particular
kinds of questions, as the case studies that
follow illustrate.
Mimesis and Catharsis: Die Hard
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Die Hard(1988) presents violence in a form that
can entertain and horrify. It becomes perfect
fodder for a mimesis/catharsis debate.
To explore Die Hard’s treatment of violence, you
could do basic research into the film’s receptionreading reviews, criticism, marketing materials,
interviews of viewers and fans-to learn how the
violence was received and then begin your
analysis.
Binary Oppositions: Die Hard
Compose a list after watching the film such as:
>Man versus Woman
>Black versus White
>West Coast versus East
>Local Cops versus FBI
>USA versus Japan
>USA versus Europe
>Outlaw Hero versus Official Hero
Freudianism: Wall Street
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Oliver Stone’s Wall Street(1987)provides a
textbook example of a classic Freudian oedipal
conflict between a caring and supportive father
and his prodigal son.
Freud’s central idea is that oedipal aggression
expresses itself indirectly, accidentally and
unconsciously.
Cognitive Psychology: Vertigo
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Alfred Hitchcock’s brilliant Vertigo(1958)is
interesting cognitively for:
POV depiction of vertigo effects.
Visually dramatic dream sequences.
The viewer’s sharing of Scottie’s visions of
Madeleine and then his memory of her through
Judy.
Our ability to remember and recognize a
familiar face or profile.
Auteurism: Rear Window(1954)
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Hitchcock’s film is a good example of how the
director, together with his cast and crew created a
unified work.
Hitchcock is an auteur because he is a director
who manifests a consistency of style( e.g.
shooting in a confined space) and theme (e.g.
interest in voyeurism) across his films.
Film Slang
Oeuvre: the total body of work of a filmmaker
Marxism: Metropolis(1927)
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Fritz Lang’s silent masterpiece was the high point of
German expressionism.
The sci-fi story presents a society with a social
structure much like that described by Marx.
The owners live above ground and the slave workers
toil beneath.
Marxism’s central tenet of exploitation of workers by
those who control capital is evident.
Hitler’s favorite film!
Feminism: Thelma and
Louise(1991)
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Ridley Scott’s film is the first big budget
Hollywood film to assert a feminist perspective
with its details debatable:
The film traffics in stereotypes of male
chauvinism.
Thelma and Louise take on traditional male
roles.
Feminism: Thelma and Louise II
3.Thelma and Louise develop into proud, fearless,
satisfied people.
4. The road picture and western overlap feminist
concerns.
5. The film condemns criminal justice and its failure
to protect women victimized by sexual assault.
6. The movie deflects the traditional Hollywood
male gaze by allowing T&L to ogle handsome J.D.
(Brad Pitt).
Cultural Studies: Repo Man(1984)
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Alex Cox’s low- budget, dark comedy speaks
eloquently about social conditions and attitudes.
It depicts subcultures of disaffected youth and:
Examines the punk movement.
Urban legends.
Conspiracy theories.
Provides a deadpan commentary on American
social conditions and attitudes.
Buzz Words
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Cult: any cause, person or object admired by a
minority.
Cult Movie: Repo Man is a cult film which means
that it has a small but devoted audience that
admires and values certain aspects of this film.
Cult Movies are either ‘so bad they’re good’ (e.g.
world’s worst director Ed Wood) or are the
objects of a quasi-religious worship (Star Wars).
Other Forms of Film Analysis
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GENRE STUDY
The study of individual films within a certain genre.
One simple but very effective way of analyzing
genre convention and a particular film’s place
within a genre is to break down a movie into three
discrete temporal aspects:
(continued)
GENRE STUDY
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Story Formula-overall plot structure found in a
genre. e.g. In the science fiction genre consider the
plot of E.T.(1982), or Starman(1984)
Scene Convention-In science fiction, the scene in
which the visitor exhibits otherworldly powers.
Iconic Shot-an immediately recognizable visual
symbol. In Sci-Fi this might be homesick shots of
the night sky.
Film Slang
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A media franchise is an intellectual
property involving an original work of fiction.
Multiple sequels are often planned well in
advance and, in the case of motion pictures,
actors and directors often sign multi-film deals
to ensure their participation.
e.g. The Scary Movie(2001-2006) franchise.
Genre Homage & Hybridization
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Wes Craven’s Scream(1996)echoes and plays
homage to Psycho(1960), Halloween(1978)and
the horror genre itself.
Hybridization: the tendency to combine genres in
a single film.
e.g. Blade Runner(1982)=thriller,sci-fi,adventure
&
The Matrix(1999)=action, adventure, illusionist
sci-fi.
Film History Study
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“The term itself suggests a two-part definition. Film
history involves the study of the phenomenon we
commonly refer to as ‘film’…Further it involves
studying film from a particular perspective and with
particular goals in mind-perspective and goals that
are historical”.
Film historians Douglas Gomery and Robert C. Allen from “Film History, Theory
and Practice”(1985)
Film History Study II
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In its broadest sense, film history, examines the
development of the movies from their invention in
1895 to the present.
Film historiography=different types of historical
writing about the cinema.
Human conflict has been depicted in the movies not
only to entertain but to inspire and educate.
e.g. Saving Private Ryan(1998)
Film History Study III
> Some historical movies are biased or
melodramatic.
e.g. Birth of a Nation(1915)
Gone With The Wind(1939)
> Some historical movies tend to smooth- over
history’s facts and blur its moral ambiguities.
e.g. Scarlet Express(1934)
Gandhi(1982)
Malcolm X (1992)
Types of Film Historiography
>The aesthetic approach.
Sometimes called the masterpiece or
great man approach seeks to evaluate:
1.
Individual movies
2.
National cinemas
3.
Directors
>The economic approach
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Studio system (Hollywood) vs. Independents
(“Indiewood”)
Types of Film Historiography II
>The technological perspective:
• optics
• chemistry
• digital processing
>Social history:
• movies and how they affect culture, society and
influence social change.