LECTURE TWO
SOME TERMS
Movement:
Camera:
Homage: A tribute paid to someone by citing their filmic work.
Superimposition: film is expored and run back a short distance, then re-exposed with some change in what is being photographed. For a short while the unchanged and changed aspects appear simultaneously (two images appear on top of one another).
Montage: In Russian editing, the bringing together of shots to give additional meaning to the film Historically:
Zootrope: Round box like object with slits in the side. A paper with several images goes inside and when the box is spun on a spindle, the images viewed through the smits appear to move.
Muybridge: Race horse problem: Are all four legs off the ground at once. Set of serial photos which are precursors to film
EARLY FILMS
Motion picture film begins to differ from still phQ¯QŲ%lphy more and more as several possibilities are realized.
What is art? (consider core – art, music required. Not film)
The Great Train Robbery on the other hand emphasizes realism not "film tricks. These two appraoches develop into two different approaches - a formalist one, where emphasis is more on making people aware of the film and its structure, as opposed to realism which stress the content of the film in the hopes that viewers will basically feel they are looking at a real event through a window (almost). Realism is ofetn assisted by such techniques as long shots. Think about the shot where the passengers are made to get off the train and have their valuables taken from them.
The final scene of the man pointing his pistol at the camera (audience) and firing is one of the first close-ups. It was so impressive to audiences the projectionists often showed it before the film and after as well!
An important part deals with the connection between shots. Shots are like words, editing is like grammar. An important aspect of linking shots is called "montage" which has several meanings. In Russian editing it means juxtaposing shots so that an additional meaning can be seen. It is a kind of "The sum is greater than the whole of its parts". Examples were shown from Stachka (Strike) (1925) (sergei Eisenstein, director); Apocalypse Now (1979) (Francis Ford Coppola, director) and Bowling for Columbine (2002) (Michael Moore. director). In one theory of aesthetics proposed by the Prague School of linguistics, the artistic use of languages differs from its normal use in that it systematically builds and breaks patters in order to create a dynamic tension.
While the Prague school was interested largely in language, the idea has wider application. It has been applied for example to music and here we will try to apply it to the art of film. In order to do this we need to define domains which have variables within them, and which can not co-occur, while the domains themselves can. For example, a shot may be a close-up or a medium or long shot but it can not be all of them at once. Similarly a shot may have deep focus or not, but it can not have both at the same time. However, one can have any kind of distance with any kind of focus. The term “domain” is used here to refer to the collection of things which contains a set of variables which can not co occur with one another, while the domains can co occur. Last time we discussed the kinds of “domains” in which variation can take place as regards film. Some of the things we discussed were:
Photography:
Composition in the frame:
composing he shot. How is the area filled? Where are people placed in the frame. Balance and symmetry.
Camera angles. Where is the camera placed relative to the subjects?
Lighting
lighting the shot
How is lighting done. Very complex – generally the “common” unmarked form is three point – main fill in and back. Lights are placed also at different heights for different effects. More on this when we talk about lighting
Color
Movement
1. By the camera
(panning, zooming, dolly shots)
2. By the performers
how do people enter and leave the frame? How is the camera placed.
Exposure
Quality of the media (film- with all the variations of speed and pushing, video tape)
Lenses (telephoto, wide angle etc.)
Editing
Rhythm (one serious problem with pan and scan is it loses the rhythm of the film)
Parallel cutting
Form cuts
Transitions: dissolves, fades etc. wipes
Sound
Sound within the film is going to constitute a domain which we have not yet visited. It has many variables in terms of volume, on or off screen, diegetic or not and so on). In regards to the latter, background music (unheard by the characters in the film) is a non-diagetic sound which needs considering.
Sets:
What kind of sets are there – are they realistic or not? Can you place them as to place and time?
Costumes and make-up:
Are these realistic or not? Expressionistis?
Symbolism –semiotics – study of signs
”Signs” is a general technical term for things with reference, They may be symbols, icons of indices (singular = index). An index is like a fever – a sign of an illness. An icon has some real world connections between the symbol and its referent, A symbol has an arbitrary (or somewhat arbitrary) reference. The foot print of a dog is an icon, the word dog is a symbol. Burying a body so it faces west is rather symbolic but the connection between the west as the setting place for the celestial bodies makes it an obvious (but not necessary) choice.
Motifs, tropes etc.
Ir is possible to hold at some level all of the other aspects of film making may have symbolic aspects to them.
IT IS IMPORTANT to know the meaning of something used as a symbol within that culture. What does it mean? How is it related to other works of art? What is its referent in general within the culture? (reindeer and Santa Clause)
A general education should make students familiar with many of he symbols found in art.
We try to look at all of these to see how they impact on the story telling aspect of the film.
Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari (The Cabinet of Dr, Caligari)
1920
Robert Wiene, director
Some terms
Mise en scene
A rather loose phrase from theater meaning “everything in the set. In film tends to refer to everything in the frame – sets, props, costumes, arrangements of people and so on. Different writers define the term somewhat differently.
Does not include editing and camera positions and movements
Horror is a genre which is typified by:
Although it often crosses with science fiction, the latter films are generally more involved with world catastrophy than individual problems. Alfred Hitchock's Psycho is often considered a classic horror film in these respects. What kinds of sub-genres are there in horror?
Are monster movies "horror" films?
Psycho is a kind of psychological horror.
Are there are supernatural horror films? Consider films like The Exorcist. How Would you classify films such as Curse of the Demon or Cat People where there is some question as to whether the events are real or imagined?
Are the three films we are about to see similar? How similar are they?
Consider the structure of the film. How is it put together? Would a different structure alter the film's meaning - that is would we read it differently?
I. Variables in film:
1. tells you something about where, when or who made the object. “In the style of the people of the Pacific” in the style of the 1800’s”, “in the style of Shakespere”.
2. Some styles are named: modernism, postmodernism, impressionism, expressionism. This last is awkward since almost all art expresses something, but in this case it is an internal state of the artist (often) that is being expressed. The result in film is that expressionist films do not look like the real world.
3. Germany in the 1920’s experimented with an expressionist style which we see in the two short films today “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” and “Nosferatu”. Since many German film makers fled Germany for the US shortly after this, the style has some impact on American on American film in a somewhat diluted version. Americans by and large have been growing away from this style of film making, looking for more and more reality in the films. No matter how fantastical the film, it should LOOK real. These films do not.
4. Expressionism can not use the real world to film in. All the scenes are shot in doors where directors have complete control over all aspects of the film making process.
5. Expressionism is important for films which lie outside the “real world” in some way. The are usable for fantasy, supernatural and supernatural horror and other films of that sort.
Cabinet of Caligari:
What is the structure of the film?
What is the set design for the first part of the frame? More naturalistic. Garden seems reasonably real.
Who is mad? If the scenes with the mad man in them are equally distorted who is the narrator?
In the end section (the second half of the frame story) do the sets appear naturalistic or expressionistic?
Are there times when the film appears to link Caligari and Mr. Francis, the narrator.
What does the film says about "control"?
Caligari is interested having people commit acts they normally would not, but that someone could get them to do that. This questions the nature of how people could have ben misled by a government in WW I, hence the film has strong overtones about war, and WWI in particular.
Some questions to ponder
Does the film leave its surreal nature after Francis stops the narration? It does for a moment in the garden but once we are in the mental institution, the sets look suspiciously like those in the surreal middle section of the film. The cell into which Francis is thrown is obviously the same cell Caligari was put into, although the wall drawings have shifted.
What is the meaning of Caligari's last line after he realizes that Francis believes he is Caligari "Now I know how to cure him?" Does it imply that once the deception is understood it can be cured?
On a subtextual level, the film deals with the question of the control of people by governments in leading them into wars.
There has been a great deal of argument about the structure of this film. The original writers maintain that the "frame story" was added later against their wishes. Actual ecidence shows a frame story from the start. It would appear however that the original frame story is different and implies the narrator is not insane. The addition of an unreliable narrator makes one suspect that the idea of control by another is in fact a mad idea since it is told by a madman. That is to say the framing story completely stands the internal story on its head.