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Slices of cinematic traditions: Stills from Ankur (Parallel
Cinema), Breathless (Nouvelle Vague) and
Nosferatu (German Expressionism)
Outtakes: FILM MOVEMENT
What
it is..
A term in film criticism used to denote a set of films made
during a particular period of time
and usually in a particular geographical location that share
similar aesthetic, political or
philosophical concerns. A Film Movement may or may not be backed
by agenda, theory orliterature published by the filmmakers.
Normally, it is the community of critics that
recognises disparate films as being part of movements.
Why
IT IS SPECIAL...
The establishment of a Film Movement acts as a roadmap of sorts
for filmmakers, who can
orient their works based on stylistic constraints, sociological
concerns or end needs.
Moreover, classification of films into movements often helps get
a better understanding of
film history and assess the lineage of a particular film with
ease, much like traditional
historiography.
How
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IT IS CHARACTERISED:
Features
Film Movements, unless they are supported by elaborate
theoretical texts by the filmmakers
themselves, are classified by critics generally based on
similarities between films originatingfrom a country in a short
period of time. These similarities may be in the method of
filmmaking, the kind of world view they adopt or the aesthetic
strategies they employ.
Pitfalls
There is always a risk of grouping films that have nothing in
common other than surface
similarities and share no larger preoccupations into film
movements. For instance, the
success of a particular film might trigger a series of films
from the same country deriving
from the original and reducing the former to a formula. The
recent slew of village-based
Tamil films, then, should not ideally be called a Film
Movement.
When
does it evolve...
The idea of Film Movements has existed for about a hundred years
now. Various
movements have risen and fallen throughout the 20th century and
still do. Almost every one
of these evolved as response to a moment of crisis that is
either historical or artistic. The last
century the century of film has been rife with major crises that
cinema has responded to,
often as movements rather than stray individual films.
Where
to find it...
Major Film Movements have now been widely recognised and even
been canonised and
absorbed into academic discourses. The most famous film movement
in the history of
cinema is probably the Nouvelle Vague (New Wave) that originated
in France in the late
fifties and persisted till the end of the following decade. The
films that comprised this
movement not only broke away from tradition but have had an
incalculable influence onfilmmakers that followed.
Outtakes: Freeze Frame
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motionless pictures The shot comes to a halt in (clockwise from
above left) The 400 Blows, Rang De
Basanti, Young Frankenstein, The Birds.
What it is
An editing device in which one particular frame of a shot is
repeated a number of times in
succession. As a result, the shot seems to suddenly come to a
halt, freezing at that
particular frame. One could say that it is the momentary pausing
of the film by the
filmmaker. The soundtrack, however, could remain uninterrupted
during this duration of
time.
Why it is special...
The Freeze Frame is a highly self-reflexive device. That is, it
reduces film to its scientific
basis photography and prompts us to think about the nature of
the moving image ofcinema by, ironically but understandably,
stopping its movement. If one views cinema as a
living, respiring organism, the Freeze Frame is the moment when
it finds itself out of
breath, as it were.
When it is deployed...
In addition to scenarios such as described, Freeze Frames appear
regularly in action scenes,
where a combat is suddenly paused for effect. More surprising
and questionable use of the
technique is in certain news reports, where the most sensational
instant of an unusually
insignificant event is frozen and pointed out to the audience
over and over. In such cases,the Freeze Frame performs the same
dramatic function as in fiction.
Where to find it...
Just before the two characters are killed inRang De
Basanti(2006), the director freezes the
image of DJ and Karan as they smile one last time. Coupled with
the voiceover, the Freeze
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Frame renders the shot very potent, even making it the central
image of the film: a frozen
smile before death.
How it is used
Intense Drama
Freeze Frames are mostly used at intensely dramatic moments. A
crude and clichd example
would be the sudden freezing of shots of nature birds freezing
in flight, river water turning
still when key information is revealed to a character, in order
to illustrate his/her universe
suddenly coming to a standstill. Unsurprisingly, Freeze Frames
are generally reserved for
closing shots to maximise emotional impact.
Memory/Photographs
Freeze Frames are regularly used to suggest someone taking
photographs within a movie.
Usually accompanied with the sound of a camera click or with
crosshairs, these Freeze
Frames become the point-of-view shots of the camera. Similarly,
in scenes of jubilation,
such as the grand victory in a sports film, Freeze Frames are
used to present a very
cherished moment etched in memory forever.
