Agenda
• Quiz
• Last bit of history lecture
• Small Group Discussion
• Class Discussion
• Break
• Sound Lecture/Clip Analysis
Question 4
Question 5
Questions 11-14
This Week: The Watermelon Woman
(1996)
• Director: Cheryl Dunye
• Country: United States (filmed in
Philadelphia)
• Movement: New Queer Cinema
• Formal Focus: Sound (Ch. 9)
• Why Are We Watching It?
– Good intro to the low-budget American
“indies” of the 1990s (think Clerks,
Reservoir Dogs, etc.)
– Raises questions about race and sexuality
in American cinema
– It works well in dialogue with other films
we’ve watched, esp. Perfumed Nightmare,
8½, and Sherlock Jr.
– It’s smart and fun
The Watermelon Woman (1996)
In Three Claims
• 1. Cinema is a way of creating
and validating personal identity.
• 2. American Film History does
not represent the history and
lived experiences of AfricanAmericans or LGBT people.
• 3. When your history seems to
be absent, you either have to
dig it up or create a totally new
history.
African Americans
And Hollywood
•
•
•
•
•
History of Hollywood Racism
– e.g. Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer (1927),
Disney’s Song of the South (1946)
All-Black Film Productions:
– Oscar Micheaux (1920s and 30s)
Black Actors in Hollywood
– Hattie McDaniel (1939), Sidney Poitier
(1963)
Blaxploitation and African-American Indies
– Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song
(1971), Shaft (1971), Foxy Brown (1974)
– William Greaves’s Symbiopsychotaxiplasm
(1968), Burnett’s Killer of Sheep (1977)
African-American Indies in the 1990s:
– Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing (1989),
Malcolm X (1992); John Singleton’s Boyz n
the Hood (1991)
New Queer Cinema
•
•
•
•
•
Avant-Garde Roots:
– Kenneth Anger’s “Fireworks” (1947)
Early 1990s: “New Queer Cinema”
– Todd Haynes’s Poison (1991), Gus van
Sant’s My Own Private Idaho (1991),
Rose Troche’s Go Fish (1994)
Themes:
– Documenting (mostly young, mostly
urban) LGBT Life and Love: “We Exist”
– Establishing (and challenging) sense of
community
– Often subtle critiques of discrimination,
govt. response to AIDS
The NEA Debates (1990s)
– Some “New Queer” films funded by
federal grants; Congress defunds NEA
2000s: Queer Cinema Goes Mainstream:
– Brokeback Mountain (2005), Milk (2008)
Small Group Discussion
• Why does Cheryl want to find the Watermelon
Woman? How does the search affect her life?
• What did you notice about the sound in this film?
• How does this film compare with other films we’ve
watched to this point?
• Come up with one thesis question about the film
(and be ready to present it to the class).
Group Discussion
• How did you respond to
Cheryl as a character?
Diana? Tamara?
• How about the acting?
• Balance between satire and
seriousness?
• What makes this movie
“Indie”?
• What did you like/dislike
about it?
Third Blog Post
•
Option One (Same Old): Write about any of the films we’ve screened so far (via close reading,
formal analysis, etc.). You can write about Millennium Actress or Tropic Thunder if you want to
get ahead. If you want to pitch your post as an idea for your final paper, that’s fine.
•
Option Two (Film Critic): Write a review of a film that we haven’t screened in class. It has to
be a film made after 1990 (which is where we’re at historically now in the class).
•
Provide an imdb link and links to other information as warranted. Make an argument about
the film: Tell us why we should/shouldn’t see it. Use the language we’ve learned in class.
Analyze, Don’t Summarize. Talk about the movie’s form.
•
Option Three (Creative Option): Pitch Your Movie. Have an idea for a film? Convince your
classmates and I that we should fund it.
•
Be sure to include this basic information: Where is it set? Who are the key characters? What
are the basics of the three acts (setup/conflict/resolution)? Does it fit into a clear genre
profile? Stylistically, what films would your movie most resemble?
Key Sound Terms
•
Producing/Designing Sound
– Production/Post-Production Sound
– Direct Sound/Post-Synchronization
– Recording/Editing/Mixing
•
Describing Sound
– Pitch: Frequency
•
High/Low
– Loudness: Amplitude
•
Loud/Soft
– Quality: Texture or Harmony
•
Simple/Complex
– Fidelity (Sound Verisimilitude)
•
Sources of Sound
– Diegetic/Nondiegetic
– Onscreen/Offscreen
•
•
Simultaneous/Non-Simultaneous
Synchronous/Asynchronous
– Internal (Interior Monologue)/External
•
Types of Sound
– Vocal Sound: Dialogue, Narration/Voiceover
– Environmental Sound: Ambient Sound, Sound
Effects, Foley Sounds
– Music: Symphonic, Popular
– Silence
What does sound do?
•
In General:
–
–
–
–
•
Helps tell a story
Orients us to Space/Time
Set Mood and Emotional Tone
Creates new meaning (that isn’t explicitly represented
in other ways)
Barsam and Monahan’s Categories:
– Audience Awareness
•
Directing our attention
– Audience Expectations
•
Is there going to be romance? Tension?
– Express Point of View
•
Sound tells us when we’re in a character’s head
– Rhythm
•
Sound Montage: Sounds come in/out of focus
– Characterization
•
Musical themes and sound motifs
– Continuity
•
Overlapping Sound and Sound Bridge
– Emphasis
•
Punctuating epiphanies, marking transitions
Montage Theory Applied to Sound
•
Tempo: Choosing music with a particular tempo and rhythm to create a particular
feeling
– Ex. Using a song with a military cadence to suggest that the characters have been called to action
•
Sound Vectors/Juxtaposition For Emotion: Using contrasting sounds to convey a feeling
– Ex. Sharp shift in music creates tension or confusion
•
Juxtaposition for Irony:
– Ex. “Singin in the Rain” over the home invasion in Clockwork Orange
•
Repetition: Using the same or very similar sounds or songs multiple times in a film or
sequence (sound motif)
– Ex. The repetition of laughter as an environmental sound across a film’s soundtrack
•
Fragmentation: Breaking apart dialogue, or music, or sound to suggest disconnection or
breakdown
– Ex. Dialogue disappearing from a soundtrack to suggest that a character is losing consciousness
•
Metaphoric Sound: Adding sounds (either diegetic or nondiegetic) to a sequence to
create a metaphoric association
– Ex. A cash register sound effect to suggest a character is about to cash in
Next Week: Millennium Actress (2001)
• No Class Monday: Watch it on
youtube!
• Director: Satoshi Kon
• Country: Japan
• Formal Focus: Animation
• Why Are We Watching It?
– Japanese Animation explodes in
the 90s and 2000s (and I wanted to
talk about animation)
– Great way to discuss the history of
Japanese cinema
– Makes great connections between
film and memory
– I think it’s gorgeous