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7/27/2019 Introduction to Film Theory
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Film Theory & Movements
FIVE DIFFERENTVIEWS OF REALITY
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Naturalist / Empiricists
Non-Christian existentialist
Nihilist
Rationalist
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Idealist/ Romanticist
Idealist
Romanticist
Mystic
Transcendentalist
Phenomenologist
Noumenalist
Magical realist
Realist (Bazin)
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Marxist
Social realists
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Postmodern
PoststructuralPostcolonial
Feminist / queer
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Two Overriding Traditions (Aitken)
INTUITIONIST / MODERNIST
Rooted in romanticism
Phenomenology
Irrational & intuitive
Symbolism &expressionism
Imagery conveysmeaning
Theme of alienation
Often ambiguous
REALIST / NATURALIST
Documentary style
Vehicle for social reform
Rational, cognitiveanalysis of informationand issues
Carefully controlled
images that manipulateaudience reaction
Utilitarian, often with apolitical agenda
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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)
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Two Approaches to Editing
MONTAGE
A + B = C
Apple blossoms + young girls in field
= hopeOne interpretation (no ambiguity)
Editor (director) manipulates meaning
Not realistic Focus on image (soft background)
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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)
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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)
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Two Approaches to Editing
CINEMATIC REALISM
Long takes
Capture reality as it is
Deep focus, depth of field
Less directorial control of whatthe viewer should focus upon
AmbiguityMore real
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Two Approaches to Editing
CINEMATIC REALISM
SOCIAL REALISM
Italian Neorealism
New British Cinema
METAPHYSICAL REALISM
Andrei Tarkovsky
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Two Approaches to Editing
CINEMATIC REALISM
SOCIAL REALISM
Italian Neorealism
New British Cinema
METAPHYSICAL REALISM
Andrei Tarkovsky
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Two Approaches to Editing
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Two Approaches to Editing
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Impact of Hollywood
Worldwide dominance of the Hollywoodmachine: 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 againstHollywood mis en scene
Death of national cinemas/identity?
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The Hollywood Aesthetic
The aesthetic of pretense
Studio system
Star-centric
Formula approach to narrativeHero - Problem - Overcome-Happy Ending
Shot-reverse-shot
Camera followed the order of the text
Alternate characters speaking
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Major Film Theorists
1. John Grierson2. Siegfried Kracauer
3. Andre Bazin
4. Georg Lucas
5. Christian Metz
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Perception
Representation
Signification
Narrative Structure
Adaptation
Evaluation
Identification
Figuration
Interpretation
Film Theory
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Gestalt Psychology
Russian Formalism
Neo-KantianismPhenomonology
Existentialism
Postmodernism
Intellectual / Historical Context
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John Grierson (1889-1972)
MODERN DOCUMENTARY REALISM
Father of the documentary film
Film as an effective means of communicationsbetween 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 peopleto understand social issues better thanrational, cognitive analysis
Use of realistic and naturalistic images tosignify abstract realities
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Siefried Kracauer (1889-1966)
CINEMATIC REALISM
Critic of modernity (Frankfurt School)
Human condition characterized by alienation
Mass culture/society manipulates individualsMaterialistic values have replaced religion,metaphysical, romantic convictions, resultingin disenchantment
People live distracted livesFilm as a redemptive experience that canshow man damaged condition of modernityand help him transcend materialism
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Siefried Kracauer (1889-1966)
CINEMATIC REALISM
Foreshadowed and predicted dehumanizingpower of mass media
Mass ornaments --film, military parades andsporting events
Real world of the individual desubstantiatedby spectacle and empty rituals
Film must reengage individual with natureand the Kantian real world
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Andre Bazin (1918-1958)
CINEMATIC REALISM
Shared Kracauers view of modernity
Also saw film as redemptive
Kracauer: German classical philosophyBazin: Catholicism, Bergson, Sartre, French
Phenomenological influence
Bergson: Flux and flow of existence
Modern life and ideologies obscure thebase of life
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Andre Bazin (1918-1958)
Bergsons concept of creative evolution
Evolution of the vital spirit in man
Close experiential scrutiny reveals deepstructures/meanings behind phenomena
Under scrutiny of inquiry [artistic analysis]these deep structures are brought into thelight
Cinema and photography are media that anartist can utilize to review the deeper meanings behind the phenomena of existence
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Andre Bazin (1918-1958)
Existentialism
I am, therefore I think, feel, perceive, etc.
Intuitive understanding, versus rational.
Sartre: Absence of inner fulfillmentIndividual defined him or her self throughaction, free choice and the very quest for meaning
Lacan: I am the search for myself
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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 phenomenacould reveal planetary consciousness
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Andre Bazin (1918-1958)
Divining the real
Mystical
Metaphysical
Creative evolutionSpiritual renewal
Social reform
Metaphysical
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Andre Bazin (1918-1958)
Christian view of man as fallen
Seeking redemption and atonement
The role of cinema is to help man in his searchfor truth and understanding in an ambiguousand uncertain world
Man can transcend alienation and modernity
Film can be a religious experience
Love and state of grace
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Andre Bazin (1918-1958)
Film image embalms time & wrenchesphenomena from the flux of life
Symbolic power of cinematic imagerycombined with empirical density of cinematic
realismThe spirit behind the real object
The long hard gaze
Disliked over-expressive, over-ornamental, or overuse of montage
(More like Tarkovsky than Eisenstein)
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Andre Bazin (1918-1958)
We know that under the image revealed there isanother which is truer to reality and under thisimage 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.
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Andre Bazin (1918-1958)
Francois Truffaut
Erich von Stroheim
Roberto Rossellini
Vittorio De SicaRobert Bresson
Jean Renoir
Orson Welles
William Wyler
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Andre Bazin (1918-1958)
Liked films that focused on everydaypsychological experience
Italian neorealism (The Bic yle Thief)
Disliked modernist, expressionistic
Disliked films that imposed a politicalideology on the viewer
Long takes, of surrounding environment
Impact of environment on people(French determinism)
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Georg Lukacs (1885-1971)
Marxist philosopher (Western)
History of Class Consciousness
Concrete social totality
Anti-symbolic irrationalismAnti-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 socialand political relationships
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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 meaningthrough film language
Shots, sequencing, mise en scene
Grande syntagmatique
Seven different systems of shots(syntagms) that told the story of a film
Film provides a spectacle of reality which allows theviewer to accomplish a transfer of reality
Anti anti-realist, postmodern cinema