THE FINAL EXAM

Here are rough draft answers to three of the four questions. They should indicate to you what is meant by “discuss” and what kinds of information should be included in the answers.

1.”READING IN" VS “READING OUT”

Reading into a text involves imposing a meaning on the text as opposed to reading out, which involves the elucidation of a text by revealing a hidden meaning (subtext). The major difficulty lies in trying to decide whether or not one has imposed a meaning or simply discovered it. How can one know which is happening. One could argue that the artist might tell the analyst whether the interpretation is one that is intended, but the artist may not be approachable, or more cynically, they might lie – especially if the artist thought that the interpretation was particularly interesting and therefore something they would like to admit to, or sufficiently stupid that the artist rejects the interpretation – even if it were true.

Texts are conceived of as coded messages which contain some meanings which are revealed through hermeneutics - an analytic technique which allows the analyst to arrive at a meaning by decoding the material.

In films, the coding is done by the manipulation of variables. By altering a variable, the meaning of the text may be altered. Since every art form has its own domains from which the artist selects variables, it is crucial to understand what these are for film. Among the more obvious are those that are unique to motion pictures like editing and camera movement. Many, like choice of lens, lighting, camera placement and so on, are also found in still photography and to some degree in painting and drawing.

One of the significant indicators of “reading out” of the text has to with the consistency of the variables and the way they might all point in a similar direction. If it can be shown that symbols, lighting, composition and other variables are all indicating a certain interpretation, a stronger argument might be made for “reading out” of the text rather than “reading into” the text.

The attempts to document the way at which an analyst arrives at the meaning can be shown to be consistent and somewhat rigorous it is likely to indicate that the meaning is being read out of the text than if the analyst simply says “I feel that…” or “I think that…”

One complexity that arises in interpreting a text and sub text is rooted in the idea that general cultural information is necessarily going to appear in the text/subtext and this may not, in fact, be the basic message that is being coded, but none the less may be there. Social standings between genders, ethnic groups and so one are in the culture and are likely to be reflected in the film although these may not be the thrust of what the analyst has “deciphered”.

Consider two films, Inherit the Wind and The Haunting. While, the former deals with a fictionalized depiction of the “Scopes Monkey trial’ which involved a teacher being tried for teaching evolution in a state where this was illegal, the subtext is more about control of thought and reflects heavily on the McCarthy hearings and is not discussing the science/religion debate which is going on, on the surface of the film. None the less, the decision to chose such a battle as the metaphor for the subtext is something which can be questioned as well.

2. This was largely giving filmic examples of how the text and subtext are handled.

3. FILM AS LANGUAGE

Language is a form of communication, but not the only one. All communication involves the sending of a message which has been coded by the sender to a receiver who is able to decode it and arrive at the meaning.

In language, sounds are put together into words which are then put together in grammatical structures (phrases and sentences). The choice of word is significant as is the way they are put into sentences. “John loves Maty” is certainly different than “Richard likes Jane”, yet the structure of the sentences remains the same. On the other hand John loves Mary not the same as Mary loves John although all the pieces are the same their arrangement is different. This is the difference between paradigmatic and syntagmatic relationships.

In films, the shot is seen as the minimal unit. It is through the editing that the grammatical forces operate. By ordering the pieces (syntagmatic) the grammatical structure of a film can be seen to parallel the grammatical structure of the sentence. Editing is, in effect the grammatical structure of the film. The length of the shot, the kind of cut (on form, on action, etc.) optical transitions (fades, wipes, irises) can take on meaning in the same way that the way in which the shifts in sentences can make differences. John sent a telegram to the mayor; the mayor was sent a telegram by John; a telegram was sent to the mayor by John all mean basically the same thing – John does the sending, the telegram is what gets sent and the mayor in the recipient in all cases, and yet the focus is different. Similarly it is possible through the structuring of the films edits to alter the focus of the audiences attention.

On the other hand, there are many domains in which variation can take place. Among these are composition, lighting, lens choice; choice of film stock, and a host of others.

Setting one domain against another can impact the meaning as well. Two men like the same woman. One is in the house with the woman, the other is outside the house. If the music is happy, it pushes the audience to identify with the man in the house; if sad, with the man outside the house.

When the film maker shoots a film, each variable must be carefully chosen to make sure that all the variables work toward the same end and the message is not confused.

The comparison of film with language therefore is that language and film are both codes which senders can use to send their messages to receivers, who through hermeneutic techniques can decode the film. Linguistic codes tend to be more shared than the codes used in art which may be highly personal and the artist needs to find way for the audience to have sufficient information to be able to decode the messages being sent.

4. GENRE

Genre raises a question of classification. How does one classify? Who gets to make the classification? What is the purpose of the classification?

The term genre refers to “kind” but it is unclear what features are used to classify. Normally one does not think of a “color” genre and a “black and white” genre as genres. Yet color and black and white are “kinds” of film.

There are analysts who feel that the concept of genre is constructed more by analysts and marketing executives and not by film makers, who are simply out to make a film. Marketing executives are often interested in what kind of audiences a film will attract and define films relative to the audiences that attend such films. Since currently audiences tend to be made up of specific age and gender groups which leads to companies funding films which appeal to these audiences. Hence the development of types is a market driven concept.

Others feel that there may be only three genres – fiction, non-fiction and experimental films. Just how these are defined (or who got to define them) is unclear. There have been arguments over whether films like Memento are experimental of fiction and whether any of the Michael Moore films are documentary (non-fiction) or fiction. In this system one would expect a number of “genres” under a kind of macro genre “non-fiction”. These might be documentary, educational, aesthetic, propaganda and so on.

On the other hand there are films which are geared to producing specific emotions. These are films classified by the emotional reaction they hope to produce – comedy, drama, horror, terror, thriller and so on. Others have some consistent kinds of content: science fiction, monsters, westerns and so one. In general, one can combine an emotional type with a content. Generally drama is not used in combination “comedy western” seems reasonable but “drama western” seems a bit odd.

Whatever the cause for the classification, many films straddle more than one genre. These compound or mixed genre films indicate that elements of both genres can be found in the film. Which one is the strongest is often difficult to tell. Comedy westerns might appeal to audiences that are fond of westerns and not comedies as well as to “pro comedy” audiences whose members generally do not like westerns. If only one audience responds well, it might indicate to which genre the films leans.

For those who accept the concept of genre, there are a number of issues to be decided. First is the question of what features does a film need to have to be placed in a specific genre. The second is a question of the “set pieces” or the crucial scenes for that particular genre. These are moments where the film makers get to “show off” and specularize the event in order to fulfill the audiences’ scopophilia. For westerns such a scene might be a gun fight, for monster films, the appearance of the monster, in disaster films, the scenes in which the film makers show off their special effects department’s ability to “create” the disaster on the screen.

Genres have stories or texts which are structurally generally similar, but over time there have to be developments in the genre. At some point in the evolution of the genre, differences may begin to emerge which indicate the appearance of a new genre. Alfred Hitchock’s Psycho may be seen as the end point of the horror film if that is defined in terms of the “eruption of the repressed”. While the film has two violent murders by stabbing, the amount of blood is minimal. None the less, the film seems to have spawned one or two sets of films known as gore and slasher films. For some people these are not subdivisions of horror films, but new genres because the nature of the sub text is different. Such an argument implies that the nature of the subtext are possible grounds for the classification of films into separate genres. This indicates that the question of what criteria are used to define a genre are still open to debate.