Lights, camera, action!

• Having success in AS 90723: Respond critically to oral or visual text studied

Choosing a film• What sophisticated key ideas can be developed?

• Does the film have a recognised style?

• Is there a film guide available?

• “It would seem that many candidates relied on material from film guides, on-line notes, on-line critical reviews and the like. Such assistance can be of value if wisely used but often this was not apparent. Some candidates made reference to various concepts without any indication they had understood the relevance of these to texts studied.” Marker’s report 2009.

Key ideas• Go beyond one word ideas and look for films where there are

multiple layers:

• Pan’s Labyrinth – the mirror between real life and fantasy, the influence of art on del Toro’s vision.

• Lives of Others – the power of art to bring about change, the suppression of the individual through a totalitarian state.

• Frida – the relationship between pain and art; the transformative power of love, Kahlo as artist and Taymor as artist.

• How to? Use of concept circles to think of relationships, modelling, feedback on essays.

Film guides• Not a quick fix

• How do you go beyond the film guide?

• How do you move students to higher level thinking?

• “…response after response contained the exact same phrases/clauses, same sentences, same paragraphs – verbatim and ad nauseum. Candidates are being disadvantaged because they cannot offer comments which display (any) different or original thought, analysis, evaluation, conclusions, judgments, personal response, critical response etc, as required by the standard. Candidates were caught in the trap of dumping, desperately trying to tag on a limited number of specific quotes, techniques, scenes etc which far too often did not relate, or very tenuously related, to the topic chosen. Candidates need direction to take the time to explore new texts, or to look in different ways at familiar, worthwhile texts.” Marker’s report 2008.

The vocabulary of film

• To achieve success at film, students must use film terms in their essays. This shows an understanding of the genre of film, rather than novel, poetry etc.

• “Far too many candidates failed to allude to any filmic techniques/conventions or have any understanding and/or appreciation of the genre of film.” Marker’s report 2008.

• How to? Through close reading analysis, feedback on writing, constantly saying you will get N if you do not use film techniques!

More sophisticated vocabulary

• Teach students how to use the words as well as the words:

• Bildungsroman, kunstlerfilme, self reflexive, auteur, visual palimpsest, gaze, zeitgeist, tableaux vivant…

• How to? Model words in a sentence, model a body paragraph or introduction using words, quiz, fastest person to use the word in a sentence competition, repetition, disappearing definitions.

Combining film techniques in their analysis

• How do film techniques work together to create the director’s vision?

• Taymor uses Frida’s painting, “Self Portrait With Cropped Hair” to convey Frida’s inner feelings about Diego’s disloyalty. The cantilevered long shot of Frida drinking whilst sitting on a wooden chair conveys Frida’s emotional, dislocated state. The tilt of the camera distorts the viewer’s image, positioning the viewer to feel Frida’s pain. This is combined with powerful lyrical Mexican music with a lone female voice singing “La Paloma Negra” (The Black Dove) to guitar music , highlighting her desperation. During the performance of the song, sound effects of Frida viciously cutting her hair, punctuate the scene. This shows her violating her beauty in order to punish Diego who loved her long hair and punishing herself in anger and sorrow. The muted blues show her emotional distress at this point as blue is a cold unemotional colour, in direct contrast to the passionate reds Frida is seen wearing earlier in the film. In addition, costume has been used to show Frida rejecting the traditional Mexican costume of bright, bold colours and donning a male trouser suit which negates her sexuality. Through all these techniques, the viewer feels the sadness and heartache, Frida feels. The actual painting is brought to life as Frida is shown with her head tilted and looking directly at the camera, then slumping in her seat. This use of tableaux vivant is quite theatrical and is evidence of Taymor’s aesthetic. As an auteur, she is rendering Kahlo’s artwork to the viewer in her own artistic vision. Although in reality the painting was created years after Diego’s affair with her sister, Taymor uses it in a subjective way to mark Frida’s emotional turmoil.

• How to? Close reading, feedback on writing, discussion.

Personal response

• Capture at start of unit after first showing.

• Reiterate in close reading activities.

• Stress in feedback to body paragraph writing.

• Can be through “I” statements or through adjectives used: “powerful”, “dynamic”, “interesting”, “thought provoking”….

• Must take a stance on the question.

Socratic seminars

• Students get into pairs and devise questions based on the film or a reading.

• Two circles are created – the inner circle where students can ask their questions and discuss their answers; the outer circle where students cannot talk but can pass notes to the person on the inner circle and support their partner. Students in the outer circle can record the discussion. In the next discussion, students change places.

Close readingTechnique: visual/ verbal

Effect Director’s intention/ purpose

Personal response and judgements

Crane shot of La Casa Azul. Camera moving down into the house/ courtyard to ground level. Men in background moving bed. Mexican music playing. Words of song in English mean: And she is the flame That rises up And she is a bird in flight In the nightthat catches fire Hell is this heaven

Vibrant colours shown: particularly blue, red, green.. Establishes Mexican setting and focus on animals that pervade the house and her work: parrot, deer, peacock, monkey, puppies. Quite exotic animals. Camera movement draws viewer in to the world. Cacti abundant, as well as small statuettes showing we are in Mexico. Bed is of significance as this is how Frida will be transported and is also the place where she has been trapped. Music quite high pitched organ music after singing: surreal, suggesting something unusual is happening.

The blue house was an extraordinarily important place to Frida and was built by her father. She lived and worked there. It now is a museum to Frida and houses artifacts from her life. The setting is inextricably linked to Frida. The shot of the house combined with the music of a woman singing in Mexican establishes the mood and tone of the opening – quite serious but vibrant. All elements of the scene are reflected in Frida’s paintings. Words of song very pertinent to Frida. She is the bird who wants to be free but who is caught and suffers. Her life is “hell” due to all the pain she has endured over the years, both physical and emotional. Frida herself talks about not needing feet to be able to “fly”. Flying is a sense of freedom for her. Purpose establishes Frida’s influences in her work, her environment and Mexican culture.

Forming judgements and conclusions

• Evidence of judgements and conclusions formed in relation to the question show a student who is thinking and who will therefore achieve success at level 3, as opposed to the student who dumps notes with little direct discussion of the question.

• How to? Link in with work on research standard and how judgements are formed by synthesising information from across texts. Model in class discussion. Reward in essays.

Auteur theory: an over view

“Auteur theory was articulated in the 1950s by French film critics, most notably by Francois Truffaut. The concept describes the mark of a film director in terms of: thematic or stylistic consistencies, personal aesthetic vision, recurring themes, established technique, a defined view of the world and a significant degree of control over production. The works of an auteur director are stamped by the personality and unique artistic vision of its creator, and are as recognizable and distinctive as the creators of any other work of art. In auteur films, it is the director who controls the artistic statement, takes credit for the film, and is primarily responsible for attracting the audience.”

Ebert, Roger. 2002. The Great Movies. Chicago: Broadway Publishers.

Auteur theory: the critics• Starting in the 1960s, some film critics began criticising Auteur theory's focus on the

authorial role of the director. One reason for the backlash is the collaborative aspect of shooting a film (one person cannot do everything) and in the theory's privileging of the role of the director (whose name, at times, has become more important than the movie itself). In Kael's review of Citizen Kane, a classic film for the Auteur model, she points out how the film made extensive use of the distinctive talents of co-writer Herman J. Mankiewicz and cinematographer Gregg Toland.

• Notable screenwriters such as Ernest Lehman, Nicholas Kazan, Robert Riskin, and William Goldman have publicly balked at the idea that directors are more authorial than screenwriters, while film historian Aljean Harmetz, referring to the creative input of producers and studio execs in classical Hollywood, argues that the Auteur Theory "collapses against the reality of the studio system.“

• The Auteur theory was also challenged by the influence of New Criticism, a school of literary criticism. The New Critics argued that critics made an "intentional fallacy" when they tried to interpret works of art by speculating about what the author meant, based on the author's personality or life experiences. New Critics argued that that information or speculation about an author's intention was secondary to the words on the page as the basis of the experience of reading literature. Wikipedia.

Recognised style

• Through genre: Does the film contain many features of the genre? The biopic, for example, will focus on the life story of an individual and dictates that the film will be chronological, focus on real places, people, times. How does the director recreate this?

• Through director/ auteur: What is their signature style? How does this film fit in with their body of work? Concept of the “camera-pen” – director wields the camera like a pen. Importance of mis-en-scene.

• Auteur theory works in opposition to genre theory so there is tension between the two. Often a director will subvert a genre convention in order to develop their own style. Taymor, for example, uses masks and puppetry and is heavily influenced by her background in the theatre. Hospital scene.

• How to? Get students to draw on their own knowledge of genre and then analyse key scenes where genre is clear or subverted in some way. Constant reference back to style of the film.

Film Theory – developing higher level thinking

• As well as auteur and genre theory:

• Concept of the “gaze” – Laura Mulvey -watch Bond Gaze: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfL09c4cw2I.

• Concept of self-reflexivity/ postmodernism – film draws attention to itself, to its lack of realism. Run Lola Run, animation. Watch Frida - postcard scene.

• Reading through different lenses: feminist, post colonial, Freudian, Marxist….

How to write a successful essay• Teach a structure and teach students to go beyond the structure.

• Introduction – define terms in the question. Take a stance.• T – thesis statement• I – implication – what does thesis mean?• E – example and analysis• R – relevance to self, wider world, question.• TIER/ TIERER/ TIERIER/ TIRERER• Conclusion – hardest – need to summarise but not using the same words.

• “It proved very challenging for candidates to regurgitate notes; hence tenuous links and tag-ons within/to paragraphs were by far the most common ways candidates attempted to address the questions. Only able candidates who actually understood and responded to the question produced essays of quality, insight, depth and personal response.” Marker’s report 2008

Exemplars

• Get students to colour code and annotate.

• Get students to write body paragraphs and give feedback on the body paragraph.

• As a class, write two different body paragraphs showing two different approaches to the same question.

Finally

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLEPyg3eoog

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqYiSlkvRuw

Annotate the body paragraph with thesis statement, implication, exemplars, judgements, links to self/ wider world.

How can the paragraph be improved?

Can you apply any of the things I have covered to the film you are currently studying?

Any questions?