Agenda
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Announcements
8½ Discussion
Break
Fellini in Context:
Between Neorealism and
the New Wave
• Auteur Theory in Brief
• The Cinematography of
8½
Announcements
• Blog Post Rescheduling:
– Second Blog Post: Due Friday, May 9th
• Comments due Friday, May 16th
– Third Blog Post: Due Friday May 23rd
• Comments due Friday, May 30th
– Fourth Blog Post: Canceled
• Next Week: Take Home Quiz, due Wednesday
• First Blog Post Feedback back; First Essay
Feedback by end of the day Wednesday.
Mid-Term Survey
• Three Questions:
– What’s going well?
– What would you change?
– Are there any questions you would like to have answered? (Perhaps
concepts you’re unclear on, or terms you’re not sure how to define)
• Extra Credit: .5 points on next quiz
• Things to think about:
– How class time is apportioned, or subjects you’d like to spend more or
less time on
– How discussion works
– How screenings work
– Pacing of the class
– Format of the assignments and quizzes
Discussion: 8½
• What did you think?
• Did you like Guido? How would you describe him? How were the
other characters characterized? (Flat/Round; Major/Minor)
• What’s the narrative of 8½? What are the major events?
• What were the most memorable scenes? What struck you about
the form?
• Let’s Talk about Guido’s Relationship to:
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His wife (and other women)
His film production team
Catholicism
His childhood
• What’s with the final scene?
What Do You Think of This Guy?
• “This life is so full of confusion already, that there's no
need to add chaos to chaos . . . We're smothered by
images, words and sounds that have no right to exist,
coming from, and bound for, nothingness. Of any artist
truly worth the name we should ask nothing except
this act of faith: to learn silence . . .
• . . . Our true mission is sweeping away the thousands
of miscarriages that everyday... obscenely... try to
come to the light. And you would actually dare leave
behind you a whole film, like a cripple who leaves
behind his crooked footprint. Such a monstrous
presumption to think that others could benefit from
the squalid catalogue of your mistakes! And how do
you benefit from stringing together the tattered pieces
of your life? Your vague memories, the faces of people
that you were never able to love” – The Critic
• “What is this sudden happiness that makes me tremble
giving me strength, life? Please forgive me sweet creatures;
I didn't realize, I didn't know. How right it is to accept you,
to love, you . . . and how simple! Luisa, I feel I've been set
free. Everything looks good to me, it has a sense, it's true.
How I wish I could explain, but I can’t . . . everything's going
back to what it was. Everything's confused again, but that
confusion is me; how I am, not how I'd like to be. And I'm
not afraid to tell the truth now, what I don't know, what I'm
seeking. Only like that do I feel alive and I can look into your
loyal eyes without shame. Life is a celebration – let’s live it
together. I can't say anything else, to you or others. Take
me as I am, if you can. It's the only way we can try to find
each other.”
• “I don’t like the idea of “understanding” a
film. I don’t believe that rational
understanding is an essential element in the
reception of any work of art. Either a film has
something to say to you or it hasn’t. If you are
moved by it, you don’t need it explained to
you. If not, no explanation can make you
moved by it.” – Fellini
Italian Neorealism: 1945-1952
• Thematically:
– “The lives of ordinary working
people” (LaM 455)
– Struggle, poverty, unhappiness,
lives of children
• Aesthetically:
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Location shooting
Nonprofessional actors
Spare, simple dialogue
Natural lighting
Long takes
Deep space cinematography
• Ideologically:
– Anti-fascist, Humanist, Often
Marxist
The New Wave
• Thematically:
– Young people rebelling
– People searching for
meaning or personal identity
– Boredom
– Sex w/o marriage
– Impenetrable or
Unexplainable Characters
• Ideologically:
– Rejection of traditional
authority (religious, political,
artistic)
– Existentialism (sometimes
nihilism)
– Search for new values,
untainted by the past
Aesthetic and Formal Attributes
• Cinematic Self-Awareness:
– Citation and cinephilia
– Highlighting the conventions and
artifice of film-making and Genre
– Direct address to the camera
– Imprint of the director
– Innovation for the sake of innovation
• Improvisatory Feel:
– Jump cuts and ellipses
– Nonlinear or unconventional
narratives (breaking 3-act structure)
– Unscripted dialogue
– Nonprofessional Actors
– Natural Lighting
– Direct sound recording
– Handheld, Lightweight Cameras
Jump Cuts
1960s: New Wave Cinema
• France:
– Truffaut (The 400 Blows),
Godard (Breathless), Agnes
Varda (Cleo from 5 to 7), Chris
Marker (La Jetee)
• Germany: Das neue Kino
– Werner Herzog, Rainier
Fassbinder, Margarethe von
Trotta
• Czechoslovakia
• Japan:
– Seijun Suzuki (Branded to Kill),
Nagisa Oshima (In the Realm of
the Senses)
• Brazil: Cinema Novo
The Auteur
• The director is the author; the
camera is the pen
• Andre Bazin: Cinema must
express a personal vision
• Truffaut: “There are no good and
bad movies, only good and bad
directors"
• Ideal Auteur: Director and
Screenwriter (Fellini fits the bill)
• Critiques:
– Film is an industrial process
– We misread film when we read
through director’s intention
– Having a consistent style isn’t an
artistic virtue
Review: Cinematography
• Anything related to the manipulation of the
camera in the shot. Includes:
– Camera movement
– Camera placement (or angle)
– Manipulations of film or film speed
• Questions to Ask:
– Where is the camera positioned in relation to the
subject?
– Is the camera moving? If so, how/where?
– Are any film or camera manipulations? (i.e., tinting or
slow/fast/stop motion)
Review: Describing Shots
• Distance: Extreme long shot, Long shot, Medium
shot, Close up, Extreme close up
• Movement:
– Camera Moving on Tripod: Pan and tilt.
– Camera Moving in Space: Tracking shot, crane shot.
– Camera Stable, Lens Moving: Zoom In, Zoom Out
• Angle: High angle, eye level or point-of-view, low
angle, bird’s-eye . . . Canted or “dutch angle”
Outline: Cinematography in LaM
• Film Stock
– 35mm, 8mm, etc.
– Also, now, digital video
– Color v. B & W
• Lighting
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Source
Quality (Soft v. Hard)
Direction
Color
• Lenses/Focus
• Camera Proximity/Framing
– Shot Types: XLS, LS, MLS, MS,
CU, MCU, XCU; Two-Shot,
Three-Shot, Etc.
– Deep/Shallow Space;
Foreground/Background
• Camera Angle and Height
– Eye level, High, Low, Dutch,
Bird’s Eye, Worm’s Eye
• Camera Movement
– Pan, Tilt, Dolly Shot, Tracking
Shot, Crane Shot
– Handheld camera, Steadicam
– Focal length: Short, Medium,
Long; Also, Zoom Lens
– Depth of Field, Planes, Rule • Camera Speed
of Thirds, Deep Focus,
– Slow/fast motion
Racking Focus
• Special Effects and CGI
Focus
Aspect Ratio: Width to Height
Panavision or
Cinemascope: 2.35:1
Most Movies, Netflix:
1:85:1
•
From: http://www.swiftfilm.com/netflix-we-dont-crop-movies/
Lighting
Cinematography in 8½
• 8 ½ Cinematographer: Gianni di Venanzo
• What did you think?
• Next Series of Slides:
– Look at the image
– Decide what it represents, cinematographically
– Think about why Fellini chose that kind of shot for the
subject