Film Theory & Movements

FIVE DIFFERENT VIEWS OF REALITY

Naturalist / Empiricists

Non-Christian existentialist

Nihilist
Rationalist
.

Idealist/ Romanticist

Idealist Romanticist Mystic Transcendentalist

.

Phenomenologist Noumenalist Magical realist Realist (Bazin)

Marxist

Social realists

Psychoanalytical

Freud Lacan

Postmodern

Poststructural

Postcolonial
Feminist / queer
.

Two Overriding Traditions (Aitken)

INTUITIONIST / MODERNIST

REALIST / NATURALIST

Rooted in romanticism Phenomenology Irrational & intuitive

Documentary style Vehicle for social reform Rational, cognitive analysis of information and issues Carefully controlled images that manipulate audience reaction Utilitarian, often with a political agenda

Symbolism & expressionism

Imagery conveys meaning Theme of alienation Often ambiguous

.

Two Approaches to Editing

MONTAGE A+B=C Apple blossoms + young girls in field = hope One interpretation (no ambiguity) Editor (director) manipulates meaning Not realistic

Focus on image (soft background)

Two Approaches to Editing

MONTAGE A+B=C Apple blossoms + young girls in field = hope One interpretation (no ambiguity) Editor (director) manipulates meaning Not realistic Focus on image (soft background)

Two Approaches to Editing

MONTAGE A+B=C Apple blossoms + young girls in field = hope One interpretation (no ambiguity) Editor (director) manipulates meaning Not realistic

Focus on image (soft background)

Two Approaches to Editing

MONTAGE

A+B=C
Apple blossoms + young girls in field = hope One interpretation (no ambiguity) Editor (director) manipulates meaning Not realistic

Focus on image (soft background)

Two Approaches to Editing

CINEMATIC REALISM Long takes Capture reality as it is Deep focus, depth of field

Less directorial control of what the viewer should focus upon

Ambiguity

More real

Two Approaches to Editing

CINEMATIC REALISM SOCIAL REALISM Italian Neorealism New British Cinema

METAPHYSICAL REALISM
Andrei Tarkovsky

Two Approaches to Editing

CINEMATIC REALISM

SOCIAL REALISM
Italian Neorealism New British Cinema

METAPHYSICAL REALISM Andrei Tarkovsky

Two Approaches to Editing

Two Approaches to Editing

Impact of Hollywood

Worldwide dominance of the Hollywood machine: Production-distribution-TV

65-80% of films shown in Europe are US. US: 37,000 screens UK: Secrets & Lies -- 20 screens

Transnational productions Emigration of directors and actors Commercial producers copy Hollywood

Few auteurs took aesthetic stance against Hollywood mis en scene

Death of national cinemas/identity?
.

The Hollywood Aesthetic

The aesthetic of pretense

Studio system
Star-centric Formula approach to narrative

Hero - Problem - OvercomeHappy Ending

Shot-reverse-shot

Camera followed the order of the text Alternate characters speaking

Major Film Theorists

1. John Grierson 2. Siegfried Kracauer 3. Andre Bazin 4. Georg Lucas 5. Christian Metz

Film Theory

Perception Representation Signification Narrative Structure Adaptation Evaluation Identification

Figuration
Interpretation

Intellectual / Historical Context

Gestalt Psychology Russian Formalism Neo-Kantianism

Phenomonology
Existentialism Postmodernism

John Grierson

(1889-1972)

MODERN DOCUMENTARY REALISM

Father of the documentary film

Film as an effective means of communications between individual and the state Purpose is to create social unity and reform Focused on poverty, hunger, unemployment, and other social problems Intuitive/experiential films can enable people to understand social issues better than rational, cognitive analysis Use of realistic and naturalistic images to signify abstract realities
.

Siefried Kracauer

(1889-1966)

CINEMATIC REALISM

Critic of modernity (Frankfurt School)

Human condition characterized by alienation Mass culture/society manipulates individuals Materialistic values have replaced religion, metaphysical, romantic convictions, resulting in disenchantment People live distracted lives

Film as a redemptive experience that can show man damaged condition of modernity and help him transcend materialism
.

Siefried Kracauer

(1889-1966)

CINEMATIC REALISM

Foreshadowed and predicted dehumanizing power of mass media

Mass ornaments--film, military parades and sporting events

Real world of the individual desubstantiated by spectacle and empty rituals

Film must reengage individual with nature and the Kantian real world

Andre Bazin

(1918-1958)

CINEMATIC REALISM

Shared Kracauers view of modernity

Also saw film as redemptive Kracauer: German classical philosophy Bazin: Catholicism, Bergson, Sartre, French Phenomenological influence Bergson: Flux and flow of existence Modern life and ideologies obscure the base of life

Andre Bazin

(1918-1958)

Bergsons concept of creative evolution

Evolution of the vital spirit in man

Close experiential scrutiny reveals deep structures/meanings behind phenomena Under scrutiny of inquiry [artistic analysis] these deep structures are brought into the light Cinema and photography are media that an artist can utilize to review the deeper meanings behind the phenomena of existence

Andre Bazin

(1918-1958)

Existentialism

I am, therefore I think, feel, perceive, etc.

Intuitive understanding, versus rational. Sartre: Absence of inner fulfillment Individual defined him or her self through action, free choice and the very quest for meaning Lacan: I am the search for myself

Andre Bazin

(1918-1958)

Christian Existentialism

Rejected nihilistic strains of existentialism

Personalist movement of French intellectuals Marxist, utopian view of societys potential Tielhard de Chardin: Metaphysical theory of geological formation

Noosphere--Consciousness of the earth Close obsveration of natural phenomena could reveal planetary consciousness

Andre Bazin

(1918-1958)

Divining the real

Mystical
Metaphysical Creative evolution Spiritual renewal Social reform Metaphysical

Andre Bazin

(1918-1958)

Christian view of man as fallen

Seeking redemption and atonement

The role of cinema is to help man in his search for truth and understanding in an ambiguous and uncertain world

Man can transcend alienation and modernity

Film can be a religious experience Love and state of grace

Andre Bazin

(1918-1958)

Film image embalms time & wrenches phenomena from the flux of life Symbolic power of cinematic imagery combined with empirical density of cinematic realism The spirit behind the real object The long hard gaze Disliked over-expressive, over-ornamental, or overuse of montage

(More like Tarkovsky than Eisenstein)

Andre Bazin

(1918-1958)

We know that under the image revealed there is another which is truer to reality and under this image still another and yet again still another under this last one, right down to the true image of reality, absolute, mysterious, which no on will ever see.

Andre Bazin

(1918-1958)

Francois Truffaut

Erich von Stroheim

Roberto Rossellini Vittorio De Sica Robert Bresson Jean Renoir Orson Welles William Wyler

Andre Bazin

(1918-1958)

Liked films that focused on everyday psychological experience

Italian neorealism (The Bicyle Thief)

Disliked modernist, expressionistic Disliked films that imposed a political ideology on the viewer Long takes, of surrounding environment Impact of environment on people (French determinism)

Georg Lukacs

(1885-1971)

Marxist philosopher (Western)

History of Class Consciousness

Concrete social totality Anti-symbolic irrationalism Anti-naturalism that just showed alienation of individual Film as a dialectic between the individual and the social within a particular

Must show mans place in the web of social and political relationships

Christian Metz

(1931-1993)

The first academic critic to consider film a language

Structuralist, semiotic approach to film analysis

A systematic reading of film to reveal meaning through film language

Shots, sequencing, mise en scene Seven different systems of shots (syntagms) that told the story of a film

Grande syntagmatique

Film provides a spectacle of reality which allows the viewer to accomplish a transfer of reality Anti anti-realist, postmodern cinema
.