Lecture One

There are two main questions which we will be considering this term. The first deals with a semantic question which deals with definitional problems. The first of these is (a) how does one define “non fiction film” and what films fall into that category. Obviously the answer to the first part will to some degree restrict the answer to the the second part.

The second question deals with the nature of bias and prejudice. Even here we can see the problems of definition raising its ugly head. For a example a word like “discrimination” not long ago had a positive meaning which we still find in phrases like “he is a very discriminating person”. One can easily “skew” things by choice of word. Words like “Taiwan” and “Formosa” refer to the same piece of real estate, but indicate some difference in political orientation. Many racial and ethnic groups also have double terms – one which is offensive and one which is not. Italians and “wops” Jews and “Kikes” and so on.

Words have (a) denotational or referential meaning, (b) connotational meaning and (c) emotional aspects to them. Reference meaning deals with what the word refers to, denotational meaning.

Many people talk about the “arbitrary” nature of words saying “a word means whatever you want them to. That isn’t quite true, there needs to be agreement on what words mean otherwise there is no communication (which some people may argue there isn’t – but the very fact they can argue over it means that there has been some agreement. In a story a man hires a serving girl and says he wants to be called “master of all master”. The house is to be called “High Topper Mountain” The cat is called “white faced simany”, fire is called “hot cockalorum” and water “pondalorum”

(If you want to read the stories you can find theon the internet. One can be found at http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/eft/eft43.htm or http://www.katedudding.com/master.shtml

One of the things that often develops are special languages (cants- often seen as a secret language – particularly of the underworld in which ordinary words have different meanings , paroles, argots, jargons – technical vocabulary of a given occupation) – all terms with special meanings which are associated with specific occupations or trades (port, starboard), there are social variations in language (fourth floor) which differ from other social dialects, there are geographical variations (Oklahoma pin/pen). Academicians are prone to writing in “special languages” with their own vocabularies which often use words with “technical definitions” (myth)

Consider that it is OK to say feces, intercourse and vagina, but other terms (shit, fuck and cunt) which refer to the same things are tabued. Standard English is a specific kind of English native to virtually no one, which is used for writing technical papers. The term “register” is sometimes used to distinguish the different levels of the language. Students seem to have more and more trouble lately understanding this aspect of language, and tend to write papers more and more in a register appropriate to e-mails but not academic papers. Language definitely has a social aspect to it,

Now we talk about “the language of film”. The question that needs to be considered here is how does one bias or skew film language? Much of film studies deals with the way in which directors and cinematographers constantly make choices relative to lenses, film stocks, composition, lighting, set decoration, costuming and so on. Each of the choices that are made imply a kind of bias. So it should be clear that bias is very possible in images as well as in words. Since all films make choices can there be any film which is non biased (Is there such a thing as a non biased film?)

The term “variable” is used to indicate the variety of choices that are possible. For example one can chose to make a film in color or in black and white. Color is one variable and black and white is another. The choices that are possible in lenses for example are far more than two. Lenses have many focal lengths and each one has its own characteristics. On every shot, the director and film director need to make a decision about which lens to use. Decisions need to be made about composition which has almost limitless variables in that “domain”. Part of the decision about composition will involve for example, the distance between the camera and subject which when coupled with lens produces a huge number of possibilities. NON FICTION FILM Genre is a word, which like all other words, needs to be defined. It implies a “type” of “film” (but not stock). Once we define “genre” we can define a number of sub groups. Consider something like the Linnean classification in biology which is a kind of taxonomic classification. (Things are done in levels)

		Kingdom = Animal
		Phylum = chordate
Clas s= reptilia (reptiles)	Class = aves (birds)	Class = mammal	Class = amphibians	Class = chrondriichthys
Order = squamata	Order = struthionforms	Order = primate	Order= Salientia	Order = elasmobranchii
Family = gekkonidae	Family = Struthionidae	Family = homind	Family=Ranidae	Family = Selachii
Genus = Gekko	Genus = Strutho	Genus = Homo	Genus = Rana	Genus = Carcharodon
Species = gecko	Species = camelus	Species = sapiens	Species - catesbeiana	species = carcharias
Tokay Gecko	ostrich	people	bullfrog	Great White shark

So the genre can have sub genre Crime films Prison prison (Is an X a kind of Y? If yes a sub group) The number of genres depends on how one defines the term, as does the number of genres and subgenres. Consider genres like “comedy” “drama” “musicals” etc. Do “crime films” fall under dramas? Or is it possible to have a prison film which is a comedy? The problems are very complicated.

A QUESTION OF GENRE AND CLASSIFICATION

The question of classification of films into types constitutes a debatable practice. There are those who would claim that classification into types or more properly “genres” is significant only for marketing purposes. Others have proposed only three genres: fiction, non fiction and experimental. Even with only three there is

Structural Classifications

Functional Classification

Well, the question I am sort of raising is with non fiction film is really non fiction. By virtue of the particular choice of material, narration or what have you the film must of necessity have a bias and in many instances the bias is an opinion rather than anything based on scientific evidence. It is sort of like the religious approach - for those who don't believe no proof is possible and for those who do, no proof is necessary. Films like The Thin Blue Line are involved in reenactments which of course are debatably accurate and may have little relationship to the things that happened. Is Inherit the Wind a non-fiction film because it is based on a real event being re-enacted (bit not saying so? Whereas Zelig is a "real" documentary (at least in terms of style) even though the life it documents is completely false. So where does documentary begin and fiction leave off?

Some have said there are only three genres: fiction, non fiction and experimental. Even with these three, some films are hard to fit into a category as we will discuss later.

Many of the books on non fiction films tend to equate non fiction with documentaries but in a sense, there may be as many “sub genres” to non fiction as there are in fiction films. Documentary may be just one kind.

We need also to consider the question of “form” and “content”. How does the structure of something indicate the content (with or without bias, if such a thing is possible). One of the questions we need to examine is whether or not non fiction films differ from fiction films in form and/or content.

Consider a film like Zelig which is a “documentary” in the sense it is a biographical film in a specific style. But it is a biography of a non existent person.

What about narrative films based on real events? Biopics for example. Is Night and Day (about Cole Porter) a documentary? Suppose I want to make a documentary film about a crime which happened some years ago in Queens? I will use reenactments and so on. A woman and her boyfriend kill off her husband for insurance money. The boyfriend, a salesman, gets the husband to sign without knowing it. Alas it has already been made. It is called Double Indemnity.

Part of the question of defining is what criteria are used in definition of “non fiction films” The sub genres may be things like documentaries, educational films, art films, and so on.

We begin by looking at some early films – many of which are non fiction. Some are debatable. The early film of the workers leaving the factory is an interesting one. They are actually the workers and that is the Lumiere’s factory. The workers, however, knew they were being filmed and so the question is are we watching a documentary or a scripted fiction film in which a real event is being reenacted?

In another sense we can see the film showing “Sandow, the Strong Man”. Is this a fiction or non fiction film? Is it documenting his performance? In that regard all films with performances are documentary since they document the performance? In the case of, for example, opera singers, many people interested would like to know in what films specific singers appear as performers. Kirsten Flagstad one of the great Wagnerian sopranos appears in The Big Broadcast of 1938 singing Brünhilde’s Battle Cry (Hei ya to ho) from the 2nd act of Wagner’s Die Walküre (the opera from which comes the “Ride of the Valkyrie” used so effectively in the helicopter scenes in Apocalypse Now).

While no one would argue the Big Broadcast of 1938 is a non-fiction film, there are non-fiction elements in it.

An interesting question can be raised as well between the difference between a play and a circus. What kind of distinctions can you draw between them?

The material about the film, Nanook of the North and Robert Flaherty can be found here after the film has been discussed in class Anthropology is divided into ywo major areas, Physical and Cultural anthropology. Physical anthropologgy studies people as biological organisms, while cultural anthropology deals with social and behavior patters. Like other words, "culture" as a word has multiple meanings even among anthropologists/ Cultural anthropology itself is divided into three areas: archaeology, linguistics and ethnography/ethnology. Archaeology deals with past cultures through their material culture. Linguistics deals with language. Ethnography is a writing about a specific groups of people like "The Cheyenne" or "The Towo of Northern Australia". Ethnography looks at specific cultural institutions such as religion, social organization, folklore and so on cross culturally (that is to see it looks at these areas in differnt cultures).

Ethnograpic films then, are films which set out to record the way of life of a given people. There is little doubt that ethnographic films are clearly a kind of non fiction film. There are numberous problems associated with them.