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WEEK TEN
1974
TERMS
Scopophilia: desire to see. Somewhat akin to voyeurism which has a more sexual aspect to it.
Drama 1.a. A prose or verse composition, especially one telling a serious story, that is intended for representation by actors impersonating the characters and performing the dialogue and action. b. A serious narrative work or program for television, radio, or the cinema. 2. Theatrical plays of a particular kind or period: Elizabethan drama.
mel·o·dra·ma A drama, such as a play, film, or television program, characterized by exaggerated emotions, stereotypical characters, and interpersonal conflicts
Plot/text: the story
Theme/subtext: deper meaning. What is the play about?
BEFORE THE FILM
Genre Revisited
Genres as generally used appear to have two components of meaning to them. One deals with the emotional tone of the film, the other with content. Dramas, comedies, melodramas, horror and so on are descriptions of a particular emotional state that the author wats to produce in a film (or book). It is, of course, completely possible to have works which strive to produce more than one emotinal state.
The other aspect has to do with content: action, science fiction, disaster, musical and so on. Hence one can have a musical comedy as well as a musical drama, although there are strong tendencies for specific forms to fall together. When there is some variation, then a kind of double genre is developed - "historical drama" for example links the emotinoal state with the content. Disasters by and large are dramas or melodramas - a distinction not always particularly clear, since whether the emotinos are exaggerated or not may depend on the perception of the viewer among other things. Disasters by their very nature tend to produce a kind of "over the top" set of circumstances and emotions.
There is something of a history of combining disasters with a large cast of famous stars. This pattern is in direct conflict with last week's film A Night to Remember (1958) which was a film with a virtually unknown cast. This is, of course, not unique to disaster films, but any film in which there are a large number of characters sharing roughly equal billing. Films like Murder on the Orient Express (1974) or Murder by Death (1976) are examples of mysteries using large famous casts. Some epics like Duel in the Sun (1946) and The Ten Commandments (1956) also have large numbers of stars. A film like The High and the Mighty (1954) is an early example of disaster film with a large cast, although its disaster status is questionable since the plane which may crash does not.Similarly Airport (1970) is an early disaster film in which the actual disaster is rather minor. None the less, both of these films involve people in danger in an isolated place (usually a plane) where help from the outside is shakey at best. The awful sequels which followed Airport 1975, (1974); Aiport '77 (1977); and Airport '79 The Concorde; 1979 are much more disaster films and have infinitely less to do with an airport! What linked them together was the idea of following the hugely successful Airport with films about plane disasters.
Today's film, The Towering Inferno (1974) follows Poseidon Adventure (1972) in time, but the two, along with Earthquake (1974) are the classic examples of the kinds of disaster films which were spawned in the 1970's.
One "characteristic" of these films is that there is a large cast of famous performers, and a set of characters that are rather shallow. It has been argued that such a situation leads to an audience identifying with the star rather than the charaacter. Part of the reason, it is said, for going to these films is to see what happens to your favorite performer (a kind of scopophilia) - does he or she survive or not? In some cases, the character may have survived in the book on which the film was based, but did not in the movie and visa versa. So knowledge of the book was not helpful.
Situations are often deliberately set to provoke a specific emotional response byt using standard tried and true situations to get a specific response out of the audience. (the "Spielberg Syndrome")
Disaster films are often claimed to have two dimensional characters. There is a sub category of disaster films in which there are large numbers of famous performers, and there is a certain interest is trying to decide what will happen to a certain performer – that is will they or won’t they survive. Hence there is a certain amount of “inter-textuality” here or at least the reading of the film relative to specific characters.
AFTER THE FILM
What are the plot and theme of the film? How are they handled in both the script and the filim?
It has been said that disaster movies are basically conservative. The evidence for this lies often lies in the answer to the questin "Who gets killed" and the potential "moral" reason behind it.
Remember are basic disaster film questions:
What social statuses are found in the film?
Where is the blame placed?
Who dies? Why?
What does the disaster represent?
a. People involved
1. Police
2 .Military
3. Fire department
4. Scientists
5. Religious practitioners (priests, ministers, shamans)
6. Politicians
7. Media (newspaper, radio and T.V. reporters)
8. Civilians
b. Aspects of the disaster and what do they represent?
i. Place of origin
outer space
terrestrial
c. cause
i. actual
a. Natural (some may be considered cause by human agent – sometimes seen as divine)
volcanic
earthquake
storm
b. human agency
technological
greed
meddling with nature
plague
etc.
d. blame
i. divine
ii. Human agency:
technical – planes, ships, trains, buildings, dams,
emotional – greed, hatred etc.
tampering with nature
atomic, biological
e. resolution
i. Is the disaster prevented, curtailed or does destruction occur?
i. retribution/retaliation – who dies?
f. Symbolism
a. What does the disaster represent if anything? (disruption of society)
b. What can you say about it in terms of when the film was made?
c. What meaning, if any, can be attributed to who lives and who dies.
d How is the disaster resolved –if it is? (reestablishment of society – under what conditions)
1.
g. Film tecniques and coding
1. Countdown:
2. Special effects:
3. lighting:
4. sound:
diegetic
non diegetic
5.Sartotial: (clothing, make up)
Scene revealing tender or bad nature of person before death. Look at ancient Greek tragedy - nurse in Elektra discusses childhood of Orestes before his arrival to kill his mother.
Jennifer Jones has long scene with Astair before getting on elevator.
Richard Chamberlain reveals "true" nature by trying to escape before others. This makes him more detestable in some ways than his "cost cutting".
Not everyone who dies is a bad person. Obviously if only bad people died we might hope for more disasters!
Do characters seem shallow or do they have depth? Is it important with this many characters to have recognizable stars to help keep people inthe film clear to the audience?
Film techniques:
Editing:
Scene cutting - cut away and back to prolong action of scene as well as tension. We leave a scene at an important moment to go to a different scene with the resolution left behind - a kind of scene interruptus!
Scenes are often parallel with opposite results. Children are in room behind 2 doors. Newman and Simpson get in and rescue them. Robert Wagner and Susan Flannery are in room behind sets of doors. They are both killed, but films juxtapose the two events.
Visual: film is color coded - blue/water/safety vs. red/fire/danger
Opening scene from helicopter - high; over water and through clouds - presage water and smoke of fire and extinguishers.
Images of entrapment - People in frames within frames - (especially in shafts or stairwells). Often broken metals form bars across faces.
Smoke obscures things.
Move in for close-ups in moments of either tension or introspection (before disaster where men fasten themselves to objects to prepare for blast and flood)
Some thematic material
Film is dedicated to firefighters (pre Backdraft which makes firefighter pawns in political game.) This is film is in the genre of "warning" film. Like many other films and books (like Upton Sinclair's The Jungle or Morgan Robertsonthe Wreck of the Titan or Futility) this film attempts to point out the problems some specific industry (e.g. meat packing, luxury liners). This film makes a stab at cost cutting in safety measures for corporate profits in the building of VERY high rise buildings. It does it rather poorly.
The film also allows for an exploration of heroism and cowardice.
Questions about the nature of sacrificing safety for profit
Sound:
Sound off screen - sound of fire, wind, sirens etc.
Sartorial codes:
Contrast between uniformed services (fire, police, navy) and formal dress/informal dress
Is the film conservative?
Some points are the establishment of a code of honor, ethics and morality which are seen as somewhat "old fashioned" perhaps today (e.g. women and children first etc.). Similar codes are often in found in Westerns. In some cases more recently esprit du corps, which had been seen as positive becomes negative The Thin Blue Line, A Few Good Men(1992)
Bad people are those who are immoral and/or unethical. Some of them die, but the builder (William Holden) lives. The film seems to try to balance off deaths, so one of a pair may die. Jones/Astair
Chamberlain (Roger Simmons who did not use proper materials)/Norman Burton (Will Gittings - 1st to go as result of burns recieved pushing another out of the door way which explodes).
Politicians die.