media

New Examples Appeal to Movie Buffs of Today — and Tomorrow Eye-catching new part and chapter openers spotlight recent movies like Man of Steel, Fruitvale Station, The Avengers, The Great Gatsby, The Heat, and Inception alongside classics like The Wizard of Oz, Psycho, and City of God, linking film’s rich history to contemporary cinema.

Reading about Film: Critical Theories and Methods C h A p T E R 1 1 427

new technology can be seen as merely enhancing the film experience as we have known it (for example, the return of 3-D technologies), in other ways it alters both the medium and our experience of it (for example, the puzzles, interactivity, and convergence culture of video games). Scholars continue to draw on the lega- cies of previous inquiries in film theory in order to identify the salient questions our contemporary audiovisual experience raises and to develop tools with which to address those questions.

11.33 The Matrix (1999). “What is the matrix?” the film’s ad campaign asked. Postmodern theorist Jean Baudrillard is quoted in the film.

This chapter has aimed to demystify the field of film theory, which is not to imply that readers will not have to struggle with theory or do some work to understand film on a more abstract plane. Because film theory is a notoriously difficult discourse, any summary gives it much more continuity than it actu- ally warrants. The film journals in which filmmakers like Eisenstein or Louis Delluc debated the new medium are not unlike film blogs that today consider the future of cinema in an age of media convergence. In reading and pick- ing apart theorists’ work, it is important to recall that referring to “theory” in the abstract is misleading. In reviewing Stuart Hall’s approach to reception theory or Fredric Jameson’s definition of postmodernism, we look at concrete responses to intellectual challenges. The term “theory" is a useful, shorthand way to refer to a body of knowledge and a set of questions. We study this corpus to gain historical perspective — on how realist theory grew from the effects of World War II, for example; to acquire tools for decoding our experi- ences of particular films — like the close analysis of formalism; and above all to comprehend the hold that movies have on our imaginations and desires.

■ Consider whether cinematic specificity is affected by watching films across platforms.

■ Think of insights from other academic disciplines or artistic pursuits that seem to be missing from this account of film theory, and consider what we might learn from these new approaches.

■ How might the formalist and realist film theorists debate the return of 3-D technology?

■ Consider how debates about race and representation raised by a film like 12 Years a Slave (2013) could be reframed by drawing on film theory.

Activities ■ Do a shot-by-shot analysis of the opening sequence of a film. What

codes — of lighting, camera movement, framing, or figure movement — are used to create meaning?

■ Compare reviews of a film from a number of different sources (and periods, if relevant). Pay particular attention to the time and place each review appeared. What does the range of reviews tell you about the film’s reception context(s)?

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Concepts at Work Feature Better Connects Ideas and Films The chapter-ending Concept at Work feature clearly connects each key concept mentioned in the chapter to specific films — both those mentioned in the chapter and other notable examples.

Proven Learning Tools That Foster Critical Viewing and Analysis The Film Experience’s learning tools have been updated for this edition, including new Viewing Cues in every chapter, in-depth Film in Focus essays on films like Stories We Tell and Minority Report, Form in Action boxes with analysis of multiple films, and the very best coverage of writing about film.

Francis Ford Coppola directed Apocalypse Now (1979), one of Hollywood’s most ambitious film narratives, not long after his blockbuster successes The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II and his ingenious The Conversa- tion. Coppola and his first successful films were part of an American renaissance in moviemaking during the 1960s and 1970s, revealing the marked influence of the French New Wave filmmakers Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, and others who brought decidedly experimental and ironic attitudes to film narrative. Apocalypse Now is also one of the first serious attempts by a U.S. director to confront the lingering anger and pain of the Vietnam War, a then-recent and traumatic memory that Americans struggled to make sense of.

The film’s story is deceptively simple: during the Vietnam War, Captain Willard (played by Martin Sheen) and his crew journey into the jungle to find a maverick and rebellious U.S. Army colonel named Kurtz (Mar- lon Brando). The story describes Willard’s increasingly strange encounters in the war-torn jungles of Vietnam and Cambodia. Eventually he finds and confronts the

240

bizarre rebel Kurtz at his riverside encamp- ment in Cambodia.

Apocalypse Now constructs its story through a particular plot with a particular nar- rative point of view. The story of Willard and Kurtz could be plotted in a variety of other ways — by offering more information about the crew that accompanies Willard, for instance, or by showing events from an objective point of view rather than from one man’s percep- tions and thoughts. However, the film’s plot concentrates less on the war or on how Kurtz became what he is (which is the main topic of the characters’ conversations) than on Willard and his quest to find Kurtz.

The plot begins with the desperate and shell-shocked Willard being given the assignment to seek out and kill Kurtz, to “terminate with extreme prejudice,” and then fol- lows Willard on his journey as he encounters a variety of strange and surreal people, sights, and activities [Figure 6.43]. In one sense, the plot’s logic is linear and progres- sive: for Willard, each new encounter reveals more about the Vietnam War and about Kurtz. At the same time, the plot creates a regressive temporal pattern: Willard’s journey up the river takes him farther and farther away from a civilized world, returning him to his most primitive instincts.

The mostly first-person voiceover narration of Apoca- lypse Now focuses primarily on what Willard sees around him and on his thoughts about those events. At times, the narration extends beyond Willard’s perspective, showing actions from the perspective of other characters or from a more objective perspective, while still representing the other characters and events as part of Willard’s confused impressions. Bound mostly to Willard’s limited point of view, the narration colors events and other characters with a tone that appears alternately perplexed, weary, and fascinated. As a function of the film’s narration,

FILM IN

FOCUS

157010

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plot and Narration in Apocalypse Now ( 1979 )

See also: The Deer Hunter (1978); Platoon (1986); Full Metal Jacket (1987)

FILM IN FOCUS bedfordstmartins.com /filmexperience

To watch a video about narration in Apocalypse Now, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

6.43 Apocalypse Now (1979). Toward the end of his journey and the film, one of many shots that approximate the point of view of Willard, the film’s narrator.

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form in

action

85

Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox uses stop-motion animation to bring a much-loved Roald Dahl children’s book to life. The tale pits three ruthless farmers against Mr. Fox’s thrill-seeking thievery, pull- ing an array of animals into the fray in the process. Taking Ander- son’s predilection for telling stories through mise-en-scène to its extreme, the film sets its largely underground action within an elab- orately textured design. Since characters, props, and sets are all constructed, the film relies on the coordination of figure movement and lighting to direct the viewer’s attention to narrative elements.

A scene depicting the displaced animals’ new home in Badger’s Flint Mine opens with Mole playing the piano in a relaxed manner reminiscent of 1950s Hollywood [figure 2.39a]. The space is large and tastefully lit by candles and a garland of what appears to be fruit and fake flowers entwined with twinkling lights. Even in this first im- age, however, the storage racks in the background indicate that the gracious living of Badger’s home is being challenged by an influx of refugees and the hoarding of stolen supplies.

The camera tracks right to a kitchen area [figure 2.39b]. Bright, cheery lighting highlights Rabbit chopping ingredients for a commu- nal meal, and the cramped space and detailed abundance of food (like the roasting rack of stolen chickens) indicates both the large number and the camaraderie of the refugee animals.

The camera moves right again to Mr. Fox and Badger, strolling past the opening to a bedroom where the feet of an exhausted ani- mal can be seen lying on a top bunk [figure 2.39c] and discussing the sustainability of the group’s current living arrangement.

The scene ends at a punch bowl [figure 2.39d], beyond which the makeshift aspects of the living arrangements are evident: stolen cases of cider, bags of flour, and chicken carcasses are stored in the background. It is at this point in the shot that Ash, Mr. Fox’s son, believing decisive action is needed to restore Mr. Fox’s honor, asks his cousin Kristofferson to help him retrieve his father’s tail from the ferocious Farmer Bean.

Production design by Nelson Lowery richly colors this tale in which animals dress and act more human than the humans hunting them.

mise-en-scène in Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

form in action bedfordstmartins.com/filmexperience

To watch a video about the mise-en-scène of Fantastic Mr. Fox and a clip from the film, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

2.39b

2.39c

2.39d

2.39a

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f o u r t h E d i t i o n

t h E f i l m E x p E r i E n c E An Introduction

Timothy Corrigan University of Pennsylvania

Patricia White Swarthmore College

Bedford/St. Martin’s Boston  •  New York

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For Bedford/St. Martin’s

Publisher for Communication: Erika Gutierrez Developmental Editor: Jesse Hassenger Senior Production Editor: Harold Chester Senior Production Supervisor: Lisa McDowell Marketing Manager: Tom Digiano Copy Editor: Denise Quirk Indexer: Leoni McVey Photo Researcher: Jennifer Atkins Text Design: Jerilyn Bockorick Cover Design: William Boardman Cover Art: Drive-in movie theater. © Will Steacy/Getty Images Composition: Cenveo Publisher Services Printing and Binding: RR Donnelley and Sons

Copyright © 2015, 2012, 2009, 2004 by Bedford/St. Martin’s All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except as may be expressly permitted by the applicable copyright statutes or in writing by the Publisher.

Manufactured in the United States of America.

9 8 7 6 5 4 f e d c b a

For information, write: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 75 Arlington Street, Boston, MA 02116 (617-399-4000)

ISBN 978-1-4576-6354-3 (paperback) ISBN 978-1-4576-9585-8 (Loose-leaf Edition)

Acknowledgments

Art acknowledgments and copyrights appear on the same page as the art selections they cover. It is a violation of the law to reproduce these selections by any means whatsoever without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Distributed outside North America by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS Companies and representatives throughout the world.

ISBN 978-1-137-46395-1

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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This book is dedicated to Kathleen and Lawrence Corrigan and Marian and Carr Ferguson, and to Max Schneider-White.

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Timothy Corrigan is a professor of English and Cinema Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His work in Cinema Studies has focused on modern American and contemporary international cinema. He received a B.A. from the University of Notre Dame and completed graduate work at the University of Leeds, Emory University, and the University of Paris III. His other books include New German Film: The Displaced Image (Indiana UP); The Films of Werner Herzog: Between Mirage and History (Routledge); Writing about Film (Longman/Pearson); A Cinema without Walls: Movies and Culture after Vietnam (Routledge/Rutgers UP); Film and Literature: An Introduction and Reader (Routledge); Critical Visions in Film Theory (Bedford/St. Martin’s), also with Patricia White; American Cinema of the 2000s (Rutgers UP), and The Essay Film: From Montaigne, After Marker (Oxford UP), winner of the 2012 Katherine Singer Kovács Award for the outstanding book in film and media studies. He has published essays in Film Quarterly, Discourse, and Cinema Journal, among other collections, and is also an editor of the journal Adaptation and a former editorial board member of Cinema Journal. In 2014, he received the Society for Cinema and Media Studies Award for Outstanding Peda- gogical Achievement.

Patricia White is a professor of Film and Media Studies at Swarthmore College. She is the author of Women’s Cinema/World Cinema: Projecting 21st Century Feminisms (Duke University Press) and Uninvited: Classical Hollywood Cinema and Lesbian Representability (Indiana University Press), as well as numerous articles and book chapters on film theory and culture. She is coeditor with Timothy Cor- rigan and Meta Mazaj of Critical Visions in Film Theory: Classic and Contemporary Readings (Bedford/St. Martin’s). She served on the editorial collective of the femi- nist film journal Camera Obscura and the board of Women Make Movies and is currently on the advisory boards of Camera Obscura and Film Quarterly.

About the Authors

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v

preface

“ Experience is not what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens.”

—Aldous Huxley

i n our culture, movies have become a near-universal experience, even as their delivery methods have expanded and changed. Whether watching filmed im- ages unfold over a giant multiplex or local art-house screen, a state-of-the-art TV set or portable tablet, we have all experienced the pleasures that movies can bring: journeying to imaginary worlds, witnessing re-creations of history, observing stars in familiar and unfamiliar roles, and exploring the laughter, thrills, or emotions of different genres. Understanding the full depth and variety of the film experience starts with that enjoyment. But it also requires more than just initial impressions.

This book aims to help students learn the languages of film and synthesize those languages into a cohesive knowledge of the medium that will, in turn, en- hance their movie watching. The Film Experience: An Introduction offers students a serious, comprehensive introduction to the art, industry, culture, and experience of movies—along with the interactive, digital tools and ready-made examples to bring that experience to life.

As movie fans ourselves, we believe that the complete film experience comes from an understanding of both the formal and the cultural aspects of cinema. Knowing how filmmakers use the familiarity of star personas, for example, can be as valuable and enriching as understanding how a particular editing rhythm creates a specific mood. The Film Experience builds on both formal knowledge and cultural contexts to ensure that students gain a well-rounded ability to engage in critical analysis. The new fourth edition is better equipped than ever to meet this challenge, with the best art program in this course, revised Concepts at Work boxes that prompt students to connect their own film experiences to each chapter’s concepts, and the addition of dozens of new video clips and accompanying questions, providing accessible visual examples. The learn- ing tools we have created help students make the transition from movie fan to critical viewer, allowing them to use the knowledge they acquire in this course to enrich their movie-watching experiences throughout their lives.

The Best Coverage of Film’s Formal Elements We believe that comprehensive knowledge of film practices and techniques allows students a deeper and more nuanced understanding of film meaning. Thus The Film Experience provides strong and clear explanations of the major concepts and

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practices in mise-en-scène, cinematography, editing, and sound, plus the best and most extensive coverage of the structure of narrative film, genre, documentaries, and experimental films. Going beyond mere descriptions of the nuts and bolts of film form, The Film Experience highlights how these formal elements can be ana- lyzed and interpreted within the context of a film as a whole—formal studies made even more vivid by our suite of new online film clips.

In choosing our text and video examples, we draw from the widest variety of movies in any introductory text, demonstrating how individual formal elements can contribute to a film’s larger meaning. We understand the importance of con- necting with students through films they may already know, and we have added new examples referring to recent films like Man of Steel, The Great Gatsby, Life of Pi, The Avengers, The Bling Ring, and Fruitvale Station; we also feel that it is our responsibility to help students understand the rich variety of movies throughout history, utilizing classics like The Jazz Singer, Citizen Kane, The African Queen, Bonnie and Clyde, The Godfather, and Chinatown, as well as a wealth of experi- mental, independent, and international films.

Fully Encapsulating the Culture of Film In addition to a strong foundation in film form, we believe that knowledge of the nature and extent of film culture and its impact on our viewing experiences is necessary for a truly holistic understanding of cinema. As such, one of the core pillars of The Film Experience story has always been its focus on the relation- ship among viewers, movies, and the industry. Throughout, the book explores how these connections are shaped by the social, cultural, and economic contexts of films through incisive discussions of such topics as the influence of the star system, the marketing strategies of indies versus blockbusters, and the multi- tude of reasons why we are drawn to some films over others. In particular, the Introduction, “Studying Film: Culture and Experience,” explores the importance of the role of the viewer, recognizing that without avid movie fans there would be no film culture, and offers a powerful rationale for why we should study and think seriously about film. Chapter 1, “Encountering Film: From Preproduction to Exhibition,” details how each step of the filmmaking process—from script to release—informs, and is informed by, the where, when, and why of our movie- watching experiences.

New to This Edition Thanks to the valuable feedback from our colleagues and from our own students, in this new edition we have taken the opportunity to update and enhance The Film Experience for today’s students. As ever, The Film Experience continues to be the best at representing today’s film culture—with cutting-edge coverage of topics like 3-D technology, digital distribution, and social media marketing campaigns.

LaunchPad Solo for The Film Experience Brings Film to Life—through Video This edition takes advantage of the media with a new online platform, home to numerous movie clips, video essays, discussion questions, and more—perfect for interactive learning. Bringing print and digital together, the Viewing Cue feature in the margins of each chapter now includes special video call-outs directing students to a film clip online in LaunchPad Solo for The Film Experience. The video essays are based on the book’s Film in Focus and Form in Action features and illustrate

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the concepts discussed in the chapter. Each film clip or video is accompanied by thought-provoking discussion questions. The LaunchPad Solo platform makes it easy to assign the videos and questions, and, because students will all have access to the same group of clips and activities, classroom conversations can start from a common ground. Access to LaunchPad Solo for The Film Experience can be pack- aged free with the book or purchased on its own.

The Strongest Art Program Available—Now Better Than Ever With more than nine hundred images—the best and most extensive art program in any introductory film text—The Film Experience visually reinforces all the major techniques, concepts, and film traditions discussed in the text. New part-opening and chapter-opening images cover both classic and contemporary cinema, and examples throughout the text have been updated and enhanced. As always, the vast majority of the images are actual film frames from digital sources, rather than publicity or production stills. We have selected the best available source versions and preserved the aspect ratios of the original films whenever possible.

Concepts at Work Boxes Connect Concepts and Films The chapter-ending Concept at Work boxes have been strengthened to clearly con- nect each key concept mentioned in the chapter to specific films—both contemporary films students will recognize and memorable examples from the classics. This better connects the book’s history, theories, and ideas with students’ own film-watching experiences. The feature acts as an accessible walkthrough of the chapter, mak- ing connections to students’ experiences while also reviewing the material they’ve learned. These connections are further enhanced by end-of-chapter activities that can work as in-class discussions or homework assignments.

New Examples from a Broad Range of Films Appeal to Movie Buffs of Today (and Tomorrow) Each generation of students that takes the introductory course (from eighteen- year-old first-year students to returning adults) is familiar with its own recent history of the movies; hence we have updated this edition with a number of new examples that reflect the diverse student body, from Hollywood blockbusters such as The Hunger Games, Gravity, and Frozen to independent fare like Pariah, Much Ado About Nothing, and Stories We Tell, as well as popular international films like Persepolis, My Name Is Khan, and Oldboy.

Proven Learning Tools That Foster Critical Viewing and Analysis The Film Experience transforms students from movie buffs to critical viewers by giving them the help they need to translate their movie experiences into theoretical knowledge and analytical insight. Our host of learning tools includes:

■ Compelling chapter-opening vignettes that immediately place students inside a film. Each vignette, many of them new to this edition, draws from actual scenes in a real movie to connect what students know as movie fans to key ideas in the chapter’s discussion. For example, Chapter 9 opens with a discussion of how the generic familiarity of the conventions and formulas in Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The World’s End contributes to our enjoyment of these films.

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■ Film in Focus essays in each chapter that provide close analyses of specific films, demonstrating how particular techniques or concepts inform and enrich those films. For example, a detailed deconstruction in Chapter 4 of the editing patterns in Bonnie and Clyde shows how they create specific emotional and visceral effects.

■ Form in Action boxes with image-by-image analyses in each formal chapter (Chapters 1–9), giving students a close look at how the formal concepts they read about translate onscreen. With several new additions, including Chapter 5’s comparison of the ways popular music has been used throughout film his- tory, each Form in Action essay brings key cinematic techniques alive and teaches students how to read and dissect a film formally.

■ Marginal Viewing Cues adjacent to key discussions in the chapter highlighting key concepts, prompting students to consider these concepts while viewing films on their own or in class—and to visit our online clip library for some spe- cific examples.

■ The best instruction on writing about film and the most student writing ex- amples of any introductory text. Praised by instructors and students as a key reason they love the book, Chapter 12, “Writing a Film Essay: Observations, Arguments, Research, and Analysis,” is a step-by-step guide to writing papers about film—from taking notes, choosing a topic, and developing an argument to incorporating film images and completing a polished essay. It includes several annotated student essays, including a new one on Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report.

Resources for Students and Instructors For more information on the student resources or to learn more about package options, please visit the online catalog at bedfordstmartins.com/filmexperience/catalog.

■ For students and instructors: LaunchPad Solo for The Film Experience at bedfordstmartins.com/filmexperience.

Available packaged free with The Film Experience or purchased separately, LaunchPad Solo features a collection of short videos, including both film clips and unique annotated video essays designed to give students a deeper look at important film concepts covered in the text. The videos further the discussions in the book and bring them vividly to life. The videos are great as in-class lecture launchers or as motivators for students to explore key film concepts and film history further.

■ For instructors: the Online Instructor’s Resource Manual by Amy Monaghan, Clemson University.

The downloadable Instructor’s Resource Manual recommends methods for teaching the course using the chapter-opening vignettes, the Viewing Cues, and the Film in Focus and Form in Action features. In addition, it offers such standard teaching aids as chapter overviews, questions to generate class dis- cussion, ideas for encouraging critical and active viewing, sample test ques- tions, and sample syllabi. Each chapter of the manual also features a complete, alphabetized list of films referenced in each chapter of the main text. Instruc- tors who have adopted LaunchPad Solo for The Film Experience can find a full instructor section within LaunchPad Solo that includes the Instructor’s Resource Manual and PowerPoint presentations.

■ The Bedford/St. Martin’s Video Resource Library. For qualified adopters, Bedford/St. Martin’s is proud to offer in DVD format a variety of short and

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feature-length films discussed in The Film Experience for use in film courses, including films from the Criterion Collection. For more information, please contact your local sales representative.

Print and Digital Formats For more information on these formats and packaging information, please visit the online catalog at bedfordstmartins.com/filmexperience/catalog.

LaunchPad Solo is a dynamic new platform that dramatically enhances teaching and learning. LaunchPad Solo for The Film Experience collects videos, activities, quizzes, and instructor’s resources on a single site. LaunchPad Solo of- fers a student-friendly approach, organized for easy assignability in a simple user interface. Instructors can create reading, video, or quiz assignments in seconds, as well as embed their own videos or custom content. A gradebook quickly and easily allows instructors to review the progress for a whole class, for individual students, and for individual assignments, while film clips and videos enhance every chapter of the book. LaunchPad Solo can be packaged for free with The Film Experience or purchased on its own. Learn more at bedfordstmartins.com /LaunchPad.

The Film Experience is available as a print text. To get the most out of the book and gain access to the extensive video program, package LaunchPad Solo for free with the text.

The loose-leaf edition of The Film Experience features the same print text in a convenient, budget-priced format, designed to fit into any three-ring binder. Package LaunchPad Solo with the loose-leaf edition for free.

The Bedford e-Book to Go for The Film Experience includes the same con- tent as the print book, and provides an affordable, tech-savvy PDF e-book option for students. Instructors can customize the e-book by adding their own content and deleting or rearranging chapters. Learn more about custom Bedford e-Books to Go at bedfordstmartins.com/ebooks.

Acknowledgments A book of this scope has benefited from the help of many people. A host of review- ers, readers, and friends have contributed to this edition, and Timothy Corrigan is especially grateful to his students and his University of Pennsylvania colleagues Karen Beckman, Peter Decherney, Meta Mazaj, and Nicola Gentili for their hands- on and precise feedback on how to make the best book possible. Patricia White thanks her colleagues in Film and Media Studies at Swarthmore, Bob Rehak and Sunka Simon; the many colleagues and filmmakers who have offered feedback and suggestions for revision, especially Homay King, Helen Lee, and Jim Lyons (in memoriam); and her students and assistants, especially Mara Fortes, Robert Alford, Brandy Monk-Payton, Natan Vega Potler, and Willa Kramer.

Instructors throughout the country have reviewed the book and offered their advice, suggestions, and encouragement at various stages of the project’s develop- ment. For the fourth edition, we would like to thank Jacob Agatucci, Central Or- egon Community College; Elizabeth Alsop, Western Kentucky University; Timothy Boehme, Jefferson College; Jennifer Clark, Fordham University; Angela Dancey, University of Illinois at Chicago; Mark Eaton, Azusa Pacific University; Stacey Effrig, Blue Ridge Community College; Daniel Fitzstephens, University of Colo- rado; Jim Ford, Rogers State University; Todd Kennedy, Nicholls State University; Sherry Lewis, University of Texas El Paso; Jayne Marek, Franklin College; Yosálida C. Rivero-Zaritzky, Mercer University; and Ramsay Wise, University of Missouri– Columbia.

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For the third edition, we would like to thank Kara Anderson, Brooklyn Col- lege; Craig Breit, Cerritos College; John Bruns, College of Charleston; Chris Cagle, Temple University; Donna Campbell, Washington State University; Jonathan Cavallero, Pennsylvania State University; Shayna Connelly, DePaul University; Joe Falocco, Penn State Erie, The Behrend College; Neil Goldstein, Montgomery County Community College; Gregory Dennis Hagan, Madisonville Community Col- lege; Roger Hallas, Syracuse University; D. Scot Hinson, Wittenberg University; Michael Kaufmann, Indiana University—Purdue University Fort Wayne; Glenn Man, University of Hawai’i at M–anoa; Sarah T. Markgraf, Bergen Community College; Tom Marksbury, University of Kentucky; Kelli Marshall, University of Toledo; Michelle McCrillis, Columbus State University; Michael Minassian, Broward Col- lege; Robert Morace, Daemen College; Scott Nygren, University of Florida; Deron Overpeck, Auburn University; Anna Siomopoulos, Bentley University; Lisa Stokes, Seminole State College; Richard Terrill, Minnesota State University, Mankato; and Robert Vettese, Southern Maine Community College.

For the second edition, we would like to thank Kellie Bean, Marshall Uni- versity; Christine Becker, University of Notre Dame; David Berube, University of South Carolina; Yifen Beus, Brigham Young University Hawaii; Jennifer Bottinelli, Kutztown University; Donna Bowman, University of Central Arkansas; Barbara Brickman, University of West Georgia; Chris Cagle, Temple University; Shayna Connelly, Columbia College; Jill Craven, Millersville University; Eli Daughdrill, Santa Monica College; Clark Farmer, University of Colorado—Boulder; William Ferreira, Houston Community College Southwest; Anthony Fleury, Washington and Jefferson College; Rosalind Galt, University of Iowa; Neil Goldstein, Montgom- ery County Community College; Thomas Green, Cape Fear Community College; Ina Hark, University of South Carolina; Elizabeth Henry, Eastern Oregon University; Mary Hurley, St. Louis Community College; Christopher Jacobs, University of North Dakota; Brooke Jacobson, Portland State University; Kathleen Rowe Kar- lyn, University of Oregon; David Laderman, College of San Mateo; Peter Limbrick, University of California—Santa Cruz; William Long, Camden County College; Cyn- thia Lucia, Rider University; Glenn Man, University of Hawai’i at M–anoa; Jayne Marek, Franklin College; Kelli Marshall, University of Texas at Dallas; Adrienne McLean, University of Texas at Dallas; Jeffrey Middents, American University; Stuart Noel, Georgia Perimeter College; Dann Pierce, University of Portland; Dana Renga, Colorado College; Susan Scheibler, Loyola Marymount University; Mat- thew Sewell, Minnesota State University, Mankato; Steven Shaviro, Wayne State University; Kathryn Shield, University of Texas at Arlington; Christopher Sieving, University of Notre Dame; Ed Sikov, Haverford College; Philip Sipiora, University of South Florida; Dina Smith, Drake University; Cristina Stasia, Syracuse Univer- sity; Nickolas Tanis, New York University–Tisch School of the Arts; Kirsten Moana Thompson, Wayne State University; John Tibbetts, University of Kansas; Willie Tolliver, Agnes Scott College; Chuck Tryon, Fayetteville State University; Kenneth Von Gunden, Penn State Altoona; and Greg Wright, Kalamazoo College.

For the first edition, we are grateful to Nora M. Alter, University of Florida; Con- stantin Behler, University of Washington, Bothell; J. Dennis Bounds, Regent Uni- versity (Virginia); Richard Breyer, Syracuse University; Jeremy Butler, University of Alabama; Jill Craven, Millersville University; Robert Dassanowsky, University of Colorado—Colorado Springs; Eric Faden, Bucknell University; Lucy Fischer, University of Pittsburgh; Stefan Fleischer, State University of New York, Buffalo; Brian M. Goss, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Mark Hall, California State University—Chico; Tom Isbell, University of Minnesota, Duluth; Christopher Jacobs, University of North Dakota; Jonathan Kahana, Bryn Mawr College; Joe Kickasola, Baylor University; Arthur Knight, College of William and Mary; Gina Marchetti, Ithaca College; Ivone Margulies, Hunter College, City University of New York; Joan McGettigan, Texas Christian University; Mark Meysenburg, Doane

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College (Nebraska); Charles Musser, Yale University; Mark Nornes, University of Michigan; Patrice Petro, University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee; Kimberly Radek, Illi- nois Valley Community College; Frank Scheide, University of Arkansas; Jeff Smith, Washington University (St. Louis); Vivian Sobchack, University of California, Los Angeles; Maureen Turim, University of Florida; Leslie Werden, University of North Dakota; Jennifer Wild, University of Iowa; Sharon Willis, University of Rochester; and Sarah Witte, Eastern Oregon University.

Special thanks go to the following individuals and organizations for their as- sistance and expertise in acquiring photo stills: Beth and Margaret at Narberth Video & Entertainment and Rob Epstein and James Chan at Telling Pictures. James Fiumara provided assistance in many ways, most notably for his comprehensive revision of the chapter summaries and quizzes on the book companion Web site. Thanks also go to Amy Monaghan for her excellent work on the Instructor’s Re- source Manual.

At Bedford/St. Martin’s, we thank Erika Gutierrez, publisher, for her belief in and support of this project from the outset. We are especially grateful to develop- mental editors Jesse Hassenger and Angela Kao for guiding us with patience and good humor throughout this project. We are indebted to photo researcher Jennifer Atkins for her extraordinary work acquiring every piece of art in this book and to Tayarisha Poe for all her work capturing the film grabs—the art program was a tremendous undertaking, and the results are beautiful. Thanks to Harold Chester, senior project editor, and Lisa McDowell, senior production supervisor, for their diligent work on the book’s production. We also thank Jerilyn Bockorick for over- seeing the design and Billy Boardman for a beautiful new cover. Thanks also go to Tom Digiano, marketing manager, Matt Killorin, media producer, and Caitlin Crandell, editorial assistant, for helping to make the media for this book happen.

We are especially thankful to our families, Marcia Ferguson and Cecilia, Gra- ham, and Anna Corrigan, and George and Donna White, Cynthia Schneider, and Max Schneider-White. Finally, we are grateful for the growth of our writing part- nership and for the rich experiences this collaborative effort has brought us. We look forward to ongoing projects.

Timothy Corrigan

Patricia White

Preface xi

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Brief contents

Preface v

PART 1 CULTURAL CONTEXTS: watching, studying, and making movies 2 introduction Studying Film: Culture and Experience 5

chapter 1 Encountering Film: From Preproduction to Exhibition 19

PART 2 FORMAL COMPOSITIONS: film scenes, shots, cuts, and sounds 60 chapter 2 Mise-en-Scène: Exploring a Material World 63 chapter 3 Cinematography: Framing What We See 95 chapter 4 Editing: Relating Images 133 chapter 5 Film Sound: Listening to the Cinema 175

PART 3 ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURES: from stories to genres 210 chapter 6 Narrative Films: Telling Stories 213 chapter 7 Documentary Films: Representing the Real 253 chapter 8 Experimental Film and New Media: Challenging

Form 283

chapter 9 Movie Genres: Conventions, Formulas, and Audience Expectations 311

PART 4 CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES: history, methods, writing 350 chapter 10 History and Historiography: Hollywood and

Beyond 353

chapter 11 Reading about Film: Critical Theories and Methods 397

chapter 12 Writing a Film Essay: Observations, Arguments, Research, and Analysis 429

Glossary 462 The Next Level: Additional Sources 477 Index 483

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Preface v

contents

xv

PART 1

CULTURAL CONTEXTS: watching, studying, and making movies 2

introduction Studying Film: Culture and Experience 5 Why Film Studies Matters 7

Film Spectators and Film Cultures 9

form in Action: identification, cognition, and film Variety 13

film in focuS: The 400 Blows: An Auteur’s film Experience (1959) 14

The Film Experience 16

chapter 1 Encountering Film: From Preproduction to Exhibition 19 Production: How Films Are Made  21

Preproduction 21 Production 26 Postproduction 28

Distribution: What We Can See  29 Distributors 30 Ancillary Markets 34 Distribution Timing 37

film in focuS: distributing Killer of Sheep (1977) 40

Marketing and Promotion: What We Want to See  42 Generating Interest 43 Advertising 45

form in Action: the changing Art and Business of the film trailer 47

ViEwing cuE: Man of Steel (2013) 48 Word of Mouth and Fan Engagement 49

Movie Exhibition: The Where, When, and How of  Movie Experiences 51 The Changing Contexts and Practices of Film Exhibition 51

film in focuS: promoting The Blair Witch Project (1999) 52 Technologies and Cultures of Exhibition 54 The Timing of Exhibition 55

film in focuS: Exhibiting Citizen Kane (1941) 56

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chapter 2 Mise-en-Scène: Exploring a Material World 63 A Short History of Mise-en-Scène  66

Theatrical Mise-en-Scène and the Prehistory of Cinema 66 1900–1912: Early Cinema’s Theatrical Influences 67 1915–1928: Silent Cinema and the Star System 67 1930s–1960s: Studio-Era Production 68 1940–1970: New Cinematic Realism 68 1975–Present: Mise-en-Scène and the Blockbuster 68

The Elements of Mise-en-Scène  69 Settings and Sets 69

ViEwing cuE: Life of Pi (2012) 70 Scenic Realism and Atmosphere 70 Props, Actors, Costumes, and Lights 71

film in focuS: mise-en-Scène in Do the Right Thing (1989) 80 Space and Design 84

form in Action: mise-en-Scène in Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) 85

Making Sense of Mise-en-Scène  86 Defining Our Place in a Film’s Material World 86 Interpretive Contexts for Mise-en-Scène 87

film in focuS: naturalistic mise-en-Scène in Bicycle Thieves (1948) 90 Spectacularizing the Movies 92

chapter 3 Cinematography: Framing What We See 95 A Short History of the Cinematic Image  97

1820s–1880s: The Invention of Photography and the Prehistory of Cinema 98

1890s–1920s: The Emergence and Refinement of Cinematography 98

1930s–1940s: Developments in Color, Wide-Angle, and Small-Gauge Cinematography 100

1950s–1960s: Widescreen, 3-D, and New Color Processes 102

1970s–1980s: Cinematography and Exhibition in the Age of the Blockbuster 102

1990s and Beyond: The Digital Future 103

The Elements of Cinematography  104 Points of View 104 Four Attributes of the Shot 106

ViEwing cuE: Touch of Evil (1958) 106

PART 2

FORMAL COMPOSITIONS: film scenes, shots, cuts, and sounds 60

Contentsxvi

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FORM IN ACTION: Color and Contrast in Film 116

vIewINg Cue: Rear Window (1954) 118

vIewINg Cue: The Battle of Algiers (1967) 119 Animation and Visual Effects 119

Making Sense of the Film Image 122 Defining Our Relationship to the Cinematic Image 122 Interpretive Contexts for the Cinematic Image 123

FILM IN FOCuS: From Angles to Animation in Vertigo (1958) 124

FILM IN FOCuS: Meaning through Images in M (1931) 128

chapter 4 Editing: Relating Images 133 A Short History of Film Editing 134

1895–1918: Early Cinema and the Emergence of Editing 135 1919–1929: Soviet Montage 137 1930–1959: Continuity Editing in the Hollywood Studio

Era 138 1960–1989: Modern Editing Styles 139 1990s–Present: Editing in the Digital Age 140

The Elements of Editing 140 The Cut and Other Transitions 141

vIewINg Cue: Chinatown (1974) 143 Continuity Style 144 Editing and Temporality 155

vIewINg Cue: The General (1927) 159

FORM IN ACTION: editing and Rhythm in Moulin Rouge! (2001) 160

Making Sense of Film Editing 161

FILM IN FOCuS: Patterns of editing in Bonnie and Clyde (1967) 162 Disjunctive Editing 165 Converging Editing Styles 169

FILM IN FOCuS: Montage in Battleship Potemkin (1925) 170

chapter 5 Film Sound: Listening to the Cinema 175 A Short History of Film Sound 176

Theatrical and Technological Prehistories of Film Sound 177 1895–1920s: The Sounds of Silent Cinema 177 1927–1930: Transition to Synchronized Sound 179 1930s–1940s: Challenges and Innovations in Cinema Sound 180 1950s–Present: From Stereophonic to Digital Sound 180

The Elements of Film Sound 181 Sound and Image 181 Sound Production 184

FILM IN FOCuS: Sound and Image in Singin’ in the Rain (1952) 186 Voice in Film 189 Music in Film 193

FORM IN ACTION: Pop Music Soundtracks in Contemporary Cinema 195 Sound Effects in Film 199

Contents xvii

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ViEwing cuE: Winter’s Bone (2010) 199

ViEwing cuE: The Thin Red Line (1998) 200

Making Sense of Film Sound  201 Authenticity and Experience 201 Sound Continuity and Sound Montage 202

film in focuS: the role of Sound and Sound technology in The Conversation (1974) 206

chapter 6 Narrative Films: Telling Stories 213 A Short History of Narrative Film  214

1900–1920s: Adaptations, Scriptwriters, and Screenplays 216

1927–1950: Sound Technology, Dialogue, and Classical Hollywood Narrative 217

1950–1980: Art Cinema 219 1980s–Present: From Narrative Reflexivity to Games 219

The Elements of Narrative Film  220 Stories and Plots 220 Characters 222 Diegetic and Nondiegetic Elements 229 Narrative Patterns of Time 230

form in Action: nondiegetic images and narrative 231

ViEwing cuE: Shutter Island (2010) 234 Narrative Space 236 Narrative Perspectives 238

ViEwing cuE: The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) 238

film in focuS: plot and narration in Apocalypse Now (1979) 240

Making Sense of Film Narrative  243 Shaping Memory, Making History 244 Narrative Traditions 245

film in focuS: classical and Alternative traditions in Mildred Pierce (1945) and Daughters of the Dust (1991) 248

chapter 7 Documentary Films: Representing the Real 253 A Short History of Documentary Cinema  256

A Prehistory of Documentaries 256 1895–1905: Early Actualities, Scenics, and Topicals 257 The 1920s: Robert Flaherty and the Soviet

Documentaries 257 1930–1945: The Politics and Propaganda of

Documentary 258

PART 3

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURES: from stories to genres 210

Contentsxviii

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1950s–1970s: New Technologies and the Arrival of Television 258

1980s–Present: Digital Cinema, Cable, and Reality TV 260

The Elements of Documentary Films  261 Nonfiction and Non-Narrative 261 Expositions: Organizations That Show or Describe 263

film in focuS: nonfiction and non-narrative in Man of Aran (1934) 264

ViEwing cuE: The Cove (2009) 265 Rhetorical Positions 266

Making Sense of Documentary Films  269 Revealing New or Ignored Realities 270 Confronting Assumptions, Altering Opinions 270 Serving as a Social, Cultural, and Personal Lens 271

film in focuS: Stories We Tell (2012) 272

form in Action: the contemporary documentary: Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010) 280

chapter 8 Experimental Film and New Media: Challenging Form 283 A Short History of Experimental Film and Media 

Practices  286 1910s–1920s: European Avant-Garde Movements 287 1930s–1940s: Sound and Vision 288 1950s–1960s: The Postwar Avant-Garde in America 289

film in focuS: Avant-garde Visions in Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) 290 1968–1980: Politics and Experimental Cinema 293 1980s–Present: New Technologies and New Media 294

Variations of Experimental Media  295 Formalisms: Narrative Experimentation and Abstraction 295 Experimental Organizations: Associative, Structural,

and Participatory 296 film in focuS: formal play in Ballet mécanique (1924) 298

Making Sense of Experimental Media  301 Challenging and Expanding Perception 302 Experimental Film Styles and Approaches 302

ViEwing cuE: Gently Down the Stream (1964) 303

form in Action: lyrical Style in Bridges-Go-Round (1958) 306

chapter 9 Movie Genres: Conventions, Formulas, and Audience Expectations 311 A Short History of Film Genre  313

Historical Origins of Genres 313 Early Film Genres 314 1920s–1940s: Genre and the Studio System 314

Contents xix

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1948–1970s: Postwar Film Genres 315 1970s–Present: New Hollywood, Sequels, and Global Genres 316

The Elements of Film Genre  317 Conventions 317 Formulas and Myths 318 Audience Expectations 319

Six Movie Genres  320 Comedies 321 Westerns 324 Melodramas 326 Musicals 329 Horror Films 332 Crime Films 334

ViEwing cuE: The Searchers (1956) 337

Making Sense of Film Genres  338 Prescriptive and Descriptive Approaches 338 Classical and Revisionist Traditions 339

film in focuS: crime film conventions and formulas: Chinatown (1974) 340

form in Action: genre revisionism: comparing True Grit (1969) and True Grit (2010) 343 Local and Global Genres 344

film in focuS: genre history in Vagabond (1985) 346

PART 4

CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES: history, methods, writing 350

chapter 10 History and Historiography: Hollywood and Beyond 353 Early Cinema  355

Cinema between the Wars  356 Classical Hollywood Cinema 356 German Expressionist Cinema 358 Soviet Silent Films 359 French Impressionist Cinema and Poetic Realism 360

Postwar Cinemas  361 Postwar Hollywood 361 Italian Neorealism 363

ViEwing cuE: Gilda (1946) and Rome, Open City (1945) 364 French New Wave 364 Japanese Cinema 365 Third Cinema 366

Contemporary Film Cultures  366 Contemporary Hollywood 367 Contemporary Independent Cinema 368 Contemporary European Cinema 369

Contentsxx

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film in focuS: Taxi Driver and new hollywood (1976) 370 Indian Cinema 373 African Cinema 374 Chinese Cinema 375 Iranian Cinema 377

The Lost and Found of Film History  378 Women Filmmakers 379 African American Cinema 382 Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender (LGBT) Film History 385

film in focuS: lost and found history: Within Our Gates (1920) 386 Indigenous Media 390 Excavating Film History 392

chapter 11 Reading about Film: Critical Theories and Methods 397 The Evolution of Film Theory  399

Early and Classical Film Theory  400 Early Film Theory 400 Classical Film Theories: Formalism and Realism 402

Postwar Film Culture and Criticism  405 Film Journals 405 Auteur Theory 406 Genre Theory 407

Contemporary Film Theory  408 Structuralism and Semiotics 408

ViEwing cuE: The Wizard of Oz (1939) 409 Poststructuralism 411

film in focuS: Signs and meaning in Persepolis (2007) 412 Theories of Gender and Sexuality 415 Cultural Studies 418 Film and Philosophy 422 Postmodernism and New Media 423

film in focuS: Clueless about contemporary film theory? (1995) 424

chapter 12 Writing a Film Essay: Observations, Arguments, Research, and Analysis 429 Writing an Analytical Film Essay  431

Personal Opinion and Objectivity 431 ViEwing cuE: Moonrise Kingdom (2012) 432

Identifying Your Readers 432 Elements of the Analytical Film Essay 433

Preparing to Write about a Film  434 Asking Questions 435 Taking Notes 435

Contents xxi

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Selecting a Topic 437 film in focuS: Analysis, Audience, and Minority

Report (2002) 438

Elements of a Film Essay  441 Thesis Statement 442 Outline and Topic Sentences 443 Revising, Formatting, and Proofreading 444 Writer’s Checklist 445

Researching the Movies  445 Distinguishing Research Materials 446

film in focuS: interpretation, Argument, and Evidence in Rashomon (1950) 448 Using and Documenting Sources 453

film in focuS: from research to writing about The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) 456

Glossary 462 The Next Level: Additional Sources 477 Index 483

Contentsxxii

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T H E F I L M E X P E R I E N C E

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2

P A R T 1

C U LT U R A L CO N T E X T S watching, studying, and making movies

In 2013, Man of Steel became the latest reincarnation of the Superman legend, telling the story of the famous comic-book hero, his mysterious arrival on a farm in Kansas, and his mission to fight for justice against extra-

terrestrial evil. Featuring Hollywood stars Amy Adams, Henry Cavill, and Russell

Crowe and replete with elaborate special effects, the film was budgeted at over

$200 million, and its blockbuster summer release followed an extensive advertising

campaign. A very different tale of justice, Ryan Coogler’s Fruitvale Station

screened at the Cannes Film Festival only weeks before the release of Man of

Steel. It recounted the true story of a twenty-two-year-old African American

who struggles to right his life but who then becomes the tragic victim of urban

violence when he is shot and killed by a transit police officer. When its wider

theatrical release in July 2013 coincided with the acquittal of George Zimmerman

for his “Stand Your Ground” shooting of a young, unarmed African American in

Florida, Frutivale Station became a social lightning rod.

Social and institutional forces shaped these very different films in very

different ways — from their production through their promotion, distribution,

and exhibition. Part 1 of this book identifies institutional, cultural, and

industrial contexts that shape the film experience, showing us how to connect

our personal movie preferences with larger critical perspectives on film. The

Introduction examines how and why we study film, while Chapter 1 introduces

the movie production process as well as the mechanisms and strategies of film

distribution, promotion, and exhibition. Understanding these different contexts

will help us to develop a broad and analytical perspective on the film experience.

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C H A P T E R 1 Encountering Film: From Preproduction to Exhibition ■ Stages of narrative filmmaking

■ Mechanisms of film distribution

■ Practices of promotion and exhibition

I N T R O D U C T I O N

Studying Film: Culture and Experience ■ Identifying the dimensions and importance of film

culture

■ Appreciating, interpreting, and analyzing film

■ Understanding the changing film experience

Top: © Warner Bros. Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection. Bottom: © The Weinstein Company/courtesy Everett Collection

3

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5

In Woody Allen’s 1977 film Annie Hall, Alvy Singer and Annie Hall stand in line to see the 1972 French documentary The Sorrow and the Pity. Next to them in line is a professor who pontificates about movies and about the work of media theorist and counterculture critic Marshall McLuhan, author of Understanding Media and The Gutenberg Galaxy. Alvy grows more and more irritated by the conversation, and finally interrupts the professor to tell him he knows nothing about McLuhan’s work, as Annie looks on, embarrassed. When the professor objects, Alvy counters by bringing McLuhan himself out from a corner of the lobby to confirm that the professor is all wrong about McLuhan’s writings. While this encounter among movie- goers comically exaggerates a secret wish about how to end an argument about the interpretation of movies, it also dramatizes, with typical Allen humor, the many dimensions of film culture — from scholarship to courtship — that drive our pleasure in thinking and talking, both casually and seriously, about film. For Alvy and many of us, going to the movies is a golden opportunity to converse, think, and disagree about film as a central part of our everyday lives.

Studying Film Culture and Experience

Introduction

Courtesy Everett Collection

02_COR_6354_Intro_001-017.indd 5 8/14/14 8:22 PM

For more than a century, the movies have been an integral part of our cultural experience, and as such, most of us already know a great deal about them. We know which best-selling novel will be adapted for the big screen and what new releases can be anticipated in the summer; we can identify a front-runner for a major award and which movie franchise will inspire a Halloween costume. Our encounters with and responses to motion pictures are a product of the diverse attitudes, back- grounds, and interests that we, the viewers and the fans, bring to the movies. These factors all contribute to the film culture that helps frame our overall film experience.

Film culture is the social and historical environment that shapes our expectations, ideas, and under- standing of movies. Our tastes, viewing habits, and venues all inform film culture; in turn, film culture transforms how we watch, understand, and enjoy movies in a variety of rapidly expanding ways. We can catch a showing of the epic Lawrence of Arabia (1962) on cable, join lines of viewers at an old movie palace for the latest install- ment of the Star Wars franchise [Figure I.1], enjoy the anime fan- tasy Ghost Hound (2007) instantly on the Netflix Web site, attend a documentary festival at a local museum, or watch the short silent films of Charlie Chaplin on an iPad. Our encounters with and responses to these films — how and why we

I.1 Star Wars fans in line. Experiencing the premiere of a movie becomes a singular social event with friends and other fans. HECTOR MATA/AFP/Getty Images

6

K E Y O B J E C T I V E S ■ Define film studies and film culture, and discuss the various factors that create and distinguish them.

■ Describe the role and impact of film viewers, and note how our experience of movies and our taste for certain films have both personal and public dimensions.

■ Discuss the ways in which film culture and practice discussed in this text- book contribute to the film experience.

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Why Film Studies Matters

As students, you bring to the classroom a lifetime of exposure to the movies. For example, your opinions about casting certain actors in the film Precious (2009) may reflect your understanding of how common movie character types appear and function; your mesmerized attraction to the special effects of In- ception (2010) may pique your curiosity about new cinematic technology; your expectations of genre formulas, such as those found in the classic horror movie The Shining (1980), may provoke an outburst when a character heads down a darkened corridor. Film studies — the discipline — takes your common knowledge about and appreciation for film and helps you think about it more analytically and more precisely.

Film studies is a critical discipline that promotes serious reflec- tion on the movies and the place of film in culture. It is part of a rich and complex history that overlaps with critical work in many other fields, such as literary studies, philosophy, sociology, and art history. From the beginning, the movies have elicited widespread attention from scientists, politicians, and writers of many sorts — all of them attempting to make sense of the film experience [Figure I.2]. A film’s efforts to describe the world, impose its artistic value, or shape society have long been the subject of both scholarly and popular debate. In the decades before the first public projection of films in 1895, scientists Étienne-Jules Marey and Eadweard Muybridge embarked on studies of human and animal motion that would lay the groundwork for the invention of cinema as we know it. In the early twentieth century, poet Vachel Lindsay and Harvard psychologist Hugo Münsterberg wrote essays and books on the power of movies to change social relationships and the way people perceive the world. By the 1930s, the Payne Fund Studies and later Margaret Farrand Thorp’s America at the Movies (1939) offered sociological accounts of the impact of movies on young people and other social groups. Eventually courses about the art of the movies began to appear in universities, and elite cultural institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York City began to take the new art form seriously.

I.2 Mon ciné. Since the 1920s, Mon ciné and other movie magazines from around the world have promoted movies not just as entertainment, but also as objects of serious study with important sociological and aesthetic value. Mary Evans Picture Library/The Image Works

7

select the ones we do, why we like or dislike them, and how we understand or are challenged by them — are all part of film culture and, by extension, film study.

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P A R T 1 Cultural Contexts: Watching, Studying, and Making Movies8

After World War II, new kinds of filmmaking emerged in Europe along with passionate, well-informed criticism about the history and art of the movies, including Hollywood genre films and the accomplishments of certain directors [Figure I.3]. Such criticism fueled film studies, which attained a firm foothold in North American universities by the 1970s. Today the study of film represents a wide spectrum of approaches and points of view, including studies of different historical periods or national cinemas, accounts of economic and tech- nological developments, studies of how race and gender are depicted in movies and affect audiences’ responses to them, and explications of particular aesthetic or formal features of films ranging from experimental to documentary to narrative cinema.

One sign of today’s rich film culture is the popular demand for DVD supplements — “extras” that have been called “film studies on a disk” [Figure I.4]. Many of us now rent or purchase DVDs and Blu-rays not just for the movies themselves but also for the extra features; these may include a film expert’s commentary, a director’s discussion of some of the technical decisions she made during filming, or his- torical background on the story behind the film. Some DVD editions address issues that are central to film studies, such as preservation of original promotional or textual materials. Trailers and posters that provide a glimpse of film culture at

the time of the film’s release, as well as scholarly commentary, are now available to the everyday film viewer. For example, in the Treasures from American Film Archives series, early films, hard- to-find gems, restored classics, and film experi- ments have been preserved and contextualized with scholars’ voiceovers, making accessible to consumers works that were previously only avail- able to experts. With research on movies facilitated by the Internet, the complexities and range of films and film cultures may now be more available to viewers than ever before.

The Film Experience provides a holistic perspec- tive on the formal and cultural dynamics of watch- ing and thinking about movies. It does not privilege any one mode of film study over another, but rather provides critical tools and perspectives that will allow individuals to approach film study according to their different needs, aims, and interests. Addi- tionally, it provides the vocabulary needed to under- stand, analyze, and discuss film as industry, film as art, and film as practice. The Film Experience raises theoretical questions that stretch common reactions.

These questions include psychological ones about perception, comprehension, and identification; philosophical ones about the nature of the image and the viewer’s understanding of it; and social and historical ones about what meanings and messages are reinforced in and excluded by a culture’s films. Far from destroying our pleasure in the movies, studying them increases the ways we can enjoy them thoughtfully.

I.3 Cahiers du cinéma. Appearing first in 1951, Cahiers du cinéma remains one of the most influential journals of film criticism and theory. Rue des Archives/The Granger Collection, NY

I.4 Lord of the Rings DVD supplement index. Expanded DVD formats and extras about production, postproduction, special effects, and sound editing can now provide self-guided study tours of technical and even scholarly issues.

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9Studying Film: Culture and Experience I N T R O D U C T I O N

Film Spectators and Film Cultures

Movies are always both a private and a pub- lic affair. Since the beginning of film history, the power of the movies has derived in part from viewers’ personal and sometimes idio- syncratic responses to a particular film and in part from the social and cultural contexts that surround their experience of that film. Early viewers of the Lumière brothers’ Train Arriving at a Station (1894) were rumored to have fled their seats to avoid the train’s oncoming rush; new interpretations of such first-encounter stories suggest that view- ers attended the screening precisely for a visceral entertainment not found in their normal social lives [Figure I.5]. In a more contemporary example, some individuals reacted on a personal level to Avatar (2009), breathlessly absorbed in a love story that harks back to Romeo and Juliet and over- whelmed by breathtaking visual movements that re-create the experience of amusement park rides. Other viewers dismissed the film because it offered what they saw as a sim- plistic political parable about corporate greed, terror, and exploitation far out of line with contemporary realities, disguising its bland characters and predictable story with jazzy special effects [Figure I.6].

While certain approaches in film studies look first at a film’s formal con- struction or at the historical background of its production, The Film Experience begins with an emphasis on movie spectators and how individuals respond to films. Our different viewing experiences determine how we understand the mov- ies, and, ultimately, how we think about a particular movie — why it excites or disappoints us. The significance of movies, in short, may lie not primarily in how they are made but rather in how we, as viewers, engage with and respond to them. As movie spectators, we are not passive audiences who simply absorb what we see on the screen. We respond actively to films, often in terms of our different ages, backgrounds, educational levels, interests, and geographi- cal locations. It is the richness and complexities of these fac- tors that make film viewing and film study a profound cultural experience. In short, our engage- ment with a movie goes beyond determining whether we like or dislike it. As active viewers, we

I.5 Poster for public screening of early films by the Lumière brothers. This poster shows the short comic sketch L’Arroseur arrosé (The Waterer Watered, 1895). In the advertisement, the audience’s reaction shows the novelty of the experience, which is as important as the image onscreen. Courtesy Photofest

I.6 Avatar (2009). Many viewers responded favorably to Sigourney Weaver’s strong female character in the film; others joined an Internet campaign against the film’s depiction of smoking.

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P A R T 1 Cultural Contexts: Watching, Studying, and Making Movies10

engage with a film in energetic and dynamic ways that The Film Experience aims to encourage and direct.

Our reactions are not only personal but also have important public and social dimensions. For instance, when Precious was released, many viewers were predisposed to appreciate it because of critics’ reviews and word-of-mouth praise that followed the film’s appearances at the Sundance and Cannes film festivals. As the film continued to play in wider release, its numerous Academy Award nominations and subsequent awards for best supporting actress and best adapted screenplay also influenced audiences’ curiosity about it and their reac- tions to it. In a dramatic move, Oprah Winfrey, who came on board as one of the film’s executive producers, energetically endorsed Precious on her television show. All the while, buzz about the film spread via Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites, as well as through the entertainment media and daily con- versations. The film touched a cultural nerve in a twenty-first-century American society still struggling with issues of racial inequality, the economic despera- tion of an urban underclass, sexual abuse, and body image. Precious arrived at the right time for many reasons, becoming an unexpected social barometer and provocation for audiences concerned about these issues. Discussions of the film’s dramatic images and events thus connected emotional responses with wider social dynamics.

At the intersection of these personal and public experiences, each of us has developed different tastes — cultural, emotional, intellectual, and social preferences or interests — that influence our expectations and lead us to like or dislike particu- lar movies. Some tastes vary little from person to person; most people prefer good characters to bad ones and justice served to justice foiled. Yet many tastes in mov- ies are unique products of our experiential circumstances or experiential histories. Experiential circumstances are the material conditions that define our identity at a certain time and in a certain place, such as our age, gender, race, linguistic and socioeconomic background, and the part of the country or world in which we live. For example, children are drawn to animated features with cuddly creatures and happy resolutions, whereas older adults have more patience for complicated plotlines or films with subtitles.

Experiential histories, such as our education, relationships, travels, and even the other films we have seen, are the personal and social encounters through which we have developed our identities over time. These histories help determine

individual as well as cultural tastes. For example, a World War II veteran, because of his experiential history, might have a particular taste for WWII films [Figure I.7], ranging from such sentimental favorites as Mrs. Miniver (1942) to the harder- hitting dramas Saving Private Ryan (1998) and Flags of Our Fathers (2006). An audience’s taste in films is often tied to historical events, drawing viewers to see films about lived-through experiences such as the Watergate scandal depicted in Oliver Stone’s Nixon (1995) or the Sep- tember 11 terrorist attacks on the United States dramatized in Stone’s World Trade Center (2006).

But experiential influences are not limited to history. American college students may be drawn to Wes Ander- son’s Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) as fans

I.7 Saving Private Ryan (1998). Steven Spielberg’s hard-hitting film was hailed by veter- ans as a realistic depiction of what American combat troops encountered during the invasion of Normandy. Veterans with experiential histories in combat might be drawn to war films as presentations of or homages to their experiences.

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of the director’s debut film Rushmore (1998) or because they read Roald Dahl’s books as children. Big-screen adaptations, when an artistic work such as a book, television show, or musical is turned into a film, attract the fans from the original medium. For example, Dream- girls (2006) might attract African Ameri- can audiences familiar with the history of Motown music, Broadway fans familiar with the original musical, or fans eager to see pop star Beyoncé in a dramatic role [Figure I.8].

Our experiential circumstances and histories may predispose us to certain tastes and responses, but these are acti- vated when we actually watch a film by two psychological processes that come into play simultaneously: identification and cognition.

Identification, the complex process through which we empathize with or project feeling onto a character or an action, is commonly associated with our emotional responses. Both adolescent and adult viewers can respond empa- thetically to the portrayal of the social electricity and physical awkwardness of teenage sexuality in American Graffiti (1973), The Breakfast Club (1985), or Superbad (2007), though different generations might find the music of one movie or the fashions of another more resonant, and male viewers are likely to relate more easily — or uneasily — to the high school boys at the center of Superbad than are female viewers [Figure I.9]. Each of us may identify with dif- ferent minor characters (such as the nerd Brian or the prom queen Claire in The Breakfast Club), but the success of a film often depends on eliciting audience identification with one or two of the main characters (such as Curt and Steve, the two boys who are about to leave for college in American Graffiti). Identification is sustained as the main characters face conflict and choices. Using another example, while watching the musical An American in Paris (1951) [Figure I.10], one viewer may instantly relate to the carefree excitement of the opening scenes by identifying with the street life of the artistic Montmartre neighborhood where she had lived as a college student. Another viewer who has never been to Paris may participate vicariously because the film so effectively re-creates an atmo- sphere of romance with which he can identify. Sometimes our preference for a particular film genre aids — or detracts from — the process of identification. Viewers who favor the adrenaline rush of horror films may have less interest and enthusiasm when faced with the bright colors and romantic plotlines associated with American musicals of the 1940s and 1950s.

Cognition, or the aspects of com- prehension that make up our rational reactions and thought processes, also con- tributes to our pleasure in watching mov- ies. At the most basic cognitive level, we process visual and auditory information indicating motion, the passing of time,

I.8 Dreamgirls (2006). Musical adaptations often draw their fan base from audiences familiar with the Broadway productions or the pop singers, like Beyoncé Knowles, featured in the cast.

V I E W I N g C U E What types of films do you identify with most closely? Are they from a particular country or era or particu- lar genres? Do they feature certain stars or a particular approach to music or settings?

I.9 Superbad (2007). In this Judd Apatow production, the main characters are two male ado- lescents who spend most of the movie in search of booze to impress girls. Gender identification is an important, though not necessarily predictable, aspect of the viewer’s experience of the film.

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P A R T 1 Cultural Contexts: Watching, Studying, and Making Movies12

and space as we watch movies. At another level, we bring assumptions about a given location or setting to most films, we expect events to change or progress in a certain way, and we measure characters against similar char- acters encountered elsewhere. Thus watching a movie is not only an emotional experience that involves identifying through processes of participation and empathy but also a cognitive process that involves the intellectual activities of comparison and comprehension. Engaged by our emotional identification with the ter- rors or triumphs of Russell Crowe’s character in Gladiator (2000), for example, we also find ourselves engaged cognitively with other aspects of the film [Figure I.11]. We recog- nize and distinguish the Rome in the movie through particular visual cues — the Colosseum and other Roman monuments — known perhaps from studies in world history, pictures, or other movies. We expect we will know who will win the battles and fights because of

what we’ve learned about such skirmishes, but that knowledge won’t necessarily prepare us for the extreme and graphic violence depicted in the film. Because of other experiences, we arrive at the film with certain assumptions about Roman tyrants and heroes, and we appreciate and understand characters like the emperor Commodus or the gladiator Maximus as they successfully balance our expectations with surprises.

Even as we are drawn to and bond with places, actions, and characters in films, we must sometimes reconsider how those ways of identifying develop and change as part of our intellectual or cognitive development. Indeed, this process of cognitive realignment and reconsideration determines to a large degree our reaction to a movie. In The Bridges of Madison County (1995), for example, Clint Eastwood, best known for playing physically tough and intimidating characters, plays a reflective and sensitive lover, Robert Kincaid. Viewers familiar with East- wood’s other roles who expect to see the same type of character played out in The Bridges of Madison County must reconsider what had attracted them to that star,

as well as assess how those expecta- tions have been complicated and are now challenging their understanding of The Bridges of Madison County. Does this shift suggest that the film is about a human depth discovered within older masculinity or about the maturing of that masculinity through the encounter with an equally strong woman (Meryl Streep as Francesca Johnson)? Whether we are able to engage in that process and find the realignment convincing will lay the foundation for our response to the movie. Thus what we like or dis- like at the movies often relates to the simultaneous and evolving processes of identification and cognition.

I.11 Gladiator (2000). Viewers cognitively process historical knowledge, narrative recogni- tion, and their own visceral responses when watching historical scenes such as the ones seen in Gladiator.

I.10 An American in Paris (1951). The setting of a film may be a source of identification.

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FORM IN

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The processes of identification and cognition that underlie how viewers interact with films contribute to the breadth of films pro- duced and the different ways they are understood and enjoyed. Some films elicit identification through action, special effects, or stars, while other films produce more cognitive relationships with their audiences through their analysis of current events or by creating witty and ironic perspectives on characters or their circumstances.

Hollywood blockbusters like Fast & Furious 6 (2013) attract large audiences who expect to be entertained by action, spectacle, and special effects without having to think too deeply about plot, char- acter, or realism [Figure I.12a]. Ponyo (2008), a Japanese-made, Japanese-language animated fantasy about a surprising friendship, was released in the United States with well-known actors voicing the characters in English [Figure I.12b]. This family-friendly offering nev- ertheless captivated plenty of anime enthusiasts as well as adults dazzled by its visual daring. The documentary Client 9 (2010) is an engrossing dissection of former New York governor Eliot Spitzer’s fall from power as well as an indictment of corporate greed. Its emphasis on contemporary American politics and its exploration of prostitution and corruption undoubtedly shaped its appeal while upping the ante on its perceived importance [Figure I.12c]. Indepen- dently produced films like Juno (2007), which deals in a humorous and sassy way with teen pregnancy, may appeal to a wealthier, more urban demographic comfortable with ironic, irreverent depictions of social problems [Figure I.12d].

Identification, Cognition, and

Film Variety

I.12a

I.12d

I.12c

I.12b

FORM IN ACTION bedfordstmartins.com/filmexperience

To watch a clip from Juno showing identification, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

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A particularly rich period of cinema flourished after World War II and lasted until the 1970s. Often designated in groups of “new waves,” filmmakers from different coun- tries shared two common postwar interests: (1) the use of film as an expression of one’s artistic vision — commonly referred to as “auteurist” cinema — and (2) a break from the polished look of industry films of the times. The first and most influential new wave cinema occurred in France. Known as the French New Wave, these filmmakers were

14

generally characterized by experimenting with new cin- ematic styles, searching for more honest forms of realism, and often creating more dynamic and active rapports with their audiences. As a consequence, audiences were com- monly asked to understand and identify with these films in innovative and sometimes disconcerting ways.

One of the most important films in the birth of the French New Wave was François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (1959), which is a realistic portrayal of a rebellious adoles- cent named Antoine Doinel whose search for identity on the streets of Paris is saturated with questions about sexuality, authority, family, economics, and education.

Like the protagonist of the film, Truffaut was himself both a bad boy and a writer, in both cases known for “rais- ing hell” — which is an idiomatic translation of the film’s French title, Les quatre cents coups. Frequently acknowl- edged as a sign of “auteurist” cinema in which a film rep- resents the filmmaker’s personal vision, this close relation between that protagonist and the director’s own life pro- vides a foundation for a sympathetic identification between the filmmaker, his main character, and the viewer [Fig­ ure I.13]. Truffaut’s own youth, like that of Doinel, was that of a troubled truant and sometime thief ultimately redeemed by the cinema. Like Antoine, he was weaned on the cinema, and as a teenager he started his own cine-club, the Film Addicts Club. Shortly after this, he enlisted in the army, but after another of many “escapes” from various institutions, he was released because of an “unstable character.”

Eventually Truffaut found a surrogate father figure in the great film scholar (and co-founder of the journal Cahiers du cinéma) André Bazin, to whom The 400 Blows is dedicated in its credits and to whom Truffaut’s parents even gave legal guardian rights. That Truffaut quickly be- came one of the most vociferous and controversial writers about film of the 1950s and was recognized as the primary scholar and archivist for Cahiers du cinéma extends this autobiographical or auteurist reading of the film to a larger cultural and historical understanding, in which audiences of the 1950s were confronted with film experiences that

FILM IN FOCUS

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The 400 Blows: An Auteur’s Film Experience ( 1959 )

See also: Le Beau Serge (1958); Breathless (1960); Elevator to the Gallows (1958)

FILM IN FOCUS bedfordstmartins.com /filmexperience

To watch a clip from The 400 Blows, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

I.13 François Truffaut. The director is closely identified with the French New Wave. The Kobal Collection/Art Resource, NY

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asked them to see and comprehend films in historically in- formed, challenging, and, in many cases, rebellious ways.

This autobiographical and historical dimension of the film also points to a way of reading and understanding The 400 Blows in terms of its distinctive look. The film relies extensively on location shooting across Truffaut’s Paris to create a world that seems true to life as it is lived, not as it is portrayed in glossy, studio-produced films. The style of the film — its use of a discontinuous editing style and lightweight, handheld camera equipment — produces a sense of freshness, energy, and immediacy that call attention to a new kind of filmmaking and new ways of viewing for the audience.

Focusing this realism further, the main character of the film, Antoine Doinel, is played by Jean-Pierre Léaud, a young teenager with no acting experience who brings an unrehearsed energy to the character of a young boy constantly confronting a seemingly endless variety of authority figures and institutions — schoolteachers, par- ents, police — bent on controlling him. The gritty street realism and the naive energy of the actors that underpin this production are the essence of what the film aims to communicate. Considering how viewers respond to this realism and Doinel — with sympathy, understanding, alienation, or confusion — is just one of the many paths into the experience of this landmark film.

As another layer in the viewer’s encounter with The 400 Blows and an understanding of it, Truffaut inserts a self-conscious awareness of movie history into the film. During the longer sequence when Antoine and René skip school and make a quick trip to the cinema, for example, Antoine climbs aboard the spinning carnival ride called

the “Rotor” [Figure I.14]. For film historians especially, the scene becomes an unmistakable metaphor for the cinema itself, as the ride resembles that nineteenth-century precursor of the cinema, the zoetrope, and contains a historical reference to the paternity of Alfred Hitchcock (specifically the climactic carousel sequence in Strangers on a Train [1951]). More important, perhaps, Truffaut’s cameo presence in this scene relates historical refer- ences such as this both to Antoine’s story and to the liberating power of the cinema. The rollicking celebration of movement is not just a vehicle for narrative but also the expression of energy and delight, both Antoine’s and the filmmaker’s. Antoine and René’s wild ramble as they play hooky through the streets of Paris highlights the unpredictable realism of the film’s aesthetic but simulta- neously visually liberates the characters and the images from conventional laws of nature and cinematic realism.

Like those other stylistic innovations, the film’s fa- mous last shot — a track to a freeze frame of the young Antoine’s face [Figure I.15] — can also be seen as a use of style to pose a cognitive dilemma, and to open up culturally embedded processes of interpretation. This unusually long track (lasting more than eighty seconds) of the fleeing Antoine usually unsettles first-time viewers, particularly since his goal or destination is unclear. This cognitive provoca- tion continues when his face looks directly at the camera, perhaps as a question or perhaps as a confrontation. What is he thinking? What are we meant to understand happens next? The film leaves these questions unanswered, and we as viewers must reflect back on the boy’s story and bring our individual experiential circumstances and histories to bear in our response.

I.14 The 400 Blows (1959). The carnival ride is a metaphor recalling the disorienting, exhilarating machinery of film.

I.15 The 400 Blows (1959). The film ends with a famous, ambiguous freeze frame in which Jean-Pierre Léaud as Antoine Doinel gazes directly at the camera.

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P A R T 1 Cultural Contexts: Watching, Studying, and Making Movies16

The Film Experience

What a movie looks and sounds like is of course at the heart of any film experience, and much of The Film Experience is devoted to exploring in detail those many visual, audio, narrative, and formal features and forces that we see on the many screens around us. But it is viewers who ultimately process those images and sounds — in different and diverse ways that bring meaning to film culture and to their lives. The cinematic complexities of Citizen Kane (1941), for example, are technically the same for each person, but they provoke different responses in every viewer [Figure I.16]. Hardly a typical viewer, newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst reacted nega- tively to the film and claimed it to be an inflammatory portrait of himself, refusing to allow his papers to carry ads for it. In the 1950s, French writers and filmmakers hailed the film as evidence of the power of the filmmaker to create a personal vision of the world. In recent decades, the film’s consistent ranking at or near the top of critics’ polls has influenced increased viewing of Citizen Kane, thus illustrating how viewers respond to both the movie and its perceived place in film history. With any film, some viewers may find importance in the technological or economic features; others may highlight the aesthetic or formal innovations; and still others may emphasize a film’s historical or social significance as its most meaningful quality. The same film, in fact, could lead different moviegoers to any one of these (or other) critical pathways,

and it is less a question of which is the most important way to engage the film than one of which provides the most productive encounter for each individual viewer.

Viewers’ experiences of the movies — their shared expe- riences of film culture as well as their individual interpreta- tions guided by identification and cognition — are the starting point of The Film Experience. Part 1 examines how processes and patterns of production, distribution, and exhibition present a film in particular ways, creating social contexts in which audiences encounter the movies. Part 2 presents the four formal systems that structure films — mise-en-scène, cinematography, editing, and sound — showing how view- ers derive meaning from familiar as well as innovative forms and patterns. Part 3 introduces and analyzes the primary modes through which viewers’ encounters with the movies are shaped: narrative, nonfiction, and experimental organizations as well as genres. Part 4 offers critical per- spectives on film, including an overview of film history, an account of major questions and positions in film theory, and a guide to writing a film essay.

The Film Experience encourages readers to choose and explore tactically different pathways into a film. This is not to say that studying film allows a movie to mean anything one wants; indeed, this book insists on a precise understanding of film forms, practices, and terminologies. Rather, having the tools and awareness to measure how and why a film engages us and provokes us in many different ways ultimately makes clear how rich and exciting films and film cultures are and, at the same time, how important and rewarding it is to think carefully, accurately, and rigorously about both.

Critical and scholarly interest in the movies is an outcome of — and an input into — the values and ideas that permeate our social and cultural lives. Not only are cultural

I.16 Citizen Kane (1941). Even canonized films offer multiple entryways and the possibility of various responses for careful viewers. Courtesy Everett Collection

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Viewing movies is more complex than it at first seems. As fans and students of the movies, most of us experience films from a variety of personal and cultural positions and angles. Like Alvy Singer in Annie Hall, we may be pas- sionate about films and about how and when we watch them. As with François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows, a film may ask us to identify on a personal level with the characters and action and challenge us to see in new ways. Our histories, circumstances, and tastes may draw us to different films for differ- ent reasons: one person may be especially fascinated with the technological maneuvers of Inception or Avatar, while others may be drawn to the music of Dreamgirls or the history lessons of Gladiator. In some cases, we primarily identify with the film and its characters, as when teenagers view The Break- fast Club; in others, our experience may be more of cognitive or intellectual engagement, as when we reflect on a documentary such as Client 9. In most every case, it can be rewarding and exciting to examine how and why we view and respond to movies in certain ways, and this kind of reflection can lead to the pleasure of thinking about, studying, and debating our film expe- riences. Try out the goals of this chapter on the next film you are watching:

■ How would you describe the film culture that situates you today? How does it position you to enjoy certain films or kinds of films?

■ What kinds of tastes, histories, and circumstances would lead certain viewers to a film like Inception? Or a film like Fruitvale Station?

■ Describe two different viewing positions for a big summer movie like Man of Steel — one that is primarily about identification and another that has a more cognitive engagement with the film. Try to be specific.

■ Make the case for studying a war film like Saving Private Ryan. How might that film be “studied,” and how would that activity add to both the understanding and the enjoyment of that film?

Activity Choose a good review or critical essay about a recent film and carefully read it to analyze the various ways that the writer engaged with that particular film. Do his or her judgments reveal specific tastes, backgrounds, or a cultural con- text that informs or even prejudices his or her observations? Are there moments in the review when the writer seems to identify with certain characters and actions on an emotional or psychological level? Are there other evaluations that suggest cognitive considerations about how that movie compares with similar films?

C O N C E P T S A T W O R K

Studying Film: Culture and Experience I N T R O D U C T I O N

values and ideas reflected in the films and media that surround us, in other words, but values and ideas are generated by films as well. Both inside and outside the class- room, movies engage us, and we them. Public debates about violence in the movies, the crossover of movie stars into positions of political power, and the technological and economic shifts that have led to widespread participation in moving image pro- duction, as well as the vigorous marketing of new formats and playback devices, are only some of the constant reminders of how movies spread throughout the fabric of our everyday experiences. To think seriously about film and to study it carefully is therefore to take charge of one of the most influential forces in our lives. Expanding our knowledge of the cinema — from its formal grammar to its genres to its historical movements — connects our everyday knowledge to the wider sociocultural patterns and questions that shape our lives.

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1 chapter

In 2012, Joss Whedon directed two very different kinds of films, The Avengers, a big-budget action film about comic-book superheroes, and Much Ado about Nothing, a contemporary adaptation of Shakespeare’s romantic comedy. The pro- duction, distribution, and exhibition of the two films illustrate how films, even by the same director, can be shaped by extremely different institutional histories.

With an estimated production budget of $220 million, The Avengers took advantage of the digital and technological tools available to a young director mak- ing a rapid transition from television to blockbuster movie culture. The film was converted to 3-D and broadly distributed by Walt Disney Pictures to major markets around the world in April 2012. It was nominated for a range of awards and attracted devoted followers of comics fans, sci-fi buffs, and a massive youth audience.

Despite Whedon’s claim that both films demonstrate his fascination with complex characters in complex social environments, Much Ado traveled a very different road from production to exhibition. Besides a shooting location in his own home and a schedule that lasted only twelve days, the film features an entourage of actors who worked with Whedon on his TV productions. The film’s promotion focused on its com- bination of the director of The Avengers with a daring adaptation of Shakespeare. As expected, the film appeared primarily in art-house cinemas. More so than The Avengers, however, it may have a future in college film courses on Shakespeare and film.

As these two disparate films suggest, film production, distribution, and exhibition shape our encounters with movies, and these aspects of film are in turn shaped by how movies are received by audiences.

Encountering Film From Preproduction to Exhibition

19 Top: THE AVENGERS © Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection. Bottom: Bellwether Pictures/The Kobal Collection

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K E Y O B J E C T I V E S

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Whether we follow movie news or not, we know that a great deal has taken place before we as viewers experience a film. The varied practices that go into moviemaking are not only artistic and commercial, they are cultural and social, and they anticipate the moment of viewing at which meaning and value are generated. Understanding the process that takes a film from an idea to its final form not only deepens an appreciation for film form and the labor and craft of filmmakers but also reveals ways that culture and society influence filmmaking itself.

This chapter describes the process of production as well as the fate of a fin- ished film as it is distributed, promoted, and exhibited. Such extra-filmic processes, which describe events that precede, surround, or follow the actual images we watch on the big screen, television monitor, or other device, are inseparable from the film experience.

As viewers, where and when we see a movie shapes our response, enjoyment, and understanding as much as do the form and content of the film itself. The film experience now encompasses ever smaller viewing devices (from computers to iPads and smartphones), changing social environments (from IMAX to home theaters), and multiple cultural activities designed to promote interest in individual films (reading about films, directors, and stars; playing video games; watching special DVD editions; or connecting to social media that support a film franchise). Waiting in line with friends for a midnight premiere and half-watching an edited in-flight movie are significantly different experiences that lead to different forms of appreciation and understanding. Overall, it is helpful to think of production and reception as a cycle rather than a one-way process: what goes into making and circulating a film anticipates the moment of viewing, and viewing tastes and habits influence film production and dissemination.

■ List the stages of filmmaking, from preproduction through production to postproduction, and explain how each stage informs what we see on the screen.

■ Describe how the mechanisms of film distribution determine what films we can see as well as when and how we can see them.

■ Analyze how film promotion may predispose us to see certain films and to see them in certain ways.

■ Evaluate the ways in which film exhibition both structures and is influenced by audience reception.

■ Explain the ways in which media convergence and rapid technological ad- vances are affecting virtually all aspects of the film experience from produc- tion to consumption.

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Production: How Films Are Made The aim at each step of filmmaking is to create an artistic and/or commercial product that will engage, please, or provoke viewers. In short, film production is a multilayered activity in which industry, art, technology, and imagination inter- twine. It describes the different stages — from the financing and scripting of a film to its final edit and, fittingly, the addition of production credits naming the com- panies and individuals involved — that contribute to the construction of a movie. Production may not seem like a central part of our film experiences as viewers, but the making of a film anticipates an audience of one sort or another and im- plies a certain kind of viewer. Does the film showcase the work of the director or the screenwriter, the cinematographer or the composer of the musical score? How does the answer to this question affect our perspective on the film? Understanding contemporary filmmaking in its many dimensions contributes to our appreciation of and ability to analyze films.

Preproduction Although the term “production” is used to define the entire process of making a film, a great deal happens — and often a long time passes — before a film begins to be shot. Preproduction designates the phase when a project is in development and before the cameras roll. In narrative filmmaking, the efforts of the screenwriter, the producer, and sometimes the director, often in the context of a studio or an independent production company, combine at this stage to conceive and refine an idea for a film in order to realize it onscreen. Funds are raised, rights are secured, a crew is assembled, casting decisions are made, and key aspects of the film’s de- sign, including location scouting and the construction of sets and costumes, are developed during the preproduction phase. Documentary filmmakers might con- duct archival or location research, investigate their subject, and conduct interviews during this period.

Screenwriters A screenwriter, or scriptwriter, is often the individual who generates the idea for a narrative film, either as an original concept or as an adaptation of a story, novel, or historical or current event. The screenwriter presents that early concept or material in a treatment, a short prose description of the action and major characters of the story. The treatment is then gradually expanded to a complete screenplay or script, including scene descriptions, dialogue, and other directions. This undergoes several versions, from the temporary screenplay submitted by the

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P A r T 1 Cultural Contexts: Watching, Studying, and Making Movies22

screenwriter to the final shooting script that details exact scenes and camera setups. As these different scripts evolve, one writer may be responsible for every version, or different writers may be employed at each stage, resulting in minor and sometimes major changes along the way. Even with a finished and approved script, in the studio context an uncredited script doctor may be called in to do rewrites. From Sunset Bou- levard (1950), about a struggling screen- writer trapped in the mansion of a fading silent-film star, to Adaptation (2002), about (fictional) screenwriter Charlie Kaufman’s torturous attempt to adapt Susan Orlean’s book The Orchid Thief, numerous films have found drama in the process of screen-

writing itself [Figure 1.1]. One reason may be the dramatic shifts and instabilities in the process of moving from a concept to a completed screenplay to a produced film, a process that highlights the difficulties of trying to communicate an indi- vidual vision to an audience.

Producers and Studios The key individuals in charge of movie production and finances are a film’s pro- ducers. Although a director may also serve as a producer on his or her film, it is rare for a film not to have a producer at all. A producer oversees all of the different operations in putting a film together. At times, a producer may be fully involved with each step of film production from the selection and development of a script to the creation of an advertising campaign for the finished film; at other times, a producer may be an almost invisible partner who is responsible principally for the financing of a movie. Producers were extremely powerful in the heyday of the studio system, a term that describes the industrial practices of major studios in the 1920s through the 1940s. MGM was identified with the creative vision of the supervisor of production, Irving B. Thalberg, who as production head worked closely with studio mogul Louis B. Mayer from the mid-1920s until Thalberg’s premature death in 1936. After leaving MGM to found his own studio, producer David O. Selznick controlled all stages of production, beginning with the identifica- tion of the primary material for the film. For instance, he acquired Gone with the Wind as a property even before the book was published. Selznick supervised every aspect of the 1939 film version of the best-seller, even changing directors during production — a process documented in his famous production memos.

With the rise of the independent film movement in the 1990s, independent producers have worked to facilitate the creative freedom of the writer and director, arranging the financing for the film as well as seeing the film through casting, hiring a crew, scheduling, shooting, postproduction, and distribution sales. For example, producer James Schamus first worked with Ang Lee on the indepen- dent film Eat Drink Man Woman (1994) and co-wrote the screenplays of Sense and Sensibility (1995), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), and Lust, Caution (2007). As vice president of Focus Features (a specialty division of Universal), Schamus shepherded Lee’s Brokeback Mountain (2005) through all stages of pro- duction [Figure 1.2].

Regardless of the size or type of film being made, distinctions among the tasks and roles of types of producers exist. An executive producer may be connected to a film primarily in name, playing a role in financing or facilitating a film deal

1.1 Adaptation (2002). As its title indicates, screenwriting is the very topic of this inventive film, in which Charlie Kaufman, played by Nicolas Cage, is both a character and the credited writer.

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and having little creative or technical in- volvement. On a documentary, an executive producer might work with the television channel commissioning the program. A co- producer credit may designate an investor or an executive with a particular production company partnering in the movie, someone who had no role in its actual production. The line producer is in charge of the daily business of tracking costs and maintaining the production schedule of a film, while a unit production manager is responsible for reporting and managing the details of receipts and purchases.

The budget of a film, whether big or minuscule, is handled by the producers. In budgeting, above-the-line expenses are the initial costs of contracting the major person- nel, such as directors and stars, as well as administrative and organizational expenses in setting up a film production. Below-the- line expenses are the technical and material costs — costumes, sets, transportation, and so on — involved in the actual making of a film. Production values demonstrate how the quality of the film’s images and sounds reflects the extent of these two expenses; in both subtle and not-so-subtle ways, production values often shape viewers’ expectations about a film. High production values suggest a more spectacular or more professionally made movie. Low production values do not necessarily mean a poorly made film. In both cases, we need to adjust our expectations to the style associated with the budgeting.

Financing Film Production Financing and managing production expenses is a critical ingredient in making a movie. Traditionally studios and producers have worked with banks or large finan- cial institutions to acquire this financing, and the term “bankable” has emerged as a way of indicating that a film has the necessary ingredients — such as a famous star or well-known literary source — to make that investment worth the risk. A mainstream action movie like Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol (2011), starring Tom Cruise, might cost well over $100 million to produce and over $50 million to market — a significant investment that assumes a significant financial return. Developed alongside the conception of a film, therefore, is a plan to find a large enough audience to return that investment and, ideally, a profit.

Some films follow a less typical financing path; Kevin Smith made Clerks (1994) by charging expenses to various credit cards. The 1990s saw a rise in inde- pendent film as financing strategies changed. Instead of relying on a single source such as a bank or a studio, independent filmmaking is financed by organized groups of individual investors or pre-sales of distribution or broadcast rights in different markets. In the absence of studio backing, an independent film must ap- peal to potential investors with a known quantity, such as the director’s reputation or the star’s box-office clout. Although major star Julianne Moore was attached to Lisa Cholodenko’s project The Kids Are All Right for five years, raising the film’s $4 million budget was difficult [Figure 1.3]. In 2013, filmmakers Spike Lee and Rob

1.2 James Schamus and Ang Lee. Ang Lee’s best director Oscar for Brokeback Mountain (2005) was the fruit of a long collaboration with producer James Schamus. Kevin Winter/Getty Images

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Thomas (Veronica Mars) were just two film- makers who turned to the Kickstarter Web site to raise funding for their films.

Nonfiction films also require financ- ing — documentaries may be sponsored by an organization, produced by a television channel, or funded by a combination of individual donors and public funds. For in- stance, Jonathan Caouette’s Tarnation (2003) recounts the filmmaker’s childhood and adolescence through a collage of snapshots, Super-8 footage, answering machine mes- sages, video diaries, and home movies [Figure 1.4]. It does not use a conventional screenplay, and it was edited on a home computer with an alleged production budget of about $200. With John Cameron Mitchell and Gus Van Sant as executive producers, the film screened at the Sundance Film Festival. The publicity led to other festival

invitations, a distribution deal — which enabled a limited theatrical release — and con- siderable critical attention.

Casting Directors and Agents With the increasing costs of films and the necessity of attracting money with a bankable project, the roles of casting directors and agents have become more im- portant. Traditionally the work of a casting director, the practice of identifying the actors who would work best in particular scripted roles emerged during the advent of the star system around 1910. It was around this time when Florence Lawrence, the exceedingly popular star of Biograph Studio, known only as the “Biograph Girl,” first demanded to be named and given a screen credit. Often in consultation with directors, producers, and writers, casting directors have since become bigger and

more widely credited players in determining the look and scale of films as they revolve around the cast of stars and actors in those films.

Representing actors, directors, writ- ers, and other major individuals in a film production, agents negotiate with casting directors and producers and enlist different personnel for a movie. The significance and power of the agent extends back at least to the 1930s, when talent agent Lew Wasser- man, working as a publicist for the Music Corporation of America (MCA), began to create independent, multiple-movie deals for Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, James Stew- art, and many others. By the mid-1950s, Wasserman and others had established a package-unit approach to film production whereby the agent, producer, and casting director determine a script, stars, and other major personnel as a key first step in a ma- jor production, establishing the production model that would dominate after the demise

1.3 The Kids Are All Right (2010). A modestly budgeted independent production usually requires name stars to attract financing. Even with cast members committed, however, Lisa Cholodenko’s comedic drama about lesbian parents took years to produce.

1.4 Tarnation (2003). As Jonathan Caouette’s debut film shows, even an ultra-low- budget independent production can be released theatrically if it lands an adequate distribution deal.

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of the traditional studio system. By the mid-1970s, so-called superagents would sometimes predetermine a package of stars and other personnel from which the film must be constructed. Michael Ovitz is perhaps the most famous superagent; he co-founded the powerful Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in 1975, where he represented Tom Cruise and Barbra Streisand and packaged such blockbusters as Jurassic Park (1993). Ovitz’s story became exemplary of Hollywood hubris. After leaving CAA to seek power as a studio executive, he was fired from his position as president of the Walt Disney Company after only fourteen months.

Locations, Production Design, Sets, and Costumes In narrative films, the interaction between characters and the physical location of the action is often a central dimension of a film; hence choices about loca- tion and set design are critical. Likewise, documentary filmmaking is obviously dependent on location as well — from the record of a strike in Harlan County, U.S.A. (1976) to nature documentaries like Planet Earth (2006) — but it also uses sets for interviews.

Location scouts became commonplace in the early twentieth century; these individuals determine places that provide the most suitable environment for dif- ferent movie scenes. Choosing a location is often determined by a series of prag- matic questions: Does the place fit the requirements of the script? How expensive would it be to film at this location? Many films rely on constructed sets that re-create a specific place, but the desire for movie realism often results in the use of actual locations to invigorate a scene. Thus the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies (2001–2003; 2012–2014) take advantage of the lush and wild location filming in New Zealand, while the 2012 adaptation of Anna Karenina avoids the prohibitive costs of shooting on location in Russia by inge- niously using stage sets for much of the ac- tion. In recent decades, the cinematic task of re-creating real-seeming environments has shifted to computer-graphics technicians. These technicians design the models to be digitally transferred onto film, becoming, in a sense, a new kind of location scout.

The production designer determines the film’s overall look. Art directors are responsible for supervising the conception and construction of movie sets, after which set decorators complete the look with the details. For example, in a movie set in a particular historical period and place, such as Argo (2012), the art department coordinated to create sets and locations that accurately reflect Tehran in 1980, while also highlight- ing the suspenseful atmosphere in the rescue of six Americans.

The role of costume designers, those who plan and prepare how actors will be dressed as their characters, greatly in- creased as the movie business expanded in the 1930s. Costume designers ensure the

1.5 Greta Garbo, George Cukor, and Adrian on the set of Camille (1936). Costume designer Adrian contributed significantly to the sumptuous style of MGM films of the 1930s and 1940s. Courtesy Everett Collection

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splendor, suitability, and sometimes the historical accuracy of the movie char- acters’ appearances. Indeed, for those films in which costumes and settings are central to the story — films set in fantasy worlds or historical eras, such as Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), which uses both kinds of settings — one could argue that the achievement of the film becomes inseparable from the decisions about the art and costume design. In the end, suc- cessful films integrate all levels of the design, from the sets to the costumes, as in Jane Campion’s period drama about John Keats and Fanny Brawne, Bright Star (2009), whose heroine’s vivid cloth- ing represents a passion and creativity to match the poet’s [Figure 1.6].

Production Most mythologized of all phases of moviemaking is production itself or principal photography, when the majority of footage is filmed. The weeks or months of actual shooting, on set or on location, are also known as a film shoot. Countless films, from The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) and Irma Vep (1996) to Hitchcock (2012), dramatize inspired or fraught interactions among cast, crew, and the person in charge of it all, the director [Figure 1.7]. The reality of production varies greatly with the scale of the film and its budget; but the director, who has often been in- volved in all of the creative phases of preproduction, must now work closely with the actors and production personnel — most notably, the camera units headed by the cinematographer — to realize a collaborative vision.

The Director The earliest films of the twentieth century involved very few people in the pro- cess of shooting a film, with the assumption that the cameraman was the de facto

director. By 1907, however, a division of labor separated production roles, placing the director in charge of all others on the film set. Today the director is commonly regarded as the chief creative presence or the primary manager in film production, responsible for and overseeing virtually all the work of making a movie — from guiding the actors to determining the position of the camera and the selection of which images appear in the finished film.

Directors have different methods and degrees of involvement. Alfred Hitchcock claimed he never needed to see the action through the camera viewfinder since his script directions were so precise that there would be only one way to compose the

shot; others are comfortable relinquishing important decisions to their assistant director (A.D.), cinematographer, or sound designer; still others, like Woody Allen

1.6 Bright Star (2009). The heroine’s fashions fit both the nineteenth-century setting of Jane Campion’s film about Romantic poet John Keats and the film’s theme of creativity.

1.7 Irma Vep (1996). Maggie Cheung stars in a film about making a film — starring Maggie Cheung.

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and Barbra Streisand, assume multiple roles (from screenwriter to actor and editor) in addition to that of director [Figures 1.8a and 1.8b]. In Hollywood during the stu- dio era, directors’ visions were often subordinated to “house style” or a producer’s vision; yet directors worked so consistently, and honed their craft with such skilled personnel, that critics have claimed to detect a given director’s “signature” style across routine assignments, elevating directors like Howard Hawks (Bringing Up Baby [1938] and His Girl Friday [1940]) and Nicholas Ray (Rebel Without a Cause [1955]) to the status of auteurs — those directors considered “authors” of their films whereby they express their own individual vision and experience on the screen.

Today a company backing a film will choose or approve a director for projects that seem to fit with his or her skills and talents; for example, Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón’s success with films like A Little Princess (1995) and Great Ex- pectations (1998) led to his early involvement with Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004). Because of the control and assumed authority of the director, contemporary viewers often look for stylistic and thematic consistencies in films by the same director, and filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino have become celebrities. This follows a model prevalent in art cinema made outside Hollywood in which the vision of a director like Jean-Luc Godard or Tsai Ming-liang (What Time Is It There? [2001]) is supported by the producer and made manifest in virtually every aspect of the film.

The Cast, Cinematographer, and Other On-Set Personnel The director works with the actors to bring out the desired performance, and of course these collaborations vary greatly. Because films are shot out of order and in a variety of shot scales, the cast’s performance must be delivered in bits and pieces. Some actors prepare a technical performance; others rely on the director’s prompting or other, more spontaneous inspiration. Recently starring in Lincoln (2012), Daniel Day-Lewis is known for immersing himself in every role to such an extent that he stays in character throughout the entire production, even when the cameras are not rolling. David Fincher’s exacting directorial style requires scores of takes, or different versions of a shot, a grueling experience for Zodiac (2007) actors Jake Gyllenhaal and Robert Downey Jr. Some directors gravitate to particularly sympathetic and dynamic relations with actors: Tim Burton with Johnny Depp, Pedro Almodovar with Penelope Cruz, or Martin Scorsese with Robert De Niro or Leonardo DiCaprio. Blocking, or the planning of actors’ movements on the set, may take precedence over the director’s concern for the actors’ emotional preparation.

1.8a and 1.8b Barbra Streisand. Stardom as a singer and actress gave Streisand the opportunity to turn to directing. In Yentl (1983), her first film as a director, her protagonist dresses as a boy to study Torah. Courtesy Everett Collection

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The cinematographer, also known as the director of photography (D.P.), selects the cameras, film stock, lighting, and lenses to be used as well as the camera setup or position. In consultation with the director, the cinematographer determines how the action will be shot, the images composed, and, later, the kind of exposure needed to print the takes. The cinematographer over- sees a camera operator and other camera and lighting crew. Many films owe more to the cinematographer than to almost any other individual in the production: the scin- tillating Days of Heaven (1978) profits as

much from the eye of cinematographer Néstor Almendros as from the direction of Terrence Malick; and the consistently stunning work of cinematographer Michael Ballhaus, from R. W. Fassbinder’s The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979) to Martin Scorsese’s The Departed (2006), arguably displays the artistic singularity and vision that are usually assigned to film directors [Figure 1.9].

Other personnel are also on the set, from the production sound mixer and other sound crew, including the boom operator; to the grips who install lighting and dollies; to the special effects coordinator and scenic, hair, and make-up artists; to the catering staff. A production coordinator helps this complex operation run smoothly. During the shoot, the director reviews dailies, footage shot that day, and begins to make selects, takes that are suggested for the finished film. After principal photography is completed, sets are broken down and the film “wraps,” or completes production. A film shoot is an intense, concentrated effort in which the contributions of visionary artists and professional crew mesh with schedule and budget constraints.

Postproduction Some of the most important aspects of a finished film, including editing, sound, and visual effects, are achieved after principal photography is completed and produc- tion is over. How definitive or efficient the process is depends on many factors — a documentary may be constructed almost entirely during this phase, or a commercial feature film may have to be re-cut in response to test screenings or the wishes of a new executive who has assumed authority over the project.

Editing and Sound The director works closely with the editor and his or her staff to select, trim, and assemble shots into a finished film with a distinctive style and rhythm, a process that is now largely carried out with digitized footage and computer-based editing. Editing is anticipated in preproduction of fiction films with the preparation of a shooting script, and in production it is recognized in the variety and number of takes provided. Only a fraction of the footage that is shot makes it into the finished film, however, making editing crucial to its final form. In documentary production, editing may be the most important stage in shaping the film. When the editing is completed, the picture is said to be locked.

Postproduction also includes complex processes for editing sound and adding special effects. A sound editor oversees the work of creating audio patterns and relationships with the visual image. Less apparent than the editing of images, edit- ing of sound can create noises that relate directly to the action of the image (such as matching the image of a dog barking), underpin those images and actions with

1.9 The Departed (2006). Cinematographer Michael Ballhaus suggests interpretations of the characters’ motives through shot composition and lighting.

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music (such as the pounding beats that follow an army into battle), or insert sounds that counterpoint the images in ways that complicate their meanings (such as using a religious hymn to accompany the flight of a missile). In the sound mix, the score and all of the film’s soundtracks are adjusted to their final levels and combined.

Special Effects Special effects are techniques that enhance a film’s realism or surpass assumptions about realism with spectacle. Whereas some special effects are prepared in pre- production (such as the building of elaborate models of futuristic cities), others can be generated in production with special camera filters or setups, or created on set, such as the use of pyrotechnics.

Today most special effects are created in postproduction and are distinguished by the term visual effects, in which teams of technicians and artists work in post- production to create elaborate optical effects with expensive equipment. In the con- temporary digital age, computer technicians have virtually boundless postproduction capabilities to enhance and transform an image. Fantastical scenes, even characters (such as Andy Serkis as Gollum in Lord of the Rings), can be acted out using green- screen technology, in which actors perform in front of a plain green background, and motion-capture technology, which transfers the actors’ physical movements to computer-generated imagery (CGI). The settings of the Star Wars prequel trilogy (1999–2005) were generated largely in postproduction [Figure 1.10]. All of the per- sonnel who work behind the scenes on these many levels of filmmaking are acknowl- edged when the titles and credits are added in the final stage of postproduction.

1.10 Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith (2005). While the original Star Wars films used multiple sets, models, and props, much of the prequel series was generated using state-of-the-art computer technology.

Distribution: What We Can See The completed film reaches its audience through the process of distribution, in which films are provided to venues in which the public can see them. These in- clude theaters and video stores, broadcast and cable television, Internet streaming and video on demand (VOD), libraries and classrooms — even hotels and airlines.

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Despite these many outlets for distribution, many worthy films never find a distrib- utor and are thus never seen. As avenues of distribution multiply, new questions about the role of film culture in our individual and collective experience arise. Our tastes, choices, and opportunities are shaped by aspects of the industry of which we may be unaware, and we, in turn, influence what we can see in the future.

The discussion that follows, which emphasizes the U.S. feature-film distribu- tion system since it often controls even foreign theaters, addresses how viewers and views of movies are prepared by the social and economic machinery of distribution.

Distributors A distributor is a company or an agency that acquires the rights to a movie from the filmmakers or producers (sometimes by contributing to the costs of producing the film) and then makes that movie available to audiences by renting, selling, or licensing it to theaters or other exhibition outlets. Producers and distributors were once identified with the same studios but after legal challenges in 1948, those busi- nesses were clearly separated and distinguished. Today, however, companies often participate in both production and distribution. Top-grossing distributors include Warner Brothers, Walt Disney Pictures, Sony Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Twenti- eth Century Fox, Universal, and New Line. Smaller by comparison, other companies include Miramax, Focus Features, United Artists, and Magnolia Pictures.

The supply of films for distribution is, of course, dependent on the films that are produced, but the inverse of that logic is central to the economics of mainstream movie culture: what is produced depends on what Hollywood and many other film cultures assume can be successfully distributed. Film history has accordingly been marked with regular battles and compromises between filmmakers and distributors about what audiences are willing to watch. United Artists was formed in 1919 by four prominent Hollywood stars, D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, to distribute their independently produced films and became a major company. Decades later, in 1979, the independent distributor Miramax used aggressive promotional campaigns to make foreign-produced and independent mov- ies viable in wide theatrical release, thus changing the distribution landscape.

Evolution of the Feature Film Consider the following examples of how the prospects for distributing and ex- hibiting a film can influence and even determine its content and form, including decisions about its length. From around 1911 to 1915, D. W. Griffith and other filmmakers struggled to convince movie studios to allow them to expand the length of a movie from roughly 15 minutes to over 100 minutes. Although longer films imported from Europe achieved some success, most producers felt that it would be impossible to distribute longer movies because they believed audiences would not sit still for more than 20 minutes. Griffith persisted and continued to stretch the length of his films, insisting that new distribution and exhibition patterns would create and attract new audiences — those willing to accept more complex stories and to pay more for them. Griffith’s controversial three-hour epic, The Birth of a Nation (1915), was distributed as a major cultural event comparable to a legitimate theatrical or operatic experience and was an enormous commercial and financial success [Figure 1.11]. The film became a benchmark in overturning one distribution formula, which offered a continuous program of numerous short films, and establishing a new one, which concentrated on a single feature film, a longer movie that is the primary attraction for audiences.

After 1915, most films would be distributed with 90- to 120-minute running times, rather than in their previous 10- to 20-minute lengths, and this pattern for

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distribution has proved quite durable. The recent trend toward longer running times, especially for “prestige” or “epic” films, acknowledges the flexible contexts in which films are now viewed. Ironically, in 1980, it was D. W. Griffith’s studio, United Artists, that decided to reduce the length of Michael Cimino’s massive four-hour epic Heaven’s Gate (1980) to 149 minutes in order to come closer to the standard film length [Figure 1.12]. But after the catastrophic failure of its first release to movie the- aters, and as a result of the flexible viewing conditions of home video, much of the original version was eventually restored.

Our experience of a movie — its length, its choice of stars (over unknowns, for example), its subject matter, and even its title — is partly determined by decisions made about distribution even before the film becomes avail- able to viewers. Most movies are produced specifically to be distributed to certain kinds of audiences. Whether a movie is available everywhere for everyone at the same time, released during the holiday season, or available only in specialty video stores or on Internet sites, distri- bution patterns bring expectations that a particular film either fulfills or frustrates.

Release Strategies As one of its primary functions, distribution determines how many copies of a film are available and the number of locations at which the movie can be seen. During the heyday of the Hollywood studio system, studios would either show their films in their own theater chains or sell them to theaters in packages, a practice known as block booking. An exhibitor would be required to show cheaper, less desirable films as a condition of booking the star-studded “A” pictures. This practice was one of the targets of antitrust leg- islation and was finally outlawed in the 1948 U.S. v. Paramount decision, which divorced the studios from their theater chains and required that films be individu- ally sold. Typically, a distribution strategy kicks off with a premiere, a red carpet event attended by stars that attracts press attention. A film’s initial opening in a limited number of first-run theaters as exclusive engagements would gradu- ally be expanded, allowing for a series of premieres.

In 1975, Steven Spielberg’s Jaws intro- duced the practice of wide release, opening in hundreds of theaters simultaneously. Since then, a film with a mass circulation of premieres, sometimes referred to as sat- uration booking or a saturated release, is screened in as many locations as pos- sible in the United States — and increasingly abroad — as soon as possible. For a potential blockbuster such as Iron Man 3 (2013), the distributors immediately release the movie in a maximum number of locations and theaters to attract large audiences before its

1.11 Advertisement for The Birth of a Nation (1915). The ambitious nature of D. W. Griffith’s controversial epic was apparent in advertisements and its unprecedented three-hour running time. Courtesy Everett Collection

V I E W I n g C u E How might a distribution strategy determine a response to a film? Does knowing this strategy help you understand the film’s aims better?

1.12 Heaven’s Gate (1980). Michael Cimino’s original film was more than four hours long and cut down to 149 minutes. After a disastrous theatrical release, the film was re-cut, re-released, and eventually restored for successful home video distribution.

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novelty wears off [Figure 1.13]. In these cases, distribution usually promises audiences a film that is easy to understand and appeals to most tastes (offering action sequences, breathtaking special effects, or a light romance rather than controversial topics).

A limited release may be distributed only to major cities — Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (1992) first appeared in only seventy-five theaters — and then expand its distribution, depending on the film’s success. Audience ex- pectations for films following a limited release pattern are generally less fixed than for wide releases: they usually will be recognized in terms of the previous work of the director or an actor but will offer a certain novelty or ex- perimentation (such as a controversial subject or a strange plot twist) that will presumably be better appreciated the more the film is publicly debated and understood through the reviews and discussions that follow its initial release. The Weinstein Company’s decision to limit the release of Todd Haynes’s experimental biopic of Bob Dylan, I’m Not There (2007), to major cities was a strategic bid to maximize critical attention to the film’s daring and the intrigu- ing premise of its star performances, which in- clude Cate Blanchett playing the 1960s Dylan [Figure 1.14].

As part of these more general practices, distribution strategies have developed over time to shape or respond to the interests and tastes of intended audiences. Platforming involves releasing a film in gradually widening markets and theaters so that it slowly builds its reputa- tion and momentum through reviews and word of mouth. The strategy for expanding a release depends on box-office performance — if a film does well in its opening weekend, it will open in more cities on more screens. When the low- budget supernatural horror film Paranormal Activity (2007) was acquired and released by Paramount, audiences themselves became di- rectly involved in determining where the film would open by voting on director Oren Peli’s Web site. A movie can also be distributed for special exclusive release, premiering in only one or two locations. A dramatic example of this strategy was seen with the restored ver- sion of Abel Gance’s silent classic Napoléon, an epic tale of the life of the French emperor that periodically presents the action simultaneously on three screens. The original film premiered in April 1927. In 1981, the exclusive release of the restored film toured to one theater at a

1.13 Iron Man 3 (2013). As a major studio release and entry in the hugely successful Marvel series, the film received a saturated release, opening on around ten thousand screens in more than four thousand theaters. Courtesy Newscom

1.14 I’m Not There (2007). Todd Haynes’s experimental Bob Dylan biopic built up critical attention through a limited release pattern.

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time, accompanied by a full orchestra; seeing it became a privileged event.

Target Audiences Since the latter part of the twentieth century, mov- ies have also been distributed with an eye to- ward reaching specific target audiences — viewers whom producers feel are most likely to want to see a particular film. Producers and distribu- tors aimed Shaft (1971), an action film with a black hero, at African American audiences by distributing it primarily in large urban areas. Distributors positioned Trainspotting (1995), a hip tale of young heroin users in Edinburgh, to draw art-house and younger audiences in cit- ies, some suburbs, and college and university towns. The Nightmare on Elm Street movies (1984–1989), a violent slasher series about the horrific Freddy Krueger, were aimed primarily at the male teenage audi- ence who frequented cineplexes and, later, video stores.

The various distribution strategies all imply important issues about how movies should be viewed and understood. First, by controlling the scope of distribution, these strategies determine the quality and importance of an audience’s interactions with a film. As a saturated release, the 1998 American remake of Godzilla aimed for the swift gratification of an exciting onetime event with a focus on special effects and shocks, before disappointed word of mouth could spread. Platformed gradually through expanding audiences, Driving Miss Daisy (1989) benefited from critical reflections on the relationship it depicts between an older white woman and her black chauffeur [Figure 1.15].

No distribution pattern produces a single set of expectations, nor does the distribution method determine the meaning of a film. Yet distribution methods can lead viewers, overtly or subtly, to look at a film in certain ways. We come to a saturated release perhaps prepared to focus on the performance of a star, on the relationship to a best-selling novel, or on the new use of computer technol- ogy. With a platformed release, ideas and opinions about the film are already in the air, and any controversy or innovation associated with it informs our initial viewing.

Second, in targeting audiences, distribution can identify primary, intended responses to the film as well as secondary, unexpected ones. Scary Movie (2000), Date Movie (2007), and Epic Movie (2008) would probably offend or confuse adult audiences unfamiliar with teenage “spoof ” films that poke fun at genres and their conventions, but the targeted teenage audi- ences come prepared, knowing the formulas and clichés associated with this kind of movie, and are likely to see these films as comic parodies [Figure 1.16]. The production companies also convinced distributors that females were more likely to watch more humorous versions of these different genres. Awareness of these strategies of target- ing indicates how our identification with and comprehension of films are as much a product of our social and cultural location as they are a product of the film’s subject matter and form.

1.15 Driving Miss Daisy (1989). Platforming this modestly budgeted film cultivated audiences and critical responses.

1.16 Scream (1996). The franchise targeted the teenage audience for slasher films and expanded it through parody.

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Ancillary Markets Commercial cinema’s reach has been expanding ever since studios began to take advantage of television’s distribution potential in the mid-1950s. New technologies for watching movies continue to proliferate, and distribution has increasingly taken advantage of television, video, DVD, Blu-ray, and pay-per-view or other forms of video on demand (VOD). Today more of a film’s revenue is generated by such ancillary markets than by its initial theatrical release.

Television Distribution Historically the motion picture industry competed with broadcasting, which dis- tributed entertainment directly to the home through radio and later television. As television became popular in postwar America, the studios realized that the new medium provided an unprecedented distribution outlet. While initial attempts to have viewers pay to see feature films on TV were abandoned in favor of licensing works to television networks and stations, this model returned with subscription cable in the 1980s. With the rise of cable television, studios were provided with even more lucrative opportunities to sell their vast library of films. Home video and the launch of dedicated movie channels like Turner Classic Movies (founded by Ted Turner to showcase his acquisition of MGM’s collection) were a boon to cinema lovers as well.

With viewing options ranging from network to premium channels, and from On-Demand to subscription plans, more and more movies are presented through television distribution — the selection and programming, at carefully determined times, of films made both for theaters and exclusively for television. Histori- cally there was a specific lag time between a theatrical release in a cinema and a cable or network release, but these relationships are changing. Some movies are distributed directly to video or cable, such as the ongoing series of follow-ups to Bring It On (2000). Whether a movie is released after its theatrical run or is made expressly for video and television, this type of distribution usually aims to reach the largest possible audience and thus to increase revenues. Part of the motive in these cases may be to reach more people with a film’s message, such as when Schindler’s List (1993) was featured as a prime-time, commercial-free (though corporate-sponsored) television movie years after its original theatrical release. In an attempt to reach specialized audiences through subscription cable, distributors like IFC Films have made critically acclaimed foreign and U.S. independent films available on demand the same day they are released in art-house theaters in major cities, allowing television audiences in markets outside large cities access to such works as the Romanian 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days (2007), winner of the Cannes Film Festival’s top prize. Although the traditional wisdom is that such access will hurt the theatrical box office, the strategy allows such films to reach wider audi- ences, and positive word of mouth, for both the film and the distributor’s “brand,” might even enhance overall theatrical revenue.

Guaranteed television distribution can reduce the financial risk for producers and filmmakers and thus, in some situations, allow for more experimentation or filmmaker control. In a fairly new trend, the flow between television and theatri- cal distribution is reversed. Premium (subscription) cable channels such as HBO increasingly produce their own films that include riskier documentary subjects. While these films are presented on their networks, a theatrical window for the film to receive reviews and become eligible for awards is sometimes allowed.

Television distribution has both positive and negative implications. In some cases, films on television must adjust their style and content to suit constraints of both time and space: scenes might be cut to fit a time slot, interrupted with com- mercial breaks, or, as with Schindler’s List, the film may be shown on two different

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Encountering Film: From Preproduction to Exhibition C H A P T E r 1 35

nights, thus potentially breaking the flow and impact of the movie. For many years, the size and ratio of a widescreen film was changed to fit the traditionally square shape of the television monitor, thus altering the picture to suit the format. Now, widescreen ratios tend to be the default, distorting those films or other program- ming originally produced in the standard, square, format. In other cases, television distribution may expand the ways movies can communicate with audiences and experiment with different visual forms. The Singing Detective (1986) uses the long length of a television series watched within the home as the means to explore and think about the passage of time, the difficulty of memory, and the many levels of reality and consciousness woven into our daily lives.

Home Video, VOD, and Internet Distribution Each new format for the public or private consumption of media — VHS, laserdisc, DVD, Blu-ray — offers a new distribution challenge for media makers and a potential new revenue model for rights holders. Independent producers may find it difficult to transfer existing media to new formats or to make enough sales for a particular avenue of distribution to be viable. The home video era began with competition between Sony’s Beta format and VHS. The VHS format won out, and with the wide- spread use of VCRs in the 1980s, studios quickly released films in the VHS home video format, first for rental and increasingly for sales. There have been similar dueling interests in recent years, such as that between HD-DVD and Blu-ray.

One of the most significant challenges to distributors posed by new formats is piracy, the unauthorized duplication and circulation of copyrighted material. De- spite anti-copying software, the circulation of pirated films is widespread and can bypass social and cultural controls as well as legal ones, bringing banned films to viewers in China, for example, or building subcultures and networks around oth- erwise hard-to-access films.

As with film distribution through cinema and television, distribution of con- sumer formats like video, DVD, and Blu-ray determines the availability of par- ticular titles to audiences. A film may be made available for rental or purchase in stores, received by mail from companies like Netflix, or ordered from independent distributors such as Kino International.

Before the closing of many video stores caused by the shift to subscriber and On-Demand services in the 2000s, the video store was a significant site of film cul- ture. Since the selection in rental stores was based on a market perspective on local audiences as well as the tastes of individual proprietors, some films were distributed to certain cities or neighborhoods and excluded from other locations. While the dominant chains such as Blockbuster, which filed for bankruptcy in 2010, were likely to focus on high-concentration family-oriented shopping sites, offering nu- merous copies of current popular mainstream movies and excluding daring subject matter or older titles, local independent video stores specialized in art films, cult films, or movie classics such as those released on DVD by the Criterion Collection. Still other local stores might depend on X-rated films or video game rentals for their primary revenue. Sometimes distribution follows cultural as well as commer- cial logic. Bollywood films, available in video and even grocery stores in neighbor- hoods with large South Asian populations, provided a tie to cultural traditions and national stars and songs before access to such films became widespread.

For viewers, there were two clear consequences to these patterns of video distribution. First, video distribution can control and direct — perhaps more than does theatrical distribution — local responses, tastes, and expectations: as part of a community anchored by a particular video store, we see and learn to expect only certain kinds of movies when the store makes five or six copies of one blockbuster film available but only one or none of a less popular film. The second conse- quence highlights the sociological and cultural formations of film distribution.

V I E W I n g C u E Was the movie recently screened for class likely to have been shown on television? If so, in what way? How might such distribution have significantly changed the look or feel of it?

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P A r T 1 Cultural Contexts: Watching, Studying, and Making Movies36

As a community outlet, video stores become part of the social fabric of a neighborhood. Viewers are consumers, and video stores can become forums in which the interests of a commu- nity of viewers — in children’s film or art-house cinema, for instance — can determine which films are distributed. Michel Gondry’s Be Kind Rewind (2008) shows an urban community coming to- gether around the films made available at its locally owned video store after its employees begin to produce their own versions of rental titles to replace their demagnetized inventory [Figure 1.17].

Such ties are less likely to be forged around recent alternatives to dedicated stores, such as DVD kiosks in grocery stores.

The innovation in distribution of DVDs that was probably most responsible for the decline of the local video store is the rental-by-mail model launched by Netflix and followed by other companies. As part of a subscription system that offers viewers a steady stream of DVDs, Netflix members can select and return films as rapidly or as slowly as they wish. Because the DVDs arrive and are returned through the mail, this distribution arrangement emphasizes the rapidity of contemporary consumption of movies. And because a subscriber preselects DVDs that are then sent automatically, this kind of distribution lacks the kind of social interaction that used to exist in video stores.

But such models still involve a material object that is literally distributed to viewers. As high-speed Internet made downloading movies and live streaming a consumer option, many sites began to provide such opportunities, and distribution confronted yet another set of challenges. If a movie is rented on demand, how many times can it be watched? On how many different devices? Unauthorized downloading and sharing became even more difficult for distributors to regulate; at the same time, new opportunities for viewing and for forming social relations around cinema were generated. Netflix updated its own model to allow subscribers to stream titles to both computers and televisions. Students were offered new forms of access to films and film history.

The success of streaming and downloading may indicate an audience’s desire to see a growing variety of films, as Netflix, iTunes, and other sources expand their offerings of foreign, classic, and documentary films. With the ability to select from among a vast array of films, as well as to determine the time, place, duration, and even device upon which one views it, the viewer may feel that she has finally overcome the limits set by distribution, even though economic decisions still shape the circulation of film.

This emphatic attention to a new ease and freedom of film consumption raises different questions about changing viewing patterns and their implications, however. Do these new paradigms undermine the social and communal formations of the overall film experience, from browsing the video store to watching movies with an audience or a film class? Does an audience increasingly fragmented into individuals make shared movie culture a more remote possibility? Does increased ease of access to film traditions remote in time or location make for a richer film culture? Finally, how might these patterns influence and change the kinds of movies that are made? The answer to any of these questions is not clear or certain. Indeed, these new view- ing patterns may simply offer different ways for audiences to create different kinds of communities based on their own interests. Similarly, the more open access to periods of film history or foreign film cultures may broaden our sense of both but may also require more work and research into those discovered times and places.

1.17 Be Kind Rewind (2008). The employees at a neighborhood video store attract a loyal local audience with their do-it-yourself inventory, like this re-created scene from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

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Encountering Film: From Preproduction to Exhibition C H A P T E r 1 37

Many kinds of films are made without the intention of showing them for profit: artists’ films, activist documentaries, alternative media, medical or industrial films. While many of these films are shown publicly, they are not shown in a traditional theatrical context; nor do they necessarily have access to commercial video or Internet distribution methods. Some of these works serve a very specific training or promo- tional purpose and are distributed directly to their intended professional or target audience. Others may find television or educational distributors from PBS to Women Make Movies; still others may upload their films to the Internet.

Distribution Timing Distribution timing — when a movie is re- leased for public viewing in certain locations or on certain platforms — is another promi- nent and changing feature of distribution. Adding significantly to our experience of movies, timing can take advantage of the social atmosphere, cultural connotations, or critical scrutiny associated with particular seasons and calendar periods. The summer season and the December holidays are the most important in the United States because audiences usually have more free time to see thrill rides like Speed (1994) [Figure 1.18].

Offering a temporary escape from hot weather, a summer release like Pacific Rim (2013) offers the visual thrills and fun of battling robots, a bit like a giant video game, a bit like an amusement park, and a bit like an old-fashioned sci-fi movie. Annual broadcasts of Christmas movies like Miracle on 34th Street (1947) promise a celebration of goodwill and community [Figure 1.19]. The Memorial Day release of Pearl Harbor (2001) immediately attracts the sentiments and memories Americans have of World War II and other global conflicts. The film industry is calculating releases ever more carefully — for example, holding a promising film for a November release in order to vie for prestigious (and business-generating) awards nominations.

Mistiming a film’s release can prove to be a major problem, as was the case in the summer of 2013, when the DreamWorks cartoon Turbo followed too close on the heels of Monsters University and Despicable Me 2 to gain much traction with the family audience all three were targeting. As one would expect, avoiding unwanted competition with a film can be a key part of a distributor’s timing [Figures 1.20a and 1.20b]: distributors accelerated the timing of the opening of The Matrix (1999) precisely to avoid competition with Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace (1999).

Multiple Releases Of the several other variations on the tactics of tim- ing, movies sometimes follow a first release or first run with a second release or second run; the first describes a movie’s premiere engagement, while the second refers to the redistribution of that film months or years later. After its first release in 1982, for example, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner made a

V I E W I n g C u E How might the distribution of a film that has been released in the last year have been timed to emphasize certain responses? Was it a seasonal release?

V I E W I n g C u E Try to identify the target audience of one of the films you’ve discussed in class. How might this movie have gained different audiences through DVD distribution?

1.18 Speed (1994). Action movies intended as summer amusements have become central to the release calendar.

1.19 Miracle on 34th Street (1947). Annual television broadcasts of classic Christmas movies compete with theatrical fare also timed to the season.

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notable reappearance in 1992 as a longer director’s cut [Figure 1.21]. While the first release had only modest success, the second (supported by a surprisingly large audi- ence discovered in the home video market) appealed to viewers newly attuned to the visual and narrative complexity of the movie. Audiences wanted to see, think about,

and see again oblique and obscure de- tails in order to decide, for instance, whether Deckard, the protagonist, was a replicant or a human.

For Blade Runner’s twenty-fifth anniversary in 2007, a final cut was released theatrically, but it catered pri- marily to DVD customers. With multiple releases, financial reward is no doubt a primary goal, as the trend to reissue films in anticipation of or following major awards like the Oscars indicates.

With a film that may have been unavailable to viewers during its first release or that simply may not have been popular, a re-release can lend it new life and reclaim viewers through a

process of rediscovery. When a small movie achieves unexpected popular or critical success or a major award, for example, it can then be redistributed with a much wider distribution circuit and to a more ea- ger, sympathetic audience that is already prepared to like the movie. A version of this practice, Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay! (1988) was re-released in 2013 to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the stunning debut by this now-celebrated Indian film- maker. A re-release may also occur in the attempt to offer the audience a higher-quality picture or a 3-D repackaging of an older film, or to clarify story lines by restoring cut scenes, as was done in 1989 with Columbia Pictures’ re-release of the 1962 Academy Award–winning Lawrence of Arabia.

Similarly, television distribution can re-time the release of a movie to promote certain attitudes toward it. It’s a Wonderful Life did not generate much of an audience when it was first released in 1946. Gradually (and especially after its copyright expired in 1975), network and cable television began to run the film

1.21 Blade Runner (1982, 1992, 2007). While its initial opening was disappointing, Ridley Scott’s dystopian “future noir” was an early success on home video. Theatrical releases of a direc- tor’s cut for its tenth anniversary and a final cut for its twenty-fifth make the question of the film’s definitive identity as interesting as the questions of human versus replicant identity posed by its plot.

1.22 It’s a Wonderful Life (1946). A box-office disappointment when it was initially released, Frank Capra’s film became a ubiquitous accompaniment to the holiday season on television. In recent years, NBC’s broadcast restrictions attempted to restore the film’s status as an annual family viewing event.

1.20 (a) The Matrix (1999) and (b) Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace (1999). The summer 1999 release of The Matrix was moved up to avoid competition with the much-anticipated opening of the first Star Wars prequel, The Phantom Menace.

(a) (b)

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Encountering Film: From Preproduction to Exhibition C H A P T E r 1 39

regularly, and the film became a Christmas classic shown often and everywhere during that season [Figure 1.22]. In 1997, however, the television network NBC reclaimed the exclusive rights to the film in order to limit its television distribution to one showing each year and to try to make audiences see the movie as a special event.

Day-and-Date Release The theatrical release window of a film — the period of time before its broadcast or cable premiere, or its distribution on DVD or video on demand — has traditionally been about three to six months to guarantee box-office revenue. The period is becoming shorter and shorter. Day-and-date release refers to a simultaneous release strategy across different media and venues, such as a theatrical release and a DVD release. With Bubble (2006), an offbeat, low-budget murder mystery about a slacker working in a doll factory, director Steven Soderbergh and producers Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner effectively closed this window by releasing the film almost simultaneously to theaters (in limited release), stores, and cable television [Figure 1.23]. Some film- makers such as M. Night Shyamalan denounced this practice; since then, both main- stream and independent films have experimented with timing releases. Magnolia Pictures has even released its slate of independent films digitally on demand before their theatrical premieres. For smaller films like Prince Avalanche (2013), the word of mouth garnered by availability on demand can help extend the time it remains in theaters and the number of cities in which it opens theatrically [Figure 1.24].

Whether or not this kind of distribution strategy actually announces a radical change in film distribution, it does signal the kinds of experimentation that digital production and distribution can allow and the inevitable changes and adjustments that will occur in the future in response to shifting markets, tastes, and technolo- gies. Across the exchange between Soderbergh and Shyamalan, it also suggests larger concerns about how these changes can affect our responses to films and the kinds of films that will be made.

1.23 Bubble (2006). Steven Soderbergh experimented with releasing simultaneously to theaters, cable, and DVD this modest digital film about a murder’s impact on small-town workers at a doll factory.

1.24 Prince Avalanche (2013). David Gordon Green’s film (starring Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch) follows two men performing road repairs in remote Texas. Magnolia Films made the movie available both in select theaters and through online outlets.

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40

Distribution is almost invisible to the public and hence much less glamorous than film production or exhibi- tion, but it determines whether a film will ever reach an audience. Independent filmmakers often bring new perspectives to mainstream, formulaic filmmaking, but their visions need to be shared. African American film- makers, who have historically been marginalized within the industrial system of production, often encounter additional challenges in getting their films distributed. The career of Charles Burnett, considered one of the

most significant African American filmmakers despite his relatively small oeuvre, is marked by the vicissi- tudes of distribution. The successful limited release of his first feature, Killer of Sheep (1977), in 2007, more than thirty years after it was made, not only illuminates black American filmmakers’ historically unequal access to movie screens but also illustrates the multiple lev- els  on which current distribution campaigns function. The way the film’s distributor, Milestone Films, handled the film’s theatrical, non-theatrical, and DVD release

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Distributing Killer of Sheep ( 1977 ) See also: Sweet Sweeetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971);

She’s Gotta Have It (1986); Boyz N the Hood (1991)

FIlM In FOCuS bedfordstmartins.com /filmexperience

To watch a clip from Killer of Sheep, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

1.25 Killer of Sheep (1977). Charles Burnett’s legendary independent film about an African American family in Los Angeles’s Watts neighborhood infuses its realism with poetic images, like the child wearing a mask. The film was finally distributed theatrically thirty years after it was made. Courtesy of Milestone Film & Video

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in order to maximize critical attention and gain signifi- cant revenue serves as a model for similar endeavors [Figure 1.25].

Produced in the early 1970s as a master’s thesis film, Burnett’s Killer of Sheep emerged amid a flowering of African American filmmaking talent at the University of California, Los Angeles, film school. In place of the two-dimensional stereotypes of past classical Hollywood films, the almost-too-good-to-be-true characters played by Sidney Poitier in the 1960s, or the often cartoonish, street-smart characters of the so-called blaxploitation films that Burnett saw on urban screens at the time, he depicted his protagonist, Stan, as the father of a black family living in the impoverished Watts neighborhood in Los Angeles. A decent man whose slaughterhouse job and daily struggles have numbed and depressed him, Stan nevertheless gets by, and his bonds with his family and community, depicted in grainy, beautifully composed black-and-white images, are profoundly mov- ing. In the film’s final scene, Stan and his wife slow dance to a song by Dinah Washington, getting through another day.

Killer of Sheep was never distributed theatrically. Essential to the mood and meaning of the film is its soundtrack, composed of blues and R&B music by Paul Robeson, Dinah Washington, and Earth, Wind & Fire. Without the resources to clear the music rights for public presentation, Burnett circulated his film over the years in occasional festivals and museum and educational set- tings. His artistic reputation became firmly established: in 1990, the film was among the first fifty titles named to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. But audiences never got to see the film. Only when Burnett was able to complete To Sleep with Anger in 1990, due to the participation of actor Danny Glover and Burnett’s receipt of a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, did one of

his films receive theatrical distribution. But even To Sleep with Anger, a family drama that lacked violence and clear resolutions, was overlooked amid the media’s attention to more sensationalized depictions of ghetto culture set to hip-hop soundtracks, such as John Singleton’s Boyz N the Hood (1991).

Eventually Burnett’s critical reputation helped secure the restoration of Killer of Sheep by the UCLA Film & Tele- vision Archive just when its original 16mm elements were in danger of disintegrating beyond repair. The restoration, one of several planned for independent films of historical significance, was funded by Turner Classic Movies and filmmaker Steven Soderbergh, whose own debut feature, sex, lies, and videotape (1989), changed the landscape for the distribution of independent film. In March 2007, the specialty, or “boutique,” distributor Milestone Films, whose founders (Dennis Doros and Amy Heller) have long been in the business of releasing important classic and contemporary films theatrically, opened Killer of Sheep in a restored 35mm print in New York. Excellent reviews that positioned the film in relation both to African Ameri- can history and to filmmaking movements like Italian neorealism, and the grassroots support of the Harlem- based organization Imagenation, made the opening a record-breaking success, and the film soon opened in art cinemas around the country. The next phase was release on DVD to institutions such as universities that did not have the facilities to show Killer of Sheep on 35mm but wanted the rights to have a public screening. Finally, the film was released on DVD for the consumer market, pack- aged with another unreleased early feature by Burnett, My Brother’s Wedding, along with a commentary track and other features. Thus an experienced “niche” distributor helped a thirty-year-old film win a place on critics’ top-ten lists, a special prize from the New York Film Critics Circle, and a place in public memory.

Encountering Film: From Preproduction to Exhibition C H A P T E r 1

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The Repeat Viewer Distributing a movie through one or more releases anticipates and capitalizes on an increasingly common variation in contem- porary movie culture: the repeat viewer who returns to see the same movie more than once. Love Story (1970), a tale of tragically doomed young love, was among the first modern movies to draw viewers back to the theater for multiple viewings, but films like Rudolph Valentino’s The Sheik (1921), Toy Story (1995), and The Sixth Sense (1999) have each exploited this viewing pattern [Figure 1.26]. Women returned with friends to share their adoration of Valentino; adults returned with children to Toy Story, more interested in the inside jokes than the story; and fans of The Sixth Sense returned to spot

early clues that anticipate the surprise ending. Data taken from repeat viewings of Titanic (1997) revealed the extent of business brought to moviegoing by teenage girls — with repeat viewers like these, timing becomes more a function of the viewers’ choices, not the distributor’s. However, it also demonstrates the changing variety of experiences at the movies for the same individual: a different time and place, different companions, and more knowledge about a movie can alter or enrich expectations and assumptions, and determine how a viewer comes prepared to see a film.

Whether with an exclusive Christmas release or an experimental film, the distribution path implicitly identifies a certain kind of audience (in terms of age, gender, and other characteristics) watching the movie in a certain place (in a theater or at home) and a certain moviegoer (a midnight movie fan or the family that goes out during the holidays). Understanding a movie fully means considering carefully how it attempts to position us in a particular place and time.

Distribution’s influence on film culture can be significant. In post–World War II America, it was enterprising distributors, with access to theaters no longer monop- olized by studio releases, who created a market for foreign films. Today studios easily “dump” a film directly into the video on demand or home-viewing market because it does not think the film will be profitable; non-theatrical distributors circulate inde- pendent, experimental, educational, or special interest films to libraries, colleges, and media arts centers; and viewers access small DVD companies that distribute Iranian films by browsing the Internet. Access to movie culture determines viewers’ experi- ence of it, and distribution thus determines filmmakers’ abilities to communicate with those audiences.

V I E W I n g C u E What recent film have you seen more than once? What elements or dimensions of this film suggest that the filmmakers would or would not have expected repeat viewings?

1.26 The Sixth Sense (1999). Repeat viewers may detect clues to this film’s surprise ending in encounters like this one, in which a troubled boy’s mother, played by Toni Collette, fails to meet the gaze of the main character, played by Bruce Willis.

Marketing and Promotion: What We Want to See

Why and how we are attracted to certain movies is directly shaped in the marketing and promotion that accompany distribution. A film might be advertised online as the work of a great director, for example, or it might be described as a steamy love story and illustrated by way of a sensational poster. A film trailer might emphasize the romantic story line in an otherwise cerebral spy film like The Lives of Others (2006). Although these preliminary encounters with a film might seem marginally relevant to how we experience the film, promotional strategies, like distribution strategies, prepare us in important ways for how we will see and understand a film.

V I E W I n g C u E Name a movie you believe has had a strong cultural and historical impact. Investigate what modes of promotion helped highlight particular themes in and reactions to the film.

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Encountering Film: From Preproduction to Exhibition C H A P T E r 1 43

Generating Interest Marketing and promotion aim to generate and direct interest in a movie. Film mar- keting identifies an audience for a specific product (in this case a movie) so that buyers will watch that product for financial return. Film promotion refers to the specific ways a movie can be made an object that an audience will want to see. No doubt the star system is the most pervasive and potent component of the market- ing and promotion of movies around the world. One or more well-known actors, who are popular at a specific time and within a specific culture, act as the advertis- ing vehicle for the movie, and, like other marketing and promotional practices, the star system aims to create, in advance, specific expectations that will draw an au- dience to a film. Quite often, these marketing and promotional expectations — that Leonardo DiCaprio stars or that indie filmmaker Sarah Polley directs, for example — subsequently become the viewfinders through which an audience sees a movie.

The methods of marketing and promotion are many and creative. Viewers find themselves bombarded with everything from news- paper and billboard advertisements to previews shown before the main feature to tie-in games featured on the official movie Web site to trailers that appear when browsing the Internet [Figure 1.27]. Stars make public appearances on radio and television talk shows, and are profiled in fan magazines; media critics attend early screenings and write reviews that are quoted in the ads for the film — all these actions contribute to movie promotion. In addition, while movies have long been promoted through prizes and gifts, modern distributors are especially adept at marketing films through tie-ins: ancillary products such as T-shirts, CD soundtracks, toys, and other gimmicks made available at stores and restaurants that advertise and promote a movie. Mon- sters University (2013), for example, was anticipated with an extensive line of toys and games, which gener- ated interest in the movie and vice versa.

Marketing campaigns for blockbuster films have become more and more exten- sive in recent years, with the promotion budget equaling and often even exceeding the film’s production budget. A marketing blitz of note accompanied Independence Day (1996). Given its carefully timed release on July 3, 1996, following weeks of advertise- ments in newspapers and on television, it would be difficult to analyze first-run view- ers’ feelings about this film without taking into account the influence of these promo- tions. Defining the film as a science fiction thriller, the advertisements and reviews drew attention to its status as the film event of the summer, its suitability for children, and its technological wizardry. Promoted and released to coincide with the Fourth of July holiday, Independence Day ads emphasized its patriotic American themes [Figure 1.28]. In that light, many posters, advertisements, and publicity stills presented actor Will Smith

1.27 Movie marquee. Promoting movies through prizes, giveaways, and product tie-ins dates back to the 1920s.

1.28 Independence Day (1996). The film’s massive promotional campaign for its Fourth of July weekend opening drew on blatant and subtle forms of patriotism, such as the multicultural appeal of its cast. Courtesy Photofest

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together with Bill Pullman or Jeff Goldblum, not only to promote the film’s stars but also to draw attention to the racial harmony achieved in the film and its appeal to both African American and white audiences. During the first month of its release, when U.S. scientists dis- covered a meteorite with fossils that suggested early life on Mars, promotion for the movie responded im- mediately with revised ads: “Last week, scientists found evidence of life on another planet. We’re not going to say we told you so. . . .”

Typical Hollywood promotions and advertisements often emphasize the realism of movies, a strategy that promises audiences more accurate or more expansive reflections of the world and human experience. In Silver Linings Playbook (2012), a Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence film about a young man released from a mental institution, the struggle to cope with his bipolar disorder while living with his Philadelphia family was a reality that the film’s promotions claimed

had rarely before been presented in movies. A related marketing strategy is to claim textual novelty in a film, drawing attention to new features such as techni- cal innovations, a rising star, or the acclaimed book on which the film is based. With early sound films like The Jazz Singer (1927), The Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929), and Innocents of Paris (1929), marketing advertisements directed audiences toward the abundance and quality of the singing and talking that added a dramatic new dimension to cinematic realism [Figure 1.29]. Today promotions and adver- tisements frequently exploit new technologies. Promotions of Cloud Atlas (2012) flaunted its spectacular motion-capture and other special effects technologies, as it dramatized the transformations of its characters through six interconnected time-travel tales. Avatar’s (2009) marketing campaign emphasized its new 3-D technology. Marketers can also take advantage of current political events, as when Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty (2012) advertised its plot’s timely encounter with debates and concerns around the use of torture and the killing of Osama bin Laden [Figure 1.30].

1.29 Innocents of Paris (1929). The marquee for the movie promotes the novelty of sound and song and this early musical’s singing star.

1.30 Zero Dark Thirty (2012). Topical interest in the hunt for Osama bin Laden, as well as the director’s success with the similarly current The Hurt Locker (2008), fueled interest in Kathryn Bigelow’s film.

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Stars are booked to appear on talk shows and in other ven- ues in conjunction with a film’s release, as official promotion tactics, but stars may also bring unofficial publicity to a film. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie boosted audiences for the film Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005) when they became a couple during its filming. Conversely, unwelcome publicity can cause an actor’s contract to be canceled or raise concerns about the impact on ticket sales [Figure 1.31], as happened with Tom Cruise’s often odd remarks and public appearances preceding the release of Mission: Impossible III (2006).

Older films in current release and independent, art, and foreign-language films have less access to the mechanisms of promotion than do current mainstream films, and social media have afforded new opportunities to spread the word to special- ized audiences. In addition, audiences for these films are led to some extent by what we might call “cultural promotion,” aca- demic or journalistic accounts that discuss and frequently value films as especially important in movie history or as aesthetic objects. A discussion of a movie in a film history book or even in a university film course could thus be seen as an act of market- ing, which makes clear that promotion is not just about urging viewers to see a film but is also about urging them to see it with a particular point of view. Although these more measured kinds of promotion are usually underpinned by intellectual rather than financial motives, they also deserve our consideration and analysis.

How does a specific film history text, for instance, prepare you to see a film such as Bonnie and Clyde (1967)? Some books promote it as a modern gangster film. Others pitch it as an inci- sive reflection of the social history of the turbulent 1960s. Still other texts and essays may urge readers to see it because of its place in the oeuvre of a major U.S. director, Arthur Penn [Figure 1.32]. Independent movies promote the artistic power and individuality of the director; associate themselves with big-name film festivals in Venice, Toronto, and Cannes; or call attention, through advertising, to what distinguishes them from mainstream Hollywood films. For a foreign film, a com- mitted publicist can be crucial to its attaining distribution by attracting critical mention. Documentaries can be promoted in relation to the topical subject matter or controversy. In short, we do not experience any film with innocent eyes; consciously or not, we come prepared to see it in a certain way.

Advertising Advertising is a central form of promo- tion that uses television, billboards, film trailers or previews, print ads, banners on Web sites, and other forms of display to bring a film to the attention of a potential audience. Advertising can use the facts in and issues surrounding a movie in vari- ous ways. Advertising often emphasizes

1.31 Tom Cruise. The star’s erratic behavior during daytime and late-night talk-show appearances to promote Mission: Impossible III (2006) contributed to Paramount’s ending its contract with Cruise. AP Photo/Reed Saxon

1.32 Bonnie and Clyde (1967). Critical accounts may position this film as an updated gangster film or as social commentary on the turbulent 1960s.

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connections with and differences from related or similar films or highlights the presence of a particularly popular actor or director. The poster for Charles Chaplin’s The Kid (1921), for example, proudly pronounces it “the great Film he has been working on for a whole year” [Figure 1.33]. For different markets, Prometheus (2012) was promoted as a star vehicle for Sweden's Noomi Rapace, or as the latest film from Ridley Scott, the direc- tor of Alien (1979), Blade Runner (1982), Thelma & Louise (1991), and Black Hawk Down (2001). It is conceivable that these two promotional tactics created different sets of expectations about the movie — one more attuned to tough female protagonists, the other to lavish sets and technological landscapes. As this example reveals, promotion tends not only to draw us to a movie but also to suggest what we will concentrate on as a way of understanding its achievement.

Trailers One of the most carefully crafted forms of promotional advertis- ing is the trailer, which previews carefully edited images and scenes from a film in theaters before the main feature film or on television or a Web site. In just a few minutes, the trailer pro- vides a compact series of reasons why a viewer should see that movie. A trailer for Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (1999) is indicative: it moves quickly to large bold titles announcing separately the names of Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, and Ku- brick, foregrounding the collaboration of a star marriage and a celebrated director of daring films. Then, against the refrain from Chris Isaak’s soundtrack song “Baby Did a Bad Thing,” a series of images condenses the progress of the film, including shots of Kidman undressing, Cruise sauntering with two beauti-

ful women, a passionate kiss shared by the two stars, two ominous-looking men at the gate of an estate (where an orgy will take place), and Cruise being enticed by a prostitute. Besides the provocative match of two, then-married star sex symbols with a controversial director, the trailer underlines the dark erotic mysteries of the film within an opulently decadent setting. It introduces intensely sexual characters and the alternately seedy and glamorous atmosphere of the film in a manner meant to draw fans of Cruise, Kidman, Kubrick, and erotic intrigue [Figure 1.34]. That this promotion fails to communicate the stinging irony in the movie’s eroticism may, interest- ingly, account for some of the disappointed reactions that followed its eager initial reception.

The availability of trailers on the Inter- net has increased the novel approaches to this format, and trailers are now rated and scrutinized like theatrical releases.

1.33 The Kid (1921). Chaplin, unlike in his well-known slapstick comedies, expresses a demeanor in the poster that suggests the serious themes of his first feature film. Courtesy Everett Collection

1.34 Eyes Wide Shut (1999). Advertisements and trailers for Stanley Kubrick’s last film emphasized the film’s director, its stars — Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, who were married at the time — and its sexual content.

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To watch a clip from Where the Wild Things Are, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

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The Changing Art and Business of the Film Trailer The film trailer — so called because it used to be shown trailing after the feature to give weekly movie viewers a taste of coming attractions — has become a central form of movie marketing, positioned before the feature and subject to its own well-researched conventions and even to independent ratings. Through the 1950s, onscreen text was used to advertise a film’s key features, includ- ing its stars, genre, plot mysteries, even the latest film technology, such as CinemaScope. Later, voiceover narration and scoring helped make a coherent message from a montage of images arranged in a three-act structure. In the era of the Internet, the movie trailer has become one of the most sought-out online experiences, a cultural touchstone that studios use to build expectations and engage viewers beyond a single ticket-buying experience.

A trailer for Spike Jonze’s 2009 movie adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are is a stunning example of the power and art of this form of promotion, combining the surreal images, quirky language, and stir- ring music that had become Jonze’s trademark since his earlier films Being John Malkovich (1999) and Adaptation (2002). The trailer begins with close-up images of a sleepy boy embraced by a large, horned beast who gruffly an- nounces for the boy and, cleverly, for potential audiences of the film, “I didn’t want to wake you up, but I really want to show you something” [Figure 1.35a]. As the boy emerges from a strange hole in the ground [Figure 1.35b], a mon- tage of images from the young boy’s everyday world (a schoolroom, a longing look at a moon in the clouds) is punctuated by a sailboat briskly setting out on an adventure through the water [Figures 1.35c and 1.35d], quickly immers- ing the viewer in a world being transformed by longing and imagination. The urgently pounding music track of “Wake Up” (by indie rock band Arcade Fire) identifies an audience well beyond childhood, and propels a series of images that weave the boy in his animal costume through the ominous threats of that adult world and landscapes filled with magnificent dangers and beasts. Playfully large and irregular intertitles then flash the major themes of the film: “Inside all of us is Hope,” “Inside all of us is Fear,” and “Inside all of us is Ad- venture” [Figure 1.35e]. These punctuate a rapidly edited series of glimpses of a wonderfully dynamic life on the seas, across sands, into caves, all filled with fantastical animals and magic spaces [Figure 1.35f]. In little more than ninety seconds, the trailer concludes with the reminder that all this is “From one of the most beloved books of all times” and that if this trailer can “wake us up,” then the film will indeed really show us that “Inside all of us is a Wild Thing.”

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Media Convergence Movie advertising has always targeted consumers’ changing habits and has adapted strategies for the era of media convergence, the coordinating and merging of media across a variety of platforms, such as print, television, and the Internet. A viewer might find and play an online game set in a film’s fictional world on the film’s Web site, read a print ad, and watch an online promotion with the films’ stars, all before attending the movie in a theater. Indeed, the enormous sums spent on marketing a film’s theatrical release are deemed worthwhile as they directly relate to the promotion of other media elements within the brand or franchise, such as video games, CDs, and later DVD releases. Viewers understand these tac- tics and may participate in this proliferation: a viewer who enjoys the film and its soundtrack might download a ringtone for her cell phone and place the title in her Netflix queue in anticipation of its release on DVD months later. But viewers may also decide to skip the theatrical release altogether and catch the film later on video on demand or DVD.

The enormous popularity of social networking sites fosters the technique of viral marketing, which describes the process of advertising that relies on existing social networks such as word of mouth, Internet links, or sites like Facebook and Twitter to spread the word. Because viral marketing works through networks of shared interest, it is not as dependent on market research and can be highly effec- tive as well as an informative indicator of audience preferences. Yet it is also less easily controlled than deliberately placed ads based on target demographics. In many ways, viewers, due to media convergence, have even more of an impact on how films are understood and even produced today.

High Concept, A and B Pictures, and Other Marketing Labels Trailers, posters, and newspaper advertisements carefully select not only their images but also their terminology in order to guide our perspective on a film even before we see it. Parodied brilliantly in Robert Altman’s The Player (1992), the language of high concept, a short phrase that attempts to sell a movie through its main marketing features — stars, genre, or some other easily identifiable connection — is a feature of modern Hollywood [Figure 1.36]. In The Player, one film is memorably described as “kind of a psychic political thriller with a heart.” Other high-concept movies might be advertised as “Stanley Kubrick’s exploration of pornography” or “Abraham Lin- coln: Vampire Hunter (2012): Are you a patriot or a vampire?” The rhetoric of movie advertising frequently descends into such silly clichés as “two thumbs up” or “action-

packed, fun-filled adventure,” yet promotional and marketing language also uses succinct descriptive terms to position a movie for particular expectations and responses.

The Hollywood studios made a production distinction between a big-budget A picture, which promises high-quality stars and stories, and a B picture, a less expensive, more quickly made movie that plays on the bottom half of a double bill. (The term “B picture” later referred to a cheaply made exploitation film, made to “exploit” sensational or topical subject matter or genre con- ventions for profit.) Just as today the term block- buster prepares us for action, stars, and special effects, and art film suggests a more visually subtle, perhaps slower-paced or more intellectually demanding movie, the terminology used to define

1.36 The Player (1992). Director Robert Altman and writer Michael Tolkin satirize the movie business; here the screenwriter’s “pitch” to a studio executive becomes a literal matter of life and death.

v i e w i n g c u e bedfordstmartins.com /filmexperience

Watch a clip of Man of Steel (2013) and its trailer. What kinds of mes- sages does the trailer send about the film?

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Encountering Film: From Preproduction to Exhibition C H A P T E r 1 49

and promote a movie can become a potent force in framing our expectations.

The Rating System Rating systems, which provide viewers with guide- lines for movies (usually based on violent or sexual content), are a similarly important form of advertis- ing that can be used in marketing and promotion. Whether they are wanted or unwanted by viewers, ratings are fundamentally about trying to control the kind of audience that sees a film and, to a certain extent, about advertising the content of that film.

In the United States, the current Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) ratings system clas- sifies movies as G (general audiences), PG (parental guidance suggested), PG-13 (parental guidance suggested, and not recommended for audiences under thirteen years old), R (persons under age seventeen must be accom- panied by an adult), and NC-17 (persons under age seventeen are not admitted). Films made outside the major studios are not required to obtain MPAA ratings, but exhibition and even advertising opportunities are closely tied to the system.

Other countries, as well as some religious organizations, have their own sys- tems for rating films. Great Britain, for instance, uses these categories: U (universal), A (parental discretion), AA (persons under age fourteen are not admitted), and X (persons under age eighteen are not admitted). Interestingly, the age limit for X-rated films varies from country to country, the lowest being age fifteen in Sweden.

A movie like Cars 2 (2011), the animated tale of racing cars, depends on its G rating to draw large family audiences, whereas sexually explicit films like Steve McQueen’s Shame (2011), rated NC-17 for its explicit sexual content, and Nagisa Oshima’s In the Realm of the Senses (1976), not rated and confiscated when it first came to many coun- tries, can use the notoriety of their ratings to attract curious adult viewers.

An NC-17 rating can damage a film’s box-office prospects, however, because many newspapers will not carry ads for such films. When promotion casually or ag- gressively uses ratings, our way of looking at and thinking about the movie already be- gins to anticipate the film. For example, with an R rating, we might anticipate a movie featuring a degree of sex and violence. A rating of G might promise happy endings and happy families. Movies like Men in Black (1997) eagerly sought a PG-13 rating because it, ironically perhaps, attracts a younger audience of eight-, nine-, and ten- year-olds, who want movies with a touch of adult language and action [Figure 1.37]. The King’s Speech’s (2010) R rating (for profanity used as speech therapy) was eventu- ally amended to PG-13 after the film was cut to remove a few curse words, while the R-rated Bully (2012) lost an appeal to the MPPA to change its rating to PG-13.

Word of Mouth and Fan Engagement Our experience at the movies is directed in advance of our viewing of the film in less evident and predictable ways as well. Word of mouth, the conversational ex- change of opinions and information sometimes referred to as the “buzz” around a movie, may seem a somewhat insignificant or at least hazy area of promotion, yet it is an important social arena in which our likes and dislikes are formed and given direction by the social groups we move in. The explosion of social networking sites, which allow us to list or indicate our “likes and dislikes” with a click, has expanded these groups exponentially. We know our friends like certain kinds of films, and we all tend to promote movies according to a culture of taste whereby we judge

1.37 Men in Black (1997). A PG-13 rating can suggest a certain edge to a film that makes it attractive to preteens.

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and approve of movies according to the values of our particular age group, cultural background, or other social determinant. When marketing experts direct a movie at a target audience, they intend to promote that film through word of mouth or “virally,” knowing viewers communicate with one another and recommend films to people who share their values and tastes [Figures 1.38a and 1.38b].

Examine, for instance, how a group of friends might have anticipated The Hun- ger Games (2012) among themselves. Would they be excited about the casting of ris- ing star Jennifer Lawrence as the tough young heroine? The genre of science fiction films set in a dystopian future and the potential for interesting visual effects? The books by Suzanne Collins with which they are familiar? What would each of these word-of-mouth promotions indicate about the social or personal values of the person promoting the movie and the culture of taste influencing his or her views?

Fan magazines were an early extension of word of mouth as a form of movie promotion and have consistently shed light on the sociology of taste. Emerging in the 1910s and widely popular by the 1920s, such “fanzines” brought film culture home to audience members. Posing as objective accounts, many stories were actually produced by the studios’ publicity departments. In recent years, fan magazines have evolved into Internet discussion groups, and promotional and user-generated Web sites, social media accounts, and fan activity have become an even bigger force in film promotion and culture. Web sites, often set up by a film’s distributor, have, in fact, become the most powerful contemporary form of the fanzine, allowing information about and enthusiasm for a movie to be efficiently exchanged and spread among potential viewers. Notoriously, the title Snakes on a Plane (2006) was so resonant with viewers in its very literalness that the Web activity around the film (even before its release) prompted changes to make the film more daring and campier. The subsequent box-office disappoint- ment may have been a measure of viewers’ reaction to marketing manipulations.

To encourage and develop individual interest in films, these fanzines and Web sites gather together readers and viewers who wish to read or chat about their ongoing interest in movies like the Star Trek films (1979–2013) or cult favorites like Casablanca (1942) or share fan productions. Here tastes about which movies to like and dislike and about how to see them are supported and promoted on a concrete social and commercial level. Information is offered or exchanged about specific movies, arguments are waged, and fan fiction or user-generated videos are developed around the film. Magazines may provide information about the sig- nature song of Casablanca, “As Time Goes By,” and the actor who sings it, Dooley Wilson. Chat room participants may query each other about Mr. Spock’s Vulcan history or fantasize about his personal life. The Internet promotes word of mouth about a film by offering potential audiences the possibility of some participation in the making of the film, an approach that is increasingly common today.

As they proliferate, promotional avenues like these deserve attention and analysis in terms of how they add to or confuse our understanding of a film. Our

V I E W I n g C u E Consider a recent film release you’ve seen, and identify which promotional strategies were effective in getting you to attend. Was anything about the promotion misleading? Was there anything about the film you feel was ignored or underplayed in the promotion?

1.38a and 1.38b Titanic (1997). Word of mouth anticipating the release of James Cameron’s film focused on special effects. After the film’s release, word of mouth fostered its success among young female fans of Leonardo DiCaprio and the romance plot.

(a) (b)

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Encountering Film: From Preproduction to Exhibition C H A P T E r 1 51

different experiences of the movies take place within a complex cultural terrain where our personal interest in certain films intersects with specific historical and social forces to shape the meaning and value of those experiences. Here, too, the film experience extends well beyond the big screen.

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Movie Exhibition: The Where, When, and How of Movie Experiences Exhibition encompasses where and when we see films; it may involve promotional elements like movie posters and publicity events in a theater lobby or be related to distribution through the calendar of film releasing. But exhibition, closely tied to reception, the process through which individual viewers or groups make sense of a film, is at the heart of the film experience. Exhibitors own individual theaters or theater chains and make decisions about programming and local promotion; they are responsible for the actual experience of moviegoing, including the concessions that make a night out at the movies different from one spent watching films at home and that bring in an estimated 40 percent of theater owners’ revenue. Like distribution and promotion, we may take exhibition for granted, forgetting that the many ways we watch movies contribute a great deal to our feelings about, and our interpretations of, film. We watch movies within a cultural range of exhibition venues: in theaters, at home on video monitors, or on a plane or train on portable devices. Not surprisingly, these contexts and technologies anticipate and condition our responses to movies.

The Changing Contexts and Practices of Film Exhibition Seeing the same movie at a cineplex or in a college classroom, watching it uninter- rupted for two hours on a big screen or in thirty-minute segments over four days on a computer, can elicit very different kinds of film response. A viewer watching a film on an airplane monitor may be completely bored by it, but watching it later at home, he or she may find that film much more compelling, appreciating its visual surprises and interesting plot twists.

Movies have been distributed, exhibited, and seen in many different contexts his- torically. At the beginning of the twentieth century, movies rarely lasted more than 20 minutes and were often viewed in small, noisy nickelodeons, storefront theaters where short films were shown continuously to audiences passing in and out, or in carnival set- tings that assumed movies were a passing amusement comparable to other attractions. By the 1920s, as movies grew artistically, financially, and culturally, the exhibition of films moved to lavish movie palaces like Radio City Music Hall (which opened in 1932), with sumptuous seating for thousands amid the ornate architecture. By the 1950s, city centers gave way to suburban sprawl; as the theaters lost their crowds of patrons, drive- ins and widescreen and 3-D processes were introduced to distinguish the possibilities of film exhibition from its new rival, television at home. Soon television became a way to experience movies as special events in the flow of daily programming. In the 1980s, VCRs gave home audiences access to many movies and the ability to watch them when and how they wished, and the multiplex became increasingly important as a way of integrating a choice of moviegoing experiences with an outing to the mall.

Today we commonly see movies at home on a disc player or computer screen, where we can watch them in the standard 90- to 120-minute period, extend our viewing over many nights, or rewatch favorite or puzzling portions of films. Portable devices such as laptops, smartphones, and tablet computers give a new mobility to our viewing. As theaters continue to compete with home screens, film exhibitors have countered with so-called megaplexes — theaters with twenty or more

V I E W I n g C u E Imagine several different exhibition contexts — historical, cultural, techno- logical — for the film you are studying. How would it fare in a nickelodeon, in a movie palace, or on DVD?

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Produced by the independent Haxan Films, The Blair Witch Project (1999) is a relatively simple horror film without a lot of incident; it’s also a remarkably influential forerunner of a contemporary movie fad that presents a fictional story as if it is an amateur-made documentary. But the movie is just as well-known for the highly inventive and imaginative marketing and promotion strategies that made it a massive financial success and influenced bigger movie marketing campaigns for the next fifteen years.

The film tells the story of three film students who, in 1994, go searching the Black Hills of Maryland for a legendary “Blair Witch.” Recording themselves and their encounters with 16mm film and video cameras, they inter- view community locals as part of their documentary about the witch, and then set out into the woods to find evidence of her existence. Soon they are lost and increasingly terri- fied. They eventually become separated and then, at the conclusion, are reunited in an abandoned and derelict house, apparently haunted by the witch. The final shots record only screams while implying their violent deaths. Although the three are never seen again, one year later the footage from their search is supposedly discovered and compiled to produce the film that the viewer is now watching.

The story of the film’s promotion is considerably more elaborate. The first public screening of the film occurred at midnight during the Sundance Film Festival, where the filmmakers demonstrated their skill and daring with word-of-mouth promotion and advertising. Preced- ing the screening, the Blair Witch team posted images around the town of the film’s cryptic “stickmen” (associ- ated in the film with the haunting mythology of the witch), along with posters of the three filmmakers who suppos- edly were never found. The resulting sold-out screening immediately produced a deal with Artisan Entertainment to distribute the film.

Artisan and the filmmakers quickly transformed tradi- tional word-of-mouth and advertising strategies to launch the

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Promoting The Blair Witch Project (1999) See also: Paranormal Activity (2007); Psycho (1960); Ring (1998)

FIlM In FOCuS bedfordstmartins.com /filmexperience

To watch a clip from The Blair Witch Project, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

film with what has been widely heralded as a breakthrough example of Internet marketing and promotion. Conceived by Artisan executive Steven Rothenberg, the campaign reconfigured the film’s Web site with fake documents, police reports, and newsreel interviews to encourage the assumption that the film was an actual documen- tary about real people who disappeared under strange and mysterious circumstances [Figures 1.39 and 1.40]. This produced widespread and lively debates in chat rooms about whether the events of the film actually occurred, which the distributor then made part of a con- tinually evolving viral advertising campaign to generate even more rumors, crystallized in an ad that read simply “blairwitch.com: 21,222,589 hits to date.”

Maintaining this buzz as part of its teasing promo- tion, Artisan carefully limited the number of theaters into which it first released the film. They began with focused and targeted showings at forty colleges, all blanketed with the notorious stickman posters. This targeted pro- motion gained more momentum in the following weeks across the Internet, followed by advertisements on TV and radio, and, just before the film’s theatrical release, the SciFi Channel presented a fake documentary related to the film. After the film premiered in theaters on July 30, 1999, Artisan waited another week before it turned to traditional promotional venues like newspapers. Fast on its initial success in the theaters, the promotional wave generated a variety of tie-ins and spin-offs, such as D. A. Stern’s “true account” in The Blair Witch Project: A Dos- sier, Claire Forbes’s photonovel The Blair Witch Project, Jen Van Meter and Charlie Adlard’s comic-book adapta- tions, and a trilogy of video games.

The success of these various marketing strategies transformed this simple, low-budget horror film, with production costs of $35,000 and an investment of $1.1 million by Artisan Entertainment, into a proportionally large box-office hit, exceeding $248 million in worldwide gross revenue.

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53Encountering Film: From Preproduction to Exhibition C H A P T E r 1

1.39 and 1.40 The Blair Witch Project (1999). Marketing materials for The Blair Witch Project emphasized the story of its filmmaker characters with such vividness that many assumed the film was a real documentary. Courtesy Mary Evans/Ronald Grant/Everett Collection; © Artisan Entertainment

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V I E W I n g C u E What do you imagine as the ideal “culture of exhibition” for the film you are studying? Would it appear in a particular type of theater, with a particular kind of projection? What types of audiences seem most apt? How would ads target those different groups?

screens, more than six thousand seats, and over a hundred showtimes per day. These new entertainment complexes may feature not just movies but also arcade games, restaurants, and coffee bars. Home exhibition has responded in turn with more elaborate digital picture and sound technologies and convergence between devices such as game consoles and television screens for streaming movies.

Technologies and Cultures of Exhibition Changing viewing formats — how and where we watch a movie — contribute to the wider culture of exhibition space, the specific social activities that surround and define moviegoing. Theatrical exhibition highlights a social dimension of watch- ing movies because it gathers and organizes individuals as a specific audience at a specific place and time. Further, our shared participation in that social environment directs our attention and shapes our responses.

A movie such as Frozen (2013) will be shown as a Saturday matinee in subur- ban theaters (as well as other places) to attract families with children to its fairy-tale adventure [Figure 1.41]. The time and place of the showing obviously coordinate with a period when families can share recreation, making them more inclined to appreciate this empowering tale of family love and self-confidence. Conversely, Peter Greenaway’s The Pillow Book (1996), a complex film about a woman’s passion for calligraphy, human flesh, poetry, and sex, would likely appear in a small urban theater frequented by individuals and young couples or groups of friends who also spend time in the theater’s coffee bar [Figure 1.42]. This movie would probably appeal to an urban crowd with more experimental tastes, and to those who like to watch more intellectually stimulating and conversation-provoking films. Reversing the exhibition contexts of these two films would indicate how those contexts could generate wildly different reactions.

The technological conditions of exhibition — that is, the industrial and me- chanical vehicles through which movies are shown — shape the viewer’s reaction as well. In a large theater, a movie can be shown on a 35mm or even 70mm projector that displays large and vibrantly detailed images. We might see another movie in a cineplex theater at a mall with a relatively small screen and a smorgasbord of other movies in the theaters surrounding it. We may watch a third movie on a DVD player that allows us to select just our favorite scenes. Today’s movies exhibited on a computer screen can share the monitor with other kinds of activities. In the past, popular exhibition practices included inserting a short movie within a vaudeville performance or offering double features in drive-in theaters full of teenagers in cars.

Different technological features of exhibition are sometimes carefully calculated to add to both our enjoyment and our understanding of a movie. Cecil B. DeMille’s epic film The Ten Command- ments (1923) premiered in a movie palace, where the plush and grandiose surroundings, the biblical magnitude of the images, and the orchestral ac- companiment supported the grand spiritual themes of the film. Thus the conditions for watching a film may parallel its ideas or formal practices. With the special projection techniques and 3-D glasses worn for Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), the creature’s appearance becomes even more startling. 3-D technology is in fact an excellent example of changing exhibition technologies and cultures; long regarded nostalgically as a gimmick of the 1950s, it made a comeback with Robert Zemeckis’s Beowulf (2007) and was soon synonymous with

1.41 Frozen (2013). Family films are distributed widely to theater chains and exhibited in early time slots, though some become crossover hits.

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Encountering Film: From Preproduction to Exhibition C H A P T E r 1 55

state-of-the-art digital movie production and exhibition with the technology developed for Avatar [Figure 1.43]. Theater owners world- wide converted screens in order to show the film and to attract local audiences with the novelty of the spectacle. As a result, digital projection is now more prevalent than 35mm film.

In contrast to viewing technologies that attempt to enhance the spectacular nature of the big-screen experience are those that try to maximize (sometimes by literally mini- mizing) the uniquely personal encounter with the film image. Consumers have adapted quickly as distinct media (such as cinema, television, the Internet, and video games) and viewing platforms (such as television, computers, and cell phones) have become commercially, technologically, and culturally interdependent.

The Timing of Exhibition Whereas distribution timing determines when a film is made available and in what format, the timing of exhibition is a more personal dimension of the movie experi- ence. When and for how long we watch a film can shape the impact of and attitude toward a film as much as where we see the film and with whom. Although it is common to see movies in the early evening, before or after dinner, audiences watch movies of different kinds according to numerous rituals and in various time slots. Afternoon matinees, midnight movies, or in-flight movies on long plane rides give some indication of how the timing of a movie experience can vary and how that can influence other considerations about the movie. In each of these situations, our experience of the movies includes a commitment to spend time in a certain way. Instead of time spent reading, in conversation, sleeping, or working on a business project, we watch a movie. That time spent with a movie accordingly becomes an activity associated with relaxing, socializing, or even working in a different way.

Leisure Time Traditionally movie culture has emphasized film exhibition as leisure time, a time that is assumed to be less productive (at least compared to the time spent working a job) and that reinforces assumptions about movies as the kind of enjoy- ment associated with play and pleasure. To some extent, leisure time is a relatively recent histori- cal development. Since the nineteenth century, when motion pictures first appeared, modern society has aimed to organize experience so that work and leisure could be separated and defined in relation to each other. We generally identify

1.42 The Pillow Book (1996). Art films, especially those that receive an NC-17 rating, are likely to be distributed primarily to specialty cinemas in urban locations.

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V I E W I n g C u E Consider how viewing the movie you most recently watched in class on a large screen versus a laptop would affect your response.

1.43 3-D exhibition. Viewers enjoy a screening with special 3-D glasses in the 1950s, the first heyday of the technology. As a technological innovation, 3-D brings the focus to exhibition contexts and offers a chance for theater owners to increase revenue. Courtesy Bettmann/Corbis

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The tale of a man obsessed with power and possessions, Citizen Kane is often considered one of the greatest films ever made. It is usually hailed for Orson Welles’s portrayal of Charles Foster Kane and Welles’s direction of the puzzle-like story, and for the film’s complex visual compositions. It is also a movie that ran into trouble even before its release because of its thinly disguised and critical portrayal of U.S. media mogul William Randolph Hearst [Figure 1.44]. Less often is Citizen Kane seen and understood according to its dramatic exhibition history, one that has colored or even decided the changing mean- ings of the film.

As the first film of a director already hailed as a “boy genius” for his work as a theater actor and director, Citi- zen Kane was scheduled to open with appropriate fanfare at the spectacular Radio City Music Hall in New York City, where RKO premiered its top films. Besides highlighting the glamorous and palatial architecture of this building, exhibiting the film in New York first would take advantage of the fact that Welles’s career and reputation had been made there. The physical and social context for this open- ing exhibition would combine the epic grandeur of the Radio City building and a New York cultural space attuned to Welles’s artistic experimentation. Already offended by rumors about the film, however, Hearst secretly moved to block the opening at Radio City Music Hall. After many dif- ficulties and delays, the film’s producer and distributor, RKO, eventually premiered the film simultaneously at an independent theater in Los Angeles and at a refurbished vaudeville house in New York City. The film’s wider re- lease was detrimentally affected by Hearst’s attack on the film; Hearst newspapers were banned from running ads for it, directly affecting its box-office potential. When major theaters such as the Fox and Paramount chains were legally forced to exhibit the film, they sometimes booked Citizen Kane but did not actually screen it for fear of vindictive repercussions from Hearst. Where it was shown, the controversy overshadowed the film itself, making it appear for many audiences strange and unnec- essarily confrontational, resulting in a box-office failure.

Changing sociological and geographical contexts for exhibition have continued to follow Citizen Kane as its reputation has grown through the years. After its tumul-

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FIlM In FOCuS

157010

157010

Exhibiting Citizen Kane ( 1941 )

FIlM In FOCuS bedfordstmartins.com /filmexperience

To watch a clip from Citizen Kane, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

1.44 Citizen Kane (1941). William Randolph Hearst objected to the film’s thinly veiled portrayal of his life and blocked it from opening at Radio City Music Hall. The film’s wider release was negatively affected as well — major theater chains did not want to screen it for fear of incurring Hearst’s wrath.

tuous first exhibition in the United States, the film was rediscovered in the 1950s by the art-house cinemas of France. There it was hailed as a brilliantly creative expres- sion of film language. Today many individuals who see Citizen Kane watch it in a classroom — say, in a college course on American cinema. In the classroom, we look at movies as students or as scholars, and we are prepared to study them. In this context, viewers may feel urged to think more about the film as an art object than as en- tertainment or exposé. In the classroom, we may focus more on the serious aspects of the film (such as Kane’s real and visual alienation from his best friends) than on the comic interludes (such as the vaudevillian dance number). This is not to say that someone watching Citi- zen Kane in an academic situation cannot see and think about it in other ways. It’s clear, however, that exhibition contexts suggest certain social attitudes through which we watch a movie. The exhibition history of Citizen Kane likewise describes significant differences in how the film is experienced through different technologies. Its original 35mm exhibition showed off the imagistic details and stunning deep-focus cinematography that made the film

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famous. The visual magnitude of scenes such as Susan Alexander’s operatic premiere and Kane’s safari picnic at Xanadu, or the spatial vibrancy and richness of Kane and Susan’s conversation in one of Xanadu’s vast halls, arguably require the size and texture of a large theatrical image. Since its first theatrical exhibition, the film has cir- culated to film societies and colleges on 16mm film and later appeared on the successive consumer technologies of video, laserdisc, DVD, and Blu-ray. The content of the film remains the same, but the different technologies have sometimes muted the visual power of its images and scenes because of lower quality or smaller image size. Digital formats enhance the image, perhaps redi- recting our understanding to visual dynamics rather than the events of the story.

The shift in the exhibition context may also affect our level of concentration from focused to distracted attention. A viewing experience on television may be broken up because of commercials, and on a digital for- mat we can affect the duration of the experience when we start and stop the movie ourselves. Whereas the large images in the theater may direct the viewer more easily to the play of light and dark as commentaries on the different characters, a DVD player might instead al- low the viewer to replay dialogue in order to note levels of intonation or wordplay. Consumer editions of Citizen Kane give viewers the added opportunity to supplement the film with rare photos, documents on the advertising

campaign, commentaries by filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich and critic Roger Ebert, and a documentary, The Battle over Citizen Kane (1996), that describes the history of its script and its exhibition difficulties. To whatever degree these supplemental materials come into play, it is clear that a DVD exhibition of Citizen Kane offers possibilities for significantly enriching an audience’s experience of the film. Viewers taking advantage of these materials would conceivably watch Citizen Kane prepared and equipped with certain points of view: more attuned perhaps to Welles’s creative innovation and influence on later filmmakers like Bogdanovich, or more interested in how the film re-creates the connections between Hearst and Kane detailed in the documentary supplement. That the DVD provides material on “alter- native ad campaigns” for the original release of the film even allows viewers to investigate the way different pro- motional strategies can direct their attention to certain themes and scenes.

The fame of Citizen Kane among critics as the best film ever made (remaining at the top of the Sight and Sound poll taken each decade since 1962 until 2012, when it dropped to number two) and its frequent invocation as the effort of a “boy wonder” contribute to yet another exhibition context. Fans post excerpts on the Internet in video-sharing sites such as YouTube, and would-be film- makers compare their efforts to Welles’s or remix parts of his film, introducing new generations to the classic.

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P A r T 1 Cultural Contexts: Watching, Studying, and Making Movies58

leisure time as an “escape,” “the relaxation of our mind and body,” or “the acting out of a different self.” Since the early twentieth century, movie exhibition has been as- sociated with leisure time in these ways. Seeing a comedy on a Friday night promises relaxation at the end of a busy week. Playing a concert film on a DVD player while eating dinner may relieve mental fatigue. Watching a romantic film on television late at night may offer the passion missing from one’s real life.

Productive Time Besides leisure time, however, we can and should consider film exhibition as produc- tive time, meaning time used to gain information, material advantage, or knowledge. From the early years of the cinema, movies have been used to illustrate lectures or introduce audiences to Shakespearean performances. More strictly educational films, such as those shown in health classes or driver education programs, are less glamor- ous versions of this use of film. Although less widely acknowledged as part of film exhibition, productive time continues to shape certain kinds of film exhibition. For a movie reviewer or film producer, an early-morning screening may be about “financial value” because this use of time to evaluate a movie will presumably result in certain economic rewards. For another person, a week of films at an art museum represents “intellectual value,” as it helps explain ideas about a different society or historical period. For a young American, an evening watching Schindler’s List can be about “human value” because that film aims to make viewers more knowledgeable about the Holocaust and more sensitive to the suffering of other human beings.

The timing of exhibitions may frame and emphasize the film experience accord- ing to certain values. The Cannes Film Festival introduces a wide range of films and functions both as a business venue for buying and selling film and as a glamor- ous showcase for stars and parties. The May timing of this festival and its French Riviera location ensure that the movie experience will be about pleasure and the business of leisure time. In contrast, the New York Film Festival, featuring some of the same films, has a more intellectual or academic aura. That it occurs in New York City during September and October, at the beginning of the academic year and the calendars of arts organizations, associates this experience of the movies more with artistic value and productive time. The premiere of Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette (2006) at the Cannes festival exploited the high-profile glamour of that festival’s party atmosphere and its French subject matter. That many French critics hostilely denounced the film indicates either a tactical error in the choice of an opening exhibition or the truism that all publicity is good publicity [Figure 1.45].

Classroom, library, and museum exhibitions tend to emphasize understand- ing and learning as much as enjoyment. When students watch films in these

kinds of situations, they are asked to attend to them somewhat differently from the way they may view films on a Friday night at the movies. They watch more carefully, perhaps; they may consider the films as part of histori- cal or artistic traditions; they may take notes as a logical part of this kind of exhibition. These conditions of film exhibition do not necessarily change the essential meaning of a movie; but in directing how we look at a film, they can certainly shade and even alter how we understand it. Exhibition asks us to engage and think about the film not as an isolated object but as part of the expecta- tions established by the conditions in which we watch it.

V I E W I n g C u E Think of a movie you’ve watched as a “leisure time” versus a “productive time” activity. How might the film be viewed differently in a classroom versus during a long airplane flight? How might your film choice be af- fected by the timing and context in which you view the movie?

1.45 Marie Antoinette (2006). At the Cannes Film Festival, Marie Antoinette had a premiere as sumptuous as its mise-en-scène.

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Behind virtually every movie is a complex range of decisions, choices, and aims about how to make, distribute, market, and exhibit a film. In this chap- ter, we’ve highlighted some of the most important parts of that work as they anticipate and position viewers. We have seen how production methods, distribution strategies, marketing techniques, and exhibition places respond to and create different kinds of movie experiences. Films as different as Joss Whedon’s The Avengers and Much Ado about Nothing represent, for example, extremely different paths from production to marketing, and so attract and position viewers in very different ways. James Schamus and Ang Lee create a dynamic and unique working relationship as producer and director that generates a number of films — such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Brokeback Mountain — that bear both their signatures and elicit certain audi- ence expectations. Because of legal complications, Killer of Sheep struggles with distribution and exhibition, while Zero Dark Thirty benefits enormously from buzz about its controversial depiction of torture. Examine how these and other issues discussed in this chapter inform any film you wish to evalu- ate and analyze:

■ How do the different stages of preproduction inform what we ultimately see on the screen in films such as Lord of the Rings or Life of Pi (2012)?

■ Consider how the strategies of film distribution determine what we see as well as when and how we can see movies such as Paranormal Activity or Pacific Rim.

■ How have promotion tactics for The Blair Witch Project been copied by many other recent films? What kinds of films and audiences do these tactics best serve?

■ Evaluate the ways in which different venues for the exhibition of Citi- zen Kane (or another film) both shape and influence how an audience responds to that movie.

■ In which ways have media convergence and rapid technological ad- vances created different relationships and dynamics with audiences? How, for example, has the day-and-date release strategy pioneered by Bubble changed our ways of watching films? Why are those repeat view- ers promoted by movies like The Sixth Sense more common today than ever? Have they changed the way movies tell their stories?

Activities ■ Compare a story about a film in the arts section of your local paper with

a discussion of the same film in the online version of the industry “trade” paper Variety or the independent film online source Indiewire.com. What does this tell you about the cultural priorities of the film industry today? How is film production valued and viewed in these different examples?

■ Imagine that you and a group of investors plan to open a state-of-the-art movie theater in your hometown. Describe your plans for its design and its location. What kinds of films would you exhibit there? How would you use the timing of their distribution and exhibition to your advan- tage? How would these decisions reflect your intentions for the kinds of films you would show and the audience you’d hope to attract?

C O n C E P T S A T W O r K

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p a r t 2

f o r m a l co m p o s i t i o n s film scenes, shots, cuts, and sounds

to some extent, every movie mimics how we commonly use our senses to experience the real world. Film studies examines the ways that movies manage to activate our senses through the use of specific formal systems —

mise-en-scène, cinematography, editing, and sound. In Broken Blossoms

(1919), D. W. Griffith uses composition to create the claustrophobic sensa-

tions of being physically trapped in a small room; in Baz Luhrmann’s The

Great Gatsby (2013), sets and costumes, cinematography, editing, and sound

together communicate the frenetic energy of the Jazz Age. By invigorating and

manipulating the senses, film images and sounds create experiences viewers

recognize and respond to — physically, emotionally, and intellectually.

The next four chapters identify the formal and technical powers associated

with four different categories of film form. Chapter 2 on mise-en-scène ex-

plores the role of sets, props, and other onscreen elements. Chapter 3 exam-

ines cinematography, the art of how films are shot. Chapter 4 looks at film

editing, while Chapter 5 focuses on film sound. Chapters begin with a short

historical overview of the element and then detail the specific properties and

strategies associated with each of these aspects of film form. Chapters con-

clude with our examination of how some of the scenes, shots, cuts, and sounds

are used to guide our reactions to, and interpretations of, movies.

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c h a p t e r 4 editing: relating images ■ Organization through editing

■ Construction of spatial and temporal relationships

■ Graphic and rhythmic relations

■ Continuity and disjunctive editing

c h a p t e r 5 film sound: listening to the cinema ■ Speech, music, and sound effects

■ Diegetic and nondiegetic sound

■ Interactions between sound and image

c h a p t e r 2 mise-en-scène: exploring a material World ■ Settings and sets

■ Actors and performance styles

■ Lighting

■ Costumes and make-up

c h a p t e r 3 cinematography: framing What We see ■ Camera angle, height, and perspective

■ Framing, depth of field, and camera movement

■ Visual effects and digital technology

© Warner Bros. Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection

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2 c h a p t e r

In the trailer for his 1960 film Psycho, director Alfred Hitchcock takes the viewer on a tour of the film’s now-legendary sets, treating them as actual locations. Walking through the ordinary-looking Bates Motel and the sinister old house behind it, Hitchcock blandly points out a steep staircase where a murder occurs, darkly hints at the significance of a picture on the wall, and finally reaches out to pull back the shower curtain. The viewer enjoys the trailer’s manufactured sus- pense, which is more than likely enhanced by familiarity with the shocking events that occur in each of these sites, either because the viewer has already seen the film (this trailer postdates its release) or knows it by reputation. But outside the fictional world of the story, these settings don’t quite carry the same charge of dread. Evoking the centrality of mise-en-scène to a film’s mood, the trailer also shows how meticulously its effects are coordinated. But the full impact of these settings and props is not achieved until they are experienced in the course of watching Psycho itself.

mise-en-scène: Exploring a Material World

63 Courtesy Everett Collection

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a French term meaning literally “placement in a scene” or “onstage,” mise-en- scène refers to those elements of a movie scene that are put in position before the filming actually begins and employed in certain ways once it does begin. Mise-en-scène (pronounced meez-on-sen) includes everything that is visible on- screen. Cinema orchestrates a rich and complex variety of formal and material ele- ments inherited from theater, using principles of composition derived from painting and photography. The mise-en-scène contains the scenic elements of a movie, in- cluding actors, aspects of lighting, settings and sets, costumes, make-up, and other features of the image that exist independently of the camera and the processes of filming and editing.

Outside the movies, our surroundings function like mise-en-scène. The architec- ture of a town might be described as a public mise-en-scène. How a person arranges and decorates a room could be called a private mise-en-scène. Courtrooms construct a mise-en-scène that expresses institutional authority. The placement of the judge above the court, of the attorneys at the bar, and of the witnesses in a partially sequestered area expresses the distribution of power. The flood of light through the vast and darkened spaces of a cathedral creates an atmospheric mise-en-scène aimed at inspiring contemplation and humility. The clothes, jewelry, and make-up a person chooses to wear are, in one sense, the functional costuming all individuals don as part of inhabiting a particular mise-en-scène: businessmen wear suits, clergy dress in black, and service people in fast-food restaurants wear uniforms with com- pany logos. This chapter describes how mise-en-scène organizes and directs much of our film experience by putting us in certain places and by arranging the people and objects of those places in specific ways.

We respond to the sensations associated with physical settings and material sur- faces and objects in many ways. Whether we actually touch the materials or simply imagine their texture and volume, this tactile experience of the world is a continual part of how we engage with and understand the people and places around us. This is also the case with the movies. Characters attract or repulse us through the clothing

k e y o b j e c t i v e s ■ Define “mise-en-scène” and identify how theatrical and other traditions affect the history of cinematic mise-en-scène.

■ Describe how sets and props relate to a film’s story. ■ Explain how actors and performance styles contribute to mise-en-scène. ■ Summarize the ways costumes and make-up shape our perception of a character. ■ Explain how lighting is used to evoke particular meanings and moods. ■ Compare and contrast the various ways in which mise-en-scène directs our

interpretation.

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and make-up they wear: in Some Like It Hot (1959), Marilyn Monroe’s eroticism is inseparable from her slinky dresses. In The Elephant Man (1980), the drama hinges on Joseph Carey Merrick’s deformed appearance (achieved through the magic of make-up) and the recognition that he is a sensitive human being inside a hideous shape [figure 2.1].

Actions set in open or closed spaces can generate feelings of potency or hope- lessness: in Lawrence of Arabia (1962), the open desert shimmers with possibil- ity and danger, whereas in 127 Hours (2010), a rock climber becomes trapped in a crevasse from which there seems to be no escape, and the viewer experi- ences his claustrophobia [figure 2.2]. In Vertigo (1958), when the protagonist relives again and again the dizzying fear of heights that he first discovers when he watches a partner fall from a roof, viewers share his perspective. These experiences can be culturally modified, influenced, or emphasized in very different ways by spe- cific films.

Setting the artistic precedent for cinematic mise-en-scène is the theatri- cal stage, where our sensual and tactile engagement is based on the presence of real actors performing in real time on a physical stage. Film engages us in a different way. A film’s material world may be actual objects and people set in authentic locations, like the stun- ning slopes of the Himalayas in Seven Years in Tibet (1997). Or it may include objects and settings constructed by set designers to appear realistic or fantastic, as in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland (2010) with its living cards and unusual creatures [figure 2.3]. In all its varia- tion, mise-en-scène — a film’s places and spaces, people and objects, lights and shadows — is a key dimension of our movie experience.

2.1 The Elephant Man (1980). In many films, make-up accentuates features of the character; here it complicates that character and challenges the viewer to recognize the human being beneath his distorted features.

2.2 127 Hours (2010). The film’s confined setting becomes a formal structure and a visceral experience, as the protagonist is trapped in a crevasse in the wilderness for the greater part of this film’s running time. TM and © Fox Searchlight Pictures. All rights reserved./Courtesy Everett Collection

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p a r t 2 Formal Compositions: Film Scenes, Shots, Cuts, and Sounds66

2.3 Alice in Wonderland (2010). Production designer Robert Strom- berg worked with a team of art directors, costume designer Colleen Atwood, and an extensive make-up department to accomplish the Red Queen’s distinctive look in this Disney remake.

a short history of mise-en-scène The first movies were literally “scenes.” Sometimes they were quaint public or domestic scenes, such as pioneer filmmakers Auguste and Louis Lumière’s films of a baby being fed or a pillow fight; often they were dramatic scenes re-created on a stage for a movie camera. Soon movies like The Automobile Thieves (1906) and On the Stage; or, Melodrama from the Bowery (1907) began to coordinate two or three interior and exterior settings, using make-up and costumes to create different kinds of characters and exploiting the stage for visual tricks and gags. In D. W. Griffith’s monumental Intolerance (1916), the sets that reconstructed ancient Babylon were, in many ways, the main attraction [figure 2.4]. In the following section, we will sketch some of the historical paths associated with the development of cinematic mise-en-scène throughout more than a century of film history.

Theatrical Mise-en-Scène and the Prehistory of Cinema The clearest heritage of cinematic mise-en-scène lies in the Western theatrical tradition that began with early Greek theater around 500 b.c.e. and evolved through the nineteenth century. The first stages served as places where a com- munity’s religious beliefs and truths could be acted out. During the Renaissance of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the sets, costumes, and other elements of mise-en-scène that were used to stage, for example, the plays of William Shakespeare reflected a secular world of politics and personal rela- tionships through which individuals and communities fashioned their values and beliefs.

By the beginning of the nineteenth century, lighting and other technological developments rapidly altered the nature of mise-en-scène and began to anticipate the cinema. On the eighteenth-century English stage, actor and theater manager David Garrick is credited with professionalizing the theatrical experience and set- ting the stage apart from the audience with spectacular sets, costumes, and lighting, and encouraging new norms of audience behavior. In contrast to the drawing-room

2.4 Intolerance (1916). The film’s massive Babylonian set became a Los Angeles tourist attraction until it was dismantled in 1921.

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Mise-en-Scène: Exploring a Material World c h a p t e r 2 67

interiors that had prevailed before, stages and sets grew much larger. Productions could now support the massive panoramic scenery and machinery developed by innovators such as London artist P. J. de Loutherbourg, whose scenic illusions and breathtaking spectacles were designed to fascinate and stun audiences. In the nineteenth century, an emphasis on individual actors, such as Fanny and John Kemble and Ellen Terry in England, influenced the rising cult of the star, who became the center of the mise-en-scène. Non-Western theatrical traditions such as Sanskrit dramas in India and Japanese kabuki featured recognizable characters in familiar plots.

1900–1912: Early Cinema’s Theatrical Influences The subjects of the first films were limited by their dependence on natural light. But by 1900, films revealed their theatrical influences. The Downward Path (1901), a melodrama familiar from the popular stage, used five tableaux — brief scenes presented by sets and actors as “pictures” of key dramatic moments — to convey the plight of a country girl who succumbs to the wickedness of the city. Further encouraging this theatrical direction in mise-en-scène was the implementation of mercury-vapor lamps and indoor lighting systems around 1906 that enabled studio shooting. By 1912, one of the most famous stage actors of all time, Sarah Bern- hardt, was persuaded to participate in the new medium, starring in the films Queen Elizabeth (1912) and La dame aux camélias (1912). Besides legitimate theater, other aspects of nineteenth-century visual culture influenced the staging of early films. The famous “trick” films of Georges Méliès, with their painted sets and props, were adapted from magicians’ stage shows. In the United States, Edwin S. Porter’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1903) imitated the staging of familiar scenes from the “Tom Shows,” seemingly ubiquitous regional adaptations for the stage of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery novel.

1915–1928: Silent Cinema and the Star System The 1914 Italian epic Cabiria, which included a depiction of the eruption of Mount Etna, established the public’s taste for movie spectaculars. Feature- length films soon became the norm, and elaborately constructed sets and actors in carefully designed costumes defined filmic mise-en-scène. By 1915, art directors or set designers (called “technical directors” doing “interior deco- ration” at the time) became an integral part of filmmaking. The rapid expan- sion of the movie industry in the 1920s was facilitated by the rise of studio systems in Hollywood, Europe, and Japan. Studios had their own buildings and lots on which to construct expansive sets, as well as personnel under contract to design and construct them. Erich Kettelhut’s famous futuristic set designs for Fritz Lang’s film Metropolis (1927), constructed on the soundstage of the German UFA studios, were influenced by the modernist architecture of the Manhattan skyline.

Beginning in the late 1910s, cinema developed and promoted its own stars, and the star system often identified an actor with a particular genre that had a distinctive mise-en-scène. Rudolph Valentino’s films, for example, were set in a romanticized version of the Middle East [figure 2.5], and Douglas Fairbanks starred in swashbuckling adventure tales. Charlie Chaplin’s “Little Tramp” was instantly recognizable by his costume. Costume also helped shape an individualized glamour for female stars; designers such as MGM’s Adrian developed a very specific look for actresses Greta Garbo and Joan Crawford. Their films were showcases for clothing and décor that often reflected the art deco style of the 1920s even when their set- tings were historical.

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p a r t 2 Formal Compositions: Film Scenes, Shots, Cuts, and Sounds68

1930s–1960s: Studio-Era Production The rapid introduction of sound at the end of the 1920s was facilitated by the stability of the studio system, in which a company controlling film production and distribution had sufficient capital to invest in production facilities and systems. Soundstages — large soundproofed buildings — were designed to house the construction and movement of elaborate sets, which were often complemented by an array of costumes, lighting, and props. Art directors were essential to a studio’s sig- nature style. During his long career at MGM, Cedric Gibbons was credited as art director on fifteen hundred films, including Grand Hotel (1932), Gaslight (1944), and An American in Paris (1951); he supervised a large number of personnel charged with developing each film’s ideal mise-en-scène from the studio’s resources. Producer David O. Selznick coined the title “production designer” for William Cameron

Menzies’s central role in creating the look of the epic Gone with the Wind (1939), from its dramatic historical sets, décor, and costumes to the color palette that would be highlighted by the film’s Technicolor cinematography.

Studio backlots enabled the construction of entire worlds: the main street of a western town or New York City’s Greenwich Village, for example. Other national cinemas invested considerable resources in central studios. Cinecittà (cinema-city) was established by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in 1937, bombed during World War II, then subsequently rebuilt and used for Italian and international produc- tions. The expense lavished on mise-en-scène during the heyday of the studio system shapes contemporary expectations of “movie magic.”

1940–1970: New Cinematic Realism Photographic realism and the use of exterior spaces and actual locations — identifi- able neighborhoods and recognizable cultural sites — complement cinema’s theatri- cal heritage. Although the Lumières’ earliest films were of everyday scenes, and their operatives traveled all over the world to record movies, location shooting did not influence mainstream filmmaking until World War II. Italian neorealist films were shot on city streets to capture the immediacy of postwar lives (and because refugees were housed in the Cinecittà studios); ever since, fiction and documentary filmmaking have come to depend on location scouting for suitable mise-en-scène. Naked City (1948) returned U.S. filmmaking to the grit of New York’s crime-ridden streets. Realistic mise-en-scène was central to many of the new cinema movements of the 1970s that critiqued established studio styles, including in the postrevolu- tionary cinema in Cuba and the emergence of feature-filmmaking in sub-Saharan Africa in such films as Ousmane Sembène’s Xala (1975).

1975–Present: Mise-en-Scène and the Blockbuster Since the mechanical shark (nicknamed “Bruce”) created for Steven Spielberg’s Jaws in 1975, the economics of internationally marketed blockbuster filmmaking have

2.5 The Sheik (1921). The charismatic power of silent film star Rudolph Valentino is often linked to the romanticized Western notions of North Africa and the Middle East that were created through set and costume design. Courtesy Everett Collection

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demanded an ever more spectacular emphasis on mise-en-scène.

The cinematic task of re-creating realis- tic environments and imagining fantastical mise-en-scène alike has shifted to computer- ized models and computer-graphics techni- cians, who design the models to be digitally transferred onto film. Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) portrays the internal world of its lonely child heroine in a rich mise-en-scène constructed from actual sets, costumes, prosthetics, and computer-generated imagery [figure 2.6]. Films may benefit from the technical capac- ity of computers to re-create the exact details of historical eras, such as the nineteenth- century New York streets of Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence (1993). Many contemporary audiences look for and many contemporary movies provide an experience that is “more real than real,” to adapt the motto of the Tyrell Corporation in Blade Runner (1982).

the elements of mise-en-scène In this section, we will identify the elements of mise-en-scène and introduce some of the central terms and concepts underpinning the notion of mise-en-scène. These include settings and sets and how they contribute to scenic and atmospheric realism, as well as props, actors, costumes, and lighting, and the ways all of these important elements are coordinated through design and composition.

Settings and Sets Settings and sets are the most fundamental features of mise-en-scène. The setting refers to a fictional or real place where the action and events of the film occur. The set is, strictly speaking, a constructed setting, often on a studio soundstage; but both the setting and the set can combine natural and constructed elements. For example, one setting in Citizen Kane (1941) is a Florida mansion, which, in this case, is a set constructed on an RKO soundstage and based on the actual Hearst estate in San Simeon, California.

Working within the production designer’s vision, members of the art depart- ment construct sets and arrange props within settings to draw out important details or to create connections and contrasts across the different places in a film. In The Hours (2002), the lives of three different generations of women are connected on a thematic level by Virginia Woolf ’s novel Mrs. Dalloway and formally by a muted color palette.

Historically and culturally, sets and settings have changed regularly. The first films were made either on stage sets or in outdoor settings, using the natural light from the sun. Films gradually began to integrate both constructed sets and natural settings into the mise-en-scène. Today’s cinematic mise-en-scène continues to use constructed sets, such as the studio creation of the detective’s residence for Sherlock Holmes (2009), as well as actual locations, such as the Philadelphia streets and neighborhoods of The Sixth Sense (1999) or the deserts and dusty streets of Jordan

v i e W i n g c u e Describe, with as much detail as possible, one of the sets or settings in a movie you watch for class. Other than the actors, which features of the film seem most important? Explain why.

2.6 Pan’s Labyrinth (2006). A girl’s fantasy life is rendered in a combination of computer-generated imagery and constructed mise-en-scène.

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(standing in for Iraq) in The Hurt Locker (2008). Models and computer enhancements of mise-en-scène are used increasingly, notably in science fiction and fantasy films like World War Z (2013), which digitally depicts apocalyptic destruction by zombies [Figure 2.7].

Scenic Realism and Atmosphere Settings and sets contribute to a film’s mise-en-scène by establishing scenic realism and atmosphere. Realism is the term most viewers use to describe the extent to which a movie creates a truthful picture of a society, person, or some other dimension of life. One of the most common, complicated, and elusive yard- sticks for the cinema, realism can refer to psychological or emotional accuracy (in characters), recognizable or logical actions and developments (in a story), or convincing views and perspectives of those characters or events (in the composition of the image).

The most prominent vehicle for cinematic realism, however, is the degree to which mise-en-scène enables us to recognize sets and settings as accurate evoca- tions of actual places. A combination of selection and artifice, scenic realism is most commonly associated with the physical, cultural, and historical accuracy of the backgrounds, objects, and other figures in a film. For example, Glory (1989), a Civil War film telling the story of the first African American regiment of the U.S. army, drew on the expertise of historian Shelby Foote for the physical, historical, and cultural verisimilitude of the sets and setting [Figure 2.8]. Recognition of scenic realism frequently depends, of course, on the audience’s historical and cultural point of view. The Blind Side (2009), for example, set in an affluent American suburb, may seem realistic to many Americans but could appear to be a fantastic other world to farmers living in rural China.

In addition to scenic realism, the mise-en-scène of a film creates atmosphere and connotations, those feelings or meanings associated with particular sets or settings. The setting of a ship on the open seas might suggest danger and adventure; a kitchen set may connote comfortable, domestic feelings. Invariably these connotations

2.7 World War Z (2013). The computer-generated mise-en-scène shows a zombie plague overtaking Philadelphia.

bedfordstmartins.com /filmexperience

Watch the clip from Life of Pi (2012) without sound. What is communicated through the elements of the mise-en-scène alone?

v i e w i n g c u e

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are developed through the actions of the characters and developments of the larger story: the early kitchen set in Mildred Pierce (1945) creates an atmosphere of bright, slightly strained warmth; in E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), a similar set describes the somewhat chaotic space of a modern, single-parent family; in Marie Antoinette (2006), the opulence of Versailles conveys the heroine’s loneliness as well as her desires [figure 2.9].

Props, Actors, Costumes, and Lights As we have seen, unlike other dimensions of film form such as editing and sound, mise-en-scène was in place with the first films; hence the early decades of film history were explorations in how to use the materials of mise-en-scène. Here we will examine the multiple physical objects and figures that are the key ingredients in a cinematic mise-en-scène, moving from inanimate objects and human figures to the accentuation of those figures and objects with costumes and lighting.

Props A prop — short for property — is an object that func- tions as a part of the set or as a tool used by the actors. Props acquire special significance when they are used to express characters’ thoughts and feelings, their powers

2.8 Glory (1989). The scenic realism of this Civil War drama enhances the impact of its story of the first African American regiment’s bravery.

2.9 Marie Antoinette (2006). A scenic background of extravagance creates an atmosphere in which the character’s discontent, desire, and duty come into sharp relief.

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and abilities in the world, or the primary themes of the film. In Singin’ in the Rain (1952), when Gene Kelly transforms an ordinary umbrella into a gleeful expression of his new love, an object that normally protects a person from rain is expressively used in a dance: the pouring rain makes little difference to a man in love [figure 2.10]. In Alfred Hitchcock’s Suspi- cion (1941), a glass of milk, brought to a woman who suspects her husband of murder, suddenly crystallizes the film’s unsettling theme of malice hiding in the shape of innocence. In the same director’s Spellbound (1945), parallel lines in the pattern of a bathrobe trigger a psychotic reaction in the protagonist, John Ballantyne. In this film, too, a glass of milk is as potent a prop as a razor blade [figure 2.11]. Even natural objects or creatures can become props that concentrate the meanings of a movie: in E.T., a flower withers and then revives when the alien does. When E.T. takes the flower with him on the spaceship, it signals an ongoing connection with the children who gave it to him.

Props appear in movies in two principal forms. Instrumental props are those objects displayed and used according to their common function. Meta- phorical props are those same objects reinvented or employed for an unexpected, even magical, pur- pose — like Gene Kelly’s umbrella — or invested with metaphorical meaning. The distinction is important because the type of prop can characterize the kind of world surrounding the characters and the ability of those characters to interact with that world. In Babette’s Feast (1987), a movie that uses the joys and generosities of cooking to bridge cultural and other differences in a small Danish village, a knife functions as an instrumental prop for preparing a meal [figure 2.12]; in Psycho, that same prop is trans- formed into a hideous murder weapon and a ferocious sexual metaphor [figure 2.13]. The Red Shoes (1948) might be considered a film about the shifting status of a prop, red dancing slippers: at first, these shoes appear as an instrumental prop serving Victoria’s rise as a great ballerina, but by the conclusion of the film they have been transformed into a darkly metaphorical prop that magically dances the heroine to her death.

In addition to their function within a film, props may acquire significance in two other prominent ways. Cultural props, such as a type of car or a piece of furniture, carry meanings associated with their place in a particular society. In Far from Heaven (2002), the television console signifies the middle- class 1950s lifestyle that the heroine comes to find oppressive [figure 2.14]. In Easy Rider (1969), the two protagonists ride low-slung motorcycles that clearly suggest a countercultural rebellion.

2.11 Spellbound (1945). A drugged glass of milk helps the amnesiac hero remember his past.

2.10 Singin’ in the Rain (1952). An ordinary umbrella is transformed into a dancing prop, expressing how Gene Kelly’s new love can transform a rainy world and all its problems into a stage for an exuberant song and dance.

2.12 Babette’s Feast (1987). In this movie about the joys and generosities of cooking, a kitchen knife is a simple instrumental prop.

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Contextualized props acquire a meaning through their changing place in a narrative. The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964) and The Red Violin (1998) focus on the changing meaning of the central prop. In the first film, three different romances are linked through their connection to a beautiful Rolls-Royce. The second film follows the path of a Nicolo Bussotti violin from seventeenth-century Italy to an eighteenth-century Austrian monastery, to nineteenth-century England, to the Chinese Cultural Revolution in the twentieth century, and finally to a contempo- rary shop in Montreal, Canada [figure 2.15].

Some films play specifically with the meaning a contextual prop comes to acquire. In Ronin (1998), a mysterious briefcase unites a group of mercenaries in a plot about trust and betrayal, but its secret becomes ultimately insignificant. Alfred Hitchcock’s famous “McGuffins” — props that appear to be important only at first, like the stolen money in Psycho and the uranium in Notorious (1946) — are props meant to move a plot forward but are of little importance to the primary drama of love, danger, and desire.

Staging: Performance and Blocking At the center of the mise-en-scène is most often a flesh-and-blood actor who embodies and performs a film character through gestures and movements. A more intangible yet essential part of mise-en-scène, performance describes the actor’s use of language, physical expression, and gesture to bring a character to life and to communicate important dimensions of that character to the audience. Because charac- ters help us see and understand the actions and world of a film, and because perfor- mance is an interpretation of that character by an actor, the success or failure of many films depends on an actor’s performance. In a film like Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), in which Alec Guinness plays eight different roles, the shifting performances of the actor may be its greatest achievement.

In a performance, we can distinguish two primary elements: voice, which includes the natural sound of an actor’s voice along with the various intonations or accents he or

2.13 Psycho (1960). In contrast to Figure 2.12, a knife can also be a murder weapon associated metaphorically with male sexuality.

2.14 Far from Heaven (2002). The executive’s wife poses with their ad as “Mr. and Mrs. Magnatech” and their television set, a cultural prop connoting 1950s suburban affluence.

2.15 The Red Violin (1998). The changing significance of a violin dramatizes how dif- ferent contexts make meaning of objects.

v i e W i n g c u e Identify the single most important prop in the last film you watched for class. In what ways is it significant? Does the prop function as an instru- mental prop, a metaphorical prop, or both? Explain.

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she may create for a particular role; and bodily movement, which includes physical gestures and facial expressions and, especially important to the movies, eye movements and eye contact. (As in many elements of mise-en-scène, these fea- tures of performance also rely on other dimensions of film form such as sound and camera positions.) Woody Allen has made a career of developing characters through the performance of a strident, panicky voice and bodily and eye move- ments that dart in uncoordinated directions. At the heart of such movies as The Blue Angel (1930) and Shanghai Express (1932) is Marlene Dietrich’s sultry voice, complemented by drooping eyes and languid body poses and gestures [figure 2.16].

Additionally, different acting styles define performances. With stylized acting, an actor employs emphatic and highly self-conscious gestures or speaks in pro-

nounced tones with elevated diction; the actor seems fully aware that he or she is acting and addressing an audience. Much less evident today, these stylized performances can be seen in the work of Lillian Gish in Broken Blossoms (1919), in Joel Grey’s role as the master of ceremonies in Cabaret (1972) [figure 2.17], and in the comic performances seen in virtually any Monty Python movie.

More influential since the 1940s, naturalis- tic acting requires an actor to fully and naturally embody the role that he or she is playing in order to communicate that character’s essential self, famously demonstrated by Marlon Brando as Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), a role in which the actor and character seem almost indistinguishable [figure 2.18].

Types of Actors. As part of the usual distribution of actors through mise-en-scène, leading actors — the two or three actors who appear most often in

2.17 Cabaret (1972). Joel Grey is the master of ceremonies whose own stylized performance introduces a film replete with stylized performances on and off the stage.

2.16 The Blue Angel (1930). The voice, body, and eyes of Marlene Dietrich become the signature vehicles for her dramatic performances as an actor and character in her breakthrough role.

2.18 A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). Ever since this landmark adap- tation, Marlon Brando’s physical performance of Stanley has become difficult to distinguish from the essence of that fictional character.

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a film — play the central characters. Rec- ognizable actors associated with particular character types or minor parts are some- times referred to as character actors. They usually appear as secondary characters playing sinister or humorous roles, such as the bumbling cook in a western. Support- ing actors play secondary characters in a film, serving as foils or companions to the central characters. Supporting actors and character actors often add to the complex- ity of a film’s plotline or emotional impact. They may involve us more thoroughly in the action or serve to highlight a movie’s themes. In the hands of a strong actor, such as James Earl Jones in a supporting role in Field of Dreams (1989) or Tatum O’Neal as a Bible salesman’s precocious daughter in Paper Moon (1973), these supporting roles frequently balance our perspective on the main characters, perhaps requiring us to rethink and reassess the main char- acter’s decisions and motivations. In Field of Dreams, the writer that Jones plays, Terence Mann, fulfills his fantasy of entering the field and joining the baseball game, while lead actor Kevin Costner’s character must remain behind [figure 2.19]. Finally, realism and spectacle are enhanced by the role of extras, those relatively large groups of “background artists” who provide character and sometimes person- ality to large crowd scenes.

Actors are frequently cast for parts precisely because of their association with certain character types that they seem especially suited to portray due to their physical features, acting style, or previous roles. Tom Hanks portrays “everyman” characters, while Helen Mirren played both Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Elizabeth II in the same year. To appreciate and understand a character can consequently mean recognizing this intersection of a type and an actor’s interpretation or transforma- tion of it. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s large and muscular physical stature, clipped voice, and stiff acting style suit well the characters he plays in The Terminator (1984) and Total Recall (1990); the comedy of Kindergarten Cop (1990) arises from his tough character’s attempt to act “against type” in his undercover role of a kindergarten teacher.

Stars. The leading actors in many films are, of course, movie stars — those individuals who, because of their cultural celebrity, bring a powerful aura to their performance, making them the focal points in the mise-en-scène. Unlike less famous actors, star performers often dominate the action and space of the mise-en-scène, bring the accu- mulated history and significance of their past performances to each new film appearance, and acquire a status that transforms their individual physical presence into more abstract or mythi- cal qualities [figure 2.20]. Stars thus combine the ordinary — they embody and play types audience members can identify with — and the extraordinary, bringing their distinct personality to their roles.

2.19 Field of Dreams (1989). James Earl Jones plays Terence Mann, a supporting character who serves as a parallel and counterpoint to the desires and choices of the character played by the leading actor, Kevin Costner.

v i e W i n g c u e Consider the performance of a central character or actor in an assigned film. How would you describe his or her acting style in the film? Does that style seem compatible with the story? Why or why not?

2.20 All Is Lost (2013). This man-at-sea tale depends for its interest on the performance and the star persona of Robert Redford as the film’s nameless single character. Courtesy Everett Collection

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A star’s performance focuses the action of the mise-en-scène and draws atten- tion to important events and themes in the film. In Casablanca (1942), there are a multitude of individual dramas about different characters trying to escape Casa- blanca, but Humphrey Bogart’s character Rick Blaine is, in an important sense, the only story: the other characters become important only as they become part of his life. In The Bridges of Madison County (1995), the story of a male photographer and a female immigrant who meet and fall in love in the isolated farmlands of Iowa, there are no characters other than those played by the stars Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep for most of the film; this focus on their interactions intensifies the story. In a way, this film becomes the story of two stars creating an exclusive world bracketed off from other lives and characters. Johnny Depp’s tongue-in- cheek performance as Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) contributed to the film’s unexpected success and generated sequels highlighting the character’s antics.

In fact, in all three of these films, much of the power of the characters is a consequence of the star status of the actors, recognized and understood in rela- tion to their roles in other films — and in some cases, in relation to a life off the screen. Recognizing and identifying with Rick in Casablanca implies, especially

for viewers in the 1940s, a recognition on some level that Rick is more than Rick, that this star-character in Casablanca is an extension of characters Bogart has portrayed in such films as High Sierra (1941) and The Maltese Falcon (1941). A similar measur- ing takes place as we watch Eastwood and Streep. Streep’s performance in The Bridges of Madison County impresses viewers because the character she plays is so unlike the characters she plays in breakthrough roles in Sophie’s Choice (1982) and Out of Africa (1985); part of our appreciation and understanding of her role is the skill and range she embodies as a star. Depp’s pirate captain builds on the actor’s association with eccentric characters and on cultural recognition of the rock star persona of Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones. We understand these characters as an extension of or departure from other characters associated with the star.

Blocking. The arrangement and movement of actors in relation to each other within the physical space of a mise-en-scène is called blocking. Social blocking describes the arrangement of characters to accentuate relations among them. In Little Women (1994), family and friends gather around the wounded father who has just returned from the Civil War, underscoring the importance of the familial bonds at the center of this society, yet reminding us of his absence through the rest of the film [figure 2.21].

Graphic blocking arranges characters or groups according to visual patterns to portray spatial har- mony, tension, or some other visual atmosphere. Fritz Lang, for instance, is renowned for his blocking of crowd scenes: in Metropolis (1927), the oppression of individuality is embodied in the mechanical move- ments of rectangles of marching workers [figure 2.22];

2.21 Little Women (1994). In this example of social blocking, family members are positioned tightly around the father in a subtle expression of familial structure.

2.22 Metropolis (1927). Fritz Lang’s graphic blocking of workers in linear formation define a futuristic setting in which individuality itself is in doubt.

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in Fury (1936), a mob lynching in a small town is staged as graphic-blocked patterns whose directional arrow suggests a kind of dark fate moving against the lone indi- vidual. Both forms of blocking can become especially dynamic and creative in dance or fight sequences. In Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004), the choreographed movement of bodies visually describes social relations and tensions as well as graphic patterns suggesting freedom or control.

Costumes and Make-Up Costumes are the clothing and related accessories worn by a character that define the character and contribute to the visual impression and design of the film overall. These can range from common fashions, like a dark suit or dress, to historical or more fantastic costumes. Cosmetics, or make-up, applied to the actor’s face or body, highlight or even disguise or distort certain aspects of the face or body.

How actors are costumed and made up can play a central part in a film, describing tensions and changes in the character and the story. Sometimes a character becomes fully identified with one basic look or costume: through his many movie incarnations, James Bond has always appeared in a tuxedo at some point in the action. In Legally Blonde (2001), much of the humor revolves around the disjuncture between Elle’s bright pink Los Angeles fashions and accessories and the staid environment of Harvard Law School. The dynamic of costuming also can be highlighted in a way that makes the clothes the center of the movie. Pygmalion (1938) and its musical adaptation as My Fair Lady (1964) are essentially about a transformation of a girl from the street into an elegant socialite; along with language and diction, that transformation is indexed by the changes of costume and make-up from dirt and rags to diamonds and gowns [figures 2.23a and 2.23b].

Costumes and make-up function in films in four different ways. First, when costumes and make-up support scenic realism, they reproduce, as accurately as possible, the clothing and facial features of people living in a specific time and place. Thus Napoleon’s famous hat and jacket, pallid skin, and lock of hair across his brow are a standard costume and the basic make-up for the many films featur- ing this character, from Abel Gance’s 1927 Napoléon to Sacha Guitry’s 1955 Napo- leon. Increasingly sophisticated prosthetics, artificial facial features or body parts, enhance realism in performance, as with Leonardo DiCaprio as J. Edgar Hoover in J. Edgar (2011).

Second, when make-up and costumes function as character highlights, they draw out or point to important parts of a character’s personality. Often these highlights are subtle, such as the ascot a pretentious visitor wears; sometimes

2.23a and 2.23b My Fair Lady (1964). Cecil Beaton’s costumes and set designs transformed a flower seller into a refined member of society.

(a) (b)

v i e W i n g c u e Describe the ways costuming and make-up add scenic realism, highlight character, or mark the narrative development in the film viewed for class.

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they are pronounced, as when villains in silent films wear black hats and twirl their moustaches. In William Wyler’s film Jezebel (1939), Bette Davis’s character shocks southern society when she appears in a red dress; her performance and the block- ing of her entrance convey the ten- sion created by the dress’s scandalous color, even though the film is black and white. The Avengers (2012) depends on recognition of each of the Marvel superheroes by costume and props [figure 2.24].

Third, when costumes and make- up act as narrative markers, their change or lack of change becomes a crucial way to understand and follow a character and the development of

the story. Often a film chronicles the story through the aging of the protagonist: gradually the hair is whitened and the face progressively lined. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) juxtaposes the aging of Cate Blanchett’s character with the regression of the protagonist played by Brad Pitt, augmenting the illu- sions of make-up with CGI. The use of more modern styles of clothing can also advance the story. In Lee Daniels’ The Butler (2013), the main character played by Forest Whitaker works in the White House for three decades, during eight administrations. While his job and uniform remain the same through convulsive historical changes, history registers in the changing costumes Oprah Winfrey wears in the role of his wife [figures 2.25a and 2.25b]. In the Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001–2003), the dark corruption of Gollum appears most powerfully in the changes in his physical appearance, measured in a dramatic flashback to his origins as the hobbit Smeagol at the beginning of The Return of the King (2003) [figures 2.26a and 2.26b].

Finally, make-up, prosthetics, and costuming can be used as a part of overall production design to signify genre, as they do in the fantasy world of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

2.24 The Avengers (2012). Iconic costumes distinguish the heroes of this comic-book adaptation.

2.25a and 2.25b Lee Daniels’ The Butler (2013). Oprah Winfrey wears costumes designed by Ruth Carter to reflect her social status and the historical changes swirling around her character and her husband during his long career as the White House butler.

(b)(a)

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Costumes and make-up that appear natural or realistic in films carry important cultural connotations as well. The desire to define her own gender and sexuality guides the teenager Alike’s choice of clothes in Pariah (2011); she doesn’t feel like herself in the pink top her mom buys for her. In The Devil Wears Prada (2006), the maturation of the naive Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) becomes literally apparent in the changes in her outfits, which evolve from college frumpy to designer fashionable.

Lighting One of the most subtle and important dimensions of mise-en-scène is lighting, which not only allows an audience to observe a film’s action and understand the setting in which the action takes place but also draws attention to the props, costumes, and actors in the mise-en-scène. Our daily experiences outside the movies demonstrate how lighting can affect our perspective on a person or thing. Entering a dark, shad- owed room may evoke feelings of fear, while the same room brightly lit may make us feel welcomed and comfortable. Lighting is a key element of cinematography, but since lighting choices affect what is visible onscreen and relate profoundly to our experience of mise-en-scène, they are discussed here in this context. Mise-en-scène lighting refers specifically to light sources located within the scene itself. This lighting may be used to shade and accentuate the figures, objects, and spaces of the mise-en-scène. As we will discuss in more detail in Chapter 3, the primary sources of film lighting are usually not visible onscreen, but they nevertheless affect mise-en-scène.

The interaction of lighting, sets, and actors can create its own drama within the mise-en-scène. How a character moves through light or how the lighting on the character changes can signal important information about the character and story. In Back to the Future (1985), Marty McFly’s face is suddenly illuminated from an unseen source, signaling a moment of revelation about the mysteries of time travel. More complexly, in Citizen Kane, the regular movement of characters, particularly of Kane, from shadow to light and then back to shadow suggests moral instability.

The mise-en-scène can use both natural and directional lighting. Natural lighting usually assumes an incidental role in a scene; it derives from a natural source in a scene or setting, such as the illumination of the daylight sun or the lamps of a room. Spread across a set before more specific lighting emphases are added, set lighting distributes an evenly diffused illumination through a scene as

2.26a and 2.26b The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003). Viewers waited until the trilogy’s last installment for a glimpse of Smeagol (Andy Serkis), the hobbit whose greed will deform him into the shape of the creature Gollum.

(a) (b)

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In Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, characters wander through Bedford-Stuyvesant, a gentrifying African American neighborhood in Brooklyn. Here life becomes a com- plicated negotiation between a private mise-en-scène (apartments, bedrooms, and businesses) and a public mise-en-scène (city streets and sidewalks crowded with people). With Lee in the role of Mookie, who acts as a thread connecting the various characters, stores, and street corners, the film explores the different attitudes, personalities, and desires that clash within a single urban place by featuring a variety of stages — rooms, stores, and restaurants — with personal and racial asso- ciations. On the hot summer day of this setting, lighting creates an intense and tactile heat, and this sensation of heat makes the mise-en-scène vibrate with energy and frustration. Working with his usual production designer, Wynn Thomas, and cinematographer, Ernest R. Dicker- son, Lee transforms the neighborhood into a theatrical space for fraught encounters.

Lee’s performance in the central role of Mookie draws on his then-emerging status as a star actor and a star film- maker. In fact, this double status as star and director indi- cates clearly that what happens in the mise-en-scène is about him. Physically unimposing, restrained, and cautious throughout the film, Lee’s performance seems to shift and adjust depending on the character he is responding to. As the central performer in a neighborhood of perform- ers, Lee’s Mookie is a chameleon, surviving by continually changing his persona to fit the social scene he is in. By the end of the film, however, Mookie must decide which performance will be the real self he brings to the mise-en- scène — how, that is, he will “act” in a time of crisis by taking responsibility for the role he is acting.

The costumes (by Ruth Carter) and make-up (by Matiki Anoff) in Do the Right Thing reflect the styles of dress in U.S. cities in the 1980s. Both contribute to a kind of scenic realism of the time, yet Lee also uses them to define and highlight each character’s place in the film’s narrative. Mookie’s Brooklyn Dodgers shirt with the name

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and number of the legendary baseball player Jackie Rob- inson on the back symbolizes his hometown and African American pride [figure 2.27], whereas Pino (John Turturro), wears white, sleeveless T-shirts that signify his white working-class background. Jade (Joie Lee), Mookie’s sis- ter, stands out in her dramatic hats, skirts, earrings, and noticeably more elegant make-up and hairstyles, calling attention perhaps to the individuality and creativity that allow her, uniquely here, to casually cross racial lines.

The central crisis of Do the Right Thing turns on the drama of instrumental props that become loaded with cultural meanings and metaphorical powers. Early in the film, Smiley (Roger Guenveur Smith) holds up a photograph of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X as a call to fight against racism with both nonviolence and violence. Shortly thereafter, Da Mayor (Ossie Davis) nearly instigates a fight because Sonny, the Korean grocer (Steve Park), has not stocked a can of his favorite beer, Miller High Life. But it is the photographs of famous Italians in Sal’s pizzeria that ignite the film — photos of Frank Sinatra, Joe DiMaggio, Liza Minnelli, Al Pacino, and others [figure 2.28]. When Buggin’ Out (Giancarlo Esposito) complains that there should be photos of African Americans on that wall

film in

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mise-en-scène in Do the Right Thing ( 1989 )

See also: Crooklyn (1994); Summer of Sam (1999); 25th Hour (2002)

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2.27 Do the Right Thing (1989). Mookie wears a Brooklyn Dodgers shirt with Jackie Robinson’s number as a symbol of hometown and African American pride.

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because Sal’s clientele is all black, Sal (Danny Aiello) angrily responds that he can decorate the walls of his pizzeria however he wishes. Later, when Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn) refuses to turn down his boom box (an object that has become synonymous with who he is), he and Buggin’ Out confront Sal with the cultural significance of the photo-props and the neighborhood residents’ social rights within this mise-en-scène: why, they demand, are there no photographs of African Americans on the wall? Finally, at the climactic moment in the film, Mookie tosses a garbage can through the window of the pizzeria, sparking the store’s destruction but saving the lives of Sal and his son.

Both social and graphic blockings become dramatic calculators in a film explicitly about the “block” and the arrangement of people in this neighborhood. In one scene, Pino, Vito (Richard Edson), and Mookie stand tensely apart in a corner of the pizzeria as Mookie calls on Vito to denounce his brother’s behavior and Pino coun- ters with a call for family ties; their bodies are quietly hos- tile and territorial simply in their arrangement and in their movements around the counter that separates them. This orchestration of bodies climaxes in the final showdown at Sal’s pizzeria. When Buggin’ Out and Radio Raheem enter the pizzeria, the screaming begins with Sal behind the counter, while Mookie, Pino, Vito, and the neighborhood kids shout from different places in the room. As the fight begins, the bodies collapse on each other and spill onto the street in a mass of undistinguishable faces. After the police arrive and Radio Raheem is killed, the placement of his body creates a sharp line between Mookie and Sal and his sons on one side and the growing crowd of furi- ous blacks and Latinos on the other. Within this blocking, Mookie suddenly moves from his side of the line to the other and then calmly retrieves the garbage can to throw through the window. The riot that follows is a direct con- sequence of Mookie’s decisions about where to position himself and how to shatter the blocked mise-en-scène that divides Sal’s space from the mob.

Mise-en-Scéne: Exploring a Material World c h a p t e r 2

2.28 Do the Right Thing (1989). Nostalgic black-and-white photos of Italian Americans on the pizzeria wall illustrate the potential of props to serve as political flashpoints.

2.29 Do the Right Thing (1989). The high-key lighting against a glaringly red wall adds to the intensity and theatricality of these otherwise casual commentators on the street.

Do the Right Thing employs an array of lighting tech- niques that at first may seem naturalistic, but through the course of the film directional lighting becomes particularly dramatic. From the beginning, the film juxtaposes the harsh, full glare of the streets with the soft morning light that highlights the interior spaces of DJ Mister Señor Love Daddy’s (Samuel L. Jackson) radio station, where he announces a heat wave for the coming day, and the bedroom where Da Mayor awakens with Mother Sister (Ruby Dee). Here the lighting of the interior mise-en-scène emphasizes the rich and blending shades of the dark skin of the African American characters, while the bright, hard lighting of the exterior spaces draws out distinctions in the skin colors of blacks, whites, and Asians. This high- key lighting of exteriors, in turn, accentuates the colors of the objects and props in the mise-en-scène as a way of sharply isolating them in the scene: for example, the blues of the police uniforms and cars, the yellows of the fruits in the Korean market, and the reds of the steps and walls of the neighborhood [figure 2.29].

Other uses of lighting in the film are more specifically dramatic and complex. For example, the dramatic backlight- ing of Mookie as he climbs the stairs to deliver the pizza adds an almost religious and certainly heroic/romantic effect to the pizza delivery. When Pino confronts Vito in the storage room, the scene is highlighted by an overhead light that swings back and forth, creating a rocking and turbulent visual effect. In the final scene, Mookie walks home to his son on a street sharply divided between bright, glaring light on one side and dark shadows on the other.

More charged with the politics of mise-en-scène than many films, Do the Right Thing turns a relatively small city space into an electrified set where actors, costumes, props, blocking, and lighting create a remarkably dense, jagged, and mobile environment. Here the elements of mise-en-scène are always theatrically and politically in play, always about the spatial construction of culture in a specific time and place. To live here, people need to assume, as Mookie eventually does, the powers and responsibilities of knowing how and when to act.

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a kind of lighting base. Directional lighting is more dramatically apparent; it may create the impression of a natural light source but actually directs light in ways that define and shape the object or person being illuminated. As illustrated in the shots presented here from Sweet Smell of Success (1957) [figures 2.30–2.36], an even more specific technical grammar has developed to designate the variety of strategies used in lighting the mise-en-scène:

■ Three-point lighting is a common lighting style that uses three sources: a key light to illuminate the object, backlighting to pick out the object from the background, and fill lighting that minimizes shadows [figure 2.30].

■ Key light is the main source of lighting from a lamp. It may be balanced with little contrast in the case of high-key lighting, or the contrasts between light and dark may be stark, as in low-key lighting. These terms indicate the ratio of key to fill lighting; high-key lighting is even (low ratio of key to fill) and used for melodramas and realist films; low-key lighting is (contrary to the col- loquial use of “low-key”) dramatic (high ratio of key to fill) and used in horror films and film noir [figures 2.31 and 2.32].

■ Fill lighting can be used to balance the key lighting or to emphasize other spaces and objects in the scene [figure 2.33].

■ Highlighting describes the use of the different lighting sources to empha- size certain characters or objects or to charge them with special significance [figure 2.34].

■ Backlighting is a highlighting technique that illuminates the person or object from behind; it tends to silhouette the subject [figure 2.35].

■ Frontal lighting, sidelighting, underlighting, and top lighting are used to il- luminate the subject from different directions in order to draw out features or create specific atmospheres around the subject [figure 2.36].

The effects of lighting in the mise-en-scène range from a hard to a soft lighting surface that, in conjunction with the narrative and other features of the mise- en-scène, elicits certain responses. Shading, the use of shadows to shape or draw attention to certain features, can explain or comment on an object or a person in a way the narrative does not. Hard and soft lighting and shading can create a variety of complex effects through highlighting and the play of light and shadow that enlighten viewers in more than one sense of the word.

In a movie like Barry Lyndon (1975), the story is conspicuously inseparable from the lighting techniques that illuminate it: extraordinarily low and soft light- ing, with sharp frontal light and little fill light on the faces, creates an artificial intensity in the expressions of the characters, whose social desperation hides their ethical emptiness [figure 2.37]. One particular version of this play of light is referred to as chiaroscuro lighting, a pictorial arrangement of light and dark to create depth and contrast. In the opening scene of The Godfather (1972), the chiaroscuro lighting in Don Corleone’s den contrasts with the brightly lit wedding party outdoors.

None of the elements of mise-en-scène — from props to acting to lighting — can be assigned standard meanings because they are always subject to different uses in each film. They also carry different historical and cultural connotations at different times. While the low-key lighting of German expressionist cinema, as in the 1924 horror film Waxworks, may be formally similar to that found in 1950s film noir, such as in Kiss Me Deadly (1955), the lighting has a very different significance, reflecting the distinctive perspective of each film and the cultural context that pro- duced it. The metaphoric darkness that surrounds characters like Dracula and Jack the Ripper in the first film suggests a monstrous evil with psychological effects; in the second, that shadowy atmosphere describes a corruption that is entirely human, a function of brutal greed and sexualized violence. The contemporary independent film Pi (1998) uses high-contrast lighting and black-and-white film stock to evoke

v i e W i n g c u e Consider the role of lighting in a film you have recently watched. Is it low-key lighting or high-key lighting? Describe a scene in which lighting dramatically adds to the scene’s emotional impact. Is there a scene where the lighting is less obtrusive but equally significant? If so, please describe it.

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2.36 Sweet Smell of Success (1957). Underlighting distorts a policeman’s smile into a threat.

2.34 Sweet Smell of Success (1957). Highlighting picks out the powerful columnist from the background.

2.35 Sweet Smell of Success (1957). Backlighting foregrounds the illicit nature of an encounter.

2.31 Sweet Smell of Success (1957). High-key lighting emphasizes the daytime glare of a crowded coffee shop.

2.30 Sweet Smell of Success (1957). Cinematographer James Wong Howe’s celebrated scathing tale of the newspaper business uses Hollywood’s classic three-point lighting schema as a basic setup.

2.32 Sweet Smell of Success (1957). Low-key lighting heightens the contrast between light and shadow in a dangerous encounter.

2.33 Sweet Smell of Success (1957). Fill lighting picks out press agent Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) as he listens to J. J. Hunsucker (Burt Lancaster) twist the facts.

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associations with these earlier film move- ments and connote both the psychological disturbance of the math-obsessed protago- nist and the ruthless motives of those who seek to profit from his predictions.

Space and Design The overall look of a film is coordinated by its design team, which uses space and com- position to create a scene for the film’s action. The set design of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is characterized by futuristic design elements arranged sparsely within the elongated widescreen frame [figure 2.38]. The crowded warrens of Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) fill the frame but give the viewer little sense of depth, with stop-motion figures and props jumbled together. The frontal orientation of Marie Antoinette emphasizes the screens and drapes and wallpaper of Versailles, giving

the film a compositional style reminiscent of decorative arts. Even as most designers would say their work is in the service of the story, the actors who move through these spaces are picked out by lighting, carefully made up, and specifically costumed in palettes that integrate the work of all these departments into the mise-en-scène.

2.37 Barry Lyndon (1975). In this example of chiaroscuro lighting, the soft glow of the candles creates areas of brightness (chiaro) as the background is engulfed in darkness (scuro). The murky color scheme contributes to the eerie atmosphere and the characters’ ghostlike appearance.

2.38 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). The extremely influential production design of Stanley Kubrick’s visionary science fiction film could hardly contrast more with the eighteenth-century England of the same director’s Barry Lyndon. Yet the attention to the composition of figures in space unites the director’s work.

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Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox uses stop-motion animation to bring a much-loved Roald Dahl children’s book to life. The tale pits three ruthless farmers against Mr. Fox’s thrill-seeking thievery, pull- ing an array of animals into the fray in the process. Taking Ander- son’s predilection for telling stories through mise-en-scène to its extreme, the film sets its largely underground action within an elab- orately textured design. Since characters, props, and sets are all constructed, the film relies on the coordination of figure movement and lighting to direct the viewer’s attention to narrative elements.

A scene depicting the displaced animals’ new home in Badger’s Flint Mine opens with Mole playing the piano in a relaxed manner reminiscent of 1950s Hollywood [figure 2.39a]. The space is large and tastefully lit by candles and a garland of what appears to be fruit and fake flowers entwined with twinkling lights. Even in this first im- age, however, the storage racks in the background indicate that the gracious living of Badger’s home is being challenged by an influx of refugees and the hoarding of stolen supplies.

The camera tracks right to a kitchen area [figure 2.39b]. Bright, cheery lighting highlights Rabbit chopping ingredients for a commu- nal meal, and the cramped space and detailed abundance of food (like the roasting rack of stolen chickens) indicates both the large number and the camaraderie of the refugee animals.

The camera moves right again to Mr. Fox and Badger, strolling past the opening to a bedroom where the feet of an exhausted ani- mal can be seen lying on a top bunk [figure 2.39c] and discussing the sustainability of the group’s current living arrangement.

The scene ends at a punch bowl [figure 2.39d], beyond which the makeshift aspects of the living arrangements are evident: stolen cases of cider, bags of flour, and chicken carcasses are stored in the background. It is at this point in the shot that Ash, Mr. Fox’s son, believing decisive action is needed to restore Mr. Fox’s honor, asks his cousin Kristofferson to help him retrieve his father’s tail from the ferocious Farmer Bean.

Production design by Nelson Lowery richly colors this tale in which animals dress and act more human than the humans hunting them.

mise-en-scène in Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

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making sense of mise-en-scène It is important to stress that the elements of mise-en-scène that we have designated are used together to create the world of the film; mise-en-scène describes every- thing visible within the frame. Properties of cinematography that we will discuss in the next chapter (including framing, angle, and color) render the mise-en-scène in a particular way, but our visual impression starts with what is in front of the camera or later placed in the frame with special effects technology.

How do audiences interpret mise-en-scène? Whether a film presents authentic places or ingeniously fabricates new worlds, its sets, props, acting styles, block- ing, and lighting create opportunities for audiences to find significance. From the miniaturized reenactment of Admiral Dewey’s naval victory in one of the first “newsreels,” The Battle of Manila Bay (1898), to the futuristic ductwork located “somewhere on the Los Angeles–Belfast border” of Brazil (1985) [figure 2.40], to the winter light of the Swedish countryside in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), mise-en-scène can produce specific meanings through views of real lands and landscapes as well as imaginatively designed settings. In this final section, we explore how different approaches to and cultural contexts for mise-en-scène help us identify and assign meaning.

Defining Our Place in a Film’s Material World For most movie viewers, recognizing the places, objects, and arrangements of sets and settings has never been simply a formal exercise. The mise-en-scène has always been the site where viewers measure human, aesthetic, and social values; recognize significant cinematic traditions; and, in those interactions, identify and assign meaning to the changing places of films.

The most fundamental value of mise-en-scène is that it defines where we are: the physical settings and objects that surround us indicate our place in the material world. Some people crave large cities with bright lights and active crowds; others find it important that their town have a church as the visible center of the com- munity. Much the same holds true for cinematic mise-en-scène, in which the place created by the elements of the mise-en-scène becomes the essential condition for the meaning of the characters’ actions. As part of this larger cultural context, cine- matic mise-en-scène helps to describe the limits of human experience by indicating the external boundaries and contexts in which film characters exist (corresponding to our own natural, social, or imaginary worlds). On the other hand, how mise-en-

scène is changed or manipulated in a film can reflect the powers of film characters and groups — and their ability to control or arrange their world in a meaningful way. While the first set of values (conditions and limits) can be established without charac- ters, the second (changing or manipulating those limits) requires the interaction of characters and mise-en-scène.

Mise-en-Scène as an External Condition Mise-en-scène as an external condition indi- cates surfaces, objects, and exteriors that define the material possibilities in a place or space.

2.40 Brazil (1985). In this darkly comic film, a futuristic mise-en-scène of twisting and labyrinthine ductwork entangles the human actors in a disorienting present.

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The mise-en-scène may be a magical space full of active objects, or it may be a barren landscape with no borders. In King Solomon’s Mines (1937) and The African Queen (1951), arid desert plains and dense jungle foliage threaten the colonial visitors, whereas films like The Lady Vanishes (1938) and The Tak- ing of Pelham 123 (2009), set in the interiors of trains and subways, feature long, narrow passageways, multiple windows, and strange, anonymous faces. An indi vidual’s movements are restricted as the world flies by outside. In each case, the mise-en-scène describes the material limits of a film’s physical world; from those terms, the rest of the scene or even the entire film must develop.

Mise-en-Scène as a Measure of Character Mise-en-scène as a measure of character dramatizes how an individual or a group establishes an identity through interaction with (or control of ) the surrounding set- ting and sets. In The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), the mise-en-scène of a forest becomes a sympathetic and intimate place where the outlaw-hero can achieve justice and find camaraderie; in Brokeback Mountain (2005), the wide-open space of the mountain expands the horizons of the characters’ sexual identities [figure 2.41]. In the science fiction film Donovan’s Brain (1953), the vision and the personality of a mad scientist are projected and reflected in a laboratory with twisted, mechanized gadgets and wires; essentially, his ability to create new life forms from that environ- ment reflects both his genius and his insane ambitions. The interactions between character and elements of the mise-en-scène may convey more meaning to viewers than even the interactions between the characters.

Keep in mind that our own cultural expectations about the material world determine how we understand the values of a film’s mise-en-scène. To modern viewers, the mise-en-scène of The Gold Rush (1925) might appear crude and stagy; the make-up and costumes might seem more like circus outfits than realistic cloth- ing. For viewers in the 1920s, however, it was precisely the fantastical and theatri- cal quality of this mise-en-scène that made it so entertaining: for them, watching the Little Tramp perform his balletic magic in a strange location was more impor- tant than the realism of the mise-en-scène.

Interpretive Contexts for Mise-en-Scène Two prominent contexts for eliciting interpretations, or readings, of films include naturalistic mise-en-scène and theatrical mise-en-scène. Naturalistic mise-en-scène appears realistic and recognizable to viewers. Theatrical mise-en-scène denatural- izes the locations and other elements of the mise-en-scène so that its features appear unfamiliar, exaggerated, or artificial. Throughout their history, movies have tended to emphasize one or the other of these contexts, although many films have moved smoothly between the two. From The Birth of a Nation (1915) to The Iron Lady (2011), settings, costumes, and props have been selected or constructed to appear as authentic as possible in an effort to convince viewers that the filmmak- ers had a clear window on a true historical place: the first movie re-creates the historical sites and events of the Civil War, even titling some of its shots “histori- cal facsimiles,” whereas the second reconstructs the physical details of Margaret

2.41 Brokeback Mountain (2005). In the expansive mountains and plains of the American West, two cowboys explore new sexual intimacies, as the film confounds expecta- tions associated with setting.

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Thatcher’s private life during old age and her public life in flashbacks. In other films, from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hal- lows: Part 1 (2010), those same elements of mise-en-scène have exaggerated or transformed reality as most people know it: Caligari uses sets painted with twisted buildings and nightmarish backgrounds, while magical animals and animated objects inhabit the fantastical settings of Deathly Hallows.

The Naturalistic Tradition Naturalism is one of the most effective — and most misleading — ways to approach mise-en-scène. If mise-en-scène is about the arrangement of space and the objects in it, as we have suggested, then naturalism in the mise-en-scène means that how a place looks is the way it is supposed to look. We can, in fact, pinpoint several more precise characteristics of a naturalistic mise-en-scène: elements of the mise- en-scène follow assumed laws of nature and society; they have a consistently logi- cal relation to each other; and the mise-en-scène and characters mutually define each other.

Naturalistic mise-en-scène is consistent with accepted scientific laws and cultural customs. Thus in a naturalistic setting, a person would be unable to hear whispers from far across a field, and a restaurant might have thirty tables and sev- eral waiters or waitresses. This kind of realistic mise-en-scène also creates logical or homogeneous connections among different sets, props, and characters. Costumes, props, and lighting are appropriate and logical extensions of the naturalistic set- ting, and sets relate to each other as part of a consistent geography. The Battle of Algiers (1966) uses location shooting in an attempt to re-create with documentary realism the revolution fought in the city’s streets a decade earlier. Naturalism in the movies also means that the mise-en-scène and the characters mutually define or reflect each other. The gritty streets and dark rooms of a city reflect the bleak attitudes of thieves and femmes fatales in The Killers (1946); in Up in the Air (2009), the everyday world of airports, airlines, and hotel lobbies functions as a bleakly distorted home for a character unable to secure human companionship [figure 2.42]. Two specific traditions have emerged from naturalistic mise-en-scène.

Historical Mise-en-Scène. A historical mise-en-scène re-creates a recognizable his- torical scene, highlighting those elements that call attention to a specific location and time in history: All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) can still stun audiences with

its brutally accurate representation of trench warfare in World War I; the set- ting and costumes of The Last Emperor (1987) capture the clash of tradition with Chinese Communist society.

Everyday Mise-en-Scène. Calling atten- tion to the ordinary rather than the historical, an everyday mise-en-scène constructs commonplace backdrops for the characters and the action. In Louisi- ana Story (1948), a swamp and its rich natural life are the always-visible arena for the daily routines of a young boy in the Louisiana bayous. In Winter’s Bone (2010), the struggles of the heroine to protect her family home are set against the stark beauty and sparse settlement

2.42 Up in the Air (2009). The airports and hotel bars encountered by frequent travelers become a self-enclosed, naturalistic mise-en-scène from which the character cannot escape.

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of the Ozarks. In the Brazilian film Central Station (1998), a railroad station in Rio de Janeiro and a poor rural area in the Brazilian countryside are the understated stages in a touching tale of a woman’s friendship with a boy in search of his father.

The Theatrical Tradition In contrast, theatrical mise-en-scène creates fantastical environments that display and even exult in their artificial and constructed nature. In films in this tradition, elements of the mise-en-scène violate or bend the laws of nature and society; dra- matic inconsistencies occur within or across settings; or the mise-en-scène takes on an independent life that requires confrontations between its elements and the characters.

Often violating the accepted laws of how the world functions, theatrical mise- en-scène can call attention to the arbitrary or constructed nature of that world. In movies from Top Hat (1935) to Silk Stockings (1957), Fred Astaire somehow finds a way to dance on walls and ceilings and transform spoons and brooms into magical partners. In Nanny McPhee (2005), the protagonist’s magic staff can wreak havoc or put things to right. Dramatic inconsistencies within a film’s mise-en-scène indicate the instability of those scenes, costumes, and props — and the world they define. The films of Monty Python offer innumerable examples. In Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (1983), a pirate ship sails through the streets of Manhattan and a darkly costumed Grim Reaper interrupts a classy dinner party to announce that all of the chatting friends have died of food poisoning. In a theatrical mise- en-scène, props, sets, and even bodies assume an independent (and sometimes con- tradictory) life that provokes regular confrontations or negotiations between the mise-en-scène and the characters [figure 2.43]. Two historical trends — expressive and constructive — are associated with theatrical mise-en-scène.

Expressive Mise-en-Scène. In an expressive mise-en-scène, the settings, sets, props, and other dimensions of the mise-en-scène assert themselves independently of the characters and describe an emotional or spiritual life permeating the material world. Associated most commonly with the German expressionist films of the 1920s, this tradition is also seen in surrealism, in horror films, and in the magic realism of Latin American cinema. Since Émile Cohl’s Fantasmagorie (1908) depicted an artist surrounded by sketches and drawings whose life and activity are independent of him, expressive mise-en-scène has enlivened the terrifying, comical, and romantic worlds of many films, including The Birds (1963), in which birds become demonic; Barton Fink (1991), in which wallpaper sweats; and Lars and the Real Girl (2007), in which a lonely and confused man falls in love with and introduces to friends and family the inflatable doll he purchases to be his companion.

Constructive Mise-en-Scène. In a construc- tive mise-en-scène, the world can be shaped and even altered through the work or desire of the characters. Films about putting together a play or even a movie are examples of this tradition as characters fabricate a new or alternative world through their power as actors or directors. In François Truffaut’s Day for Night (1973), for example, multiple romances and crises become entwined with the project of making a movie about romance and crises,

2.43 Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (1983). A dinner party mise-en-scène is suddenly disturbed by the theatrical entry of Death.

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The setting of Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves is post–World War II Rome, a mise-en-scène whose stark and impoverished conditions are the most formidable barrier against the central character’s longing for a nor- mal life. Antonio Ricci, played by nonprofessional actor Lamberto Maggiorani, finds a job putting up movie posters, a humble but adequate way to support his wife and his son Bruno in an economically depressed city. When the bicycle he needs for work is stolen, he desperately searches the massive city on foot, hoping to discover the bike before Monday morning, when he must continue his work. The winding streets and cramped apartments of the actual Roman locations appear as bare, crumbling, and scarred surfaces. They create a frustrating and impersonal urban maze through which Ricci walks asking questions without answers, examining bikes that are not his, and following leads into strange neighborhoods where he is observed with hostile suspicion. In what was once the center of the Roman Empire, masses of people wait for jobs, crowd onto buses, or sell their wares. The most basic materials of life take on disproportionate significance as props: the sheets on a bed, a plate of food, and an old bike are the center of existence. In the mise-en-scène, the gener- ally bright lighting reveals mostly blank faces and walls of poverty.

Bicycle Thieves is among the most important films within the naturalistic tradition of mise-en-scène, associ- ated specifically with the Italian neorealist movement of the late 1940s [figure 2.44]. The laws of society and nature follow an almost mechanical logic that cares not at all for human hopes and dreams. Here, according to a truck driver, “every Sunday, it rains.” In a large city of empty piazzas and anonymous crowds, physical neces- sities reign: food is a constant concern; most people are strangers; a person needs a bicycle to get around town; and rivers are more threatening than bucolic. Ricci and other characters become engulfed in the hostility and coldness of the pervasive mise-en-scène, and their encounters with Roman street life follow a path from

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hope to despair to resignation. In the beginning, objects and materials, such as the bed linens Ricci’s wife pawns to retrieve his bicycle, offer promise for his family’s security in a barren and anonymous cityscape. However, the promise of these and other material objects turns quickly to ironic emptiness: the bicycle is stolen; the marketplace over- whelms him with separate bicycle parts that could never be identified; and settings (such as the church into which he pursues one of the thieves) offer no consolation or comfort. Finally, Ricci himself gets caught in this seemingly inescap- able logic of survival when, unable to find his bike, he tries to steal another one. Only at the end of the day, when he discovers his son is not the drowned body pulled from the river, does he give up his search for the bicycle. Realizing that this setting and the objects in it will never provide him with meaning and value, he returns sadly home with the son he loves.

Bicycle Thieves’s very purpose is to accentuate the common and everyday within a naturalistic tradition. Ricci and his neighbors dress as the struggling working-class

film in

focus

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157010

naturalistic mise-en-scène in Bicycle Thieves ( 1948 )

film in focus bedfordstmartins.com /filmexperience

To watch a clip of Bicycle Thieves, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

2.44 Bicycle Thieves (1948). The unadorned street locations of postwar Rome and an ordinary bicycle are at the heart of this naturalistic mise-en-scène.

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population from whom the actors were cast, and the natural lighting progresses from dawn to dusk across the various locations that mark Ricci’s progression through the day. This film’s everyday mise-en-scène is especially powerful because without any dramatic signals, it remains perme- ated by the shadow of World War II. Even within the barest of everyday settings, objects, and clothing, Bicycle Thieves suggests the traces of history — such as Mussolini’s sports stadium — that have created these impoverished conditions.

Along with these traces of history within its everyday mise-en-scène, we are reminded of a theatrical tradition that ironically counterpoints the film’s realism. While performing his new duties in the first part of the film, Ricci puts up a glamorous poster of the movie star Rita Hayworth [figure 2.45]. Later the sets and props change when Ricci wanders from a workers’ political meeting

to an adjacent theater where a play is being rehearsed. In these instances, a poster prop and a stage setting become reminders of a world that has little place in the daily hardships of this mise-en-scène — a world where, as one character puts it, “movies bore me.”

For many modern viewers, Rome might be repre- sented by that other theatrical tradition — as a city of magnificent fountains, glamorous people, and romantic restaurants. But for Ricci and his son, that Rome is a strange place and a fake set. A touching scene in which they eat at a restaurant brings out the contrast between their lives and that of the rich patrons before they return to the streets they know. For Europeans who lived through World War II (in Rome or other cities), the glaring honesty of the film’s mise-en-scène in 1948 was a powerful alternative to the glossy theatrical tradition of Hollywood sets and settings.

Mise-en-Scéne: Exploring a Material World c h a p t e r 2

2.45 Bicycle Thieves (1948). The glamour of Hollywood is evoked ironically in the protagonist’s modest job putting up movie posters in the streets of postwar Rome.

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and the movie set becomes a parallel universe in which day can be changed to night and sad stories can be made happy. Other films have employed constructive mise-en-scène to dramatize the wishes and dreams of their characters. In Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971), the grim factory exterior hides a won- derland where, as one character sings, “you can even eat the dishes,” whereas the mise-en-scène of Being John Malkovich (1999) constantly defies the laws of spatial logic, as Craig the puppeteer and his co-worker Maxine struggle for the right to inhabit the body of the actor Malkovich.

We rarely experience the traditions of naturalis- tic and theatrical mise-en-scène in entirely isolated states. Naturalism and theatrics sometimes alternate within the same film, and following the play and exchange between the two can be an exciting and productive way to watch movies and to understand the complexities of mise-en-scène in a film — of how place and its physical contours condition and shape

our experiences. In this context, Preston Sturges’s Sullivan’s Travels (1941) is a remarkable example of how the alternation between these two traditions can be the very heart of the movie [figure 2.46]. In this film, Hollywood director John L. Sullivan, after a successful career making films with titles like So Long, Sarong, decides to explore the world of suffering and deprivation as material for a serious realistic movie he intends to title O Brother, Where Art Thou? He subsequently finds himself catapulted into a grimy world of railroad boxcars and prison chain gangs, where he discovers, ironically, the power of the movie fantasies he once created to delight and entertain others. The theatrical mise-en-scène of Hollywood, he learns, is as important to human life as the ordinary worlds people must inhabit.

Spectacularizing the Movies Movie spectaculars are films in which the magnitude and intricacy of the mise-en- scène share equal emphasis with or even outshine the story, the actors, and other tra-

ditional focal points for a movie. Certainly many kinds of films have employed spectacular sets and settings as part of their narrative, but what distinguishes a movie spectacular is an equal or additional emphasis on the powers of the mise-en-scène to create the meaning of the film or even overwhelm the story. If low-budget independent films usually concentrate on the complex- ity of character, imagistic style, and narrative, movie spectaculars attend to the stunning effects of sets, lighting, props, costumes, and casts of thousands.

The history of movie spectaculars extends back to the 1914 Italian film Cabiria [figure 2.47], an epic about the Second Punic War, which became a clear inspira- tion for the increasing length of Hollywood movies and in particular for the making of D. W. Griffith’s Intolerance (1916), with its four historical tales and sensational sets. Since then, notable movie spectaculars have included the two different Hollywood versions of The Ten Commandments (1923, 1956), Lawrence of Arabia, Gandhi (1982), and Avatar (2009).

v i e W i n g c u e Describe why the mise-en-scène of the film you most recently watched fits best within a naturalistic or a theatrical tradition. Explain how this perspective helps you experience the film. Illustrate your position using two or three scenes as examples.

2.46 Sullivan’s Travels (1941). The opposition between the “real” world and Hollywood fantasy may not be as absolute as its director-hero at first assumes.

2.47 Cabiria (1914). In perhaps the first movie spectacular, the eruption of Mount Etna begins a cinematic tradition using mise-en-scène to show disaster.

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Movie spectaculars often set epic stories about the birth or salvation of com- munities in a sublime mise-en-scène whose magnitude of place overwhelms and supersedes individual desires and differences. Through the last century, these epics have expanded from visions of nationhood, as in Gone with the Wind, to spectacles of cities, as in Gangs of New York (2002); from stellar landscapes that surround our globe in 2001: A Space Odyssey to fantastical projections of an imagined world such as The Lord of the Rings. In all their differences, however, movie spectaculars exploit one of the primary motivations of film viewing: the desire to be awed by worlds that exceed our day-to-day reality.

Mise-en-scène describes the interrelationship of all the elements onscreen, from sets to props, to actors, to composition. These relationships may vary by genre — the lighting of a horror film like Psycho would be out of place in a musical, and the method acting of Marlon Brando would seem too stylized in a contemporary independent film. But the way mise-en-scène supports the viewer’s experience of a story’s world can be surprisingly consistent. In both Do the Right Thing and Bicycle Thieves, a city’s streets are far more than backdrop; they are shaped by history and define characters and destinies. Explore some of the objectives for this chapter in reference to mise-en-scène in particular films.

■ What other artistic and media traditions are visible in the meticulous mise-en-scène of Fantastic Mr. Fox?

■ Pandora is imaged in Avatar in such detail that a language was devel- oped for the Navi to speak. Think of several story events that are tied to specific elements in this mise-en-scène.

■ Imagine a different actor portraying Mookie in Do the Right Thing or an- other movie with a memorable central character. What difference would it make?

■ Watch the opening scene of Psycho. Does the costuming in this scene create expectations about characters and events?

■ Even realist films orchestrate elements of mise-en-scène for particular meanings. Watch Bicycle Thieves carefully for moments that depart from naturalistic lighting. What are the effects?

Activity Imagine a film, such as The Wizard of Oz (1939), in which setting seems to determine plot (“follow the yellow brick road,” for example), and transpose its characters to the world of another film: a mystery film or a social drama, for example. How would you design the new setting to conform to the new type of film? How would you rethink the plot based on a new setting?

c o n c e p t s a t W o r k

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3 c h a p t e r

In a revealing scene from Christopher Nolan’s Inception (2010), the protagonist Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) explains the secrets of his trade — dream extraction — to new recruit Ariadne (Ellen Page) while the two are sitting at a sidewalk café in Paris. Suddenly the familiar scene turns uncanny as nearby fruit stands, a bookseller, and the façades of buildings explode around them, shattering into pieces like a jigsaw puzzle as they remain seated, unharmed. Ariadne realizes she’s entered a dream: “I guess I thought dreams were all about the visual, but it is more the feeling of it.” These lines take on some irony in the next few moments, when it is overwhelmingly the visual aspect of cinema that generates “feeling” in the viewer response. Paris is folded up like a piece of origami in just one of the film’s mind-blowing visual effects.

Working with Oscar-winning director of photography Wally Pfister, cinematographer on all his films since Memento (2000), Nolan chose high-resolution Vistavision film over digital cinematography for the film’s lush imagery and spectacular settings. Many of the film’s most impressive special effects were achieved without computer- generated imagery (CGI), instead relying on camera tricks. For a scene in which Cobb’s associate is trapped by a building’s ever-morphing “paradoxical architecture,” for example, the filmmakers constructed a rotating hallway with built-in camera tracks to create the illusion of a shifting building. Cues that we normally rely on to orient ourselves toward an unfolding story — optical points of view that tell us whose perspective guides a scene or camera placements and angles that imply spatial rela- tionships — are not trustworthy in the world of Inception. Instead, consistent choices of color palette subtly guide us. Sense memories of the characters' waking lives are built into small tokens that they carry with them to navigate dream levels. Viewers, however, must rely on untrustworthy images that can’t guarantee which level of movie illusion entraps us.

Cinematography Framing What We See

95 Stephen Vaughan/© Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett Collection

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Visual stimuli determine a significant part of our experience of the world around us: we look left and right for cars before we cross a busy street, we watch sunsets in the distance, we focus on a face across the room. The visual dy- namics through which we encounter our world vary. Sometimes we are caught up in the close-ups of a crowded sidewalk; sometimes we watch from a window high above the street. Vision allows us to distinguish colors and light, to evaluate the sizes of things near and far, to track moving objects, or to invent shapes out of formless clouds. Vision also allows us to project ourselves into the world, to explore objects and places, and to transform them in our minds. In the cinema, we know the material world only as it is relayed to us through the filmed images and accom- panying sounds that we process in our minds. The filming of those images is called cinematography, which means motion-picture photography or, literally, “writing in movement.”

This chapter describes the feature at the center of most individuals’ experiences of movies: film images. Although film images may sometimes seem like windows on the world, they are purposefully constructed and manipulated. Here we will detail the subtle ways cinematography composes individual movie images in order to communicate feelings, ideas, and other impressions.

We go to the movies to enjoy stimulating sights, share other people’s perspec- tives, and explore different worlds through the details contained in a film image. In Ingmar Bergman’s Persona (1966), a woman’s tense and mysterious face suggests the complex depths of her personality. At the beginning of Saving Private Ryan (1998), we share the visceral experience of confused and wounded soldiers as bul- lets zip across the ocean surface during the D-Day invasion [Figure 3.1]. The Hurt Locker (2008) uses a different approach for a different combat context; brightly and

K E Y O B J E C T I V E S ■ Outline the development of the film image from a historical heritage of visual spectacles.

■ Describe how the frame of an image positions our point of view according to different distances and angles.

■ Explain how film shots use the depth of the image in various ways. ■ Identify how the elements of cinematography — film stock, color, lighting,

and compositional features of the image — can be employed in a movie. ■ Compare and contrast the effects of different patterns of movement on the

film image. ■ Introduce the array of techniques used to create visual effects. ■ Describe prevailing concepts of the film image within different cinematic

conventions.

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starkly lit images capture not simply an arid desert landscape but also the brittle tension that seems to electrify the light [Figure 3.2].

Vision occurs when light rays reflected from an object strike the retina of the eye and stimulate our perception of that object’s image in the mind. Photography, which means “light writing,” mimics vision in the way it registers light patterns onto film or codes them to be reproduced digitally. Yet whereas vision is continu- ous, photography is not; rather, it freezes a single moment in the form of an image. Movies connect a series of these single moments and project them above a particu- lar rate of frames per second to create the illusion of movement. Humans process the incremental differences among sequential still images just as we process actual motion — this effect is called short-range apparent motion, and it explains our perception of movement when watching films.

3.1 Saving Private Ryan (1998). The film uses visceral camera work to bring viewers close to the dying on D-Day.

3.2 The Hurt Locker (2008). In a very different war, monochromatic cinematography conveys the tension that permeates the desert spaces.

A Short History of the Cinematic Image The human fascination with creating illusions is an ancient one; in the Republic, Plato wrote of humans trapped in a cave who mistake the shadows on the wall for the actual world. Leonardo da Vinci described how a light source entering a hole in a camera obscura (literally, “dark room”) projected an upside-down image on the opposite wall, offering it as an analogy of human vision and anticipating the mechanism of the camera. One of the earliest technologies that used a light source to project images was the magic lantern. In the eighteenth century, showmen used these to develop elaborate spectacles called “phantasmagoria.” The most famous of these were Étienne-Gaspard Robert’s terrifying mobile projections of ghosts

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and skeletons on columns of smoke in an abandoned Paris crypt. These fanciful devices provided the basis for the technology that drives modern cinematogra- phy and the film image’s power to control, explain, and entertain. In this section, we will examine the his- torical development of some of the key features in the production and projection of the film image.

1820s–1880s: The Invention of Photography and the Prehistory of Cinema The components that would finally converge in cin- ema — photographic recording of reality and the anima- tion of those images — were central to the visual culture of the nineteenth century. Combining amusement and science, the phenakistiscope (developed in 1832) and the zoetrope (developed in 1834), among other such pre-cinema contraptions, allowed a person to view a series of images through slits in a circular wheel, a view that creates the illusion of a moving image [Figure 3.3]. In 1839, Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre announced the first still photograph, building on the work of Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. Photography’s mechanical ability to produce images of reality and make them readily available to the masses was among the most significant developments of nineteenth-century culture. Photography permeated everything from family albums to scientific study to private pornography collections. In the 1880s, both Étienne-Jules Marey in France and Englishman Eadweard Muybridge, working in the United States, conducted extensive studies of human and animal figures in motion using chronophotogra- phy, series of still images that recorded incremental movement and formed the basis of cinematography [Figure 3.4]. Muybridge’s Zoopraxiscope, introduced in 1879, enabled moving images to be projected for the first time.

1890s–1920s: The Emergence and Refinement of Cinematography The official birth date of the movies is widely accepted as December 28, 1895, when the brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière debuted their Cinématographe at the Grand Café in Paris, showing ten short films, including a famous scene of workers leaving the Lumière factory. The Lumières successfully joined two key elements: the ability to record a sequence of images on a flexible, transparent medium, and the capacity to project the sequence.

The very first movies consisted of a single mov- ing image. The Lumières’ Niagara Falls (1897) simply

3.3 Zoetrope. An early pre-cinema device that permitted individuals to view a series of images through a circular wheel, creating the illusion of movement. Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis

3.4 Eadweard Muybridge’s motion studies. Experimenting with still photographs of figures in motion, Muybridge laid the groundwork for cinematography. Copyright by Eadweard Muybridge. From: Animal locomotion/Eadweard Muybridge. Philadelphia: Photogravure Company of New York, 1887, pl. 636. Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-102354.

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shows the famous falls and a group of bystanders, but its compositional balance of a powerful natural phenomenon and the people on its edge draws on a long his- tory of painting, infusing the film with remarkable energy and beauty that motion renders almost sublime [Figure 3.5]. In the United States, Thomas Edison patented his Kinetoscopic camera in 1891. The early Edison films were viewed by looking into a Kinetoscope or “peep show” machine; The Kiss (1896) titillated viewers by giving them a playfully analytical snapshot of an intimate moment [Figure 3.6].

In the early years of film history, technical innovations in the film medium and in camera and projection hardware were rapid and competitive. Eastman Kodak quickly established itself as the primary manufacturer of film stock, which consists of a flexible backing or base such as celluloid and a light-sensitive emul- sion. The standard nitrate film base was highly flammable, and its pervasive use is one reason why so much of the world’s silent film heritage is lost. Nitrate film would not be replaced by safety film, less flammable acetate-based film stock, until 1952.

After early competition among technologies, the width of the strip of film, or film gauge, used for filming and exhibiting movies was standardized as 35mm in 1909. While 16mm was common among independent filmmakers, and higher resolution 70mm was experimented with for more spectacular effects, 35mm remained the industry standard for production and exhibition until challenged by digital formats at the end of the twentieth century [Figures 3.7, 3.8, and 3.9]. By the 1920s, the rate at which moving images were recorded and later projected increased from sixteen frames to twenty-four frames per second (fps), offering more clarity and definition to moving images.

The silent film era saw major innovations in lighting, mechanisms for moving the camera and varying the scale of shots, and the introduction of panchromatic stock, which responded to a full spectrum of colors and became the standard for black-and-white movies after 1926. Cinematographers like Billy Bitzer, working with D. W. Griffith in the United States, and Karl Freund, shooting such German expressionist classics as Metropolis (1927), brought cinematographic art to a pin- nacle of visual creativity. These visual achievements were adversely affected by the introduction of sound in 1927, since bulky and sensitive sound recording equip- ment created restrictions on outdoor and mobile shooting.

3.5 Niagara Falls (1897). One of the Lumière brothers’ actualities, or nonfiction moving snapshots, shows the wonder and balance of a single moving image.

3.6 The Kiss (1896). From the Edison company, one of the most famous early films regards an intimate moment.

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1930s–1940s: Developments in Color, Wide-Angle, and Small-Gauge Cinematography Technical innovations increased even as the aesthetic potential of the medium was explored. By the 1930s, color processes had evolved from the individually hand- painted frames or tinted sequences of silent films to colored stocks and, finally, the rich Technicolor process that would dominate color film production until the 1950s. The Disney cartoon Flowers and Trees (1932) was the first to use Tech- nicolor’s three-strip process, which recorded different colors separately, using a dye transfer process to create a single image with a full spectrum of color. The process offered new realism but was often used to highlight artifice and spectacle, notably in The Wizard of Oz (1939) [Figures 3.10a–3.10c].

Meanwhile, the introduction of new camera lenses allowed cinematographers new possibilities. Wide-angle, telephoto, and zoom lenses use different focal lengths — the distance from the center of the lens to the point where light rays meet in sharp focus — that alter the perspective relations of an image. Wide-angle lenses have a short focal length, telephoto lenses have a long one, and a zoom is a variable focus lens. The range of perspectives offered by these advancements allowed for better resolution, wider angles, more variation in perspective, and more depth of field, the portion of the image that is in focus.

During the 1920s, filmmakers used gauzy fabrics and, later, special lenses to develop a so-called soft style, through which the main action or character could be highlighted. From the mid-1930s through the 1940s, the development of the wide-angle lens (commonly considered a lens of less than 35mm in focal length) allowed cinematographers to explore a greater depth of field that could show

3.9 70mm film gauge drawn to scale. A wide, high-resolution gauge, in use since the early days of the film industry, but first used for feature films in the 1950s for spectacular effect. A horizontal variant of 70mm is used for IMAX formats.

3.7 16mm film gauge drawn to scale. The lightweight cameras and portable projectors used with this format have been effective for documentary, newsreel, and independent film as well as for prints of films shown in educational and home settings.

3.8 35mm film gauge drawn to scale. The standard gauge for theatrically released films, introduced in 1892 by Edison and the dominant format for both production and exhibition until the end of the twentieth century.

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different visual planes simultaneously. Cinematog- rapher Gregg Toland is most closely associated with refinements in using wide-angle lenses, character- ized by the dramatic use of deep-focus cinematog- raphy in his work on Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane (1941) and William Wyler’s The Heiress (1949) [Figure 3.11].

Camera technology developed with the intro- duction of more lightweight handheld cameras that were widely used during World War II for newsreels and other purposes. Small-gauge production also expanded during this period, with the 8mm film developed in 1932 for the amateur filmmaker and the addition of sound and color to the 16mm for- mat. The portability and affordability of 16mm film encouraged its use in educational films and other documentaries, as well as in low-budget independent and avant-garde productions.

3.11 The Heiress (1949). Gregg Toland’s cinematography made use of wide-angle lenses and faster film stocks to create images with greater depth of field. Both foreground and background are in sharp focus.

3.10a–3.10c The Wizard of Oz (1939). Viewers sometimes find the opening, sepia-tinted scenes of the film jarring (a), having vivid memories of the film in Technicolor. When Dorothy first opens the door to Munchkinland, the drab tints of Kansas are left behind (b). Technicolor’s saturated primary colors are so important in the film (c), the silver slippers of the book were changed to ruby slippers for the screen.

(a) (b)

(c)

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1950s–1960s: Widescreen, 3-D, and New Color Processes The early 1950s witnessed the arrival of several widescreen processes, which altered the size and shape of the image, dramati- cally widening it by changing the ratio of width to height, the aspect ratio. The larger image was introduced in part to distinguish the cinema from the new competition of television. One of the most popular of these processes in the 1950s, CinemaScope, used an anamorphic lens, which squeezed a wide- angle view onto a strip of 35mm film and then “unsqueezed” it during projection with

another such lens. Other widescreen films, such as Lawrence of Arabia (1962), used a wider film gauge of 70mm [Figure 3.12]. This period, during which the popularity of television urged motion-picture producers to more spectacular displays, also saw a craze for 3-D movies such as House of Wax (1953). By now most movies were shot in color, facilitated by the introduction of Eastmancolor as an alternative to the proprietary Technicolor process. In the 1960s, Hollywood began to court the youth market, and cinematographers experimented more aggressively with ways to distort or call attention to the image by using one or more of the following tools:

■ filters or transparent sheets of glass or gels placed in front of the lens, ■ flares, created by directing strong light at the lens, ■ telephoto lenses or lenses with a focal length of at least 75mm that were

capable of magnifying and flattening distant objects, and ■ zooming or changing focal length and fast motion.

1970s–1980s: Cinematography and Exhibition in the Age of the Blockbuster As we have seen, the history of film images is, to a great extent, that of developments in film stock, cameras, and other recording and projection equipment. In the 1970s, the flexibility of camera movement was greatly enhanced with the introduction of the Steadicam. This camera stabilization device allows the operator to follow action smoothly and rapidly and is responsible for the uncanny camera movements of The Shining (1980). Visual effects technology also developed rapidly in the era of the blockbuster ushered in by Jaws (1975) and Star Wars (1977), movies in which expen-

sive budgets meant shocking, stunning, or simply wondrous images [Figure 3.13].

The spectacular qualities of motion pictures are on display in the IMAX for- mat and projection system developed in the 1970s. IMAX uses a much larger film frame by running film through the camera horizontally rather than vertically and at a much higher speed. The higher resolution is displayed in special venues featuring giant screens and stepped seating — though many theater chains have since adopted a digital version of IMAX that allows them to project in this format.

Television, documentary filmmakers, and artists in the 1970s first used video

3.12 Lawrence of Arabia (1962). The film’s 70mm widescreen format is suited to panoramic desert scenes and military maneuvers.

V I E w I n g C u E Think about the cinematography of your class’s most recent film screening in relation to the larger history of the image. Does the film include shots that seem like paintings, photographs, or other kinds of visual displays? Explain how a specific shot or series of shots affects your understanding or interpretation of those images or the entire film.

3.13 Jaws (1975). This Steven Spielberg film ushered in the blockbuster era with surprisingly modest special effects; a full glimpse of the mechanical shark, known on set as “Bruce,” isn’t obtained until ninety minutes into the film.

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as an alternative medium to celluloid, and with the development of camcorders in the 1980s, the format spread widely among consumers. Evolving broadcast and consumer video technologies (including Portapak reel-to-reel, U-matic, Beta, and VHS) were analog formats (using a continuous signal to record on tape) that paved the way for the industrial and consumer embrace of digital video.

1990s and Beyond: The Digital Era The shift to digital filmmaking is a critical transition in film history. Rather than being recorded on film or magnetic tape, digital images are generated by binary code and allow for flexibility, manipulation, and identical reproduction of the image. At first, the film industry developed digital technology for special effects and nonlinear editing systems. Digital cinematography eventually became a viable alternative to 35mm film. Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones (2002) was the first high-profile film to be shot in high-definition (HD) digital video. Since the 1990s, digital technology, which does not use film stock and thus does not require processing in a laboratory, continues to transform cinematography in a number of ways from the amateur to the blockbuster level.

Technically, the digital image offers advantages and disadvantages. With the economic advantage of lightweight and mobile cameras, digital moviemaking can be more intimate than 35mm cinematography, which involves large cameras and more crew members. The sharpness of the digital image suggests a kind of immediacy that distinguishes it from traditional celluloid images. The tale of a family gathering that is shattered through the horrifying revelation of a grown son, The Celebration (1998) uses handheld images and intimate camera placement to dramatize interpersonal dynamics with edgy directness. In independent filmmaker Rebecca Miller’s Personal Velocity (2002), cinematographer Ellen Kuras films three women’s stories with emotional texture using mini-DV. Steven Soderbergh adopted the high-resolution Red One camera for his feature films since the two-part Che (2008), and techno- logical innovation continues to drive both low- and high-end production.

Digital image processing also has several disadvantages. While a cinema- tographer could predict how a particular film stock responds to light, shooting digitally depends more on familiarity with the camera’s capabilities. Digital images are recorded and displayed in pixels (densely packed dots), rather than the crystal array or grain produced by the celluloid emulsion used for film. When converted to a digital file, a 35mm film frame contains about ten million pixels. The first high-definition digital cameras developed to shoot 24 frames per second recorded about two million pixels (2K) for each of the primary colors. This difference may not make one kind of image better than the other, but the digital image has less range and lacks the grain and tones found in the film emulsion. Innovations within the film industry like the 12.4K Genesis camera, or Peter Jackson's use of 48 frames per second in the Hobbit franchise, attempt to surpass the quality of 35mm cinematography. But both formats have their aesthetic champions, a debate explored in the 2012 documentary Side by Side.

Since Avatar (2009) ushered in a second era of 3-D spectaculars, now using digital technology, theaters have converted projection systems from 35mm to digital to accommodate these new films. This rapid change resulted in digital projection surpassing 35mm film in 2012. While the debate between shooting on film and shooting on digital continues to have aesthetic cur- rency, economics has decided the question of exhibition in favor of digital.

Although cinematography will continue to develop, traces of its artistic past constantly resurface. Russian iconography permeates the images of Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev (1969) [Figures 3.14a and 3.14b], and in Raoul Ruiz’s Time Regained (2000), rich color tones re-create the vibrancy of magic lanterns [Figures 3.15a and 3.15b]. In virtually every movie we see, our experience of its images is affected by the history of fine art, photography, and, of course, other movies.

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3.14 (a) Russian icon painting from the sixteenth century and (b) Andrei Rublev (1969). The composition and lighting of Tarkovsky’s film about the great Russian icon painter evokes Rublev’s medieval art. 3.14a: Icon of St. John the Baptist (tempera on panel) by Andrei Rublev (c.1370–1430), Andrei Rublev Museum, Moscow, Russia/The Bridgeman Art Library

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The Elements of Cinematography The basic unit of cinematography is the shot. The shot is the visual heart of cinema: it is an uninterrupted view that runs continuously across a series of film frames. The camera may move forward or backward, up or down, but it does not cut to another point of view or image. A cinematographer shooting a high schooler’s home the morning after a wild party may depict the scene in different ways. One version might show the entire room with its broken window, a fallen chair, and a man slumped in the corner as a single shot that surveys the wreckage from a calm distance. Another version might show the same scene in a rapid succession of shots — the window, the chair, and the man — creating a visual disturbance missing in the first version. What viewers see onscreen depends on the cinematographer’s point of view, and a remarkable range of options exists for creating, representing, and conveying meaning to an audience: from framing and depth to color and movement. For the astute viewer, recognizing and analyzing how these options are used in a film can be one of the most precise ways to experience and understand that film.

Points of View In cinematographic terms, point of view refers to the position from which a per- son, an event, or an object is filmed. All shots have a point of view: a subjective point of view re-creates a character’s perspective as seen through the camera, whereas an objective point of view represents the more impersonal perspective of the camera.

A point of view may be discontinuous — for instance, in No Country for Old Men (2007) the perspective moves back and forth among three characters engaged in a game of cat and mouse: a psychotic killer, Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem); the man he pursues, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin); and the sheriff attempting to capture Chigurh, Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones). During a tense scene toward the conclusion of the film, we share the perspective of the sheriff searching for the killer in a motel room. He shines his flashlight through the blown-out door lock, which becomes the focus of the shot, the point in the image that is most clearly and precisely outlined and defined by the lens of the camera. A quick shot from the other side of the door showing the light shining through suggests the killer’s perspective [Figures 3.16a–3.16d].

3.15 (a) Magic lantern slide (1905) and (b) Time Regained (2000). Raoul Ruiz’s adaptation of Marcel Proust’s work evokes the past through lighting that recalls the rich color of magic lantern slides. 3.15a: Andy Kingsbury/Corbis

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V I E w I n g C u E Identify a subjective point-of-view shot from the movie you are watch- ing for class. Describe what marks it as such.

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3.16a–3.16d No Country for Old Men (2007). The Coen brothers’ film utilizes different points of view within the same sequence.

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Four Attributes of the Shot Every shot orchestrates four important attributes: framing, depth of field, color, and movement. The framing of a shot contains, limits, and directs the point of view within the borders of the rectangu- lar frame. Framing determines the size of what we are viewing, from extreme close-up to extreme long shot, as well as the angle. Film images also create a depth of field, the range or distance in front of and behind the object of focus within which objects remain relatively sharp and clear. Sometimes an image may create a short or shallow range and sometimes a long range or deep focus. From a viewing position in the bleachers behind the goal-

post, for example, a film image may focus primarily on a penalty kick near midfield but create a depth of field that keeps both kicker and goalie, before and behind that action, in focus.

Elements of cinematography such as choice of film stock and lighting give an image a particular visual quality. None is as prominent as color, which conveys aesthetic impressions as well as visual cues. Finally, a film image or shot may depict or incorporate movement. When the camera or lens moves to follow an action or explore a space, it is called a mobile frame. For example, during the championship match in Bend It Like Beckham (2002), the mobile frame of the shot shows the protagonist as she darts down the field on her way to scoring the win- ning goal. The movement of the shot captures the strength and dexterity of her strides in a single motion [Figure 3.17].

Framing Although we may not be accustomed to attending to every individual image in a movie, its cinematography involves careful construction by filmmakers and rewards close observation by viewers. In an early experiment with the power of framing, Abel Gance’s Napoléon (1927) orchestrated multiple images to appear simultane- ously side by side on different screens at the film’s rousing climax [Figure 3.18]. Since then, filmmakers have experimented with and refined ways to manipulate the film image. A canted frame is produced by tilting the camera to the side. Such unbalanced framing famously recurs in The Third Man (1949), to indicate that things aren’t always what they appear to be [Figure 3.19]. The three dimensions of the film image — the height and width of the frame, and the apparent depth of the image — offer endless opportunities for representing the world and how we see it. Here we will examine and detail the formal possibilities inherent in every frame of

a film, possibilities that, when recognized, enrich our experience of the movies.

Aspect Ratio. Like the frame of a paint- ing, the basic shape of the film image on the screen determines the film composi- tion. The aspect ratio describes the rela- tion of width to height of the film frame as it appears on a movie screen or televi- sion monitor. Grand Illusion (1937), Citizen

3.17 Bend It Like Beckham (2002). A mobile camera increases the viewer’s excitement during the winning goal.

3.18 Napoléon (1927). The climax of Abel Gance’s historical tour-de-force juxtaposed im- ages on three screens, creating a visual connection between Napoleon and thoughts of his wife Josephine as he presses his army to victory. The Kobal Collection/Art Resource, NY

bedfordstmartins.com /filmexperience

Watch the clip from Touch of Evil (1958) and make a sketch or sketches of each shot. Describe how the framing contributes to the scene.

v i e w i n g c u e

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Kane, and other classic films employ the academy ratio of 1.33:1 standardized in 1932 by the American Acad- emy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and used by most films until the 1950s. These dimensions are closely approximated by the television screen and are rendered as 4:3 in digital formats. This almost square image draws on associations between the film frame and a window or picture frame. Widescreen ratios, which have largely replaced academy ratio since the 1950s, range from 1.66:1 to CinemaScope at 2.35:1; 1.85:1 is most prevalent and corresponds to the digital aspect ratio 16:9 — the shape of today’s widescreen television sets [Figure 3.20].

Aspect ratios often shape our experience to align with the themes and actions of the film. For example, CinemaScope, which uses an anamorphic (or com- pressed) lens to achieve a widescreen ratio of 2.35:1, was first used for religious epics and musicals. In Nicholas Ray’s 1955 drama of teenage frustration and fear, Rebel Without a Cause, the elongated horizontal CinemaScope frame depicts the loneliness and isolation of Jim Stark (played by James Dean) in a potentially vio- lent showdown with a high school rival and bully [Figure 3.21]. Outside the planetarium, Ray’s cinematog- raphy conveys the city below as an unreachable place for these small- town youths who seem constantly overwhelmed by social and psy- chological spaces. Compared to the more confined frame of Citizen Kane, which depicts a man who is driven to control the world, the widescreen space in Rebel Without a Cause suits the fitful search of restless teens. Both films use carefully composed frames that highlight screen dimensions.

Although aspect ratio may not be such a crucial determinant in every movie, it does not escape the consideration of the filmmaker. For instance, Stanley Kubrick shot his war film Full Metal Jacket (1987) in academy ratio rather than widescreen, which had become standard by the time he shot the film [Figure 3.22]. With this choice, Kubrick emphasizes a central theme: that the Vietnam War entered world consciousness through the box-like screen of television.

The changes in film ratios over the years have presented interesting challenges when movies appear on television or are recorded to tape or disc. Many television

3.19 The Third Man (1949). Suspicions about Orson Welles’s character Harry Lime are reinforced by the canted framing.

3.20 Eat Pray Love (2010). When widescreen was introduced in the 1950s, one of its attractions was its ability to provide panoramic views of tourist destinations. That function is still served in the now-standard 1.85:1 widescreen ratio, as in this image of Julia Roberts bicycling in Bali.

3.21 Rebel Without a Cause (1955). Nicholas Ray uses the exaggerated width of the CinemaScope frame to show Jim Stark (James Dean) cornered despite the expanse of Los Angeles below.

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broadcasts of movies announce that they have been “formatted to fit your screen,” and a DVD version of a film may appear in letterbox format, in which the top and bottom strips of the square frame are blacked out to accommodate the widescreen image, or digitally altered and offered in several formats.

In recent years, digital televisions themselves have taken on the horizontal proportions of wide- screen cinema frames, and it may be difficult to tell whether one is viewing a film in its original, or native aspect ratio. Before these innovations, mov- ies shown on television were altered through the pan-and-scan process, and some, particularly epic films using a screen wider than 1.85:1, still might be shown this way. This process chops off outer por- tions of the image that are not central to the action or reconstitutes a single widescreen image into two consecutive television images. Reframing the image in these ways causes loss of elements of the picture. By altering the composition, it may alter our percep- tion of the film and its story.

Masks. Besides the proportions determined by the aspect ratio, a film frame can be reshaped by various masks, attachments to the camera that cut off portions of the frame so that part of the image is black. Mostly associated with silent films like D. W. Griffith’s Intolerance (1916), a masked frame may open only a corner of the frame, create a circular effect, or leave just a strip in the center of the frame visible. An iris shot masks the frame so that only a small circular piece of the image is seen: in Harold Lloyd’s The Freshman (1925), a shot of a timid collegian first appears in an iris-in (opening the circle to reveal more of the image) to show his seemingly safe location surrounded by a crowd of hostile football players. Conversely, a full image may be reduced, as an iris-out (closing the circle), to isolate and empha- size a specific object or action in that image: a shot of a courtroom, for example, might iris-out to reveal the nervous hands of the defendant’s mother. In The Night

of the Hunter (1955), an iris-out follows the demonic preacher as he walks toward the house of the children he threatens [Figure 3.23]. When such techniques are used in modern movies, it is often with self-conscious reference to an earlier filmmaking style [Figure 3.24]. Masks are also used in visual effects cinematography to leave part of the film unexposed; a second image is then filmed on that portion of the frame.

Onscreen space refers to the space visible within the frame of the image, whereas offscreen space is the implied space or world that exists outside the film frame. Onscreen space is often carefully framed for compositional effect, with the position, scale, and balance of objects or lines within the frame direct- ing our attention or determining our attitude toward what is being represented.

The action in offscreen space is usually less important than the action in the frame, as when a close-up focuses on an intimate conversation and excludes other people in the room. Offscreen space

3.22 Full Metal Jacket (1987). Stanley Kubrick’s use of academy ratio emphasizes the role of television in transmitting the images of the Vietnam War to the American public.

V I E w I n g C u E Identify the native aspect ratio of the film you are studying in class. How is it appropriate or inappropri- ate to this film’s themes and aims? If the film is exhibited in a different ratio, explain how that process affects certain scenes.

3.23 The Night of the Hunter (1955). An iris-out emphasizes the threat of a figure of evil.

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does, however, sometimes contain important information that will be revealed in a subsequent image, as when one of the individuals engaged in conversation looks beyond the edge of the frame toward a glaring rival shown in the next shot. Offscreen spaces in horror films like Alien (1979) seethe with a menace that is all the more terrifying because it is not visible [Figure 3.25]. In Robert Bres- son’s films, offscreen space suggests a spiritual world that exerts pressure on but eludes the fragmented and limited perspectives of the characters within the frame [Figure 3.26].

Camera Distance. Another significant aspect of framing is the distance of the cam- era from its subject, which determines the scale of the shot, signals point of view, and contributes greatly to how we understand or feel about what is being shown. Close-ups show details of a person or an object, such as the face or hands or a flowerpot on a windowsill, perhaps indicating nuances of the character’s feelings or thoughts or suggesting the special significance of the object. Carl Theodor Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) is remembered for its striking use of close-ups to depict religious fervor through the heroine’s facial expressions [Figure 3.27]. An extreme close-up moves in even closer, singling out, for instance, a single flower or a hand, as in Figure 3.26. Wes Anderson often uses centered, symmetrical close shots of both objects and people to striking effect [Figure 3.28].

3.24 The Sting (1973). Dated transitions like masking are used to evoke the 1930s setting through an older filmmaking style.

3.25 Alien (1979). The horror genre makes significant use of offscreen space to generate suspense: what is Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) going to see?

3.26 L’Argent (1983). The agency of characters in Robert Bresson’s films often seems to be limited by external forces signified by the emphasis on offscreen space.

3.27 The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928). Carl Theodor Dreyer captures the intensity of religious faith through frequent close-ups of actress Renée Falconetti’s portrayal of Joan of Arc.

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At the other end of the compositional spectrum, a long shot places consider- able distance between the camera and the scene, object, or person filmed. A human figure remains recognizable but is defined by the large space and background that surrounds it. An extreme long shot creates an even greater distance between the camera and the person or object, so that the larger space of the image dwarfs objects or human figures, such as with distant vistas of cities or landscapes. Most films feature a combination of these long shots, sometimes to show distant action or objects, sometimes to establish a context for events, and sometimes, as with the introduction and conclusion of Shane (1953), to emphasize the isolation and mystery of a character as he arrives in the distance [Figures 3.29a and 3.29b].

Between close-ups and long shots, a medium shot describes a middle ground in which we see some background detail in the frame. The human body is framed from the waist or hips up, as in a shot from The Wedding Singer (1998) that allows the guitar and hand gestures of the character to be visible [Figure 3.30]. A medium long shot slightly increases the distance between the camera and the subject, show- ing a three-quarter-length view of a character (from approximately the knees up), a framing often used in westerns when a cowboy’s weapon is an important element of the mise-en-scène [Figure 3.31].

3.28 The Darjeeling Limited (2007). The difference in framing distances is relative: this shot could be seen as a close-up, but it is an extreme close-up in a film with a wide a range of shot scales.

V I E w I n g C u E Look for a pattern of framing dis- tances in the next film you view for class. Do there seem to be a large number of long shots? Close-ups? Explain how this pattern reinforces themes of the film.

3.29a and 3.29b Shane (1953). Barely seen, Shane approaches through an extreme long shot. Then the mysterious figure becomes more recognizable in a long shot.

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A very common framing because of its use in conversation scenes, the medium close-up shows a character’s head and shoulders. Melodramatic or romantic films about personal relationships may also feature a predominance of medium close-ups and medium shots to capture the facial expres- sions of the characters. In Ginger & Rosa (2012), which focuses on a young woman’s coming of age, the protagonist’s view of the behavior of the people around her is frequently captured in medium close-up [Figure 3.32]. Open-air adventures, such as The Seven Samurai (1954), the tale of a sixteenth- century Japanese village that hires warriors for protection, tend to use more long shots and extreme long shots in order to depict the battle scenes [Figure 3.33]. As these descrip- tions imply, framing is defined relatively; there is no absolute cut-off point between a medium and a medium long shot, for example. As we have seen, the most common reference point for the scale of the image is the size of the human figure within the frame, a measure that is not a universal element of the cinematic image.

Although many shots are taken from approximately eye level, the camera height can also vary to present a particular compositional element or evoke a character’s perspective. Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu’s signature camera level is low to the ground, an ideal position for filming Japanese interiors, where characters sit on the floor [Figure 3.34]. A camera might be placed higher to show larger-scale objects, such as tall buildings or landscapes. The opening shot of Far from Heaven (2002) takes a god’s-eye view of its New England village set- ting, mimicking the opening of Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows (1955) in its vision of 1950s small-town repression [Figure 3.35]. Often the camera is mounted

3.30 The Wedding Singer (1998). Physical comedy requires framing wide enough to allow for interaction between character and mise-en-scène. A medium shot captures the wedding singer’s performance while keeping the focus on him.

3.31 Red River (1948). The medium long shot was often used in westerns to keep weapons in view. French critics dubbed it the plan américain or “American shot.”

3.32 Ginger & Rosa (2012). In this story of coming-of-age in the 1960s, the heroine’s perspective is emphasized by frequent medium close-ups of her taking in what’s happening around her.

3.33 The Seven Samurai (1954). An extreme long shot better shows off the open-air battles in this epic.

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on a crane to achieve such height; the shot is thus referred to as a crane shot.

Camera Angles. Film shots are positioned according to a multitude of angles, from straight on to above or below. These are often correlated with camera height, as demonstrated by the series of shots presented below and on the following page from Jane Campion’s The Piano (1993), a film about a mute Scottish woman who travels with her daughter to New Zealand to complete an arranged marriage. High angles present a point of view that looks at a downward angle from above a scene [Figure 3.36], while low angles are shot from below the scene, looking up [Figure 3.37]. In either case, the exact angle of the shot can vary from very steep to slight. An overhead shot depicts the action or subject from high above, sometimes looking directly down on it from a crane or helicopter [Figure 3.38]. In the Czech

film The Shop on Main Street (1965), a clever opening crane shot looking down on the town reflects the point of view of a stork nesting on a chimney.

Shots change their angle depending on the physical or geographical position or point of view, so that a shot from a tall adult’s perspective may be a high- angle shot, whereas a child’s view may be seen through low angles. Such shots are often point-of-view (POV) shots, which are defined as shots that re-create the perspective of a character and may incorporate camera movement or opti- cal effects as well as camera height and angle in order to do so. Camera angles can sometimes indicate psychological, moral, or political meanings in a film, as when

victims are seen from above and oppressors from below, but such interpretations must be made carefully in the context of the film’s own patterns because formal features like these do not automatically assume particular meanings.

3.34 Tokyo Story (1953). A camera placed low to the ground presents characters sitting on tatami mats.

3.35 Far from Heaven (2002). The height of the opening crane shot establishes the setting and introduces a sense of distance.

3.36 The Piano (1993). A high-angle long shot of the arrival on the beach.

3.37 The Piano (1993). An extreme low-angle shot, slightly canted, shows the farmer/husband as he furiously descends toward his unfaithful wife.

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Shots can vary in terms of horizontal angles as well, with characters’ faces more often shown in three- quarter view than in profile or frontally. Filming at a right angle to the scene characterizes the compositions of Ozu’s films, producing a frontality that has had a strong influence on international art cinema directors from Chantal Akerman to Béla Tarr to Tsai Ming-liang.

Depth of Field In addition to the various ways an image can be framed to create perspectives and meanings, shots can be focused to create different depths that subtly shape our understanding of the image. As noted in the history section, technological advances in camera lenses, most notably in the 1930s, played a central role in allowing filmmakers to experiment with this element in a variety of ways. One of the most dramatic products of these developments, deep focus means that multiple planes in the image are all in focus.

A film about three physically and psychologically brutalized veterans returning home from World War II, William Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), shot by Gregg Toland, provides superior examples of how deep focus can create relationships within a single image. In one image, the two grown children in the foreground frame the happy reunion of their parents in the background, all in harmonious balance and focus, with just a hint of the theme of isolation that will be developed after the homecoming [Figure 3.39]. In another image from the same film [Figure 3.40], shallow focus, in which only a narrow range of the field is focused, is used. Here, too, the choice of a depth of field indicates what is significant in the image: the embracing lovers. With a rack focus (or pulled focus), the focus shifts rapidly from one object to another, such as refocusing from the face of a woman to the figure of a man approaching from behind her. During a dramatic scene in L.A. Confidential (1997), a young, self-righteous police detective, Ed Exley, assures his captain he can force a criminal suspect to confess, and the shot rack focuses from the captain to Exley to catch the latter’s

3.38 The Piano (1993). With this overhead shot, the film depicts a rare moment of contentment and harmony at the piano.

3.39 The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). The deep focus and balanced composition indicate restored family harmony at a soldier’s homecoming.

3.40 The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). The focused foreground of embracing lovers leaves the blurred background of the veteran’s artificial arms barely visible.

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determined expression as he turns toward the interrogation room [Figure 3.41].

Contrast and Color Color profoundly affects our experience and understanding of a film shot; even black-and-white films use contrast and gradations to create atmosphere or empha- size certain motifs. In F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922), black and white and tones of gray create an ominous world where evil lives, not in darkness but in shading [Figure 3.42]. No longer a neces- sity, the black-and-white format is used

self-consciously in Pleasantville (1998), in which it parodies the superficial and simplistic world of 1950s television, a world suddenly confused when emo- tional colors enter the characters’ lives [Figure 3.43]. Cinematographer Christopher Doyle, well known for his work with Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-wai, shifts between black-and-white and color cinema- tography in less predictable ways, highlighting the surface of the image, the exposure, and the grain of the different stocks. Filmmakers may choose to shoot entirely in black and white to evoke a “lo-fi” or improvised aesthetic: Frances Ha (2012) uses a digi- tal camera that recalls the look of black-and-white films from the French New Wave that it emulates, and Computer Chess (2013) goes so far as to use a vintage black-and-white tube camera to produce the soft look of analog video footage from the early 1980s [Figure 3.44].

Beginning with the locations, set decoration, and actors’ costumes, color describes the spectrum of hues used by a film, while tone refers to the shading, intensification, or saturation used to sharpen, mute, or balance the effects of the scenes. For example, when used effectively, metal-

lic blues, soft greens, or deep reds can elicit very different emotions from view- ers [Figure 3.45]. Color film stocks allow a full range of colors to be recorded to film. Once colors are recorded on film stocks, that film can be manipulated to create color balances that range from realistic to more extreme or unrealistic palettes: these may appear as either noncontrasting bal- ances (sometimes called a monochromatic color scheme), which can create a more realistic or flat background against which a single color becomes more meaningful, or contrasting balances, which can create dramatic oppositions and tensions through color.

Color is a key element in the composi- tion of the image. The spectacular nature

3.41 L.A. Confidential (1997). The shot refocuses to highlight the detective’s expression against a blurry background.

3.42 Nosferatu (1922). Diffuse shadows and shades of gray create an atmosphere of dread.

3.43 Pleasantville (1998). This film makes the shift from black-and-white to color cinematography a metaphor for the characters’ emotional awakening.

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of the Technicolor process was used for heightened emotional effect by masters of cinematography like Jack Cardiff in The Red Shoes (1948), in which a dancer’s experience takes on the vividness of her red shoes. When color itself ceased to be a novelty, certain films became justly famous for the expressive use of color. For example, Néstor Almendros filmed Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven (1978) at the “magic hour” just before sunset to capture a particular quality of light for the historical setting in the Great Plains.

Selection of film gauge and stock, which can vary in speed (a measure of a stock’s sensitivity to light), manipulation of exposure, and choices in printing can all affect the color and tone of a particular film. Cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto used different stocks and cameras to achieve the looks of the three inter- connected stories in Babel (2006). Lighting, which is crucial to a film’s palette and color effects, comes under the direction of the cinematographer during the production process. See Chapter 2 for a fuller discussion of lighting in mise- en-scène.

Movement Movement in movies re-creates a part of the human experience that could be rep- resented only with the advent of film technology. In our daily lives, we anticipate these movements of a shot: when, for instance, we focus on a friend at a table and then refocus beyond that friend and toward another at the door; when we stand still and turn our head from our left shoulder to our right; or when we watch from a moving car as buildings pass. Like these adjustments within our field of vision, the camera can move by panning, tilting, or tracking and refocus through adjusting the lens in a zoom.

Reframing refers to the movement of the frame from one position to another within a single continuous shot. One extreme and memorable example of reframing occurs in the flashback to the protagonist’s childhood in Citizen Kane. Here the camera pulls back from the boy in the yard to reframe the shot to include his mother observing him from inside the window; it then continues backward to reframe the mother as she walks past her husband and seats her- self at a table next to the banker Thatcher, who will take charge of their son

3.44 Computer Chess (2013). Director Andrew Bujalski, whose previous features were all shot with a handheld 16mm camera, uses an outdated video technology for this film to evoke the milieu of early 1980s computing culture and the existential edge of machine intelligence.

3.45 Pariah (2011). Cinematographer Bradford Young and director Dec Rees designed their film’s palette to reflect the heroine’s search for identity.

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The expressive use of color in film has evolved through artistic vision and technical innovation — from hand-tinting to Technicolor experiments to faster stocks and digital processing. Early silent films like King Lear (1910) created an impression of color film by hand-tinting each frame [Figure 3.46a], but because of the time and labor involved, this practice never became a widespread phe- nomenon. When Walt Disney released Flowers and Trees (1932), part of the Silly Symphonies series of short subjects, its full-color visuals, compliments of the new three-strip Technicolor process, were a sensation [Figure 3.46b], followed in 1935 by the first

Technicolor feature. DeLuxe color and CinemaScope were advertised along with the stars of The Girl Can’t Help It (1956), a Jayne Mansfield rock-and-roll farce, to attract audiences to the movie spectacle [Figure 3.46c]. The advent of digital technology in the 1990s made possible the saturated visuals of computer-generated imagery in animated films like Up (2009) [Figure 3.46d], as well as the ability to alter color in postproduction. Yet some filmmakers still favor the depth and richness of film, as in the 65mm format used to film most of The Master (2012) [Figure 3.46e].

Color and Contrast in Film

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3.46d

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To watch a clip about color in The Master, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

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ACTIOn [Figures 3.47a–3.47c]. Often such reframings are much more subtle, such as when the camera moves slightly upward to keep centered in the frame a character who is rising from a chair.

Pan and Tilts. In these mobile frames, the camera mount remains stationary. A pan, short for panorama, moves the frame from side to side without changing the placement of the camera. In other words, the camera pivots on its vertical axis, as if a char- acter were turning his or her head. For example, the long shot that scans the rooftops of San Francisco for a fugitive at the beginning of Vertigo (1958) is a pan, as are many similar estab- lishing shots of a skyline. During the last scene of Death in Ven- ice (1970), a slow pan leaves the main character, Gustav von Aschenbach, as he walks onto the beach, and then swings past a jetty to settle the shot on the turbulent ocean and the glowing horizon. The movement of this pan suggests the romantic yearning and searching that characterize the entire film and that now culmi- nate in von Aschenbach’s death [Figure 3.48].

Less common, tilts move the frame up or down as the camera moves on a horizontal axis, as when the frame swings upward to re-create the point of view of someone following a skyscraper from the street into the clouds. In Wim Wenders’s Paris, Texas (1984), a story about a father and son searching for the boy’s mother, repeated tilt shots become a rhetorical action, moving the frame up a flagpole with an American flag, along the sides of Houston skyscrapers, and into the sky to view a passing plane. In this case, vertical tilts seem to suggest an ambiguous hope to escape or find comfort from the long quest across Texas.

Tracking Shots. A tracking shot changes the position of the point of view by moving the camera forward or backward or around the subject on tracks or on a wheeled dolly that follows a determined course; thus it may also be called a dolly shot. Elabo- rate camera movements that involve intricate planning can be achieved in this way. Max Ophüls was famous for using lengthy, fluid tracking shots in his films — for example, following a waltz- ing couple in The Earrings of Madame de . . . (1953); this feature distinguishes the films he made in four different countries over the course of his career. In the remarkable first shot of Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt (1963), a camera on tracks moves forward into the foreground of the image, following a woman reading. When it reaches the foreground, the camera turns and aims its lens directly at us, the audience. When moving camera shots follow an individual, they are sometimes called following shots. In The 400 Blows (1959), a single following shot tracks the boy, Antoine Doinel, for eighty seconds as he runs from the reforma- tory school toward the edge of the sea. Cameras can be raised on cranes, mounted on moving vehicles, or carried in helicopters to follow a movie’s action.

Handheld and Steadicam Shots. Even greater mobility is afforded when the camera is carried by the camera operator. Encouraged first by the introduction of lightweight 16mm cameras and later by the use of video formats, handheld shots are frequently

(a)

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3.47a–3.47c Citizen Kane (1941). The camera move- ment reframes three planes of the image and four characters to condense a traumatic moment in Kane’s lost childhood.

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used in news reporting and documentary cinematography or to create an unsteady frame that suggests the movements of an individual point of view. Thomas Vin- terberg’s The Celebration (1998) was the first film to follow the rules of Dogme 95, a manifesto issued by several Danish filmmakers calling for the use of hand- held cameras among other ways of fos- tering immediacy in filmmaking. In this film, the handheld camera expresses the tension, anger, and confusion at a fam- ily gathering. The restless energy of the fifteen-year-old protagonist of Fish Tank (2009) as she faces the limited options of

her upbringing and class position are palpably conveyed by the rushing handheld shots [Figure 3.49]. In both of these cases, the handheld point of view involves the audience more immediately and concretely in the action.

To achieve the stability of a tripod mount, the fluidity of a tracking shot, and the flexibility of a handheld camera, cinematographers may wear the camera on a special stabilizing mount often referred to by the trademarked name Steadicam. In Goodfellas (1990), a film about mobster Henry Hill, a famous Steadicam shot, lasting several minutes, twists and turns with Hill and his entourage through a back door, a kitchen, and into the main room of a nightclub, suggesting the bravura and power of a man who can go anywhere, who is both onstage and backstage [Figure 3.50]. In the restaurant scene in Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003), Quentin Tarantino goes even further, incorporating a crane in a virtuosic Steadicam sequence.

Zooms. A zoom is not the result of a moving camera, but rather of adjustments to the camera lens during filming that magnify portions of the image. Zoom lenses, which employ a variable focal length of 75mm or higher, thus accomplish a dif- ferent kind of compositional reframing and apparent movement than the mov- ing camera used during a tracking shot. During a zoom-in, the camera remains

stationary as the zoom lens changes focal length to narrow the field of view on a distant object, bringing it into clear view and reframing it in a medium shot or close-up. Less noticeable in films, a zoom-out reverses this action, so that objects that appear close initially are then distanced from the camera and reframed as small figures. One of the significant side effects of a zoom-in is that the image tends to flatten and lose its depth of field, whereas a track calls attention to the spatial depth that it moves through. Although camera move- ments — such as tracking or Steadicam shots — and changes in the lens’s focal length — zooms — may serve the same function of bringing the focus of a shot closer or relegating it to the distance, there are perceptible differences in the images. Moreover, these technologies and practices devel- oped differently historically and can vary in their significance. For example, the use of zooms can mimic the long lenses first introduced in photo- journalism in the 1940s. The Battle of Algiers

3.48 Death in Venice (1970). A pan starts from the protagonist, crosses the beach, and scans the horizon, suggesting his state of mind as he calmly embraces suicide.

3.49 Fish Tank (2009). The film uses a handheld camera to capture the protago- nist’s frustrated energy and, when she films herself within the film, her isolation.

V I E w I n g C u E bedfordstmartins.com /filmexperience

Examine this clip from Rear Window (1954) and describe the moving camera (tracks, pans) and/or mobile framings (zooms) that are used. Why is a moving frame used here instead of a series of shots?

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(1966) attempts to reproduce the immediacy of events as they unfold by using tech- niques borrowed from newsreels. Quentin Tarantino’s stylized zoom-ins pay homage to 1970s genres including blaxploitation, in which the technique drew attention to itself. Sometimes these techniques are used together. In Vertigo, Hitchcock used a track- in while zooming out to suggest his main character’s feeling of vertigo — the effect changes the focus of the image while the image stays the same size.

Animation and Visual Effects Our visual experience is not just natural- istic; it is also fantastical, composed of pictures from our dreams and imaginations. These kinds of images can be re-created in film through two important manipula- tions of the image, animation and visual effects, which can be used to make film seem even more realistic or completely unreal. Both practices have been employed since the earliest days of cinema, but the growing popularity of digital technolo- gies since the 1990s has profoundly transformed both animation and visual effects.

Animation traditionally refers to moving images drawn or painted on transparent sheets of celluloid known as cels, which are then photographed onto single frames of film. Films such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and The Little Mermaid (1989) create graphic cartoon narratives through traditional frame-by-frame drawings, colorizing, and filming. Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki is celebrated for continuing the use of 2-D animation in films like Ponyo (2008). Another traditional animation technique is stop-motion photog- raphy, used in Henry Selick’s 3-D Coraline (2009) [Figure 3.51], a specific form of which is claymation, revived by Aardman Studios’ Nick Park in films like Chicken Run (2000). Stop-motion photography records, as separate frames in incrementally changed action, inanimate objects or actual human figures that are then synthesized on film to create the illusion of motion and action: claymation accomplishes this effect with clay or plasticine figures, while pixilation employs this technique to transform the movement of real human figures and objects into rapid, jerky gestures. Czech filmmaker Jan Švankmajer’s Alice (1988) combines live action, pixilation, and puppets to re-create the dizzying events of Lewis Carroll’s story.

Today animation is accomplished predom- inantly through computer graphics. In 1995, Pixar produced Toy Story, the first feature- length film composed entirely of computer- generated imagery (CGI) [Figure 3.52]. Since then, striking technological advances have contributed to the resurgence of animation as a genre. While Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001) was the first film to use per- formance capture, a technique for generating computer models from data gathered from an actor’s performance, its human figures were not as convincing as other photorealistic detail. Renewed appreciation for the medium

3.50 Goodfellas (1990). The long and winding trail of power behind the scenes is depicted in a three-minute Steadicam shot.

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Examine this clip from The Battle of Algiers (1967) and describe the techniques it uses that are reminis- cent of newsreels. How does this contribute to the movie’s effects?

3.51 Coraline (2009). Henry Selick’s distinctive stop-motion animation blurs the line between the heroine’s real world and the alternative world where the characters have button eyes.

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was reflected in the introduction in 2002 of a new Academy Award category: feature-length animated films.

While Pixar and DreamWorks continue to produce CGI blockbusters for all ages, independent filmmakers have also engaged with animation. Richard Linklater’s Waking Life (2001) and A Scanner Darkly (2006) recorded real figures and action on video as a basis for painting individual animation frames digitally in a technique known as rotoscoping [Figure 3.53]. Persepolis (2007), an adaptation of Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novels about growing up in Iran, was a suc- cessful art-house release, and Waltz with Bashir (2008), an Israeli film about the horrors of the 1982 Lebanon war, extended animation to documentary.

With the advent of CGI, the technologies and artistry of animation and visual effects overlap more and more. Visual effects is a term generally used to denote a subset of special effects. While the latter term encompasses many practices, such as pyrotechnics and other mechanical effects produced on set that do not involve the camera or image processing, the former focuses on alterations to the image that would be impossible or too costly to film. Since early cinema, filmmakers have employed such basic manipulations as slow motion or fast motion by filming the action faster or slower than normal and then projecting it at normal speeds; color filters that change the tones of the recorded image with different tinted lenses; and miniatures or other scaled models used to create fan- tastic landscapes and machines of the kind seen in the X-Men series (2000–2014), which combines the use of models with CGI.

Another common visual effect, one that combines more than one shot into a single image, is a process shot, a term that describes the different ways that an image can be set up and manipulated during filming and printing. A process shot might project a differ- ent background for the action on a screen such as the image through the rear window of characters traveling in a car. Or a process shot may be used to compose an abstract image that juxtaposes two or more competing realities. In an example of the use of special effects in a serious experimental film, Hans-Jürgen Syberberg’s epic Our Hitler (1977) shows Hitler quietly eating dinner while, in rear projection, Jews arrive at concentration camps; at other times, the film reduces Hitler to a puppet onstage [Figure 3.54].

A matte shot combines two or more pieces of film — generally one with the central action or object and the other with the additional background, figures, or action that would be difficult to create physically for

3.52 Toy Story (1995). Pixar’s first feature and the first computer-animated feature film to be released. The exaggerated crayon colors leap from the more balanced, natural tones of the realistic background.

3.53 A Scanner Darkly (2006). For this Philip K. Dick adaptation, Richard Linklater had his actors filmed digitally and then animated using a rotoscope technique.

3.54 Our Hitler (1977). Puppets and process shots are a few of the special effects used in this epic film to jar our perceptions and unravel the illusion of a fascist dictator.

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the shot. Elaborate matte paintings are used to create atmosphere, background, and a sense of scale in films such as King Kong (1933). Traveling mattes are required when a figure moves in the foreground [Figure 3.55].

Some visual effects use a combination of cinematography and computer techniques, such as the celebrated “bullet time” used to great effect in The Matrix (1999), in which images taken by a set of still cameras surrounding a subject are put together to create an effect of suspension or extreme slow motion. In Inception, recognizable images of cityscapes and mountain fortresses are remade as the fragile and malleable virtual shapes of a dreamscape through CGI [Figure 3.56]. Current blockbusters are driven more and more by these kinds of spectacular visual effects, additional sequences and explanations of which often fill their DVDs. The fantasy world of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings tril- ogy (2001–2003) was created through a range of special effects from the use of simple forced perspective to put hobbit, elven, and human characters in proper scale, to the imaginative work of the New Zealand–based Weta Digital, the company that innovated performance capture technology to incorporate actor Andy Serkis’s physical performance into the character Gollum. Weta and Serkis later collaborated to create Caesar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) [Figure 3.57], and Weta Digital also did

3.55 King Kong (1933). The jungle matte painting provides a mysterious back- ground for the stop-motion animation by Willis O’Brien.

3.56 Inception (2010). Images of real and virtual worlds merge in the production process and in the plot of a drama that takes place in the layers of a dream.

3.57 Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011). The increasing sophistication of performance capture technology, including Andy Serkis’s work as Caesar, the leader of the ape rebellion, allowed for this remake to use no actual apes in filming.

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visual effects for James Cameron’s Avatar, whose 3-D presentation required the conversion of theaters to digital formats. The success of this film is partly respon- sible for the fact that by 2012 digital projection surpassed film exhibition in movie theaters.

making Sense of the Film Image From the desert expanses of Lawrence of Arabia to the dreamscapes of Inception, movie images have been valued for their beauty, realism, or ability to inspire wonder. Often these qualities are found in their production values because of the skill and money invested to generate such experiences. But film images carry other values in what they preserve and say about the world. French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard’s remark that film is truth at twenty-four frames per second is one way to describe the power and importance of the film image. Yet as Godard’s many films themselves demonstrate, this “truth” is not just the truth of presenta- tion but also the truth of representation. In short, film images are prized both for their accuracy in showing or presenting us with facts and for how they interpret or represent them.

Defining Our Relationship to the Cinematic Image Images hold a remarkable power to capture a moment. Flipping through a photo album provides glimpses of past events. The morning newspaper col- lapses a day of war into a single poignant image. However, images can do far more than preserve the facts of a moment. They can also interpret those facts in ways that give them new meanings. A painting by Norman Rockwell evokes feelings of warmth and nostalgia, while the stained-glass windows lin- ing a cathedral aim to draw our spiritual passions. Add motion, and the power of images to both show and interpret information magnifies exponentially. A film image may be designed to present — to show the visual truth of the subject matter realistically and reliably — and to represent — to color that truth with shades of meaning.

The Image as Presentation The image as presentation reflects our belief that film communicates the details of the world realistically, even while showing us unrealistic situations. We prize the stunning images of the ancient Forbidden City in The Last Emperor (1987) [Figure 3.58] as well as the dy - namic close-ups of a boxing match in The Fighter (2010) for their veracity and authenticity in depicting realities or per- spectives. In pursuing this goal, cinema- tography may document either subjective images, which reflect the points of view of a person experiencing the events, or objective images, which assume a more

3.58 The Last Emperor (1987). The sumptuous cinematography gives access to the Forbidden City, illustrating the power of the cinema to “authenticate” through the image.

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general accuracy or truth. In Little Big Man (1970), images from the perspective of a 101-year-old pioneer raised by Native Americans succeed, for many, in both ways: they become remarkably convincing displays of known historical characters and events — such as General George Custer at the Battle of Little Bighorn — and they poignantly re-create the perspective of the pioneer as he lived through and now remembers those events.

The Image as Representation The image also has an instrumental power to influence or even determine the meaning of the events or people it portrays by re-presenting reality through the interpretive power of cinematography. The image as representation is an exercise in the power of visual stimuli. The way in which we depict individuals or actions implies a kind of control over them, knowledge of them, or power to determine what they mean. When we frame a subject, we capture and contain that subject within a particular point of view that gives it definition beyond its literal mean- ing. This desire to represent through control over an image permeates the drama of Vertigo, in which the main character, Scottie, tries so desperately to define Madeleine through appearances — and the cinematography aids him by framing her as a painting. Representation as power over images can be found at the heart of films as diverse as Blonde Venus (1932) and Pan’s Labyrinth, which in different ways show the ability of the film image to capture and manipulate a person or reality in the service of a point of view. In Blonde Venus, as in many of the films directed by Josef von Sternberg starring Marlene Dietrich, the heroine is depicted as a self-consciously erotic figure, whether in an outrageous costume as a showgirl or as a housewife and mother at home. In Pan’s Labyrinth, a young girl escapes the frightening reality of her father’s brutality during the Spanish Civil War in a fantasy world rendered real for the spectator as well through artful cinematography and special effects [Figure 3.59].

Part of the art of film is that these two primary imagistic values — presentation and representation — are interconnected and can be mobilized in intricate and ambiguous ways in a movie. When Harry Potter speaks in the language of snakes in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), the cinematography high- lights the fear and confusion among Harry’s classmates. Is the image an objective presentation of the perspective of the Hogwarts students, or is it an interpretive representation on the part of the film itself, trying to make the viewer think Harry is deserving of fear? A perceptive viewer must consider the most appropriate mean- ings for the shot — whether it reflects the students’ position or the film’s position. Watching closely how images carry and mobilize values, we encounter the com- plexity of making meaning in a film and the importance of our own activity as viewers.

Interpretive Contexts for the Cinematic Image Our encounters with the values embed- ded in the images we experience shape our expectations of subsequent films. For some kinds of movies, like documentaries

V I E w I n g C u E In the most recent film shown for class, look for shots that aim to present certain experiences objectively and two or three shots that seem to represent or interpret different realities. Analyze one shot of each type carefully, and relate them to the film’s themes.

3.59 Pan’s Labyrinth (2006). A lonely child’s fantasy world is represented as real to the viewer. text continued on page 126 ▶

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In Alfred Hitchcock’s suspense film Vertigo, a wealthy businessman named Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore) hires Scottie (James Stewart), a retired police detective who suffers from acrophobia (fear of heights), to watch his wife. Madeleine (Kim Novak), Elster claims, is troubled by her obsession with Carlotta, a woman from the past. After Scottie rescues Madeleine during an apparent suicide attempt, he falls in love with her, and when his acrophobia prevents him from stopping her as she leaps from a mission tower, her death sends Scottie into a spiral of guilt. Later he believes he sees his lost love on the streets of San Francisco, and his pursuit of the look- alike woman, Judy, entangles him in another twist to this psychological murder mystery in which the central crisis involves distinguishing reality from fictive images of it.

Employing a particular brand of widescreen projec- tion called VistaVision, the aspect ratio of Vertigo is one of its immediately recognizable and significant formal features: the widescreen frame becomes a fitting environ- ment for Scottie and his anxious searches through the vistas of San Francisco and its environs.

Although Vertigo does not mask frames for emphasis in the artificially obvious way of older films, at times Hitchcock and cinematographer Robert Berks cleverly create mask- ing effects by using natural objects within the frame. For instance, the film uses doors or other parts of the mise-en- scène to create masking effects that isolate and dramatize Scottie’s intense gazing at Madeleine [Figure 3.60].

Like many other Hitchcock films, Vertigo continually exploits the edges of the frame to tease and mislead us with what we (and Scottie) cannot see. In Scottie’s pursuit of Madeleine, she frequently evades his point of view, disappearing like a ghost beyond the frame’s borders. The mystery of Madeleine’s fall to her death is especially shocking because it occurs offscreen, revealed only as her blurred body flashes by the tower window, which acts as a second frame limiting Scottie’s percep- tion of what has happened [Figure 3.61].

The angles of shots are crucial in Vertigo. The hilly San Francisco setting naturally accentuates high and low

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angles as Scottie follows Madeleine through the streets, and the film’s recurring motif about terror of heights informs even the most commonplace scenes, as high angles and overhead shots ignite Scottie’s panic. Espe- cially when these sharp angles reflect Scottie’s point of view, they suggest complex psychological and moral concerns about power and control as well as about desire and guilt, dramatizing those moments when Scottie’s desires leave him in positions where he is most out of control and threatened.

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From Angles to Animation in Vertigo ( 1958 )

See also: Performance (1970); Run Lola Run (1998); Amélie (2001)

FIlm In FOCuS bedfordstmartins.com /filmexperience

To watch a clip illustrating the cinematography of Vertigo, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

3.60 Vertigo (1958). In this striking composition, Scottie’s previously masked point of view becomes graphically juxtaposed with the mirror image of the woman he pursues.

3.61 Vertigo (1958). The window frames Scottie’s uncertain view of a falling body.

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Certainly among the more striking dimensions of Vertigo is its moving frame. One casual scene demonstrates how common shot movements not only describe events in a complex way but also subtly invest those events with nuance and meaning. In an early scene set in Elster’s office, the wealthy man enlists Scottie’s help to follow his wife. The scene begins with Elster sitting in his chair, but Scottie soon sits and Elster stands and moves around the room: a pan of Elster walking to a higher position in the room is followed by a low-angle shot of him and a comple- menting high-angle shot of Scottie; a backward track then depicts the more aggressive Elster as he moves to the front of the image toward the stationary Scottie [Figure 3.62]. As the moving frame continues to focus on Elster trying to convince Scottie to help him track his wife, the framing and its movement indicate that this is not quite a conversation between equals: the moving frame makes clear that Elster directs the image and controls the perspective.

A more clearly central series of camera movements takes place when Scottie finds Madeleine standing before a portrait of Carlotta in an art museum. Here the camera executes several complex moves that simulate Scottie’s perspective: it simultaneously zooms in and tracks first on the swirl in Madeleine’s hair and then reframes by tracking and zooming out on the same hair design in the painting of Carlotta [Figure 3.63]. Indeed, these reframings in the museum resemble the opening sequence in which Scottie hangs from the gutter and his frightened glances at the street below are depicted through a quick, distorting combination of zooming-in and tracking-out that describes his intense panic and spa- tial disorientation. Entirely through these camera move- ments, the film connects Scottie’s original trauma and guilt with his mysterious attachment to Madeleine.

Although Vertigo seems to be a realistic thriller, it employs — dramatically and disconcertingly — both ani- mation and special effects as a part of its story and description of Scottie’s state of mind. An eerie matte shot re-creates a tower that is missing from the actual church at San Juan Bautista; its goal is largely to add a crucial element to the setting where Scottie’s fear of heights will

be exploited. Yet along with the nightmarish significance of that tower, in the final scene the matted image appears as an eerily glowing surface and color as the surreal tower looms over yet another dead body. More obvious examples of special effects include the rear projections and anima- tion when Scottie begins to lose his grip on one reality and become engulfed in another. In one scene, Scottie and Judy’s kiss spins free of the background of the room; ear- lier, during a nightmare triggered by his psychotic depres- sion, an eruption of animation depicts the scattering of the mythical Carlotta’s bouquet of flowers and a black abstract form of Scottie’s body falling onto the roof of the church [Figure 3.64]. This “special sequence” credited to John Ferren echoes the spiraling animated shapes of the memorable title design by Saul Bass.

Rather than mimicking or supplementing reality, these instances of animation and special effects in Vertigo point out how fragile the photographic realism of the film shot can be. Vertigo describes the obsessions of a man in love with the image of a woman — Madeleine, who appears to revive Carlotta, and then is seemingly reincarnated in Judy. The film contains inordinately long periods without any dialogue, almost as a way to insist that Scottie’s (and Hitchcock’s) interest is primarily in images — in all their forms from paintings to memories, and from many angles (high, low, moving, stationary, onscreen, and offscreen).

Cinematography: Framing What We See C H A p T E r 3

3.62 Vertigo (1958). A low-angle, backward tracking shot emphasizes the aggressive Gavin Elster.

3.64 Vertigo (1958). Scottie’s animated nightmare sequence ends with a matte shot in which an abstracted black figure appears against the roof onto which another body had fallen.

3.63 Vertigo (1958). Restless camera movement combining zooms and tracking shots traces Scottie’s gaze at the portrait.

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and historical fiction films, we have learned to see the film frame as a window on the world, seeking accuracy. For others, such as avant-garde or art films, we learn to approach the images as puzzles, perhaps revealing secrets of life and society. Here we will designate two conventions in the history of the film image: the con- vention of image as presence, and the convention of image as text. In the first case, we identify with the image; in the second, we read it.

Presence The compositional practices of the film image that we call the conventions of presence imply a close identification with the image’s point of view; a primarily emotional response to that image; and an experience of the image as if it were a lived reality. Images in this tradition are able to fascinate us with a visual activity we participate in, overwhelm us with their beauty or horror, or comfort us with their familiarity. While not entirely separable from the story and other elements of the film form, imagistic presence can be seen as what principally entertains us at the movies, what elicits our tears and shrieks. A shot of horses and riders dash- ing toward a finish line or of a woman embracing a dear friend communicates an immediacy or truth that engages us and leads us through subsequent images. Two variations on this convention are the phenomenological image and the psycho- logical image.

The Phenomenological Image. The phenomenological image refers to filmmak- ing styles that approximate physical activity as we would experience it in the world — such as a shot that re-creates the dizzying perspectives from a mountain- top. As old as film history itself, this tradition appears in vastly different movies: from the wonder with which we gaze upon Munchkinland in the first color shot of The Wizard of Oz to the painful suspense of 127 Hours (2010), about a mountain climber trapped alone in the wilderness, phenomenological shots convey a sensual vitality in the image itself.

The Psychological Image. The psychological image, in contrast, reflects the state of mind of the viewer or a more general emotional atmosphere: in 10 (1979), a middle- aged man fantasizes the image of his dreams coming true as a beautiful woman running toward him in slow motion; in Midnight Cowboy (1969), disorienting, blurry images at a party re-create Joe’s mental and perceptual experience after taking drugs [Figure 3.65]. Both kinds of images appear across film history and culture, but certain

film movements emphasize one over the other. Westerns — such as 3:10 to Yuma (2007) — tend to rely on phenomenologi- cal images to imbue movement and con- flict with energy [Figure 3.66]. Movies that concentrate on personal crises — such as the melodramatic Written on the Wind (1956), a tale of wealth and unhappiness in which overwrought emotions and men- tal stress are everywhere — often employ psychological images to reflect the states of mind of the characters [Figure 3.67].

Textuality Textuality refers to a different kind of film image, one that demands emotional and

3.65 Midnight Cowboy (1969). Special effects and blurred, colored contrasts create a psychological representation of the cowboy’s drug experience.

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analytical distancing from the image, which is experienced as artifice or a con- struction to be interpreted.

We stand back to look at textual images from an intellectual distance. They seem loaded with signs and sym- bols for us to decipher. They impress us more for how they show the world than for what they show. So-called difficult, abstract, or experimental films — from Germaine Dulac’s surrealist film The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928) to Pi (1998) — obviously enlist viewers in this way, but many films integrate images that test our abilities to read and deci- pher. A canted framing of an isolated house or a family reunion shot through a yellow filter may stand out in an oth- erwise realistic movie as a puzzle image that asks for more reflection: How do we read this image? Why is this unusual composition included? In The Seashell and the Clergyman, apparently about a priest in love with a beautiful woman, images resemble the cryptic language of a strange dream, requiring viewers to struggle to decipher them as a way of understanding the film’s complex drama of repression and desire [Figure 3.68].

Recognizing the dominance of images either of presence or of textuality within a film is one way to begin to appreciate and understand it. A romance like Eat Pray Love exudes the pres- ence of location shooting in Italy, India, and Bali and invites audiences to share the heroine’s emotional adventure through its exotic locales. A more dense and complex film about an under- ground gang of Nazi “werewolves,” Lars von Trier’s Zentropa (1991) asks us to decipher images constructed with special effects and

3.67 Written on the Wind (1956). Color, angles, composition, and deep focus contribute to the image’s depiction of the character’s emotional extremes in Douglas Sirk’s melodrama of the unhappy rich.

3.66 3:10 to Yuma (2007). The phenomenological presence of bodies in motion and in pain is dynamically rendered through cinematography.

3.68 The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928). Extreme angles, shadows, and highlighted patterns in the pavement suggest a complex dream image in this surrealist collaboration between playwright Antonin Artaud and Germaine Dulac.

text continued on page 130 ▶

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Set in Germany around 1930, Fritz Lang’s M shows how a movie can present both objective and subjective expe- riences. M tells the gruesome tale of a child murderer, Franz Becker, whom both police and criminals pursue in an attempt to regain each group’s stable, if corrupt, social situation. The film was shot by Fritz Arno Wagner, cinematographer on Nosferatu and other masterpieces of German expressionism. Throughout the film, objec- tive images alternate with subjective ones: images seem at some points to describe the facts of a dark and anxious German society in 1930; at other points, they reproduce that world through the perspective of individual characters. Even in a fiction film such as this one, the images document a history of facial expres- sions, cultural products, and social activities, such as the uniforms of the German police and raucous criminal dens. At still other points in this film, the images present personal perspectives, such as the anxiety of a mother as she waits for her daughter, glances at the clock several times, and stares at an empty seat before a table setting [Figure 3.69].

128

Due to shifts between objective and subjective per- spective, the film occasionally leaves unclear whether the images are a factual record of German street life or descriptions of anxious or even deranged minds. Early in the film, an extreme high-angle shot presents an appar- ently objective view of children playing in a courtyard, but the angle of the shot also suggests the uneasy and oppressive feeling that suffuses the atmosphere. Soon afterward, a medium shot tracks laterally left to right as it follows the young girl, Elsie Beckmann, as she walks home bouncing a ball, straightforwardly depicting her carefree journey but also suggesting that someone might be following and watching her. Later a tracking shot of a man walking with a young girl is transformed into a scene of chaos, fear, and anger when the shot unexpectedly merges into the subjective perspective of a crowd that sees the man as the murderer.

The power of the image to represent individuals by assigning them meanings and values is on full display in M. Lang’s representations are sometimes the common kind one finds in many films: a dark low-angle shot defines a criminal as dangerous, whereas a close-up of a mother emphasizes her internalized sorrow and pain. At other times, the structure of an image suggests more elaborate commentary: the detective Karl Lohmann is shot from an extreme low angle that not only describes him sitting in a chair but also depicts him as a grotesque, slovenly, and comical caricature. Sometimes other, darker judgments and meanings appear through the image.

As part of a complex maneuver in that early track- ing shot of Elsie, the image shifts subtly from being a description of her perspective to an ominously threaten- ing point of view. When Elsie stops and bounces her ball off a poster warning of the murderer, the low camera angle assumes her point of view. When, suddenly, the dark shadow of a man drifts across the poster and her perspective, the image acquires a darker and more threatening point of view that literally takes over Elsie’s perspective with its own [Figure 3.70].

In a more diabolical way than in most films, vision is equated with control, and here the power of the unseen

FIlm In

FOCuS

157010

157010

meaning through Images in M (1931) See also: The Blue Angel (1930); Black Swan (2010)

FIlm In FOCuS bedfordstmartins.com /filmexperience

To watch a video about the cinematography of M, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

3.69 M (1931). A seemingly benign shot of a child’s place setting becomes ominous when it conveys the point of view of a mother whose daughter is missing.

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man’s perspective over Elsie anticipates her murder. When, at the conclusion of the film, Becker stumbles into a vacant warehouse, he ironically finds himself the object of the same representational power in the image, the source of the perspective now being a large crowd rather than a troubled individual. He suddenly finds himself literally captured by the gaze of a mob of street thieves and criminals prepared to judge him as the target of their eyes, just as he had done to Elsie.

M appears at the end of what is commonly called the “golden age” of German cinema, generally identified with two specific movie traditions: German “street films” and German expressionist films. In street films, the movie image documents the tough and unglamorous social realities of criminals, prostitutes, or other desperate individuals. In German expressionism, film images often investigate emotional, psychological, and subconscious realities. M engages both these German film movements: while its documentary-like shots of criminals, tools, and weapons suggest the realism of street films, the expres- sionistic tradition allows Lang to use the textuality of the image to explore a different kind of presence, one associ- ated with desires and fears.

A tradition of textual images that can be linked to German expressionism is conveyed both in the film, in which characters are often preoccupied with scrutinizing images for the mysteries they hold, and by it, as viewers detect the secrets within the film’s own images. At one

point, Becker examines his close-up reflection in a mir- ror, pulling his mouth down in a distorted frown, perhaps as a bizarre attempt to see and comprehend the mad- man inside himself. At another, the police examine a note from Becker in close-up in order to analyze “the very particular shape of the letters,” and several times they assemble images of fingerprints and maps to try to identify and locate the killer. In both cases, images become explicit instruments for investigating the crime and thus, the police hope, instruments with which to capture Becker. Finally, the plot turns dramatically when the criminals trailing Becker surreptitiously mark the back of his jacket with the letter M, thereby identifying this anonymous figure of a man on the street as the killer by making his image a legible text. Less directly, the film creates complex visual metaphors that ask viewers to decipher their significance: a balloon purchased by Becker for Elsie later appears in a medium shot tangled in telephone wires to suggest her death and perhaps the twisted person of Becker, whose body resembles the bal- loon figure [Figure 3.71].

The cinematography in M draws on both realist and expressionist traditions to create a mixture of documentary- style images and more symbolic representations that engage the viewer’s powers of detection even as the crimes in the film are investigated. The exploration of the powers and limitations of the image in M link looking and seeing to matters of life and death.

3.71 M (1931). A balloon tangled in the telephone wires suggests an ominous ending for Elsie Beckmann — and for the murderer, Franz Becker. The image communicates through textuality rather than presence.

3.70 M (1931). A poster offering a reward for information on a child murderer becomes infused with horror when an anonymous shadow falls over it.

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mixed media, but part of its success lies in how it engages the complexities of a tradition of textuality.

We experience and process — and enjoy — film images by recognizing the con- cepts and contexts that underpin them and our expectations of them. The initial hostile reception of Bonnie and Clyde in 1967, for instance, turned to admiration several months later. One way of understanding the dynamics of this change is to note that viewers realized that the film’s images belong not to a tradition of pres- ence but to a tradition of textuality. At first, many viewers may have seen the film as glamorizing 1930s violence; only later did they recognize the distance of those images as an ironic commentary on 1960s violence. Film, like chance, favors the prepared mind.

The experience and the art of the cinema are inseparable in cinematography — the moving image selected, framed, lit, and manipulated through effects. Both M and Inception convey a sense of dread through the way their images are filmed. The emergence of cinema at the end of the nineteenth century joined a long-standing impulse to create moving images with the technologi- cal capacity to make such images and present them to audiences. Since the end of the twentieth century, advances in digital technology have spurred renewed explorations of the spectacular through 3-D cinema and visual effects.

On the most basic level, films tell their stories through moving images, adding dimension to a flat screen and allowing viewers to locate themselves in the narrative, follow its action, decode significance, and experience emo- tion. As we have detailed in this and the previous chapter, the properties of the film shot are determined by the infinite range of possibilities of mise- en-scène and cinematography and their interaction. Explore the following questions that build on the key objectives introduced at the beginning of this chapter.

■ Extend the analysis of Vertigo to analyze the sequence in which Scottie follows Madeleine’s car. How do camera distance and angle create point of view in a particularly important scene?

■ Explore some of the effects of composition-in-depth in a scene from Citizen Kane. Can you distinguish the use of the wide-angle lens? Does the use of deep-focus cinematography correlate with camera movement, and if so, why might this be the case?

■ How do elements of cinematography such as film stock, color, and light- ing establish mood in a scene from Inception?

■ Research several of the special effects shots used in an effects-heavy movie like Inception. Which ones were created digitally? Which ones were not? What is the impact of effects that were created without com- puter graphic imaging?

■ How is the presence of the image felt in Inception? Which shots demand a more cerebral approach?

C O n C E p T S A T w O r K

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Activity Imagine filming a newsworthy event like a burning building for a fiction film. Imagine shooting this mise-en-scène through as many different cin- ematographic “lenses” as possible: both literal lenses such as wide-angle and zoom, and through variations in setups, lighting, framing, film stock, cam- era movement, and use of special effects. As you reflect on your particular cinematographic choices, note what specific film conventions your “scenes” draw upon and why.

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4 c h a p t e r

The use of editing to generate ideas and emotions is on striking display in the opening sequence of City of God (2002), Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund’s kinetic chronicle of life in the streets of a tough Rio de Janeiro neighborhood. Flashes of a knife being sharpened against a stone in extreme close-ups are intercut to a rapid percussive beat with details of the preparation of an outdoor meal, including a chicken about to be slaughtered. The chicken stares out at the audience and we stare back, similarly overwhelmed. The tension mounts until the chicken escapes and a massive chase through the streets begins. In the quick shots of groups of boys running with guns drawn, we grasp a situation of pathos and precarious existence. The manipulation of time, space, and point of view convey the neighborhood’s powder-keg energy and the imminent threat of violence. Largely without dialogue, editor Daniel Rezende sets the scene and the emotional register of this gripping story.

Editing Relating Images

133 © Miramax/courtesy Everett Collection

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K E Y O B J E C T I V E S

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Film editing is the process by which different images or shots are linked to- gether. As we move through the world, we may witness images that are jux- taposed and overlapped: in store windows, on highway billboards, on our desktops, or on television when we channel surf. But editing offers a departure from the way we normally see the world. In our everyday experience, discrete images are unified by our singular position and consciousness. There are no such limits in editing. And unless we consciously or externally interrupt our vision (such as when we blink), we do not see the world as separate images linked in selected patterns. Thus editing may emulate ordinary ways of seeing or transcend them. The power and art of film edit- ing lie in the ways in which the hundreds or thousands of discrete images that make up a film can be shaped to make sense or to have an emotional or a visceral impact.

■ Understand the artistic and technological evolution of editing. ■ Examine the ways editing constructs different spatial and temporal relation-

ships among images. ■ Detail the dominant style of continuity editing. ■ Identify the ways in which graphic or rhythmic patterns are created by editing. ■ Discuss the ways editing organizes images as meaningful scenes and sequences. ■ Summarize how editing strategies engage filmic traditions of continuity or

disjuncture.

Many film theorists and professionals consider editing to be the most unique dimension of the film experience. This chapter will explore in depth how film con- nects separate images to create or reflect key patterns through which viewers see and think about the world.

A Short History of Film Editing

Long before the development of film technology, different images were linked sequentially to tell stories. Ancient Assyrian reliefs show the different phases of a lion hunt, while the 230-foot-long Bayeux tapestry chronicles the 1066 Norman conquest of England in invaluable historical detail. In the twentieth and twenty- first centuries, comic strips and manga have continued this tradition in graphic art: each panel presents a moment of action in the story [Figures 4.1a–4.1c]. In cinema, a storyboard sketches out each shot of a film in similar fashion.

Juxtaposed images have been used symbolically, sensationally, and education- ally as well as to tell stories. Religious triptychs convey spiritual ideas via three connected images. The magic lantern was used by showmen to project successive

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images and create illusions of the supernatural. By the late nineteenth century, il- lustrated lectures using photographic slides became popular. Such practices have influenced film editing’s evolution into its modern form.

1895–1918: Early Cinema and the Emergence of Editing Films quickly evolved from showing characters or objects moving within a single image to connecting different images. Magician and early filmmaker Georges Méliès

(a)

(b) (c) 4.1a–4.1c Storyboard: telling stories through images. Ancient Assyrian reliefs (a), the eleventh-century Bayeux tapestry (b), and comics (c) resemble storyboards in cinema. 4.1a: Gianni Dagli Orti/Corbis; 4.1b: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY; 4.1c: François PERRI/REA/Redux

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at first used stop-motion photography and, later, editing to create delightful tricks, like the rocket striking the moon in Trip to the Moon (1902) [Figures 4.2a and 4.2b]. While basic editing techniques were introduced by other filmmakers, Edwin S. Porter, a prolific employee of Thomas Edison, synthesized these techniques in the service of storytelling in Life of an American Fireman (1903) and other early films. One of the most important films in the historical development of cinema, Porter’s The Great Train Robbery (1903) tells its story in fourteen separate shots, including a famous final shot of a bandit shooting his gun directly into the camera [Figure 4.3]. By 1906, the period now known as “early cinema” gave way to cinema dominated by narrative, a transition facilitated by more codified practices of editing.

D. W. Griffith, who began making films in 1908, is a towering figure in the development of the classical Hollywood editing style. Griffith is closely associated

with the use of crosscutting, or parallel editing, alternating between two or more strands of simulta- neous action, a technique that he used in the rescue sequences that conclude dozens of his films. In The Lonely Villa (1909), shots of female family members isolated in a house alternate with shots of villains trying to break in and then with shots of the father rushing to rescue his family. The infamous climax of Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915) uses crosscut- ting to portray the film’s white characters as victims of Reconstruction and the Ku Klux Klan as heroes. Griffith cuts from black soldiers breaking into a white family’s isolated cottage, to a mixed-race poli- tician threatening a white woman with rape, to the Ku Klux Klan riding to the rescue of both [Figures 4.4a–4.4c]. The controversial merging of technique and ideology exemplified in Griffith’s craft is a strong demonstration of the power of editing. After the success of Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation, fea- ture filmmaking became the norm, and Hollywood developed the classical editing style that remains the basis for many films today.

(a) (b)

4.2a and 4.2b Trip to the Moon (1902). In a famous shock cut in his ambitious early science fiction film, Georges Méliès linked the launch of the rocket to its impact on the face of the moon.

4.3 The Great Train Robbery (1903). Edwin S. Porter is credited with advancing the narrative language of editing in this and other early films. The film’s last cut is used to enhance the shock effect of the final image rather than to complete the narrative.

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1919–1929: Soviet Montage Within a decade after The Birth of a Nation, and in the wake of the 1917 Russian Revolution, Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein’s first film, Strike (1925), influenced the craft of editing in a different, although equally dramatic fashion. Eisenstein’s films and writings center on the concept of montage, editing that maximizes the effect of the juxtaposition of disparate shots. For example, to depict the mass shooting of workers in Strike, Eisenstein interspersed, or intercut, long shots of gunfire and of the fleeing and falling crowd with gruesome close-ups of a bull being butchered in a slaughterhouse [Figures 4.5a and 4.5b]. This juxtaposition is an example of what Eisenstein called intellectual montage, through which an independent idea is formed in the mind of the viewer based on the collision of different shots.

Eisenstein and filmmakers Lev Kuleshov, Vsevolod Pudovkin, and Dziga Vertov advanced montage (they used the French word for editing) as the key component of modernist, politically engaged filmmaking in the Soviet Union of the 1920s. One of the most fascinating self-reflexive sequences in film history is the editing sequence in Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera (1929), which features the film’s own editor, Elizaveta Svilova, cutting film that the cameraman has been shown

(a) (b)

(c)

4.4a–4.4c The Birth of a Nation (1915). In this sequence of images, Griffith’s white supremacist views are supported by the use of parallel editing, which encourages the viewer to root for the Ku Klux Klan to arrive in time.

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gathering. Images shown on the strips of film seem to freeze before our eyes, only to be reanimated to startling effect. Other avant-garde movements in the 1920s and thereafter continued to explore the more abstract and dynamic properties of editing employed by the Soviets.

1930–1959: Continuity Editing in the Hollywood Studio Era With the full development of the Hollywood studio system, the movies refined the storytelling style known as continuity editing, which gives the viewer the impression that the action unfolds with spatiotemporal consistency. The introduc- tion of synchronous sound posed new challenges, but by the early 1930s editors

integrated picture and sound editing into the studio style.

Beginning in the 1940s, cinematic real- ism achieved new emphasis as one of the primary aesthetic principles in film editing. The influence of Italian neoreal- ism, which used fewer cuts to capture the integrity of stories of ordinary people and actual locations, was evident in other new wave cinemas and even extended to clas- sical Hollywood. For example, Nicholas Ray’s In a Lonely Place (1950) emphasized imagistic depth and longer takes, cutting less frequently between images [Figure 4.6]. Incorporating these variations, the continu- ity editing style would remain dominant at least until the decline at the end of the 1950s of the studio system, whose sta- ble personnel, business models, and genre forms lent consistency to its products and techniques. In many ways, its principles still govern storytelling in film and television.

4.6 In a Lonely Place (1950). Postwar cinema tended to explore the depth of images, cutting less frequently between them to achieve a heightened realism.

4.5a and 4.5b Strike (1925). The workers’ massacre is compared to the slaughter of a bull through the use of intellectual montage.

(a) (b)

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1960–1989: Modern Editing Styles Political and artistic changes starting in the 1960s affected almost every dimension of film form, and editing was no exception. Both in the United States and abroad, alternative editing styles emerged that aimed to fracture classical editing’s illusion of realism. Anticipated to some extent by Soviet montage, these new more dis- junctive styles reflected the feeling of disconnection of the modern world. Editing visibly disrupted continuity by creating ruptures in the story, radically condensing or expanding time, or confusing the relationships among past, present, and future.

The French New Wave produced some of the first and most dramatic examples of modern styles of editing. Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (1960) innovated the use of jump cuts, edits that intentionally create gaps in the action [Figures 4.7a and 4.7b]. In the 1960s and 1970s, American filmmakers like Arthur Penn and Francis Ford Cop- pola incorporated such styles within classical genres to contribute to the New Hol- lywood aesthetic. In the 1980s, the fast-paced editing style used in commercials and music videos began to appear in mainstream films. Two popular and successful films, both made by former directors of television commercials, are indicative of this period: Adrian Lyne’s Flashdance (1983), about a Pittsburgh woman who doubles as a welder and exotic dancer, and Tony Scott’s Top Gun (1986), about fighter pilots competing in flight school. Both combine an upbeat pop soundtrack with flashy, rapid editing to suggest the seductive energy of their protagonists’ worlds [Figures 4.8a and 4.8b].

4.7a and 4.7b Breathless (1960). Obvious jump cuts between or in the middle of shots are a visual vehicle for conveying the distractions and disjunctions in a petty criminal’s life. Michel’s voiceover continues as we see Patricia from different angles.

(a) (b)

(a) (b) 4.8a and 4.8b Flashdance (1983). Continuous music and discontinuous cutting characteristic of 1980s music videos energize this film about a young working-class woman who aspires to be a dancer.

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1990s–Present: Editing in the Digital Age Nonlinear digital editing ushered in perhaps the most significant changes in the history of film editing. Whereas for decades editors cut actual film footage by hand on a Moviola or flatbed editing table, or in linear sequence on tape, in the 1990s editors began to use computer-based nonlinear digital editing systems. In nonlinear editing, film footage is stored as digital information on high-capacity computer hard drives. Individual takes can be organized easily and accessed instantaneously, sound-editing options can be explored simultaneously with picture editing, and optical effects such as dissolves and fades can be immediately visualized on the computer rather than added much later in the printing process. Feature films were soon edited with nonlinear computer-based systems regardless of whether they were shot on 35mm film or digital video.

The more rapid pace of contemporary films seems to correlate with digital editing. Average shot length has declined significantly, with shots in Quantum of Solace (2008) averaging around two seconds [Figure 4.9], compared with the ten-second shots measured by scholars in The Grapes of Wrath (1940). However, digital filmmaking can also embrace the opposite aesthetic effect. On film, the length of a single take was limited by how much stock the camera could hold; on video, the duration of a shot is virtually limitless. Filmmaker Aleksandr Sokurov’s Russian Ark (2002) is a virtuoso feature-length film with no cuts at all [Figure 4.10].

4.10 Russian Ark (2002). Wandering through the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, and seeming to pass through historical eras, the digital camera is the vehicle for this film’s meditation on art, politics, and Russian history, conveyed as a single ninety-six-minute shot.

4.9 Quantum of Solace (2008). This entry in the James Bond franchise utilizes extremely quick cutting, especially in its action sequences.

The Elements of Editing

Film editing is the process through which different images or shots are linked together sequentially. A shot is a continuous image, regardless of the camera movement or changes in focus it may record. Editing can produce meaning by combining shots in an infinite number of ways. One shot is selected and joined to

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other shots by the editor to guide view- ers’ perceptions. For example, the open- ing sequence of Crooklyn (1994) depicts the Brooklyn block where the film is set by editing together a high-angle moving crane shot that provides an overview of the neighborhood and its inhabitants and a variety of shots of people and their activities [Figures 4.11a–4.11c].

If a shot presents mise-en-scène from a single perspective, film editing conveys multiple perspectives by linking shots in various relationships. Some of these relationships mimic the way an individual looks at the world— for example, a shot of someone looking off in the distance linked to an extreme long shot of an airplane in the sky. But often these relationships ex - ceed everyday perception, as in the shot of birds flying over Bodega Bay seen from above in The Birds (1963), an inhuman perspective that, juxtaposed with shots on street level, adds to the film’s uncanny effect. Edited images may leap from one location to another or one time to another and may show different perspectives on the same event. Editing is one of the most significant developments in the syntax of cinema because it allows for a departure from both the limited perspective and the continuous duration of a shot.

The Cut and Other Transitions The earliest films consisted of a single shot, which could run only as long as the reel of film in the camera lasted. In his early trick films, pioneer Georges Méliès manipulated this limitation by stopping the camera, rearranging the mise-en- scène, and resuming filming to make objects and people seem to disappear or transform. It was a short step to achieving such juxtapositions by physically cutting the film. In Méliès’s 1903 film Living Playing Cards, a magician, played by Méliès himself, seems to make his props come alive [Figures 4.12a and 4.12b].

Even when they are intended to seem like magic, transitions between film shots, along with the technical labor of editing, are often obscured. Rarely can viewers describe or enumerate the edits that make a particular film sequence memorable. Learning to watch for this basic ele- ment of film language gives the viewer insight into the art of the film.

(a)

(b)

(c) 4.11a–4.11c Crooklyn (1994). The credits sequence of Spike Lee’s film juxtaposes a moving crane shot of a Brooklyn block with a series of short takes of daily activities to convey a sense of a tight-knit community.

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4.12a and 4.12b Living Playing Cards (1903). Pioneer George Méliès anticipated later editing techniques with magical transformations.

(a)

(a)

(b)

(b)

(c)

4.13a–4.13c The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). Director William Wyler uses composition in depth and editing to bring out developing tensions in the friendship of three returning veterans. In the first shot, (a) our attention is drawn to the figures in the foreground. When Al turns (b) to watch Fred make a difficult phone call in the background of the shot, the film cuts to a second shot (c) that emphasizes the relationship between these two figures.

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The foundation for film editing is the cut — that is, the break in the image that marks the physical connection between two shots from two different pieces of film. A single shot can depict a woman looking at a ship at sea by showing a close-up of her face and then panning to the right, following her glance to reveal the distant ship she is watching. A cut, on the other hand, renders this action in two shots, with the first showing the woman’s face and the second showing the ship. While the facts of the situation remain the same, the single-shot pan and the cut joining two shots create different experiences of the scenario. The first might emphasize the distance that separates the woman from the object of her vision. The second might create a sense of immediacy and intimacy that transcends the distance. In a key scene from The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), we first see several characters occupying different spaces of the same shot [Figure 4.13a]. After the character on the right shifts his attention to the character in the background, we are presented with a cut isolating them [Figures 4.13b and 4.13c]. As these examples illustrate, the use of a cut usually follows a particular logic, in this case emphasizing the significance of the character’s gaze. The less frequently used shock cut juxtaposes two images whose dramatic difference creates a jarring effect, often accompanied by a jolt on the soundtrack, as in the shower murder sequence in Psycho (1960), emulated in countless subsequent horror films. Later in this chapter we will inves- tigate additional ways that editing may create logical or unexpected links among different images.

Edits can be embellished in ways that guide our experience and understand- ing of the transition. For example, fade-outs gradually darken and make one image disappear, while fade-ins do the opposite. Alfred Hitchcock fades to black to mark the passing of time throughout Rear Window (1954). A dissolve briefly superimposes one shot over the next, which takes its place: one image fades out as another image fades in [Figure 4.14]. In studio-era Hollywood films, these devices were used to indicate a more definite spatial or temporal break than do straight cuts, and they often mark pauses between narrative sequences or larger segments of a film. A dissolve can take us from one part of town to another, while a fade- out, a more visible break, can indicate that the action is resuming the next day. The iris, discussed in Chapter 3 (see p. 108), masks the corners of the frame with a black, usually circular form [Figure 4.15], while wipes join two images by moving a

Count the shots in the scene from Chinatown (1974) available online. What is the motivation behind each cut? What overall pattern do these cuts create?

V I E w I n g C u E

4.14 The Scarlet Empress (1934). Extended dissolves were a favorite device in director Josef von Sternberg’s very stylized filmmaking. The layer- ing of a conversation and the approach of a carriage appear almost as an abstract pattern.

4.15 Broken Blossoms (1919). The iris was often used in films by D. W. Griffith to highlight objects or faces. Here it focuses our attention and emphasizes the vulnerability of Lillian Gish’s character.

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vertical, horizontal, or sometimes diago- nal line across one image to replace it with a second image that follows the line across the frame [Figure 4.16]. Wipes and irises are most often found in silent and early sound films.

Although editing can generate an in - finite number of combinations of images, within the Hollywood storytelling tradition rules have developed to limit those possi- bilities, as we will see. Other film traditions, most notably those of avant-garde and experimental cinema (see Chapter 8), can be characterized by their degree of interest in exploiting the range of editing possibili- ties as a primary formal property of film.

When watching movies, we manage to make sense of a series of discontinu-

ous, linked images, understanding them according to conventional ways of inter- preting space, time, story, and image patterns. We understand the action sequences in Fast & Furious 6 (2013) despite the improbable feats performed by the characters. Likewise, we make connections among the three separate narratives from three separate periods in The Hours (2002). Editing patterns also anticipate and structure narrative organizations. The next three sections will explore the spatial and tem- poral relationships established by editing and introduce the rules of the Hollywood continuity editing system. Subsequent discussion will examine patterns of editing images based on graphic, movement, and rhythmic connections in order to show how different techniques provide very different experiences.

Continuity Style In both narrative and non-narrative films, editing is a crucial strategy for ordering space and time. Two or more images can be linked to imply spatial and temporal relations to the viewer. Verisimilitude (literally, “the quality of having the appear- ance of truth”) allows readers or viewers to accept as plausible a constructed world, its events, its characters, and their actions. In cinematic storytelling, clear, consis- tent spatial and temporal patterns greatly enhance verisimilitude, and, along with conventions of dialogue, mise-en-scène, cinematography, and sound, form part of Hollywood’s overall continuity style. In the commercial U.S. film industry, spatial and temporal continuity are greatly enhanced through conventions of editing. Because its constructions of space and time are so codified and widely used, we will devote special consideration to this style.

The basic principle of continuity editing is that each shot has a continuous relationship to the next shot. Continuity editing is a system that uses cuts and other transitions to establish verisimilitude and to tell stories efficiently, requir- ing minimal mental effort on the part of viewers. Two particular goals constitute the heart of this style: constructing an imaginary space in which the action will develop, and approximating the experience of real time by following human actions.

In continuity editing, after the initial view of a scene, subsequent shots typi- cally follow the logic of spatial continuity. If a character appears at the left of the screen looking toward the right in the establishing shot, it is likely that he or she will be shown looking in the same direction in the medium shot that follows. Movements that carry across cuts will also adhere to a consistent screen direc- tion. A character exiting the right of a frame will probably enter a new space

V I E w I n g C u E Look for examples of transitional devices besides cuts. What spatial, temporal, or conceptual relationship is being set up between scenes joined by a fade, a dissolve, an iris, or a wipe?

4.16 Desert Hearts (1985). In a film set in the 1950s, a wipe creates a nostalgic refer- ence to earlier editing techniques, but it may also suggest a certain kind of transience in the world of the characters.

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from the left. Similarly, a chase sequence covering great distances is likely to provide directional cues.

Continuity editing has developed and deployed these patterns so consistently that it has become the dominant method of treating dramatic material, with its own set of rules that narrative filmmakers learn early. Minimizing the perception of breaks between shots, it is often called invisible editing. The argument between the lovers in The Notebook (2004) uses numerous invisible cuts to shift focus from character to character and to underscore the scene’s emotional resonance as they move within the clearly delineated space between the front porch and a parked car.

Spatial patterns are frequently introduced through the use of an establish- ing shot, generally an initial long shot that establishes the setting and orients the viewer in space to a clear view of the action. A scene in a western, for example, might begin with an extreme long shot of wide-open space and then cut in to a shot that shows a stagecoach or saloon, followed by other, tighter shots introducing the characters and action.

A conversation is usually established with a relatively close shot of both char- acters, also known as a two-shot, in a recognizable spatial orientation and context. Then the camera alternates between the speaking characters, often using over-the- shoulder shots. The editing may proceed back and forth, with periodic returns to the initial view. Such reestablishing shots restore a seemingly objective view, making the action perfectly clear to the viewers. Early in Howard Hawks’s The Big Sleep (1946), when detective Philip Marlowe (played by Humphrey Bogart) is hired by Gen- eral Sternwood, the scene opens with an establishing shot, and their conversation follows this pattern [Figures 4.17a–4.17h]. Although many shots are edited together in the course of the conversation, the transitions remain largely invisible because the angle from which each character is filmed remains consistent and the dialogue con- tinues over the cuts. Such editing practices are ubiquitous; we have learned to expect the coordination of conversations with medium close-ups of characters speaking and listening, just as we expect that these figures will be situated in a realistic space.

Another device that is used in continuity editing is the insert, a brief shot such as a close-up of a hand slipping something into a pocket or a subtle smile that other characters do not see. The use of inserts helps overcome viewers’ spatial separation from the action, pointing out details significant to the plot — for example, showing us a nest of dangerous tracker-jackers [Figure 4.18], or making a comparison that transcends the characters' perpectives [Figure 4.19].

Continuity editing minimizes disruptive effects and maximizes the viewer’s ability to follow the action through practices that give a sense of spatial and tem- poral consistency. Some of these practices have become so codified they are viewed as rules.

180-Degree Rule The 180-degree rule is the primary rule of continuity editing and one that many films and television shows consider sacrosanct. The diagrams in Figure 4.20 (p. 148) illustrate the 180-degree rule in the scene from The Big Sleep discussed earlier. Marlowe and the general are filmed as if the space were bisected by an imaginary line known as the axis of action. All of the shots illustrated by the still images from The Big Sleep in Figures 4.17a–4.17h were taken from one side of the axis. In general, any shot taken from the same side of the axis of action will ensure that the relative positions of people and other elements of mise-en-scène, as well as the directions of gazes and movements, will remain consistent. If the camera were to cross into the 180-degree field on the other side of the line (represented by the shaded area in Figure 4.20, Diagram A), the characters’ onscreen positions would be reversed. During the unfolding of a scene, a new axis of action may be established by figure or camera movement. Directors may break the 180-degree rule and cross

V I E w I n g C u E Estimate the number of shots in a scene from a narrative film, then watch the scene, clapping with each cut. Were more shots used than you had imagined?

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(a)

(c)

(e)

(g)

(b)

(d)

(f)

(h) 4.17a–4.17h The Big Sleep (1946). The simple interview, which provides a great deal of plot information, is broken down by many imperceptible cuts. After an initial establishing shot, alternating shots of the two characters in conversation cut in closer and closer and eventually focus our attention on the protagonist’s face. Finally the space is reestablished at the end of the interview.

146

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the line, either because they want to signify chaotic action or because conventional spatial continuity is not their primary aim.

30-Degree Rule The 30-degree rule illustrates the extent to which continuity editing attempts to preserve spatial unity. This rule specifies that one shot must be followed by another shot taken from a position greater than 30 degrees from that of the first. In Winter’s Bone (2010), Ree shows her younger siblings how to skin a squirrel: an over-the-shoulder shot that emulates her point of view is followed by a medium shot in profile taken at a right angle to the action. The rule aims to emphasize the motivation for the cut by giv- ing a substantially different view of the action. If a shot of the same subject is taken within 30 degrees of the previous shot, it will appear to jump in posi- tion onscreen.

Shot/Reverse Shot One of the most common spatial practices within continuity editing, and a regu- lar application of the 180-degree rule, is the shot/reverse-shot pattern, in which a shot of one character looking offscreen in one direction is followed by one of a second character looking back. The effect is that the characters seem to be look- ing at each other. In the example from The Big Sleep, this pattern begins with a shot of Philip Marlowe taken from an angle at one end of the axis of action and continues with a shot of the general from the “reverse” angle at the other end of the axis, and proceeds back and forth. As we can see in Figure 4.20, Diagram B, the camera distance changes from medium shot to close-up as the scene unfolds, but the angle on each character in the shot/reverse-shot pattern does not. The use of over-the-shoulder shots in shot/reverse-shot sequences increases the percep- tion of viewer participation in a conversation. As Clarice Starling confronts the serial killer Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs (1991), the 180-degree change in angle — known as cutting on the line — and symmetrical composition in

4.19 Fury (1936). Fritz Lang dissolves from one shot of women chatting to another of chickens clucking to illustrate the emptiness of gossip in a rare example of a nondiegetic insert in a classical film.

4.18 The Hunger Games (2012). An insert shows the nest of venomous tracker-jackers that Katniss aims to set loose on her rivals.

V I E w I n g C u E Does the film you watched most recently in class follow continuity patterns, such as the 180-degree rule? Locate an example and identify other ways that spatial continuity is maintained.

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the shot/reverse shot sequence shows them to be equally matched adversaries, if not mirror images of each other [Figures 4.21a and 4.21b].

Eyeline Match Shot/reverse shot sequences use characters’ gazes to establish the continuous space of the conversation. When a character looks offscreen and the next shot appears to show at what or whom he or she is looking, it is called an eyeline match [Figures 4.22a and 4.22b]. If a character looks toward the left, the screen position of the character or object in the next shot will likely appear to match the gaze. Eyelines give the illusion of continuous offscreen space into which characters could move beyond the left and right edges of the frame.

Match on Action To match images through movement means that the direction and pace of actions, gestures, and other movements are linked with corresponding or contrasting movements in one or more other shots. Leni Riefenstahl’s extraordinary editing of athletes in motion in her documentary Olympia (1938) has become a model

4.20 The Big Sleep (1946). Diagram A illustrates the 180-degree rule by depicting the imaginary axis of action, bisecting the conversation scene from The Big Sleep. All shots in Diagram B, which illustrates the editing of the conversation with reference to Figures 4.17b–4.17g on page 146, were taken from the white portion of Diagram A. Each character is depicted in tighter framings from a consistent camera angle. If the camera were to cross over to the shaded portion, the position of the characters onscreen would be reversed.

Diagram A

Diagram B

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4.21a and 4.21b The Silence of the Lambs (1991). A shot of Clarice (played by Jodie Foster) followed by a reverse shot of her adversary Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins).

(a) (b)

(a)

4.22a and 4.22b Oldboy (2003). In the suspenseful opening moments of this violent revenge film, an eyeline match directs our gaze to the protagonist, whose identity is not yet revealed in the shot that follows.

(b)

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for sports montages [Figures 4.23a and 4.23b]. A common version of this pattern is the continuity editing device called a match on action, whereby the direction of an action is picked up when editing to a shot depicting the continuation of that action, such as matching the movement of a stone tossed in the air to the flight of that stone as it hits a window. Often a match on action obscures the cut itself, such as when the cut occurs just as a character opens a door; in the next shot, we see the next room as the character shuts the door from the other side.

Cutting on action, or editing during an onscreen movement, also quickens a scene or film’s pace. Action sequences such as fights and chases exploit these pos- sibilities, both relying on the spatial consistency of continuity editing to convey what’s happening, and using variation to increase the surprise and excitement [Figures 4.24a and 4.24b].

Graphic Match Formal patterns, shapes, masses, colors, lines, and lighting patterns within images can link or define a series of shots according to graphic qualities [Figures 4.25a and 4.25b]. This is most easily envisioned in abstract forms: one pattern of images may develop according to diminishing sizes, beginning with large shapes and proceeding through increasingly smaller shapes; another pattern may alternate the graphics of lighting, switching between brightly lit shots and dark, shadowy

4.24a and 4.24b Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). A swordfight’s tension is increased through cutting on movement and matching on action.

(b)(a)

(a) (b)

4.23a and 4.23b Olympia (1938). The seemingly superhuman mobility of Olympic divers is enhanced by Leni Riefenstahl’s editing.

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shots; yet another pattern might make use of lines within the frame by assembling different shots whose horizontal and ver- tical lines create specific visual effects. Many experimental films highlight just this level of abstraction in the editing. A sequence of Ballet mécanique (see Chap - ter 8) cuts rapidly between circles and tri- angles. Commercials capitalize on graphic qualities to convey their message visually.

While it may not be their organizing principle, narrative films edit according to graphic qualities as well. This can have an aesthetic effect — emphasizing sharp angles or soothing colors. Coherence in shape and scale often serves a specific narrative purpose, as in the continuity editing device called a graphic match, in which a dominant shape or line in one shot provides a visual transition to a similar shape or line in the next shot. One of the most famous examples of a graphic match links a bone tossed in the air to the shape of a spaceship in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) [Figures 4.26a and 4.26b].

Point-of-View Shots Many of Alfred Hitchcock’s most suspense- ful scenes are edited to highlight the dra ma of looking. Often a character is shown look- ing, and the next shot shows the charac- ter’s optical point of view, as if the camera (and hence the viewer) were seeing with the eyes of the character. Such point-of- view shots are often followed by a third shot in which the character is again shown looking, which reclaims the previous shot as his or her literal perspective. In a tense scene from The Birds in which the heroine, Melanie, sits on a bench outside a school as threatening crows gather on the playground behind her, Hitchcock uses both eyeline matches and point-of-view sequences. A bird flying high overhead catches her attention [Figure 4.27a]. When she turns her head to follow its flight,

(a)

4.25a and 4.25b The Namesake (2006). A family drama set on two continents uses graphic elements to connect India and the United States.

(b)

(a) (b) 4.26a and 4.26b 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Centuries are elided in a graphic match, which functions at the same time as a match on action.

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the shots are matched by her eyeline [Figure 4.27b]. Next comes a point-of-view sequence through which suspense is prolonged by showing Melanie’s reaction before the sinister sight of congregating birds [Figures 4.27c and 4.27d]. The editing of this scene serves both to construct a realistic space and to increase our identifi- cation with Melanie by focusing solely on the act of looking.

Elsewhere in the film, the point of view of Melanie’s romantic interest, Mitch, is conveyed by partially masking the frame as if we were looking along with him through his binoculars. Similarly, when a character wakes from a knock on the head, we may see a blurry image, foregrounding the subjective effect of the point- of-view construction.

Reaction Shots These components of the continuity sys- tem — shot/reverse-shot patterns, eyeline matches, and point-of-view shots — con- struct space around the characters’ behavior. Thus editing highlights human agency. A reaction shot, which depicts a character’s response to something that viewers have just been shown [Figure 4.28] emphasizes human perspective in a way that can be seen as standing in for the audience’s own response. The cut back to the character “claims” the view of

4.27a–4.27d The Birds (1963). In (a) and (b) a low-angle shot of a flying bird is matched to Melanie’s eyeline. In (c) and (d) we see Melanie’s shocked face and then a point-of-view shot of the gathering birds.

(a)

(c)

(b)

(d)

4.28 The Way We Were (1973). This reaction shot of Barbra Streisand’s face registers her character’s response to catching sight of her former lover.

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the previous shot as subjective. A scene from Clueless (1995) in which the protago- nist, Cher, and her friends, Dionne and Tai, converse in a coffee-shop booth shows a typical conversation edited for continuity. The scene begins with a tracking establishing shot that depicts the overall environment [Figure 4.29a]. Then the scene cuts back and forth across the booth in a shot/reverse-shot pattern using eyeline matches [Figures 4.29b–d]. Cher sits alone and has the majority of the scene’s shots, indicating that she is the focal point of our identification. In this way, continuity editing constructs spatial relationships to create a plausible and human-centered world onscreen.

Art Cinema Editing Continuity editing strives for an overall effect of coherent space; however, many films, especially art films, use editing to construct less predictable spatial relations. For example, in Carl Theodor Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), a series of close-ups against a white background conveys the psychological intensity of Joan testifying before the inquisitors while never giving an overview of the space. The use of close-ups elevates the spiritual subject matter over the worldly space of her surroundings that establishing shots and eyeline matches would depict [Figures 4.30a–4.30c]. Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu often uses graphic elements to provide continuity across cuts. In Early Summer (1951), rather than editing to show optical point of view, he sets up his camera near the ground to balance his compositions around characters sitting on the floor. These directors provide significant chal- lenges to the “rules” of Hollywood editing.

(a)

(c)

(b)

(d)

4.29a–4.29d Clueless (1995). After an establishing shot (a), this conversation alternates shots of the heroine Cher’s friends (b) and (d) with a reverse shot of Cher (c), maintaining spatial continuity.

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In postwar cinemas, directors explored characters’ restlessness through editing that defied continuity. In Michelangelo Antonioni’s film L’Avventura (1960), cuts join spaces that are not necessarily contiguous. The landscapes the characters move through express their psychological state of alienation in a way that a realis- tic use of space would not. Contemporary independent films may incorporate editing styles innovated in art cinema to convey a character's state of mind or a state of being that departs from the ordinary. In Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012), the editing contributes to a sense of enchantment and loss in a close-knit bayou commu- nity flooded during a storm [Figures 4.31a and 4.31.b]. We will discuss such alternatives in greater detail later in the chapter (see “Disjunctive Editing,” p. 165).

(a)

(c)(b)

4.30a–4.30c The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928). The juxtaposition of the inquisitors’ faces with that of Renée Falconetti as Joan ignores spatial continuity but is freighted with power and significance.

4.31a and 4.31b Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012). Cutting between two views of the protagonist Hushpuppy conveys her magical, dreamlike experience.

(a) (b)

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Editing and Temporality Editing is one of the chief ways that temporality is manipulated in narrative film. A two-hour film may condense centuries in a story. Less frequently, it may expand story time, as in a prolonged rescue or a dream sequence. It is helpful to keep distinct the concepts of plot time — what is actually shown; story time, the sequence of events inferred; and screen time, the time of watching the film. Film is a time-based medium, and editing strongly affects our experience of the temporal unfolding.

Flashbacks and Flashforwards Through the power to manipulate chronology — the order according to which shots or scenes convey the temporal sequence of the story’s events — editing organizes narrative time. Sequences of shots or scenes may describe the linear movement of time forward as one event follows another in temporal order, or they may serve as pieces of a puzzle for the viewer to solve.

Editing may juxtapose events out of their temporal order in the story. Within the continuity system, such nonlinear constructions are introduced with strict cues about narrative motivation. A flashback follows an image of the present with one from the past; it may be introduced with a dissolve conveying the charac- ter’s memory or with a voiceover in which the character narrates the past. In one sense, Citizen Kane (1941) uses a linear structure, organizing itself around a series of interviews and investigations conducted by a reporter looking for an angle on a great man’s death. However, the story of Kane’s life is provided in a series of lengthy flashbacks that make the film’s chronology complex. Certain events are narrated more than once, a manipulation of narrative frequency. In more recent films, such temporal shifts may not be signaled by external cues. Blue Jasmine (2013) shifts fluidly between the down-on-her-luck heroine’s present existence and scenes of her extravagant lifestyle before her marriage ended [Figure 4.32]. Yet even in this case, the heroine’s mental state serves as a motivation for the temporal play; the audience is given cues to follow the narrative’s complexity.

The less common flashforward connects an image of the present with one or more future images. Because it involves “seeing” the future, the technique is thus usually

4.32 Blue Jasmine (2013). Woody Allen’s film cuts between the lead character’s present and past without explicit cues, but after a few flashbacks the time periods become easy to locate based on settings and other characters.

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reserved for works that intentionally chal- lenge our perceptions: movies focused on psychology or science fiction. In Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now (1973), for exam- ple, a couple is tormented by the recent death of their daughter; haunting images of a small figure in a red rain slicker prove to be flashforwards to a revelatory encounter [Figure 4.33]. In Memento (2000), the chro- nology of scenes is completely reversed, but the maintenance of continuity within each scene allows us to follow the film.

Descriptive and Temporally Ambiguous Sequences Certain edited sequences cannot be lo - cated precisely in time. The purpose of such a sequence is often descriptive, such as a series of shots identifying the setting of a film. In An American in Paris (1951), as one character describes the heroine to another, we see a series of shots depict- ing her different qualities (with different outfits to match). These little vignettes are descriptive; they do not follow a linear or other temporal sequence. Music videos also defy chronology in favor of associative editing patterns.

In art films and increasingly in com- mercial narrative films, the cinema’s am - biguous temporality may be of primary concern. Thus editing may defy realism in favor of psychological constructions of time. Writer Marguerite Duras and direc- tor Alain Resnais make time the subject of their film Hiroshima, mon amour (1959), which constantly relates the present-day story, set in Japan, to a character’s past. An image of her lover’s hand sparks the female protagonist’s memory of being a teenager in France during World War II, and the flashback begins with a matching image of another hand. But temporality is such an important dimension of film narration that even more traditional nar- ratives explore the relationship between the order of events onscreen and those of the story. Steven Soderbergh’s The Limey (1999) ingeniously inserts shots of the activities of the protagonist, played by Terence Stamp, into the narrative but out of sequence, keeping us guessing about temporal relations [Figures 4.34a and 4.34b]. Inception (2010) complicates our

4.33 Don’t Look Now (1973). Images of a small figure in red prove to be flashforwards to a horrifying encounter with the past.

(a)

(b)

4.34a and 4.34b The Limey (1999). Different shots of the protagonist (Terence Stamp) appear in the film without a clear sense of when they occurred.

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sense of time by making us question whether entire sequences are dreams or events in the lives of the characters.

Duration Narrative duration refers to the length of time used to present an event or action in a plot. This may not conform to the length of time that passes in the story. Editing is one of the most useful techniques for manipulating narrative duration; it can contract or expand story time. Although actions may seem to flow in a continuous fashion, editing allows for significant temporal abridgement, or ellipsis. Cut- ting strategies both within scenes and from scene to scene attempt to cover such ellipses. Grabbing a coat, exiting the front door, and turning the key in the ignition might serve to indicate a journey from one locale to the next. As we have seen, transitional devices such as dissolves and fades also manipulate the duration of narration. Without the acceptance of such conventions, time would be experienced in a disorienting fashion.

A specific continuity editing device used to condense time is the cutaway: the film interrupts an action to “cut away” to another image or action — for example, a man trapped inside a burning building — before returning to the first shot or scene at a point further along in time. We are so accustomed to such handling of the duration of depicted events that a scene in real time, such as the single shot of the central character’s taking a bath in Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), seems unnaturally long [Figure 4.35].

Less frequent than the condensation of time, the extension of time through overlapping editing occurs when the same action is depicted across several cuts. In Battleship Potemkin (1925), a sailor, frustrated with the conditions aboard ship, is shown repeatedly smashing a plate he is washing. Plot time in this scene is lon- ger than that of the action. The effect is to emphasize this small moment’s decisive importance in a heroic narrative of the sailors’ mutiny.

Overlapping editing is a violation in a continuity system, and while it can be used for emphasis or for foreshadowing, it often appears strange or gimmicky. In a masterfully choreographed fight scene in John Woo’s Hard Boiled (1992), shots of the hero’s balletic leap are overlapped [Figures 4.36a and 4.36b]. Such instances of prolonging narrative duration emphasize editing’s rhythm, pulse, and pattern over story event.

Pace. The relative length of individual shots determines the pace of a film’s editing. The fast pace of a spy movie like The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) contrasts with the more relaxed pace of a comedy like School of Rock (2003). Chase scenes are likely to be cut more quickly than conversations. Pace may vary historically, culturally, and stylistically. There are no strict rules of pacing, although some editors may be very exact in measuring shot length to achieve a desired rhythm.

Observers have noted that the average shot length (ASL) of narrative films has decreased over the past decades and correlate these measures to industry and narrative patterns as well as to processes of human perception. Rapid cut- ting of films whose average shot length may be less than two seconds has been

4.35 Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975). This long take records the protagonist’s bath in real time; the film’s pacing emulates the everyday routine of the housewife.

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enabled by digital technologies and driven by the prevalence of block- buster action films.

A different way of controlling pace through editing is the use of long takes, or shots of relatively long duration. Classical film theorist André Bazin is famous for his advocacy of the long take in such post–World War II films as William Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives. Bazin especially championed the sequence shot, in which an entire scene plays out in one take, arguing that this type of filmmaking more closely approximates human perception and is thus more realistic than editing. Films cut with a preponderance of long takes use mise-en-scène — including blocking and acting — and camera movement instead of editing to focus viewers’ attention.

Two different tests of Bazin’s the- ories can be seen in contemporary uses of the long take. Shots that are sustained for what can seem an inor- dinate amount of time are prevalent in the styles of directors of contempo- rary international art films, prompt- ing researchers to coin the term slow cinema for these works. Flowers of Shanghai (1998), by Taiwanese film- maker Hou Hsiao-hsien, unfolds with only forty shots. The long takes evoke the city’s past and vanished way of life. Minimal narrative incident, a contemplative or neutral camera, and

a patient spectator are required of such films, in which editing’s deliberate pace is one of the most defining aesthetic criteria.

Long takes, and especially sequence shots, are used by Quentin Tarantino and other contemporary directors not to promote Bazin’s realism but to craft virtuoso displays of the kinetic possibilities of cinema. The spectacular unbroken shots in films like Tarantino’s Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) keep pace with the film’s otherwise rapid editing by the impressive choreography of characters, sets, and camera movement.

Most films use shot length to create a rhythm that relates to the particular aims of the film. One of the most influential examples of fast cutting, the infamous shower murder sequence from Hitchcock’s Psycho, uses seventy camera setups for forty-five seconds of footage, with the many cuts launching a parallel attack on viewers’ senses. In contrast, Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men (2006) produces its uncanny mood in part through lengthy tracking shots. In these examples, pace is specific to the film and also a distinctive element of the director’s style.

Rhythm. The early French avant-garde filmmaker Germaine Dulac defined film as “a visual symphony made of rhythmic images.” Rhythm describes the organization of the pace of editing according to different tempos determined by how quickly cuts

(a)

(b) 4.36a and 4.36b Hard Boiled (1992). The hero shoots up a restaurant without himself taking a hit. The fact that his leaps are prolonged through overlapping editing makes the scene even more spectacular.

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are made. Like the tempos that describe the rhythmic organization of music, edit­ ing in this fashion may link a rapid suc­ cession of quick shots, a series of slowly paced long takes, or shots of varying length to modulate the time between cuts. Sofia Coppola often includes a set piece cut to a popular song in her films [Figures 4.37a and 4.37b]; the rhythm of the editing follows the music. Since rhythm is a fun­ damental property of editing, it is often combined with continuity aims or graphic patterns.

Without editing, a film’s screen time would equal its plot time. Incorporating cuts shows the complexity of temporality in narrative film by organizing the or ­ der, frequency, and duration of events and descriptive information. Documen­ tary and experimental films manipu­ late temporality through editing as well. Finally, editing is also integral to the viewer’s physical experience of watch­ ing movies as they unfold in time — its rhythms can make us tense and fearful, calm and contemplative, or energized and euphoric.

Scenes and Sequences The coordination of temporal and spatial editing patterns beyond the relationship between two shots results in a higher level of cinematic organization that is found in both narrative and non­narra­ tive films. Scenes and sequences are two terms for larger units of edited shots that, while not always strictly distinguished, are helpful to conceive of separately. In a narrative film, a scene is comprised of one or more shots that together describe a continuous space, time, and action — such as a conversation filmed following the 180­degree rule. A sequence is any number of shots that are unified as a coherent action (such as a walk to school) or as an identifiable motif (such as the expres­ sion of anger), regardless of changes in time and space. If the conversation ends with one character rising from the breakfast table, and subsequent shots show the character driving, grabbing a coffee, and taking the elevator to work, the unit is a sequence. The editing bridges any changes of setting and covers ellipses of time, but the character continues one primary action, and no significant time passes. In a nonfiction film, a sequence could be defined by a topic or an aesthetic pattern. Editing combines and organizes a film’s many scenes and sequences into patterns according to the logic of a particular story or mode of filmmaking.

One way to relate editing on the micro, shot­to­shot level to editing on a macro level is to divide a film into large narrative units, a process referred to as narrative segmentation. A classical film may have forty scenes and sequences but only ten large segments corresponding to the significant moves of the plot. In such films, locating editing transitions such as fades and dissolves can help point to these divi­ sions, which occur at significant changes in narrative space, time, characters, or

(a)

4.37a and 4.37b The Bling Ring (2013). A teenage gang’s raid of a celebrity’s closet is propelled by a fast-paced song that continues as the police close in.

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Time the shots of the sequence from The General (1927) available online. How does the rhythm of the editing in the sequence contribute to the film’s mood or meaning?

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Editing gives a film its rhythm, and musical sequences often empha- size this dimension of editing over its ability to convey narrative in- formation and spatiotemporal continuity. In the 1980s, commercials and music videos began to influence feature-film style strongly, and in the 1990s the ease of digital editing facilitated a trend toward faster pacing. Today shot lengths average less than half those of studio-era Hollywood films. The frenetic editing of Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge! (2001) contrasts markedly with the even pace of the classical An American in Paris, for example. In contrast to the long takes of the Gene Kelly ballet sequence inspired by a Toulouse- Lautrec poster in the former film, the frantic editing of Moulin Rouge! sucks Toulouse-Lautrec, among many other pleasure-seekers, into a whirling world of mashed-up pop songs and dance moves.

Split-second shots of can-can dancers lip-syncing the disco song “Lady Marmalade” [Figure 4.38a] bewilder viewers as much as they do the naive hero Christian on his first visit to the notorious nightclub, the Moulin Rouge [Figure 4.38b].

Incongruously, Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is introduced to the medley as the film cuts to the exterior of the club [Figure 4.38c] before a special effects shot rapidly returns us to a montage of a tumult of bodies [Figure 4.38d] dancing to the “Can Can Rap” of Zidler, the master of ceremonies.

Cutting to the exterior again to highlight Zidler’s direct solicita- tion of the audience [Figure 4.38e], the film follows his superhuman dive back into the fray with jump cuts showing him commanding different stages.

Abruptly, Zidler signals for silence, and after a brief pause, the music and dance (and editing) resume at an even more accelerated pace [Figure 4.38f]. The rhythmic nature of the nineteenth-century music hall dance form and a postmodern pastiche of musical styles are echoed in and whipped into a frenzy by editor Jill Bilcock’s cut- ting of a three-minute musical sequence with close to two hundred individual shots.

Editing and rhythm in Moulin Rouge! ( 2001 )

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To watch a video about editing in Moulin Rouge!, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

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ACTIOn Making Sense of Film Editing The editing styles we have discussed so far are not simply neutral ways of telling stories or conveying information. Applied in different contexts — Hollywood, art cinema, documentary, or the avant-garde — editing styles convey different per- spectives. Cutting to a close-up in a silent film such as The Cheat (1912) was an innovative way of smoothly taking the viewer inside the film’s world; it served the psychological realism of Hollywood storytelling. Documentary films have developed editing patterns whose logic is made clear by a continuous voiceover narration. Experimental films like The Flicker (1965) employ various patterns of alternation or accumulation to generate aesthetic experiences and reveal structural principles like those found in paintings or poetry.

Film editing serves two general aims. It can generate emotions and ideas through the construction of patterns of seeing; it can also move beyond normal temporal and spatial limitations. In John Ford’s Stagecoach (1939), for instance, we experience the approach of pursuing Indians and the subsequent battle and escape from the perspective of the stagecoach’s white passengers [Figures 4.39a and 4.39b]. Audience members almost involuntarily hope for the vanquishing of the pursuers, who are shown in long shots. We feel palpable relief, along with the surviving passengers, when their pursuers give up the chase. The editing breaks with the 180-degree rule, and the confusion builds feelings of tension. Since the point of view is not confined to the interior of the stagecoach, we see the initial threat and the close calls that the characters cannot see. Through logic and pacing, the editing does more than just link images in space and time; it also generates emotions and thoughts.

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(a) (b)

4.39a and 4.39b Stagecoach (1939). The editing of John Ford’s classic Stagecoach uses humanizing close-ups of the passengers, medium long shots of the coach under siege, and long shots of the attackers to keep the viewers’ sympathy with the stagecoach passengers.

V I E w I n g C u E What is the temporal organization of the film you’ve just viewed for class? Does the film follow a strict chronology? How does the editing abridge or expand time?

action. Tracing the logic of a particular film’s editing on this level gives insight into how film narratives are organized. For example, the setting of a film’s first scene may be identical to that of the last scene, or two segments showing the same characters may represent a significant change in their relationship. While these structural units and relations may be dictated in the script, it is editing that realizes them onscreen.

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Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde (1967) represented a new kind of American filmmaking in the late 1960s, in part because its complex spatial and temporal patterns of editing departed from the established norms. Based on the story of the famous outlaws from the 1930s, the film describes the meeting of the title characters and their violent but clownish crime wave through the South. As their escapades continue, they are naively surprised by their notoriety. Soon the gaiety of their adventures gives way to bloodier and darker encounters: Clyde’s accomplice/brother is killed, and eventually the couple is betrayed and slaughtered.

Frequently, Dede Allen’s editing of specific scenes emphasizes temporal and spatial realism. The scene depicting the outlaw couple’s first small-town bank rob- bery begins with a long shot of a car outside the bank. The next shot, from inside the bank, shows the car parked outside the window. Spatially, this constructs the

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geography of the scene; temporally, it conveys the action that takes place within these linked shots. The scene creates verisimilitude.

At other points in Bonnie and Clyde, the logic of the editing emphasizes psychological or emotional effects over realism. When Bonnie (Faye Dunaway) is introduced, for example, the first image we see of her is an extreme close-up of her lips; the camera pulls back as she turns right to look in a mirror. This is followed by a cut on action as she stands and looks back over her shoulder to the left in a medium shot and then by another cut on action as she drops to her bed, her face visible in a close-up through the bedframe, which she petulantly punches. Here Bonnie’s restless movements are depicted by a series of jerky shots, and we sense her boredom and frustration with small-town life through the editing [Figures 4.40a and 4.40b].

Next Bonnie goes to her window and, in a point- of-view construction, spots a strange man near her

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patterns of Editing in Bonnie and Clyde ( 1967 )

See also: Midnight Cowboy (1969); Fight Club (1999)

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To watch a video showcasing the editing of Bonnie and Clyde, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

4.40a and 4.40b Bonnie and Clyde (1967). The lack of an establishing shot combines with the multiple framings to emphasize the claustrophobic mise-en-scène, taking us right into the character’s psychologically rendered space.

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4.41a–4.41c Bonnie and Clyde (1967). Clyde’s famous death sequence uses slow-motion cinematography, cutting on movement, and overlapping editing.

editing. Accompanied by the staccato of machine-gun bullets, Bonnie’s and Clyde’s deaths are filmed in slow motion, their bodies reacting with almost balletic grace to the impact of the gunshots and to the rhythm of the film’s shots, which are almost as numerous. In nearly thirty cuts in approximately forty seconds, the film alternates between the two victims’ spasms and reestablishing shots of the death scene. Clyde’s fall to the ground is split into three shots, overlapping the action [Figures 4.41a–4.41c]. The hail of bullets finally stops, and the film’s final minute is comprised of a series of seven shots of the police and other onlookers gathering around, without a single reverse shot of what they are seeing. One of the more creative and troubling dimensions of the Bonnie and Clyde film is the striking combination of slow, romantic scenes and fast-paced action sequences, which culminate in this memorable finale.

For linking sex with violence, glamorizing its protago- nists through beauty and fashion, and addressing itself to the anti-authoritarian feelings of young audiences, Bonnie and Clyde is among the most important U.S. films of the 1960s. Together with other countercultural milestones such as The Graduate (1967) and Easy Rider (1969), it heralded the end of studio-style production and the beginning of a new youth-oriented film market, one that revisited film genres of the past with a modern sensibility. However, as we have seen, it was not only the film’s content that was innovative; Bonnie and Clyde’s editing and the climactic linkage of gunshots with camera shots also influenced viewers — ranging from French New Wave filmmakers to the American public.

mother’s car. She comes downstairs to find out what he is doing, and her conversation with Clyde (Warren Beatty) is handled in a series of shot/reverse shots, starting with long shots as she comes outside and proceeding to closer pairs of shots. The two-shot of the characters together is delayed. The way this introduction is handled emphasizes the inevitability of their pairing.

The final scene of the sequence is the film’s most famous and influential, and the strategies used serve as an instructive summary of the patterns and logic of

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These potential effects of editing are well illustrated in the legendary editing experiments conducted by Soviet film- maker Lev Kuleshov in the 1910s and 1920s. A shot of the Russian actor Ivan Mozzhukhin’s face followed by a bowl of soup signified “hunger” to viewers, while the identical footage of the face linked to a child’s coffin connoted “grief.” In the absence of an establishing shot, view- ers assumed these pairs of images to be linked in space and time and motiva- tion — the so-called “Kuleshov effect.”

A magisterial example of how editing overcomes the physical limitations of

human perception can be found in 2001: A Space Odyssey. No individual character’s consciousness anchors the film’s journey through space and time. Instead, our experience of the film is largely governed by the film’s editing: long-shot images that show crew members floating outside the spaceship, accompanied by Johann Strauss’s The Blue Danube waltz, and a montage of psychedelic patterns that erases all temporal borders [Figure 4.42]. Our almost visceral response to these sequences is a result of the cinema’s ability to defy our perceptual limits.

Of course, these two aims of film editing often overlap. The abstract images in 2001: A Space Odyssey make us think about the boundaries of humanity and the vastness of the universe — and, perhaps, about cinema as a manipulation of images in space and time. Many of Alfred Hitchcock’s climactic sequences generate emo- tions of suspense — achieved in Saboteur (1942) by literally suspending the charac- ter from the Statue of Liberty [Figures 4.43a and 4.43b]. The scene also transcends the confines of perception by showing us details that would be impossible to see without the aid of the movie camera.

Our responses to such editing patterns are, of course, never guaranteed. We may feel emotionally manipulated by a cut to a close-up or cheated by a cutaway. Addi- tionally, across historical periods and in different cultures, editing styles can seem vastly different, and audience expectations vary accordingly. In a song-and-dance

V I E w I n g C u E In the film you’ve just viewed for class, what different emotional and intellectual responses are evoked by the editing choices? Be sure to jot down specific examples from the film to support your response.

4.42 2001: A Space Odyssey (1969). From beginning to end, the editing of this film defies the limits of human perception.

(a) (b)

4.43a and 4.43b Saboteur (1942). Suspense is made literal—and visceral—as a man’s fate hangs by a thread.

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sequence from the Hindi film hit Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (The Big Hearted Will Take the Bride) (1995), the editing uses flashbacks and costume changes on match cuts to highlight the central couple’s predestined romance [Figure 4.44a and 4.44b]. Audiences familiar with the conventions accept these ruptures in time and space; those less so may be surprised with the return to verisimilitude after the number.

Disjunctive Editing As we have noted, continuity editing is so pervasive in narrative film and televi- sion it presents its basic tenets as “rules” [Figures 4.45a and 4.45b]. But since the first uses of editing in the beginning of the twentieth century, continuity rules have been paralleled and sometimes directly challenged by various alternative practices. Here we will refer to these practices collectively as disjunctive editing to distinguish these styles from continuity editing and to illuminate historical, cul- tural, and philosophical differences in editing styles. However, these traditions are

4.44a and 4.44b Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (The Big Hearted Will Take the Bride) (1995). Editing transcends time and space within the song- and-dance sequences and resumes continuity as the narrative moves forward.

(a) (b)

4.45a and 4.45b Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959). The principles of continuity editing are illustrated by their failed execution in a film by notori- ous B-filmmaker Edward D. Wood Jr. When actor Bela Lugosi died before filming was complete on this low-budget sci-fi horror film, the director replaced him with another actor in a cape. Clearly props alone do not create continuity.

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not  unified; moreover, in modern filmmaking it is quite possible to find multiple editing methods converging in the editing style of a single film.

Disjunctive editing is visible editing; it makes a definitive break from cutting in the service of verisimilitude. Alternative editing practices based on oppositional relationships or other formal constructions can be traced back to very early developments in film syntax in various countries and schools excited about the possibilities of film art. These practices confront viewers with juxtapositions and linkages that seem unnatural or unexpected with two main purposes: to call atten- tion to the editing for aesthetic, conceptual, ideological, or psychological purposes; and to disorient, disturb, or viscerally affect viewers.

When the viewer is forced to notice a particular cut or cutting pattern because it is so jarring, she or he may be led to reflect on its meaning or effect. Disjunctive editing is prominent in avant-garde and political film traditions, and some theo- rists argue that it leads the viewer to develop a critical perspective on the medium, the film’s subject matter, or the process of representation itself. Other effects of disjunctive editing patterns may be more physical than rational. Editing may be organized around any number of different aspects, such as spatial tension, tempo- ral experimentation, or rhythmic and graphic patterns.

Jump Cuts One technique that is used many different ways in disjunctive editing is the jump cut, a cut that interrupts a particular action and, intentionally or unintentionally, creates discontinuities in the spatial or temporal development of shots. Used loosely, the term “jump cut” can identify several different disjunctive practices. Cutting a section out of the middle of a shot causes a jump ahead to a later point in the action. Sometimes the background of a shot may remain constant, while figures shift position inexpli- cably. Two shots from the same angle but from different distances will also create a jump when juxtaposed. While such jumps are considered grave errors in continu- ity editing, as noted previously, they were reintroduced into the editing vocabulary of narrative films by the French New Wave, notably Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (1960). Jump cuts gave Godard's gangster narrative an outlaw energy. Contemporary films such as Michael Clayton (2007) have appropriated this technique to increase viewers’ disorientation as the plot twists [Figures 4.46a and 4.46b].

Jump cuts illustrate the two primary aims of disjunctive editing. In Wong Karwai’s Happy Together (1997), they contribute to the film’s overall stylization. Jumps in distance and time are combined with changes in film stock within a supposedly continuous scene [Figures 4.47a and 4.47b]. The viewer notices how the action is depicted, rather than simply taking in the action. The viewer may reflect on how the disjointed shots convey the characters’ restless yet stagnant moods,

(a) (b)

4.46a and 4.46b Michael Clayton (2007). Hollywood films have increasingly appropriated jump cuts. Here, shots of a corrupt attorney rehearsing her boardroom speech are intercut with her convincing performance.

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recognize in them the film’s theme of displacement, or appreciate the aesthetic effect for its own sake.

The jump cuts in Alain Resnais’s Last Year at Marienbad (1961) are a central device through which the film’s play with space and especially time is achieved. The major conceit of this classic art film is the characters’ different versions of the past. The protagonist, known only as X, insists he met the heroine A at the same hotel one year before, and she denies it. This difference in point of view relates to the viewer’s disorientation through editing. Numerous images show the female protagonist striking poses around the hotel and gardens [Figures 4.48a and 4.48b]. The temporal relationship among such shots is unclear — are they happening now, are they flashbacks, or are they X’s version of events? — as differences in costume and setting are countered by similarities in posture and styling. Finally, the edit- ing strategy becomes a reflection on the process of viewing a film. How can we assume that the action we are viewing is happening now, when recording, editing, and projection/viewing are all distinct temporal operations?

One principle behind the use of disjunctive edits like jump cuts for some film- makers is the concept of distanciation introduced by German playwright Bertolt Brecht in his plays and critical writings of the 1920s. The viewer is “distanced” from the work of art when he or she is made aware of how the work is put together; that is, he or she is encouraged to think as well as to feel. In Two or Three Things I Know About Her (1967), Jean-Luc Godard uses nondiegetic inserts like numbered chapter headings, printed text, and advertising images as distanciation devices.

(a) (b)

4.47a and 4.47b Happy Together (1997). Here jump cuts draw attention to the restlessness and displacement of two men who have moved from Hong Kong to Buenos Aires.

(a) (b)

4.48a and 4.48b Last Year at Marienbad (1961). Delphine Seyrig strikes poses against various backgrounds, challenging our perception of time and place in the narrative and in cinematic viewing more generally. The technique was later adopted in music videos.

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Montage As noted previously, the most important tradition in disjunctive editing is the Soviet theory of montage, which aims to grab viewers’ attention through the col- lision between shots. Sergei Eisenstein developed his ideas in extensive writings, undertaken from the early 1920s to his death in 1945, which have secured him a place as one of the foremost theorists of cinema. At the same time, he illustrated these ideas in his films, starting with Strike in 1925. Eisenstein advocated dialecti- cal montage, arguing that two contrasting or otherwise conflicting shots will be synthesized into a visual concept when juxtaposed. In Battleship Potemkin (1925), the shots of several stone lions juxtaposed in sequence suggest that one stone lion is leaping to life [Figures 4.49a–4.49c]. According to Eisenstein, the concept of awakening, connected to revolutionary consciousness, is thus formed in viewers’ minds even as they react viscerally to the lion’s leap. Such an association of aes- thetic fragmentation with a political program of analysis and action has persisted in many uses of disjunctive editing.

Recall that, strictly speaking, the term “montage” simply means editing. As some of the techniques used by the Soviets were adapted elsewhere, the term montage sequence came to denote a series of thematically linked shots, or shots

meant to show the passage of time, joined by quick cuts or other devices, such as dissolves, wipes, and superim- positions. In studio-era Hollywood, the Soviet émigré Slavko Vorkapich specialized in creating memorable montage sequences such as the earthquake in San Fran- cisco (1936) [Figures 4.50a–4.50c].

The term “montage" has come to emphasize the creative power of editing — especially the potential to build up a sequence and augment meaning, rather than simply to remove the extraneous, as the term “cutting” implies. This principle of construction is behind abstract and animated films and video art that convey visual patterns through their editing, examples of which will be explored in Chapter 8. It also informs films made from found footage, which date back at least to montage experiments like The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty (1927), cut from existing footage

(a)

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4.49a–4.49c Battleship Potemkin (1925). Sergei Eisenstein rouses stone lions through montage.

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by Soviet filmmaker Esfir Shub when film stock was in short supply. One of the first explorations of the overabundance of images that saturated postwar consumer culture, Bruce Conner’s A Movie (1958) is a rapid montage that cre- ates humorous, sinister, and thought-provoking relationships among images culled from newsreels, pinups, war movies, and Hollywood epics. The introduc- tion of consumer video in the 1980s made the editing of found footage and the use of video effects accessible to artists as well as amateurs. Cecilia Barriga’s low-budget analog video art piece Meeting of Two Queens (1991) is ingeniously constructed by re-cutting brief clips from the films of Hollywood icons Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich. The resulting video suggests a romance between the two by making use of viewers’ expectations of continuity editing and altering mise-en-scène through superimposition.

Converging Editing Styles Given the influence of other traditions and styles, editing in mainstream films arguably no longer strives for invisibility. Certainly it is no longer possible — if indeed it ever was — to assign specific responses, such as passive acceptance or political awareness, to specific editing techniques.

(a) (b)

4.50a–4.50c San Francisco (1936). Although continuity editing was the norm in studio-era Hollywood, montage sequences were created for special purposes, such as this spectacular earth- quake scene.

(c)

V I E w I n g C u E Does the editing of the film you’ve just viewed for class call attention to itself in a disjunctive fashion, setting up conflicts or posing oppo- sitional values? If so, how and to what end?

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Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin is one of the most renowned examples of daring and innovative editing in film history. A 1925 silent classic based on a 1905 historical event, Battleship Potemkin describes the revolt of maltreated sailors aboard their ship, the sympathetic response of townspeople on shore, and the violent repression of those people by the czar’s soldiers. Although the story itself is quite simple, Eisenstein uses complex montage to charge specific inci- dents with powerful energy and meaning, emphasizing the breaks and contrasts between images joined by a cut. As Eisenstein developed his ideas about montage, he put them into practice, editing the film himself with his as- sistant Grigori Aleksandrov.

In a film with no single protagonist, numerous cuts join small groups to show the participation of the masses in anti-czarist sentiment, moving our perspective beyond the confines of individual perception and its temporal and spatial limitations. To give heightened drama or dynamic tension to an action, Eisenstein uses more shots than a typical Hollywood film, sometimes overlapping the same action from one shot to the next in showing several points of view. When the ship’s doctor is thrown overboard by sailors, the gesture is repeated from overhead and side angles, engaging viewers’ emotions and leading them to a particular idea: the desperation of the sailors resulting in a mutinous act. After the doctor hits the water, Eisen- stein employs an insert of the maggot-infested meat that the doctor had approved for the sailors’ consumption. Appearing out of temporal sequence, this shot acts as narrative justification for the doctor’s treatment.

The centerpiece of Battleship Potemkin is the famous Odessa steps sequence in which innocent citizens who have come to look at the ship are shot and trampled by the czar’s soldiers. The sequence is justly celebrated for its dynamic cutting, which makes dramatic use of movement and graphic patterns within shots to bring about Eisenstein’s favored interaction between shots:

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collision. The sequence begins with the intertitle “Sud- denly”; townspeople then begin to run from the imperial soldiers down the vast steps toward the camera. This action moves generally from left to right. Several figures are isolated in closer shots that are intercut throughout the sequence: a boy without legs propelling himself forward with his arms, a group of women, a mother running with her child. When the orderly rows of troops are shown entering from top left, the shot provides a dramatic graphic contrast to the chaos of the mass of people. In the first major crosscutting episode within the sequence, the mother becomes separated from her son in the crowd. Shots of her turning back to retrieve him are vigorously contrasted with shots of him falling, the oncoming crowds, and the soldiers’ inexorable progres- sion behind them. Finally, the mother climbs high enough and enters a shot from the bottom left, which positions the soldiers across the top. The film cuts to peasants looking on, and in the next shot the mother is fired on and falls as the troops continue marching down. The use of movement in opposing directions is one of the key ele- ments that organize this complicated editing sequence [Figures 4.51a–4.51c].

As if this dramatic episode has not raised enough tension and pathos, after an intertitle announces the arrival of the Cossacks, Eisenstein embarks on one of the most famous editing sequences in film history. A young mother is shot and falls in several overlapping cuts. The baby carriage she had been clutching begins to roll down the stairs [Figure 4.52]. Intercut with its descent (which is shown from changing screen directions) are repeated shots of onlookers who seem to be mimicking our own powerless, horrified gaze. No establishing shot puts these figures in spatial context.

Just as the carriage reaches the bottom and begins to overturn, Eisenstein cuts to quick shots of a Cossack striking directly at us [Figure 4.53a] and then to the brief- est of shots of the face of a woman wearing pince-nez.

FIlM In

FOCuS

157010

157010

Montage in Battleship Potemkin ( 1925 )

See also: Man with a Movie Camera (1929); The Untouchables (1987)

FIlM In FOCuS bedfordstmartins.com /filmexperience

To watch a video on the editing of Battleship Potemkin, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

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In  a famous shock cut, her glasses are instantly shat- tered and bloodied [Figure 4.53b]. The sequence fades out. As our vision is assaulted by the shock cut, the image of shattered glasses mirrors our own “injury,” even as it stands in for an even more horrific, offscreen image of the baby’s fate.

Battleship Potemkin made a strong impact in the West when it was released in 1926. In the long term, Eisenstein’s stylistic legacy has survived, even as the

revolutionary purpose he associated with his aesthetic innovations has been questioned or abandoned. His work has inspired more than one homage, including American director Brian De Palma’s mimicking of the Odessa steps sequence in his gangster film The Untouchables (1987). Some see this tribute as a tour de force of suspense- ful editing; others think the sequence is a distracting self-indulgence. Thus the mainstream film incorporates montage style but not necessarily its meaning.

Editing: Relating Images C H A p T E r 4 171

4.52 Battleship Potemkin (1925). Repeated details of the baby carriage’s descent convey a sense of helplessness.

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4.53a and 4.53b Battleship Potemkin (1925). The impact of the Cossack’s blow registers in the shock cut.

(a)

4.51a–4.51c Battleship Potemkin (1925). The conflict between the organized troops and the frightened masses is heightened by graphic collisions among shots showing different screen directions, different planes of action, and patterns of light and shadow and figure movement in the first part of the Odessa steps sequence.

(c)

(b)

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Digital technology has revolutionized the craft and language of editing. Using footage from one hundred small digital video cameras, Lars von Trier in Dancer in the Dark (2000) breaks down actions much more minutely than through standard editing, and the arbitrariness of the cutting becomes apparent rather than remaining hidden [Figures 4.54a and 4.54b]. As the two formal tradi- tions of continuity and disjunctive editing converge, the values associated with each tradition become less distinct. For Eisenstein, calling attention to the edit- ing was important because it could change the viewers’ consciousness. For con- temporary filmmakers, omitting establishing shots, breaking the 180-degree rule, and using rapid montage may serve primarily to establish a distinctive “look.”

Editing is perhaps the most distinctive feature of film form. Editing leads view- ers to experience images viscerally and emotionally, and it remains one of the most effective ways to create meanings from shots. These interpretations can vary from the almost automatic inferences about space, time, and narrative that we draw from the more familiar continuity editing patterns, to the intellectual puzzles posed by the unfamiliar spatial and temporal juxtapositions of disjunctive editing practices.

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(b) 4.54a and 4.54b Dancer in the Dark (2000). The use of many digital cameras makes it possible to intercut close shots from multiple perspectives.

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Editing: Relating Images C H A p T E r 4 173

Distinctive to the medium of cinema, editing comprises an array of strate- gies to tell stories, juxtapose perspectives, and affect viewers’ senses. From Griffith’s experiments in the manipulation of time and space through cross- cutting chase sequences to Eisenstein’s thrilling Odessa steps sequence in Battleship Potemkin to the modernist patterns of films like Ballet mécanique, cinema of the silent era developed a complex editing vocabulary. Classical Hollywood cinema’s continuity editing in genre films like The Big Sleep con- structed verisimilitude of time and space and allowed for brisk storytelling that was emulated all over the world. When postwar art cinema challenged the hero-driven linear narrative with more psychological constructions of space and time, Hollywood films like Bonnie and Clyde followed. Digital editing technologies have ushered in new forms of complex storytelling and combined disjunctive with continuity patterns in the global aesthetic of films like City of God. In all these traditions, viewers are called upon to make sense of the infinite possibilities of combining images and sounds in sequence.

Considering these films more closely, attend to some of the objectives introduced at the beginning of this chapter.

■ Watch a scene from The Big Sleep or another classical Hollywood film and count the number of cuts. Are cuts used more often than you ex- pected?

■ Draw a floor plan of Marlowe’s office based on the spatial cues given in The Big Sleep’s editing.

■ Watch a scene from City of God and test whether the 180-rule, establish- ing shots, and eyeline matches govern the editing. What kinds of disjunc- tive editing are visible?

■ Starting with the chapters on the DVD menu of Bonnie and Clyde, attempt a narrative segmentation of the film and describe how the sequencing of two specific scenes relates to narrative.

Activity Imagine that you’ve been asked to remake a mainstream Hollywood movie as a provocative art film. To demonstrate how this would happen, “re-edit” one sequence of that film on paper, reimagining the continuity logic of the editing as a disjunctive style. How does this alter the meaning and the rela- tionship between the viewer and the film?

C O n C E p T S A T w O r K

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5 chapter

Jane Campion’s 1993 The Piano opens with its nineteenth-century heroine Ada McGrath’s voiceover: “The voice you hear is not my speaking voice; it is my mind’s voice.” This is the first indication of the inventive uses to which the film will put sound — for Ada is mute, and we will not hear her “mind’s voice” again until the film’s final moments. She is about to emigrate from Scotland to New Zealand to marry a man whom she has never met, and the grand piano that she takes with her becomes her primary means of expression. And even when Ada is forced to leave the piano on the beach where she lands, as it is too large to transport, the film’s soundtrack acts as a link between her and the piano. Later the piano becomes an instrument of exchange and erotic expression, when she must barter for its return from the man who buys it from her husband. The Piano recognizes from the start that film sound does not simply play a supporting role, nor is it restricted to human speech. Rather, film sound — as dialogue, music, or sound effects — can create a drama as complex as mise-en-scène, cinematography, or editing.

Film Sound Listening to the Cinema

175 © Miramax/Courtesy Everett Collection

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176

The cinema is an audiovisual medium, one among many that saturate our contemporary media experience. Many of the visual technologies we encounter in daily life are also sound technologies: you choose your smartphone’s ringtone, battle villains to the soundtrack of your favorite video game, or notice that your television’s volume soars when a commercial interrupts a program. These devices use sound to en- courage and guide interaction, to complement visual information, and to give rhythm and dimension to the experience. The cinema works similarly, using complex combi- nations of voice, music, and sound effects. Too often given secondary status, sound engages viewers perceptually, provides key spatial and story information, and affords an aesthetic experience of its own. This chapter explores how speech, music, and sound effects are used in cinema and how they are perceived by a film’s audience.

Sound is a sensual experience that in some cases makes an even deeper im- pression than a film’s visuals. Viewers might cover their eyes during the infamous shower scene in Psycho (1960), but to lessen the scene’s horror, they would have to escape from the shrieking violins that punctuate each thrust of the knife. To perceive an image, we must face forward with our eyes open, but sound can come from any direction. Listening to movies, just as much as watching them, defines the filmgoing experience, and with the advent of advanced technologies, sound has helped to make that experience even more immersive.

K E Y O B J E C T I V E S ■ Explain the various ways sound is important to the film experience. ■ Describe how the use and understanding of sound reflect different historical

and cultural influences. ■ Explain how sounds convey meaning in relationship to images. ■ Summarize how sounds are recorded, combined, and reproduced. ■ List the various functions of voice in film. ■ Describe the principles and practices that govern the use of music. ■ Outline the principles and practices that govern the use of sound effects. ■ Analyze the cultural, historical, and aesthetic values that determine tradi-

tional relationships between sounds and images.

A Short History of Film Sound Topsy-Turvy (1999) tells the story of the collaboration between Gilbert and Sullivan, the late-nineteenth-century British lyricist-composer duo, as they brainstorm, quarrel, and finally witness the first production of their operetta The Mikado

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177

[Figure 5.1]. The behind-the-scenes story culminates in a performance of the operetta that brings together sound and image for the theater audience within the film and extends this experience to the film’s viewers. As this film dra- matizes, many of the traditions and technologies that became synthesized in the institution of the cinema com- bined sound, especially music, and vis- ual spectacle in public performances.

Theatrical and Technological Prehistories of Film Sound It is difficult to think of a theatrical tradition that does not have its own distinctive musical conventions. The practice of combining music with forms of visual spectacle in the Western tradition goes back at least as far as the use of choral odes in classical Greek theater. Perhaps most relevant to the use of sound in early cinema is the tradition of melodrama. Popularized in eighteenth-century France, melodrama, literally meaning “music drama,” originally designated a theatrical genre that combined spoken text with music. In England, during a time when laws restricted “legitimate” theater to par- ticular venues, melodrama permitted the mounting of popular theatrical spectacles. Stage melodrama became increasingly more spectacular throughout the nineteenth century and eventually came to dominate the American stage, where melodrama had an incalculable influence on cinematic conventions. Not only was the aural com- ponent of the form very important, but the up-and-down rhythms of melodrama’s sensational plots also drew on the strongly felt but inexpressible emotions that music so powerfully conveys. All of these qualities were adopted by film melodramas like D. W. Griffith’s Way Down East (1920), an adaptation of a nineteenth-century play.

Technological breakthroughs that led to such inventions as the phonograph were also important precursors of film sound. As far back as the end of the eigh- teenth century, inventors were engaged in the problems of sound reproduction. Thomas Edison’s phonograph, introduced in 1877, had an irreversible impact on the public and on late-nineteenth-century science.

1895–1920s: The Sounds of Silent Cinema The eventual union of film and sound haunted the medium from its inception. Edison was a primary figure in the invention of the motion-picture apparatus, and

5.1 Topsy-Turvy (1999). A film version of a filmic precedent: the making of the nineteenth-century operetta The Mikado.

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p A r T 2 Formal Compositions: Film Scenes, Shots, Cuts, and Sounds178

one of the first films made by his studios in 1895 is a sound experiment in which Edison’s chief inventor, W. L. K. Dickson, plays a violin into a megaphone as two other employees dance [Figure 5.2]. Sound cylinders provided a way of synchro- nizing image and sound very early in film history, and inventors continued to experiment with means of providing simultaneous picture and sound throughout the silent film era.

But before the successful development and widespread showing of films with synchronized sound, loudspeakers lured customers into film exhibitions that were accompanied by lecturers, pianos, organs, small ensembles, or, later, full orchestras [Figure 5.3]. The so-called silent cinema was often loud and noisy. In nickelodeons and other movie venues, audiences themselves customarily made noise, joining in sing-alongs between films [Figures 5.4a and 5.4b] and talking back to the screen. Often sound effects were supplied by someone standing behind the screen or by specially designed machines. Occasionally actors even provided dialogue to go along with the picture.

(a) (b)

5.4a and 5.4b Early nickelodeon slides. From 1905 to 1915, films were interspersed with sing-alongs, and slides like these provided the lyrics for an interactive experience. 5.4a: from the collection of Joseph Yranski/5.4b: from Mar nan Collection/Minneapolis, Minnesota

5.3 Wurlitzer organ. The pianos, organs, and orchestras of silent film were often as much of an attraction as the movie itself. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, HABS, ALA,37-BIRM,37 — 120 (CT)

5.2 Edison Studios’ Sound Experiment (1895). A rare film fragment with synchronized sound from the dawn of cinema. Courtesy Edison Historic Site, NPS

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Film Sound: Listening to the Cinema C H A p T E r 5 179

Music halls in Great Britain and vaude- ville theaters in the United States lent early cinema popular talents, proven material, and formats such as the revue, delivering audiences with specific expectations of sound and spectacle to the new medium. Because of the preexisting popularity of minstrel shows and vaudeville, African American and Jewish voices were heard in cinema when they might otherwise have been excluded from entertainment directed at mass audiences. For his sound film debut at MGM, director King Vidor chose to make Hallelujah! (1929), a musical with an all-black cast, capitalizing on the cultural association of African Americans with the expressive use of song [Figure 5.5]. Not only musical talent but also stage perform- ers with training and experience were now in demand in Hollywood, and they soon displaced many of the silent screen’s most beloved stars.

1927–1930: Transition to Synchronized Sound No event in the history of Hollywood film was as cata- clysmic as the rapid incorporation of synchronized sound in the period 1927–1930. Many dynamics were at work in the introduction of sound, including the relationship of cinema to radio, theater, and vaudeville, the economic position of the industry as the United States headed into the Great Depression, and the popularity of certain film genres and stars. Yet exhibitors needed to be convinced to adopt the relatively untested new technology. The expense of converting a sufficient number of theaters to make the production of sound films feasible was considerable, and the studios had to be willing to make the investment.

From 1926 to 1927, two studios actively pursued competing sound technologies. Warner Bros. aggres- sively invested in sound and, in 1926, premiered its Vita- phone sound-on-disk system with a program of shorts, a recorded speech by Hollywood censor Will H. Hays, and the first feature film with a recorded score, Don Juan. Fox developed its Movietone sound system, which recorded sound optically on film, and in 1928 introduced its popu- lar Movietone newsreels, which depicted everything from ordinary street scenes to exciting news (aviator Charles Lindbergh’s takeoff for Paris was the first use of sound for a news item) and were soon playing in Fox’s many the- aters nationwide [Figure 5.6]. The new technology became impossible to ignore when it branched out from musical accompaniment and sound effects to include synchronous dialogue. Public response was enthusiastic.

5.5 Hallelujah! (1929). With the coming of sound, musicals abounded, from backstage musicals to King Vidor’s film, shot on location with an all-black cast.

5.6 Program for Fox Movietone News. Fox Studios developed a system to record sound optically on the film itself and then produced newsreels to show it off in its vast theater holdings. The newsreels ran from 1928 to 1963 in the United States. Courtesy Photofest

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p A r T 2 Formal Compositions: Film Scenes, Shots, Cuts, and Sounds180

Talking pictures, or “talkies,” were an instant phenomenon. The Jazz Singer, Warner Bros.’ second feature film with recorded sound, released in October 1927, is credited with convincing exhibitors, critics, studios, and the public that there was no turning back. Starring vaudevillian Al Jolson, the country’s most popular entertainer of the time, who frequently performed in blackface, the film tells a story, similar to Jolson’s own, of a singer who must turn his back on his Jewish roots and the legacy of his father, a cantor in a synagogue, in order to fulfill his show-business dreams. He introduces dialogue to the movies with a famous promise that came true soon thereafter: “You ain’t heard nothing yet!” [Figure 5.7]. In the wake of The Jazz Singer’s phenomenal success, the studios came together and signed with Western Electric (a subsidiary of AT&T) to adopt a sound-on-film system in place of the less flexible Vitaphone sound-on-disk pro- cess. The studios also invested in the conversion of their major theaters and in the acquisition of new chains to show sound films.

1930s–1940s: Challenges and Innovations in Cinema Sound The transition to sound was not entirely smooth. The troubles with exhibition tech- nology were more than matched by the difficulties posed by cumbersome sound recording technology. Despite such problems, the transition was extremely rapid: by 1930, silent films were no longer being produced by the major studios; only a few independent filmmakers, such as Charlie Chaplin, whose art grew from the silent medium, held out.

The ability of early films to cross national borders and be understood regardless of the local language, a much-celebrated property of the early medium, was also changed irrevocably by the addition of spoken dialogue in a specific language. Film industries outside the United States acquired national specificity, and Hollywood set up European production facilities. Exports were affected by conversion-standard problems and patents disputes. For a time, films were made simultaneously in different languages. Marlene Dietrich became an international star in The Blue Angel (1930), produced in Germany in French, English, and German versions.

By this period, the Radio Corporation of America had entered the motion- picture production business, joining with the Keith-Orpheum chain of vaudeville theaters. The new studio, RKO, quickly became one of five studios known as the “majors” that would dominate sound-era cinema, and RKO’s King Kong (1933) and Citizen Kane (1941) both contributed significantly to sound techniques.

1950s–Present: From Stereophonic to Digital Sound The establishment of representational norms in sound recording and mixing prac- tices proceeded rapidly after the introduction of sound. How movies sound — the crispness of voices, the lush quality of orchestral background music, the use of sound effects in conjunction with what is onscreen — supports ideas about the com- plementary relationship of sound and image, listening and viewing, and the value of realism. Further technological innovations in the 1950s (stereophonic sound), the 1970s (Dolby and surround sound), and the 1990s (digital sound) brought the aural experience of Hollywood cinema to the fore but did little to challenge these ideas. More than simple technological “improvements,” these changes cor- responded with historical shifts in film’s social role, as television, home video, and computer games became competitive entertainments.

5.7 The Jazz Singer (1927). Warner Bros.’ Vitaphone sound-on-disk system became a sensation because of AI Jolson’s singing and spontaneous dialogue.

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Film Sound: Listening to the Cinema C H A p T E r 5 181

When digital sound, the most recent and radical change in sound reproduction, was introduced, the competitive formats recalled the period of sound’s introduction in the late 1920s. Just as in the 1950s, when new film technologies such as CinemaScope and stereophonic sound were used to lure customers back to the theaters, today’s digital sound systems attract audiences to theatrical exhibition. Audiophiles lead the companion trend toward home theaters with digital sound systems and speakers con- figured like those of movie theaters to emulate surround sound. The perpetual quest for images and sounds that are bigger, better, and louder confirms that part of cin- ema’s appeal is its ability to provide a heightened sensory experience that intensifies the ordinary.

The Elements of Film Sound Despite our habitual references to motion pictures and to film viewers, sound is fully integrated into the film experience. In fact, one aspect of sound — human speech — is so central to narrative comprehension and viewer identification that we can often follow what happens even when the picture is out of sight. Sounds can interact with images in infinite ways, and strategies used to combine the two fundamentally affect our understanding of film. The song “We’ll Meet Again” — a nostalgic 1940s song used to boost troop morale during World War II — that accompanies footage of H-bombs dropping in Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) makes it impossible to read these images as noble or tragic; instead, a frame of dark satire determines our view of war [Figure 5.8].

The relationship between the original sound and its reproduction differs from that between an object and its filmed image. Although a sound is altered when it is recorded, engineered, and reproduced, we feel that we are hearing a real sound in real time. With images, we readily recognize that we see only a two-dimensional copy of the original. Sound effects of footsteps to accompany an image of a character walking are not really necessary; such an image is easily interpreted. However, the sound of footsteps heightens the sense of immediacy and presence. In recent years, improvements in sound technology and developments in sound recording practices have resulted in ever greater “realism” and intensity, making contemporary films sound much richer than those of the past. Sound has also led the way toward digitization, with digital image manipulation and picture editing following in turn. In the next section, we will explore the relationship of sound and image and the often-unperceived meanings of sound, before considering more fully the technology and aesthetics of film sound.

Sound and Image Any consideration of sound in film entails dis- cussion of the relationship between sounds and images. Some filmmakers, such as the comic actor and writer-director Jacques Tati, have consistently given equal weight to the treatment and meaning of sound in their films. In Playtime (1967), as in Tati’s other films, comic gags take place in long shots, and sounds cue us where to look [Figure 5.9]. In his unique films, filmmaker Jacques Demy pur- sues a vision of film’s musicality. In The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), all of the dialogue is sung to Michel Legrand’s music, while the candy-colored sets and costumes are designed to harmonize with

5.8 Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). An image of aggression set to nostalgic 1940s music sets the film’s dark satirical tone.

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this heightening of experience [Figure 5.10]. Derek Jarman’s Blue (1993), made after the filmmaker had lost his vision due to an AIDS-related illness, combines an image track consisting solely of a rich shade of blue with a soundtrack featuring a complex mix of music, effects, and voices reading diaries and dramatic passages. Gazing into a vast blue screen allows viewers to focus more carefully on the soundtrack’s ideas and the emotions they evoke.

For many filmmakers, however, as for viewers, sound functions more as an afterthought that exists to enhance the impact of the image. Many possible reasons exist for this disparity. Film is generally considered to be a predominantly visual medium rather than an aural one, following

a more pervasive hierarchy of vision over sound. The artistry of the image track is perceived to be greater, as the image is more clearly a conscious rendering of the object being photographed than the recording is of the original sound. The fact that sound came later in the historical development of cinema has also been offered as an explanation of its secondary status. Yet the importance and variety of aural experiences at the movies were great even before the introduction of synchronized soundtracks.

Since the early years of sound cinema, certain directors and composers have struggled against a too-literal, and too-limited, use of sound in film, arguing that the infinite possibilities in image and sound combinations are germane to the medium and its historical development. French filmmaker René Clair feared that the introduction of sound would diminish the visual possibilities of the medium and reduce it to “canned theater.” In his musical film Le Million (1931), he uses sound in a way that makes it integral to the film. Through scenes of characters and crowds singing songs essential to the plot, Clair demonstrates that sound’s potential is more than additive; it transforms the film experience viscerally, aesthetically, and conceptually.

Synchronous and Asynchronous Sound Because sound and image always cre- ate meaning in conjunction, film theorists attentive to sound have looked for ways to talk about the possibilities of the combina- tion of sound and image. In his book Theory of Film (1960), Siegfried Kracauer empha- sizes a distinction between synchronous and asynchronous sound, also known as onscreen and offscreen sound. The former has a visible onscreen source, such as when dialogue appears to come directly from the speaker’s moving lips, while the latter does not. For instance, while most speech is synchronous, voiceovers are asynchro- nous, because they do not coordinate with the action of the scene. A shot of an alarm

5.9 Playtime (1967). Jacques Tati’s comic film emphasizes sound as much as image, often cueing the gag through sound effects.

5.10 The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964). The musicality of Jacques Demy’s lovely tale of a small-town romance is represented in everything from the dialogue, all in song, to the brightly colored costumes and sets.

V I E w I n g C u E Technologies of watching — and listening — to movies have changed rapidly in recent years. Characterize the audio experience of the last film you watched. How much of this expe- rience was specific to the film’s sound design and how much to the format, platform, or venue through which you watched the film?

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Film Sound: Listening to the Cinema C H A p T E r 5 183

clock accompanied by the sound of its ringing is synchronous. An asynchronous knock in a horror film might startle the characters with the threat of an offscreen presence.

Kracauer goes on to differentiate between parallelism in the use of sound, which occurs when the soundtrack and image “say the same thing,” and contrapuntal sound, which occurs when two different meanings are implied by these elements. In Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004), as The Bride attempts to break out of a sealed coffin, the soundtrack by Ennio Morricone — music typically associated with spaghetti west- erns — offers a counterpoint to this horrific situation [Figure 5.11]. Soon, the sound of the impact of her fist on the coffin lid, which parallels her methodical punching, com- bines with the music for heightened effect.

The two pairs of terms are distinct from each other. A shot of a teakettle accompanied by a high-pitched whistle is both synchronous and parallel. The tea- kettle accompanied by an alarm bell would be a synchronous yet contrapuntal use of sound. A voiceover of a nature documentary may explain the behavior of the animals in an asynchronous use of parallel sound. Idyllic images accompanied by a narration stressing the presence of toxins in the environment and an ominous electronic hum would be a contrapuntal use of asynchronous sound.

A familiar example of how relationships between sound and image can achieve multiple meanings comes at the end of The Wizard of Oz (1939). The booming voice and sound effects synchronized with the terrifying image of the wizard are suddenly revealed to have been asynchronous sounds produced by an ordinary man behind the curtain. When we see him speaking into a microphone, the sound is in fact synchro- nous, and what was intended as a parallel is revealed to be a contrapuntal use of sound [Figure 5.12].

Parallelism — the mutual reinforcing or even the redundancy of sound and image — is the norm in Hollywood. For example, a shot of a busy street is accom- panied by traffic noises, although viewers immediately understand the locale through the visuals. This parallelism is an aesthetic choice. In contrast, at the dawn of the sound era, Soviet theorists advocated a contrapuntal use of sound to maximize the effects of montage.

Diegetic and Nondiegetic Sound One of the most frequently cited and instructive distinctions that is made in sound is between diegetic sound, which has its source in the narrative world of film, and nondiegetic sound, which does not belong to the characters’ world. Materi- ally, the source of film sound is the actual soundtrack that accompanies the image, but diegetic sound implies a visible onscreen source. Diegesis refers to the world of the film’s story, including not only what is shown but also what is implied to have

V I E w I n g C u E Distinguish an example of syn- chronous sound (with an onscreen source) from an example of asynchronous sound (with an offscreen source) in the film you are studying. Are these sounds easy to distinguish?

5.11 Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004). Spaghetti western music acts as a counterpoint to the horrific image of The Bride punching her way out of a sealed coffin.

5.12 The Wizard of Oz (1939). The source of the wizard’s voice is revealed, interrupt- ing the synchronous effect that frightened the travelers.

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taken place. “Diegesis” comes from the Greek word meaning “telling” and is distinguished from “mimesis,” mean- ing “showing.” The implication is that while mimetic representations imitate or mimic, diegetic ones use particular devices to tell about or imply events and settings.

One question offers a simple way to distinguish between diegetic and nondiegetic sound: can the characters in the film hear the sound? If not, the sound is likely to be nondiegetic. This distinction can apply to voices, music, and even sound effects. Conversa- tions among onscreen characters, the voice of God in The Ten Command- ments (1956), a voiceover that cor- responds to a confession a character is making to the police, and the radio music that accompanies Mr. Blonde’s sadistic assault of a police officer in Reservoir Dogs (1992) are all diegetic. Nondiegetic sounds do not follow rules of verisimilitude. For example, the voiceover narration that tells viewers about the characters in The Magnifi- cent Ambersons (1942), background music that accompanies a love scene

or journey, or sound effects such as a crash of cymbals when someone takes a comic fall are all nondiegetic. Audio practitioners refer to diegetic music, such as a shot of a band performing at a party or characters listening to music, as source music [Figures 5.13a and 5.13b].

The distinction between diegetic and nondiegetic sounds can sometimes be murky. Certain voiceovers, though not spoken aloud to other characters, can be construed as the thoughts of a character and thus as arising from the narrative world of the film. Film theorist Christian Metz has classified these as semidiegetic sound; they can also be referred to as internal diegetic sound. The uncertain status of the dead character’s voiceover in Sunset Boulevard (1950) is an example of this. Diegetic music — such as characters singing “Happy Birthday” — is often picked up as a nondiegetic theme in the film’s score. Such borderline and mixed cases, rather than frustrating our attempts to categorize, are illustrative of the fluidity and creative possibilities of the soundtrack as well as of the complex devices that shape our experience of a film’s spatial and temporal continuity.

Sound Production As early as the preproduction phase of a contemporary film, a sound designer may be involved to plan and direct the overall sound through to the final mix. During production, sound recording takes place simultaneously with the filming of a scene. At the beginning of each take, a slate with the scene information is shown and the clapboard is snapped; this recorded sound is used to synchronize sound recordings and camera images [Figure 5.14]. Microphones for recording

(a)

5.13a and 5.13b Reservoir Dogs (1992). Source music provides the disconcerting soundtrack during Mr. Blonde’s assault.

(b)

V I E w I n g C u E Find an example of diegetic sound in the film you are studying, and one of nondiegetic sound. What would the movie be like without the nondiegetic sound?

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sound may be placed on the actors, suspended over the action outside of camera range on a device resembling a fishing pole called a boom, or placed in other locations on set. The place- ment of microphones is often dictated by the desire to emphasize clarity and intelligibility of dialogue, especially the speech of the stars, in the final version of a film.

Direct sound is sound captured directly from its source, but some degree of reflected sound, captured as sounds bounce from the walls and sets, may be desired to give a sense of space. The pro- duction sound mixer (or sound recordist) combines these different sources dur- ing filming, adjusting their relative vol- ume or balance. In the multitrack sound recording process introduced in Robert Altman’s Nashville (1975), as many as twenty-four separate tracks of sound can be recorded on twelve tracks. Besides adding an audio density to the realism of the image, both direct and reflected sound can be used to creatively comment on the characters and their environment — for instance, in Altman’s films, emphasiz- ing the complexity of communication.

When a cut of the film is prepared, the crucial and increasingly complex phase of postproduction sound work begins. Sound editing interacts with the image track to create rhythmic relationships, establish connec- tions between sound and onscreen sources, and smooth or mark transitions. When a sound carries over a visual transition in a film, it is termed a sound bridge. For example, music might continue over a scene change or montage sequence, or dialogue might begin before the speaking characters are seen by the audience. The direc- tor consults with the composer and the picture and sound editors to determine where music and effects will be added, a process called spotting.

Sound effects may be gathered, produced by sound- effects editors on computers, retrieved from a sound library, or generated by foley artists. Named for the legendary sound man Jack Foley, these members of the sound crew watch the projected film and simultane- ously generate live sound effects — footsteps, the rustle of leaves, a key turning in a lock — on what is called a foley stage. These effects are eventually mixed with the other tracks. The film’s composer begins composing the score, which is recorded to synchronize with the film’s final cut [Figure 5.15]. The composer may actu- ally conduct the musicians in time with the film. Post- synchronous sound, recorded after the fact and then synchronized with onscreen sources, is often preferred for the dialogue used in the final mix. Natural sound

5.14 On the set, Wild at Heart (1990). Clapboards are used to synchronize sound and image takes. Courtesy Photofest

5.15 Scoring, Far from Heaven (2002). Director Todd Haynes and composer Elmer Bernstein recording the film’s score, which re-creates the sound of 1950s Hollywood movies. Courtesy Salt Film Productions, Inc.

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Hollywood has furnished its own myth about the introduc- tion of synchronized sound in Singin’ in the Rain. Directed by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, Singin’ in the Rain demonstrates an escapist use of sound in film while also being about how sound in film achieves such effects. It addresses the relationship of sound to image, the history of film sound technologies, and the process of recording and reproducing sound.

Set in Hollywood at the end of the 1920s, Singin’ in the Rain follows efforts at the fictional Monumental Pictures to make the studio’s first successful sound film. Although the film’s self-consciousness about the film- making process invites the audience into a behind-the- scenes perspective, the film itself continues to employ every available technique to achieve the illusionism of the Hollywood musical. One of the lessons of the film is that a “talking picture” isn’t just “a silent picture with some talking added,” as the studio producer assumes it to be. The film shows that adding sound to images enhances them with all the exuberance of song and dance, comedy, and romance. It also suggests that a great deal of labor and equipment are involved in creating such effects.

From the very beginning of Singin’ in the Rain, the tech- nology responsible for sound reproduction — technology that is usually hidden — is displayed. The film opens out- side a Hollywood movie palace where crowds have gath- ered for the premiere of the new Lockwood and Lamont picture. Our first orientation is aural: “Ladies and gentle- men, I am speaking to you from . . .” The asynchronous announcer’s voice carries across the crowds and seems to address us directly. The second shot opens directly on a loudspeaker, underscoring the parallelism of image and soundtrack, and then begins to explore the crowd of listen- ers. When we first see the radio announcer, the source of the synchronous voice, the microphone is very prominent in the mise-en-scène [Figure 5.16]. Referring to the bygone days of radio and silent movies, the film celebrates its modern audience’s opportunity to watch sound and image combined in a sophisticated MGM musical.

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Singin’ in the Rain immediately begins to exploit the resources and conventions of studio-era sound cinema. When star Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) tells the story of his past in a diegetic voiceover to the assembled crowds and the radio listeners at home, this is a contrapuntal use of sound because the series of flashback images contradict his words. When his onscreen image gives way to his offscreen voice speaking of studying at a conserva- tory, we see him and his buddy, Cosmo Brown (Donald O’Connor), performing a vaudeville routine instead. This scene shows that images and voices can be out of sync, a theme that will become prominent in the film as a whole. It also shows the multiple ways the soundtrack can interact with the images. The comic vaudeville rou- tine is, in turn, accompanied by lively music and humor- ous sound effects — the diegetic sound of the flashback world — encouraging our direct appreciation of the num- ber. Next we hear the crowd’s appreciative reactions to Lockwood’s narration, a narration that we know to be phony. However, we do not experience these two differ- ent levels of sound — Don’s self-serving narration and the

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Sound and Image in Singin’ in the Rain ( 1952 )

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To watch a video about sound and image in Singin’ in the Rain, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

See also: 42nd Street (1933); The Barkleys of Broadway (1949); The Artist (2011)

5.16 Singin’ in the Rain (1952). A concern with sound recording technology is evident in the microphone’s prominence in the first scene.

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debunking synchronized sound of the flashbacks — as confusing. It is clear that the film’s unveiling of the mech- anisms of sound technology will not limit its own reliance on the multiple illusions of sound-image relationships.

Later, when Don wants to express the depth of his feelings to Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds), he takes her to an empty soundstage. Ironically, his sincerity depends on the artifice of a sunset background, a wind machine, and a battery of mood lights, which together render the very pic- ture of romance [Figure 5.17]. Yet the corresponding sound illusion is conjured without any visible sound recording or effects equipment, much less an onscreen orchestra. Indeed, each of Don’s touches, such as switching on the wind machine, is synchronized with a nondiegetic musical flourish. It is possible to ask us to suspend our disbelief in this way because, in the film’s world, music is everywhere.

Don’s real love interest, Kathy Selden, is depicted as genuine because she can sing — her image and sound go together. In contrast, his onscreen leading lady, Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen), represents an image without the animating authenticity of sound. While Lina is beauti- ful, she speaks with a comical accent, and ironically, her hilarious performance is one of the greatest aural pleasures of the movie. In the course of the film, Don Lockwood will learn to incorporate his true self — the one who expresses himself by “singin’ and dancin’ in the rain” — into his onscreen persona.

Nothing illustrates the film’s paradoxical acknowledg- ment of the sound-image illusions constructed by Holly- wood and its indulgence in them better than the contrast between the disastrous premiere of the non-singing The Dueling Cavalier and the film’s final scene at the opening night of the musical The Dancing Cavalier, in which the truth of Lina’s imposture comes out. In the former, a noisy audience laughs at and heckles the errors of poor synchronous sound recording: the actors’ heartbeats and rustling costumes drown out their dialogue (for us,

of course, the laughter and the heartbeats are both sound effects, the latter mixed at comically high levels). The film they have created fundamentally misunder- stands the promise of “talking pictures.”

At the premiere of the musical The Dancing Cavalier, in contrast, the film finally makes the proper match, not only between sound and image (thus correcting the humorous synchronization problems of the first version) but also between Don and Kathy. After she’s forced to dub Lina “live” at the premiere, and the hoax is exposed when the curtains are drawn for all the audience to see, the humiliated Kathy runs from the stage. Don gets her back by singing “You Are My Lucky Star” to her from the stage (thus demonstrating before the audience in the film that unlike Lina, he used his own singing voice during the film within a film). Cosmo conducts the conveniently present orchestra (the premiere is of a sound film that should not require accompaniment), and Kathy joins Don in a duet.

Lest we read the film as suggesting that the onscreen orchestra is more genuine than the romantic background music of the earlier scenes because it is synchronous, we must note that the film ends trium- phantly with asynchronous music. A full, invisible chorus picks up “You Are My Lucky Star” as the camera takes us out into the open air, to pause on the billboard announcing the premiere of Singin’ in the Rain, starring Lockwood and Selden (who, of course, are represented by images of the stars of the movie by the same name that we are watching, Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds) [Figure 5.18]. This patently fake chorus and the billboard advertising the film we are watching are the culmination of the film’s effort to render Hollywood illusionism — so aptly represented by extravagant musicals such as Singin’ in the Rain — natural. Singin’ in the Rain dramatizes the arrival of sound in Hollywood as the inevitable and enjoy- able combination of sound and image.

Film Sound: Listening to the Cinema C H A p T E r 5

5.17 Singin’ in the Rain (1952). The illusion of romance is visibly created on the soundstage, but the music the characters dance to has no apparent source.

5.18 Singin’ in the Rain (1952). The film’s final reflexive moment is accompanied by an invisible chorus on the soundtrack.

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recorded during production may be indistinct due to noise, perspective, or other problems, and much of the actor’s performance will depend on intelligibility of dialogue.

During automated dialogue replacement (ADR), actors watch the film footage and re-record their lines to be dubbed into the soundtrack (a process also known as looping because actors watch a continuous loop of their scenes). Although dub- bing can violate verisimilitude, in Italy and other countries it is used for all of a film’s dialogue. Dubbing often replaces the original language of a film for exhibi- tion in another country. Other common practices, such as assembling extras to approximate the sound of a crowd (known as walla, the word they were instructed to murmur) or recording room tone (the aural properties of a location when noth- ing is happening), may be used to cover any patch of pure silence in the finished film. Such practices show the extent to which the sound unit goes to reproduce “real-seeming” sound.

Sound mixing (or re-recording), an important stage in the postproduction of a film, can occur only after the image track, including the credits, is complete (that is, after the picture is “locked”). All three elements of the soundtrack — music, sound effects, and dialogue — that have been recorded on separate tracks will now be combined. As the tracks are mixed, they are cut and extended, adjusted and “sweetened” by the sound editor with the input of the director and perhaps the sound designer and picture editor. There are no objective standards for a sound mix. Besides making sure it is complete and clear, the director and technicians will have specific ideas for the film’s sound in mind. The final mix might place extra emphasis on dialogue, modulate a mood through the volume of the music, or punch up sound effects during an action sequence. In a film like Barton Fink (1991), much of the sense of inhabiting a slightly unreal world is generated by a sound mix that incorporates sounds such as animal noises into the effects accompanying creaking doors. At a film’s final mix, a sound mixer produces a master track to match the final cut of the film. Optical tracks are “married” to the image track on the film print; digital tracks may be printed on film or recorded for digital projection.

Sound reproduction is the stage in the process when the film’s audience experi- ences the film’s sound in a movie theater. During projection, optical soundtracks are

V I E w I n g C u E In the film you’ve just viewed, from what direction do particular sounds come? What are the most audible elements of the film’s sound mix? Is the mix full, or are there relatively few sounds?

5.19 Glengarry Glen Ross (1992). Voices and dialogue describe and measure the complex action, relations, and emotions in this theatrical adaptation.

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illuminated and read by a solar cell that transfers the light to electrical energy, which is then amplified and transferred to the speaker system. Magnetic and digital soundtracks are also converted back to sound waves by the sound system during projection.

The reproduction of a sound is undoubtedly a copy. But it seems to have the same presence or effect on the ear as the original sound, even if its source, direc- tionality, tonality, or depth has changed. We believe we are hearing the sound right here, right now, and indeed we are, but we are hearing a recording of an airplane engine, not an actual airplane engine. Sound perspective enhances this impression of presence and can be manipulated with great nuance in digital sound mixing. The placement of speakers in the actual three-dimensional space of the theater may be used to suggest sounds emanating from the left or right of the depicted scene or from behind or in front of the audience.

Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) [Figure 5.19], adapted by David Mamet from his own play, is dominated by the sound of actors’ voices. The Terminator (1984) keys us to events in its futuristic world by noise, while the title of The Sound of Music (1965) announces what one can expect to hear on its soundtrack. Voice, music, and sound effects are the three elements of the film soundtrack, and they are often present simultaneously. In some sense a film’s image track, composed of relatively discrete photographic images and text, is simpler and more unified. Nevertheless, although these three sound elements can all be present and combined in relation to any given image, conventions have evolved governing these relationships. Usually dialogue is audible over music, for example, and only in special cases does a piece of music dictate the images that accompany it. Here we will examine each of the basic elements of the soundtrack and its potential to make meaning in combination with images and other sounds. We will uncover conventional usages of soundtracks and how they have both shaped the film experience and given direction to theo- rists’ inquiries into the properties and potential of film sound.

Voice in Film Human speech, primarily in the form of dialogue, is often central to understand- ing narrative film. Acoustic qualities of the voices of actors make a distinct contribution to a film: Jimmy Stewart’s drawl is relaxed and reassuring; a San- dra Bullock character can range between high and low acoustic tones to create a personality that sometimes is in control and then out of control. Making an intelligible record of an actor’s speech quickly became the primary goal in early film sound recording processes, although this goal required some important concessions in the otherwise primary quest for realism. For example, think about how we hear film characters’ speech. While the image track may cut from a long shot of a conversation to a medium shot of two characters to a series of close-up, shot/reverse-shot pairings, the soundtrack does not reproduce these distances accurately through changes in volume or the relationship between direct and reflected sound. Rather, actors are miked so that what they say is recorded directly and is clear, intelligible, and uniform in volume throughout the dialogue scene. Sound perspective, which refers to the apparent distance of a sound source, remains close.

Dialogue But of course what actors say is crucial: speech establishes character motivation and goals and conveys plot information. Advances in recording technology have allowed filmmakers to experiment with how dialogue is used to tell their stories. Director Robert Altman’s innovations in multitrack film sound recording in Nash- ville, mentioned earlier in this chapter, allowed each character to be miked and

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separately recorded. One stylistic feature of this technique is Altman’s extensive use of overlapping dialogue, mixing characters’ speech simultaneously, a technique Orson Welles had attempted with less sophisti- cated recording technology. In Nashville, characters constantly talk over each other [Figure 5.20]. This technique, which may make individual lines less distinct, is often used to approximate the everyday experi- ence of hearing multiple, competing speak- ers and sounds at the same time.

Dialogue is also given priority when it carries over visual shifts, such as shot/ reverse-shot patterns of editing conversa-

tions. We watch one actor begin a line and then watch the listener as he or she continues. Sound preserves temporal continuity as the scene is broken down into individual shots. Speech occurs here and now, and thus it is a key support of verisimilitude. Sometimes the most outlandish plot premises and settings can be anchored by dialogue. Given the importance and authority we accord the spoken word, it is interesting that film sound often has second-class status in relation to the image.

Voice-Off and Voiceover The voice-off technique refers to a voice that can be seen to originate from an onscreen speaker or from a speaker who can be inferred to be present in the scene but who is not currently visible. This technique is a good example of the greater spa- tial flexibility of sound over image. The opening shot of Laura (1944) follows a detective looking around a fancy apartment as a narrator introduces the film’s events. Abruptly, the same voice addresses the detective from an adjacent room, telling him to be careful what he touches, a striking use of voice-off. Early in the film M (1931), the murderer’s offscreen whistle is heard, followed by an onscreen shadow of a man, combining the expressive possibility of sound (just recently introduced when the film was made) with that of lighting and mise-en-scène [Figure 5.21].

In an experimental film, voice-off may also serve to make the viewer/listener think about different levels of the film’s fic- tion. How do we know that an offscreen voice shares the same space and time as the onscreen figures? The soundtrack of Chan- tal Akerman’s News from Home (1976) consists of the director’s voice reading letters in French from her mother back home in Belgium [Figure 5.22]. The images depict sparsely populated New York streets and lonely subway platforms and cars. The disjunc- tion between voice and image reinforces the distance remarked upon in the correspondence.

While use of the voice-off in a classical film is a strong tool in the service of film realism, implying that the mise-en-scène extends beyond the borders of the frame, the illusion of realism can be challenged if the origins of the voice-off are not clear. The voice-off of HAL 9000, the computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), is consistent with realism because the voice has a known source. However, the even level of volume makes it seem to

5.20 Nashville (1975). Robert Altman’s twelve-track recording process captures each character individually, and overlapping dialogue is used in the final mix.

5.21 M (1931). Use of an offscreen whistle first suggests the murderer’s presence in Fritz Lang’s masterpiece of early sound cinema. Coupling the whistle with the shadow of the man, Fritz Lang used both sound and lighting to heighten the suspense of the mise-en-scène.

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pervade the spaceship even as it retains its intimate quality. In the film’s uncanny combination of human- ity and technology, it suggests how the voice-off can introduce distance into the customary match of sound and image.

A voice-off is distinguished from the familiar technique of voiceover by the simple fact that charac- ters within the diegesis cannot hear the voiceover. The voiceover is an important structuring device in film: a text spoken by an offscreen narrator can act as the organizing principle behind virtually all of the film’s images, such as in a documentary film, a commercial, or an experimental video or essay film. The unseen narrators of the classic documentaries Night Mail (1936) and The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936) offer a poem about the British postal service and an account of the U.S. government’s agricultural pro- grams, respectively, while the filmmaker’s voiceover in Alex Gibney’s Taxi to the Dark Side (2007) offers a somber description of contemporary torture in Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay [Figure 5.23]. The voiceover device soon became the cornerstone of the documentary tradition, in which the voiceover “anchors” the potential ambiguity of the film’s images. The sonic qualities of such voiceovers — usually male, resonant, and “unmarked” by class, regional, or foreign accent or other distinguishing features — are meant to connote trustworthiness (although today they can sound propagandistic). The tra- ditional technique of directing our interpretation of images through a transcendent voiceover is sometimes referred to as the “voice of God.” Confident male voices of this type can still be heard in nature shows, commercials, and trailers seen in movie theaters.

Voiceovers can also render characters’ subjective states. Much of the humor of Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001), for instance, comes from viewers’ access to the heroine’s internal (semidiegetic) comments on the situations she encounters [Figure 5.24]. But voiceover can also be an important structural device in narration, orienting viewers to the temporal organization of a story by setting up a flashback or providing a transition back to the film’s present. For example, a voiceover narration in the present can accompany a scene from the past that uses both images and sounds from within the depicted world. Use of voiceovers to organize a film’s temporality is prevalent in certain genres such as film noir, in which the voiceover imitates the hard-boiled, first-person investigative style of the literary works from which many of these stories are adapted. Sometimes, in keeping with the murky world of film noir or the limited perspective of the investiga- tor, such voiceovers prove unreliable, as we find out in Laura [Figure 5.25].

Michael Curtiz’s Mildred Pierce (1945) is a “woman’s film” — featuring a female star whose character faces exaggerated versions of the problems many women encounter — but it is given a film noir framework, and

5.23 Taxi to the Dark Side (2007). The somber and matter-of-fact voiceover in this documentary makes the realities it describes seem even more disturbing. © Think Film/Photofest

5.22 News from Home (1976). Letters from home are read over images of a lonely New York City, creating a poetic disjunction across the spaces of the film.

V I E w I n g C u E Identify specific uses of voice in the film you will screen next in class. Is dialogue abundant? If voiceovers are used, what are their function and diegetic status?

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the voiceover is an important element in this clash of styles. In the beginning, Mildred (played by Joan Crawford) confesses to a crime we eventually learn she did not commit. However, her voiceover’s cred- ibility is compromised by her gender as well as by genre conventions. Several flashbacks are introduced by scenes in which Mildred is interrogated by the police. “It seems as if I was born in a kitchen,” she narrates [Figure 5.26]. These voiceovers are quickly abandoned as the flashback segments revert to and play out in synchronized sound. Eventually Mildred’s version of events is discredited by the police, who use her words to convict her daughter; her voiceover ultimately confirms their point of view. In fact, crit- ics note that in women’s pictures such as Mildred Pierce and Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940), female voiceovers rarely carry through to closure, violating the symmetry we have come to expect from a clas- sical Hollywood film. Contemporary examples, such as the voiceover of Sarah Connor in The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1984, 1991), alter this formula in ways that reflect a different gender politics.

Synchronization Synchronization, the visible coordination of the voice with the body from which it is emanating, tends to be a valued practice in Hollywood films. It anchors sound that might otherwise seem to be autonomous or even call into question the seam- less illusion of reality that Hollywood films strive for. Film theorist Kaja Silverman argues that syn- chronization is especially enforced for characters who are culturally more closely identified with the body, such as women and African Americans; these characters have not been allowed to achieve authoritative presence through speech alone. Thus Morgan Freeman’s voiceover narration of The Shaw- shank Redemption (1994) and subsequent films is an important cultural shift. The narrator of Eve's Bayou (1997) is even younger, a perspective that infuses the film with wonder and a sense of having to decipher the narrative; the fact that Eve is female and African American makes the film’s emphasis on untold sto- ries even more urgent [Figure 5.27].

Ever since “the talkies” were introduced, the human voice has organized systems of meaning in various types of film: narrative films are frequently driven by dialogue, documentaries by voiceover; and experimental films often turn voice into an aes- thetic element. Some writers suggest that a theory of “voice” can open up cinema analysis to more meanings than a model devoted to the image alone. Although we have stressed how frequently film

5.24 Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001). The subjective voiceover of this film humorously articulates the desires and anxieties of the heroine.

5.25 Laura (1944). Shown writing in a tub, Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb) opens the film with a voiceover narration. His account of the heroine’s death proves him unreliable when she is discovered to be alive.

5.26 Mildred Pierce (1945). The voiceover of Mildred (played by Joan Crawford) increases our sympathy for her situation as a wife and mother in the flashbacks.

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sound is subordinated to the image, the realm of the voice shows us how central sound is to cinema’s intelligibility. In fact, the prevalence of the human voice is a measure of just how focused the universe of classical cinema is on depicting human experience.

Music in Film Music is a crucial element in the film experience; among a range of other effects, it provides rhythm and deepens emotional response. Music has rarely been absent from film programs, and many of the venues for early film had been musi- cal ones first. The piano, an important element of public and private amuse- ments at the turn of the twentieth century, quickly became a cornerstone of film exhibition. Throughout the silent film period, scoring for films steadily developed from the distribution of collections of music cues that accompanists and ensembles could play to correspond with appropriate moments in films to full-length compo- sitions for specific films. When D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation premiered in 1915, a full orchestra, playing Joseph Carl Breil’s score in which the Ku Klux Klan rallied to Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries,” was a major audience attraction. The architecture of the large movie palaces constructed during this period was acousti- cally geared to audiences familiar with listening to orchestral music in a concert setting. The Jazz Singer and other early sound films were conceived to show off the musical performances of their stars. As mentioned previously, speech made it to the screen as an afterthought — and thus the introduction of dialogue presented problems of scale and volume in the movie palaces.

Although the term “talkies” for the new sound films soon took over, movies of every genre — westerns, disaster films, science fiction films — relied on music from the beginning. Often this music contributes to categorizing such films as genre films. Vangelis’s music for Blade Runner (1982), for example, distinctly marks it as a science fiction film. In contrast, Max Steiner’s score for Gone with the Wind (1939) sets its nostalgic, romantic tone.

Narrative Music Music is the only element of cinematic discourse besides credits that is primarily nondiegetic. In the back of our minds, we are aware that the practice of scoring films with music that has no source in the story violates verisimilitude, and yet we readily accept this convention. The celebrated gag in Mel Brooks’s Blazing Saddles (1974), in which the musical soundtrack turns out to be coming from Count Basie’s jazz orchestra playing in the middle of the desert, is entertaining because it shows the absurdity of the convention [Figure 5.28]. Though overblown or obvious scoring of background music can jolt us out of a film, often we value the musical score as a crucial element of our affective, or emotional, response to a film. The scoring for narrative films thus presents a notable paradox: much of what is valued in classi- cal cinema — verisimilitude, cause-and-effect relationships — is completely ignored in even the most admired examples of film music.

The conventions of musical scoring, composition, orchestration, and mixing contribute to a particular kind of experience at the movies. Film music encourages

5.27 Eve’s Bayou (1997). A little girl’s version of events gains credence through the voiceover device.

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us to be receptive to the information being conveyed by the visual as well as by the other acoustic dimensions of the film. Film music encourages us to let our barriers down and experience the movie as immediate and enveloping. Set apart from the diegesis and taking place right there in the theater, music eases our transition into the fictional world.

Because many of the practices of musi- cal scoring were developed in tandem with the dominant form of narrative film, we will focus this discussion on narrative film music. In Hollywood and related main- stream film practices, the musical score has a direct connection to the story. However complex or lush the music may be, it serves a dramatic purpose. The term underscoring, also referred to as background music (in contrast to source music, which is diegetic), already emphasizes this status. Music quite literally underscores what is happening dramatically.

A piece of music composed for a particular place in a film is referred to as a cue. When recording the score, the conductor watches the film for the cue to begin playing that particular piece of music. Often music reinforces story information through recognizable conventions. Action sequences in the Indiana Jones series are introduced by the inescapable “dum da-dum dum” as a parody of and a tribute to these recognizable themes.

Through the use of motifs, themes assigned to particular figures, music also par- ticipates in characterization. We know when the main character has entered the scene not only visually but also aurally, because principal characters usually have a musical motif. The presence of “bad girl” Marylee Hadley in Written on the Wind (1956) is sig- naled by a distinctive sultry theme. Composed by Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead, the music identified with Henry Plainview in There Will Be Blood (2007) has a dissonant string arrangement that eerily complements this troubled and troubling character. Most notably, music is subordinate to that part of the narrative that competes in the realm of sound — the dialogue. A music cue will usually be audible during sequences in which there is no dialogue, often helping to smooth a spatial or temporal transition. When dialogue predominates, however, it will fade, the music volume will drop, or it will change to be less “competitive.”

Much of Hollywood film music composition is derived from nineteenth- century, late-Romantic orchestral music. Here the term “classical” is undoubtedly appropriate for studio-era Hollywood style, for popular music was rejected in favor of classical music. The work of such composers as Wagner and Strauss was rich in its ability to convey narrative information, reliant on compositional principles such as motifs assigned to different characters, settings, or actions and lushly emotive, tonal, and euphonic. As such, it was perfectly suited to the musical experience that Hollywood was striving for with the integration of sound. This type of music was compatible with Hollywood storytelling not only because of its purely musi- cal qualities but also because of the associations and values this music carried for audiences. These associations ranged from the high cultural status conferred on symphonic music of European origin (as opposed to the lower status of American jazz or pop) to the recognizable connotations of a particular instrumentation, such as somber horns for a funereal mood, violins for romance, and a harp for an ethe- real or heavenly mood.

5.28 Blazing Saddles (1974). Soundtrack music finds its onscreen source in Count Basie’s orchestra playing in a desert in Mel Brooks’s western spoof.

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5.29a The Jazz Singer (1927)

5.29d Pulp Fiction (1994)

5.29e The Great Gatsby (2013)

5.29f The Great Gatsby (2013)

5.29c Saturday Night Fever (1977)

5.29b The Graduate (1967)

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Popular music can be carefully used to develop characters, themes, and narrative structures. It has been a staple of film form since The Jazz Singer (1927) [Figure 5.29a], but this type of soundtrack became more commonplace with the rise of rock music in the 1960s. One of the first films to merge prerecorded pop mu- sic with a film narrative, The Graduate (1967) [Figure 5.29b] weaves the songs of Simon and Garfunkel through the social, sexual, and emotional crisis of Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman). A major achievement of the film is the use of vocal tones and rhythms to create a world in which the aggressive and cold rhetoric of an adult generation contrasts with Benjamin’s retreats into silence.

With Saturday Night Fever (1977), John Travolta’s performance as Tony Manero and the Bee Gees’ music on the soundtrack create a now- classic merger of images and disco tunes, overlapping non-diegetic and diegetic songs to mimic Tony’s movement between his blue-collar job in a Brooklyn paint store and his fantasy life in nightclubs [Figure 5.29c].

In 1994, Travolta appeared as a wildly different kind of char- acter, hitman Vincent Vega, in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. In this film, the bizarre and violent adventures of Vincent and his partner Jules are frequently accompanied by an eclectic range of songs from different eras, recorded by singers like Dusty Springfield, Al Green, and, most famously, Chuck Berry in a dance sequence recalling Travolta’s past films [Figure 5.29d].

With far less irony, musical disjunctions communicate a very different vision in Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 The Great Gatsby [Figure 5.29e]. This 3-D adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel features contemporary jazz, pop, and hip-hop originals and covers from Jay- Z, Jack White, and Beyoncé, as well as classic compositions from Louis Armstrong and George Gershwin — music that captures a youthful energy, longing, and illusions that link the 1920s and the 2010s [Figure 5.29f]. When Beyoncé and Andre 3000 cover Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black,” the sultry duet about loss and abandonment makes Gatsby’s tragedy also Daisy’s tragedy.

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To watch a clip of pop music in Saturday Night Fever, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

pop music Soundtracks in Contemporary

Cinema

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Classical film music developed practices of compo- sition and mixing that supported the aim of storytelling and tended to efface its own presence. For example, Claudia Gorbman states in her book, Unheard Melodies: Narrative Film Music (1987), that the principle of inau- dibility is analogous to the “invisible” editing style of the continuity system, meaning that conscious attention should not be paid to the score. Volume does not inter- fere with dialogue, the mood and rhythm of the music do not contradict those of the action, and compositions are matched to the narrative flow rather than allowed to follow their own progression. Ironically, screen music is at its best if we do not “hear” it.

Music is often used to carry a film’s emotion. Dia- logue and action fall short in their capacity to convey not only particular feelings but also the experience of feeling itself. Gorbman argues that there are three ways music’s connotation of emotion is used. First, music conveys the irrational. In Hitchcock’s Spellbound

(1945), for example, the mental state of the hero is conveyed by the sound of the theremin, an unusual electronic instrument whose spooky sound is also used in sci- ence fiction films [Figure 5.30]. Second, music is associated with women, who are already culturally associated with emotion. Our pejorative idea of sappy music is derived from the sound of women’s genres, where tears and musical notes fall with the same abundance; in contrast, Trent Reznor’s score for David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) creates a different kind of emotional landscape for the gendered dynamics of that film. Third, lush orchestration can ennoble specific events and make them feel timeless. In War Horse (2011), the lavish musical score adds an epic dimension to a film about a boy and his horse [Figure 5.31].

Narrative Cueing Narrative cueing is how music tells us what is happening in the plot. A return of the main theme signifies that Gone with the Wind is about to conclude; a western song over the credits of Rancho Notorious (1952) signifies the setting of a film of that genre. Narrative cueing is also connotative: violins on the soundtrack may indicate that the characters are falling in love; a few notes of “Deutschland über Alles” in the score of Casablanca (1942) signifies the looming Nazi threat. Music’s

5.30 Spellbound (1945). Gregory Peck’s character is stricken by an episode of vertigo, signaled by the theremin on the soundtrack.

5.31 War Horse (2011). Composer John Williams’s score helps intensify the emotion in this tale of a boy and his horse during World War I.

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role in relation to narrative may be to point something out or emphasize its significance. The most noticeable examples are called stingers, sounds that force us to notice the significance of something onscreen — like the one in The Shining (1980) that marks the moment when Wendy, the mother, looks at her bedroom door through her mirror and sees the word “murder” [Figure 5.32]. Overillustrating the action through the score, such as accompanying a character walking on tip-toe with plucked strings, is referred to as mickey- mousing, which references the way cartoons often use the musical score to follow or mimic every action in synchronization, narrating through music rather than language. Max Steiner is particularly noted for his habit of pointing out everything in his soundtracks in this manner, and composer Mark Mothersbaugh prac- tices a contemporary version of this practice for films like The Royal Tenenbaums (2001).

Discontinuities in visual information represented by cuts and scene changes are frequently bridged by the durational aspect of sound, and this function is most easily served by music. Various arrangements of the theme song of High Noon (1952) carry characters across space and help bridge transitions between scene changes. Although critics of studio-style film music com- plain that the composer’s job involves nothing more than filling up any gaps in the film with the soundtrack, providing built-in unity through a structure of repetition and variation is a basic tenet of the classical film score.

Although musical scoring conventions have evolved and changed since the classical era of studio filmmaking, we can hear in the orchestral scores of John Williams, the most well-known composer of the past three decades, an homage to the romantic styles of the studio composers of earlier decades. Williams composes heroic, nostalgic scores that support and sometimes inflate the narrative’s signifi- cance in films from Star Wars (1977) to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004). His five Academy Awards and more than forty nominations suggest that the film industry recognizes his style’s consistency with that of classical Hollywood.

In Hollywood cinema of the studio era, nonclassical musical styles, such as jazz, popular, and dance music, might be used as source music and featured in musicals, but their incorporation into background music was gradual. One of the effects of the neglect of American musical idioms in favor of European influences was that African American artists and performers were rendered almost as inau- dible as they were invisible in mainstream movies. African American performers were frequently featured in musicals, but they were there to provide entertainment and were rarely integrated into the narrative. Lena Horne’s talent, for example, was shamefully underutilized because there were almost no leading roles for African American women in the 1940s and 1950s [Figure 5.33]. More recently, however, African American musicians and performers have become a key part of movies, from Beyoncé and Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls (2006) to Jay-Z in The Great Gatsby.

As jazz music became more popular, jazz themes began to appear in urban- based film noirs of the 1940s. Henry Mancini’s music for Orson Welles’s Touch of Evil (1958) effectively connotes themes of crime, violence, and sexuality in the exaggerated border-town setting. Occasionally dissonance appeared in studio scores, but usually only when diegetically motivated — for example, to signify a psychological disturbance. In keeping with this connotation, the first atonal score was composed by Leonard Rosenman for The Cobweb (1955), a movie set in a

5.32 The Shining (1980). When Wendy awakens and sees through the mirror what Danny has written on the door, a shocked look appears on her face. The audience is also forced to look and note the significance of what she sees — the word “murder” — because of the stinger on the soundtrack.

V I E w I n g C u E As you watch the film assigned for your next class, pay particular attention to its music. Is the film’s score drawn from the classical tradition? Is popular music used? How do scoring choices contribute to the film’s meaning?

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home for the mentally ill. With other changes in the U.S. film industry in the postwar period, musical conventions shifted as well. Modern- ist and jazz-influenced scores, such as Leonard Bernstein’s score for On the Waterfront (1954), became more common as different audiences were targeted through more individualized film- making practices. At the end of the studio era, the great tradition of the Hollywood musical also began to wane, but the persistence of the genre shows how central music is to the narrative film experience, even at the cost of verisimilitude.

Prerecorded Music Popular songs have long had a place in the movies, promoting audience participation and identification by appealing to tastes shared by generations or ethnic groups. Sheet music and recordings sales were profitable tie-ins even before sound cinema. In the 1980s, however, the practice of tying the emotional (and commercial) response of the audience to popular music on a film’s soundtrack was so well established that the pop score began to rival originally composed music. American Graffiti (1973) helped inaugu- rate this trend with its soundtrack of nostalgic 1960s tunes, and The Big Chill (1983) captures the zeitgeist of its characters’ and viewers’ gen- eration through popular music. The centrality of prerecorded music is reflected in the increasing importance of the music supervisor, who selects and secures the rights for songs to be used in

films. In youth-oriented, MTV-influenced films with pop music scores, such as Step Up 3D (2010), the promotion of the soundtrack is as important as that of the film [Figure 5.34], a tactic also at work in Sofia Coppola’s soundtrack for The Bling Ring (2013), featuring M.I.A., Sleigh Bells, Lil Wayne, and other contemporary musi-

cians. In the 1990s, the proliferation of the pop soundtrack drew the film expe- rience outside the theater to the record store, and music videos began to include scenes from upcoming films. Although theme songs have been composed for and promoted with films for decades, as in Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955) to name one hit, the contempo- rary movie and recording industries have such close business relationships that even films without pop soundtracks often feature a tie-in song in their end-credits sequences. The extremely successful film careers of musicians like rapper-actor Will Smith demonstrate the increasing interdependency of these entertainment media.

5.33 Lena Horne. Most of the actress’s appearances in mainstream films were restricted to cameo numbers because the industry was unwilling to allow an African American a leading role. Courtesy Michael Ochs Archive/Getty Images

5.34 Step Up 3D (2010). The promotion of a film’s soundtrack is crucial to the success of contemporary dance movies.

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Sound Effects in Film Although the movies can represent the world in many ways, their capacity for successful mimesis, or imitation, has always fascinated audiences. Much of the mimetic impression in cinema comes from the use of sound effects, although, like other aspects of the soundtrack, viewers may not consciously notice these effects. Dialogue in film is deliberate; it tells a story and gives information. Background music is a clear enhancement, “unrealistic” if we pay attention to it. But sound effects appear unmanufactured, even accidental. This sense of the naturalness of effects is ironic because the sound texture of a film is so deliberately crafted and because in daily life we hardly notice such ubiquitous sounds as fluorescent lights humming, crickets chirping, and traffic going by — sounds that might be added to a film to achieve a “realistic” sound mix.

In most films, every noise that we hear is selected, and these effects generally conform to our expectations of movie sounds. Virtually nothing appears onscreen that does not make its corresponding noise: dogs bark, babies cry. A spaceship that blows up in outer space will usually produce a colossal bang even though in fact there is no sound in space. If a recording of a .38 revolver sounds like a cap gun on film, it will be dubbed with a louder bang. These expectations vary according to film genre. Traffic noise will be loud in an action film, in which we remain alive to the possibilities of the environment. In a romance, the sound of cars will likely fade away unless traffic is keeping the lovers apart. The extraordinary density of contemporary soundtracks does not necessarily mean that they are more “realistic” than the less dense soundtracks of classical Hollywood; they simply make more extensive use of the particular properties of sound to convey a visceral experience of the cinema. The change in the texture of contemporary soundtracks is based in new technological capabilities, but, as in other instances of “improved” technologies, this progress is not inevitable but rather a development that follows particular ideas and goals, although these are likely to remain unstated.

Sound effects are one of the most useful ways of giving an impression of depth to the two-dimensional image when they are reproduced in the three-dimensional space of the theater. Although the screen is itself only an illusory space of action, film presentation makes use of the directional properties of sound — a gunshot may come from the left-hand side of the screen, for example. In the mix, additional diegetic sounds such as thunderclaps can be added that were not present on set at all, adding significantly to a film’s illusionism. Asynchronous sound effects, such as the hoot of an owl in a dark woods setting, both expand the sense of space and contribute to mood, often in very codified, even clichéd ways. Adding the clank of utensils and snatches of offscreen conversation to the soundtrack when two char- acters are shown at a table conjures a restaurant setting without having to shoot the scene in one.

The very manner in which noises are produced for a soundtrack illustrates their function in constructing, rather than reproducing, a particular experience. As we detailed earlier, incidental sounds — footsteps, the rustle of clothing, a punch in the stomach — are not even recorded at the same time as the film’s dialogue. Rather, they are added later by the foley artist by walking on gravel, rubbing together different pieces of fabric, hitting a rolled-up telephone book, and so on. Our acceptance of these simulated synchronous sounds testifies to the strength of our impulse to perceive effects realistically. The process is a meticulous reconstruction of some but not all of the sounds that would have been present on set. The sounds selected are those that are deemed significant, if only because they establish a particular mood. Dramatic effects such as explo- sions are quite deliberately placed, and often enhanced, because of their narrative significance.

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To what extent do sound effects add to a film’s sense of realism? Watch this clip from Debra Granik’s Winter’s Bone (2010) and explain how sounds create a particular impres- sion of location, action, or mood.

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At the same time that they serve a mimetic function, sound effects have become part of how the cinema experience is distinguished from the ordinary. THX is a standards system devised by director George Lucas and named after his first feature film, THX 1138 (1971), for evaluating and ensuring the quality of sound presentation. THX theaters promise to deliver an intense aural experience that is identical in each certified venue. Sound effects, like visual effects, draw in viewers. How crucial a film’s sound is to the Hollywood illusion is marked in the relatively recent Academy Award category for sound-effects editing. Audiences are increas- ingly trusted to discern things aurally.

In the films of master action film director John Woo, for example, each character may have a particular gunshot noise assigned to him or her so that the action can be followed throughout a protracted sequence without dia- logue. The distinctive soundtrack of Jaws (1975) lent us not only what has now become the cliché of the shark’s musical motif but also a rich new standard of sound-effects use. The film acknowledges a predecessor in the genre — and in the ingenious use of sound — when the death of the shark is accompanied by a sound effect of a prehistoric beast’s death from King Kong. In these monster movies, sound effects take us beyond everyday events while also relying on their capacity to refer to familiar experiences.

As with music, the animated film illustrates the deliberately designed nature of film sound effects particularly well. In fact, most cartoon soundtracks are pre- pared in advance of the images, the reverse of live-action filmmaking. Cartoons thus demonstrate especially well the synchronization of sound effects to onscreen actions. Drawings do not “naturally” make sounds of their own; every sound in an animated film is conventionalized. In Duck Amuck (1953), for example, Daffy Duck is baffled by the cartoon he finds himself in and cannot follow the logic of his mischievous animator. All sorts of mishaps befall him, and the abrupt termina- tion of the soundtrack is one of the most disturbing of these mishaps. So unused are we to complete silence, that we are likely to look around us to see whether the theater’s sound system really has gone out. Daffy holds up a sign demanding “Sound please!” and begins to play the guitar with which his animator has pro- vided him. But the sound it “emits” is that of a machine gun, demonstrating with this synchronization error the arbitrary nature of the standard of matching image and sound. As Daffy’s misadventures suggest, sound effects appeal to the audi- ence subtly and viscerally. In How to Train Your Dragon (2010), the musical score certainly helps to set the mood, but the sound effects are even more crucial to the film — the sounds Toothless makes help Hiccup understand and communicate with him [Figure 5.35].

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Watch this scene from Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line (1998) and determine which sound seems especially responsible for conveying information to the spectator. How do voice, music, and sound effects work together?

5.35 How to Train Your Dragon (2010). Hiccup is able to interpret Toothless’s feelings just from the dragon’s purrs and growls. An angelic female choir accompanied by bells adds to the mystical atmosphere.

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making Sense of Film Sound Sounds are grounded in viewers’ everyday activities and contribute to movies’ immediacy and sensory richness. Whether it is the pathos lent by Louis Gottschalk’s score for D. W. Griffith’s Broken Blossoms (1919), the stimulating interactions between the musical quotations of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Alex North’s origi- nal music for the film, the indelible aural record of Laurence Olivier’s performance of Hamlet (1948), or the comical sounds of Jacques Tati’s Playtime, film sound can intensify our viewing experience while conveying what seem like essential truths and meanings. Paradoxically, movie soundscapes often eschew realism and plau- sibility in order to heighten authenticity and emotion, like foregrounding actors’ whispered conversation in a crowded room so we feel intimately connected to them.

The ways in which filmmakers choose to relate sound to image also has a distinctive effect on our viewing experience. Some filmmakers rely on sound con- tinuity to support the narrative aim and smooth over gaps in a story. In contrast, others might remind viewers of sound’s autonomy from the image through the use of sound montage — essentially employing sound to question, or act as a counter- point to, the authority of the image.

Authenticity and Experience Film sound, because it surrounds and permeates the body of the viewer in a way that images alone cannot, contributes to the authenticity and emotion we experi- ence while viewing a film. Sound in film can indicate a real, multidimensional world and give the viewer/listener the impression of being authentically present in space. Additionally, sound encourages the viewer to experience emotion, depend- ing on the kind of sound, such as a particular piece of music.

The assumption that sound gives the viewer/listener the impression of being authentically present in space is supported by the preferences established in the standard techniques of sound recording, mixing, and reproduction. As previously mentioned, though the cinematic images and sounds that we see and hear were both captured at some other moment and are being reproduced for us, sounds feel immediate. Hearing the taps on Eleanor Powell’s shoes in Born to Dance (1936) makes us witnesses to her virtuosity [Figure 5.36]. Foregrounding actors’ voices through close miking, sound perspective, and mixing that emphasizes dialogue also authenticate our perception. We are “in on” the characters’ most intimate conversations. Sounds that are synchronized with the action by the depiction of their sources in the image, or even sounds that support the action while not being themselves “authentic” — for example, background music — all give us a central place in the fictional world that begins to seem present and real. The zither theme of The Third Man (1949) makes us feel disoriented in the streets of postwar Vienna, just as the film’s characters are.

Sound encourages the viewer to experience emotion and to see the world in terms of particular emotions. When the lovers in Now, Voyager (1942) cannot really say what they mean to each other, the string section, performing Max Steiner’s score, eloquently takes over.

V I E w I n g C u E How does the soundtrack of the next film you view “authenticate” the image? Would the absence of sound affect the film’s authenticity? How?

5.36 Born to Dance (1936). Eleanor Powell’s tap dancing is a perfect display of synchronized sound.

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Sound reaches the viewer viscerally, seeming to involve the body directly. Excruciating suspense is generated in Jurassic Park when we hear the sound of the menacing tyrannosaurus rex [Figure 5.37]. Simply watching the dinosaur progress would be a less emotional experience.

The film environment attempts to duplicate our acoustic experience of the world, to orient us in this new space in a way that feels genuine and genuinely gets us to feel. This is not necessarily measured by strict realism. The sense of presence at the dance contest in Saturday Night Fever is better achieved through a sound mix that sacrifices background noise to focus on the Bee Gees’ music.

Although film sound can have a great deal of complexity, and realism is thrown out the window

every time background music appears, authenticity and emotion are often served by a subordination of the autonomy of sound to the cues given by the image. In contrast to this practice of sound-image continuity, however, a competing approach explores the concrete nature of sounds and their potential independence of images and of each other. This practice of sound montage, which characterizes the films of Jean-Luc Godard and others, does not serve the values of authenticity and emotion; rather, it makes us conscious of their violation by calling attention to the actual sound recording process or asking us to be aware of and reflect on emotional cues.

Sound Continuity and Sound Montage Sound continuity describes the range of scoring, sound recording, mixing, and playback processes that strive for the unification of meaning and experience by subordinating sound to the aims of the narrative. Sound montage creates colli- sions or overlappings of disjunctive sounds. It reminds us that just as a film is built up of bits and pieces of celluloid, a soundtrack is not a continuous gush of sound from the real world; rather, it is composed of separate elements whose relationship to each other can be creatively manipulated and reflected upon. The music of Wong Kar Wai’s In the Mood for Love (2000) uses an eclectic mix of lushly romantic tunes to create an intense but delicate world that surrounds two lovers in Hong Kong. In Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life (2011), as in his other films, a sound montage of whispering voices, voice-off commentary, and amplified noises from nature creates a vibrating and shifting world that his characters struggle to understand. Most assumptions, shared by technicians and viewers, about what constitutes a “good” soundtrack emphasize a continuity approach. However, since the introduction of sound, many filmmakers have used it as a separate element for a montage effect. With the increasing sophis- tication of audio technology, it is possible that sound montage will find more practitioners.

Sound Continuity Analyzing a film that adheres to sound continuity can be rewarding precisely because really hearing the soundtrack demands such attentiveness. As we have seen, matching up actors’ voices with their moving lips and ensuring the words are intelligible were among the early goals of sound technology. Audiences were thrilled just to see the match. Despite our familiarity with film sound today, the degree of redundancy between image and sound in the continuity tradition still

5.37 Jurassic Park (1993). On the digital soundtrack, the T-Rex’s footsteps can be heard approaching the truck where the children are hiding, generating keen suspense.

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makes it difficult to analyze the soundtrack autonomously. From the priority granted to synchronization, we can define several compatible continuity practices:

■ The relationship between image and sound and among separate sounds is motivated by dramatic action or information.

■ With the exception of background music, the sources of sounds will be identifiable. ■ The connotations of musical accompaniment will be consistent with the images

(for example, a funeral march is unlikely to accompany a high-speed chase). ■ The sound mix will emphasize what we should pay attention to. ■ The sound mix will be smooth and will emphasize clarity.

Films that adhere to the principles of verisimilitude will use sound to amplify, as it were, what is taking place on the screen. Attention will be directed back to the characters, actions, and mise-en-scène by sound that supports it. In The Big Sleep (1946), a conversation in a car between the two protagonists, Marlowe and Vivian, begins with engine noise in the background. We see that there is a dog on the porch in the opening scene of The Searchers (1956), but when we hear it bark, the image comes alive. The relationship between image and sound and among separate sounds will also be motivated by dramatic action or information. In The Big Sleep, the engine noise will soon disappear so we can focus on the characters’ avowal of love. The continuous use of music to cover a sequence of character activity draws our attention away from discontinuity in the image track. For example, continuous orchestral music links the “training montage” in Rocky Balboa (2006) [Figure 5.38].

It may be easier to think of what sound continuity seeks to avoid than what it positively pursues. Sound should not intrude on the narrative. Unmotivated or unidentified sounds will not have a prominent place on the soundtrack. Nor will unidentified speakers be heard, unless in a conventional context such as a docu- mentary, in which the voiceover explanation will demonstrate its own continuity with the content of the image. Characters’ speech will not break with the diegesis to offer commentary or non sequiturs. Technology and techniques have developed in consort with these aims. Dolby noise-reduction technology improves frequency response and gives an almost unnatural clarity. Noise interferes with the sound signal and can call attention to the fact that the sound was recorded and, thus, to how the film was made. These are goals of continuity rather than of strict realism.

Sound Montage Exploring the infinite possibilities of sound and image interactions, and interac- tions among sounds and images, is the province of montage. Often deriving its practices in direct opposition to the principles of sound continuity, sound montage calls attention to the distinct, autonomous elements that make up a film. Like the disjunctive image-editing practices discussed in Chapter 4, sound montage does not smooth over juxtapositions. In sound montage, sound may “come first,” and the borders between the nondiegetic and the diegetic may be difficult to establish. In addition, the expectation that every ele- ment of the mise-en-scène will make a naturalistic noise is frustrated, and voices, whether diegetic or nondiegetic, do not always preserve the illusion of a closed world. The music might appear and disappear, giving it a more mate- rial presence, and sound effects can be “synchronized” to arbitrary sources.

When motivated relationships — for example, the image of a dog motivates the sound effect of barking — are given up, we see and hear something onscreen that is different from an attempted extension of our natural world. The

5.38 Rocky Balboa (2006). The Rocky film series’s iconic theme song (Bill Conti’s “Gonna Fly Now”) ties together disparate images of Rocky doing pull-ups, jogging, and lifting weights.

V I E w I n g C u E Identify two or three instances of sound continuity in a film you have watched for class. How do these instances support either the narrative action or the thoughts and feelings of a character?

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intention may be to critique, as in a disturbing sequence in Natural Born Killers (1994) when Mallory’s life at home with her abusive father is presented as if it were a situation com- edy, complete with laugh track, applause, and perky theme music, directly commenting on how the media use sound to manipulate emotion. In a very different use of sound montage, the succession of still images that constitutes Chris Marker’s La Jetée (1962) is anchored by a voiceover that tells of the time experiments in which the protagonist is partici- pating, identifying the film as science fiction [Figure 5.39]. Prioritizing sound makes us attend to the film’s structure; the image track accompanies or provides counterpoint to what we hear.

The use of the voice can be opened up to include direct address to the viewer or the use of recitation or reading

instead of naturalistic dialogue, as in Godard’s Weekend (1967) or Isaac Julien’s Look- ing for Langston (1989). The sensual quality of sounds can be explored as it might be in a musical composition, or poetic effects can be achieved by combining different sound “images.” Voices are layered in Marguerite Duras’s India Song (1975). A film can deliver ideas through multiple channels; the sound can contradict the image. Interview texts printed on the screen are read aloud with slight alterations by the voiceovers in Trinh T. Minh-ha’s Surname Viet Given Name Nam (1989) [Figure 5.40].

Overall, sound montage stresses the fact that images and sounds communicate on two different levels; rather than trying to make them equivalents, montage calls attention to what each contributes differently. Sergei Eisenstein, the primary theorist of montage, extended his ideas to sound even before the technology was perfected. In his first sound film, Alexander Nevsky (1938), he experimented with what he called “vertical montage,” which emphasized both the simultaneity of and the difference between image and sound [Figure 5.41]. He also collaborated closely with composer Sergei Prokofiev to make a film in which every picture edit was influenced by the accompanying soundtrack. German filmmaker Ulrike Ottinger’s Madame X: An Absolute Ruler (1977) makes ingenious use of postsynchronous sound. Her film’s motley crew of female pirates do not speak; instead, their move- ments are “synchronized” with noises like animal growls or metallic clanking [Figure 5.42].

5.39 La Jetée (1962). The fluidity of a voiceover accompanying a montage of still images creates a reflective distance between the two elements.

5.40 Surname Viet Given Name Nam (1989). The qualities of the film’s voices — they are often accented and seem to belong to nonactors reciting — convey information that could not be gathered from images.

5.41 Alexander Nevsky (1938). The editing of Sergei Eisenstein’s first sound film was planned with the score in mind.

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Film Sound: Listening to the Cinema C H A p T E r 5 205

Experimentation with sound montage began with the introduction of sound. Filmmakers such as Jean Vigo and René Clair in France and Rouben Mamoulian and King Vidor in the United States are identified with the early sound era because of the lyrical and creative ways sound and image are combined in their films. In films such as Mamoulian’s Applause (1929), for instance, music and effects do not duplicate the image but create a more subjective and atmospheric setting.

In the post–World War II art cinema, sound experimenta- tion was renewed. French director Robert Bresson takes apart the usual fit between sound and image by a minimalist use of sound. In spare films such as Pickpocket (1959) and L’Argent (1983), which explore themes of predestination and isolation through scrutiny of details, Bresson achieves an uncanny presence of select sounds while refusing realistic indicators of space [Figure 5.43]. In “Notes on Sound,” Bresson sums up his ideas: “what is for the eye must not duplicate what is for the ear.” Without the use of room tone or other techniques to give spatial cues or to make sounds warmer, the minimalist sounds in his films become very concrete, a practice that has influenced many contemporary filmmakers in world cinema.

Other filmmakers layer sounds in ways that collide with images and other sounds. Dziga Vertov’s early sound film Enthusiasm (1931) innovates the collection of documentary sounds, juxtaposing them as if in a collage. The sounds are not harmonized with each other or with the images but rather create disruptions or even shocks. A clock ticks over the image of a tolling bell, for example. The Soviet filmmaker was keenly interested in sound, and his work in radio and even his poetry showed a fascination with industrial noise.

Jean-Luc Godard’s many experiments with sound col- lage, which began early in his career, are indebted to Vertov’s. Godard emphasizes music in the organization of many of his films; a favorite technique is to interrupt a music cue so that it literally cannot fade into the background. In First Name: Carmen (1983), we actually see a string quartet playing without knowing what its relationship to the story space might be.

The abrupt cessation of a soundtrack element may be extended to voices and effects as well. In the café scene in Band of Outsiders (1964), one of the characters suggests that if the friends in the group have nothing to say to each other, they should remain silent. This diegetic silence is conveyed by the complete cessation of sound on the soundtrack, something that is rare indeed. By using nonauthoritative or noncontinuous voiceovers as well as frequent voice-offs, and by having on- camera characters address the camera, read, or make cryptic announcements, Godard challenges the natural role of the human voice in giving character and narrative information. Instead, language becomes malleable, an element in a col- lage of meaning.

5.42 Madame X: An Absolute Ruler (1977). In Ulrike Ottinger’s film, the character’s movements are synchronized with a sound montage of noises like animals growls or metallic clanking, not dialogue. A Women Make Movies Release. Courtesy of Women Make Movies www.wmm.com

5.43 L’Argent (1983). Robert Bresson’s films carefully select sound to explore themes of isolation.

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Directed by Francis Ford Coppola in collaboration with sound designer and editor Walter Murch, The Conversa- tion (1974) is notable because its very topic is the exploi- tation of sound technology. While the film’s own sound conforms to the principles identified with the continuity tradition, by virtue of its foregrounding of how sound is created and transmitted, it can also illustrate the aims of sound montage practice.

The film, set in San Francisco, follows the activities of a surveillance expert, Harry Caul (played by Gene Hackman), as he goes about what seems to be a routine job: eaves- dropping on a pair of lovers in the park. Harry’s expertise and interest in technology leave little space for human contact and complement his rather paranoid character. Interestingly, Harry’s hobby is playing the saxophone. The warm sound of this instrument foreshadows his eventual awakening to the more human dimensions of the sounds he records for a living.

The first sequence of the film is a tour de force of sound and image counterpoint, which makes us partake in the activity of surveillance as we actively attempt to decode what is happening on the screen. Eavesdrop- ping enhances the sound’s quality of presence; we feel we are right there in the scene. Yet the activities of the on-camera sound recordists make us aware of those of the record- ist, mixer, and director behind the scenes of the film we are watching.

The film opens with an aerial shot over San Francisco’s Union Square; a slow zoom-in is accom- panied by jazz music, while sound perspective remains constant. As the music shifts from an instru- mental theme to the banter of two singers, and as the hubbub of the busy square and then the applause

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become audible, we recognize that the music is diegetic, coming from the scene even though we cannot at first see the source. The music’s festive and emotional con- notations are immediately recognizable. Yet electronic interference comes in very early on; we begin to suspect that we are hearing the music through a device “within” the film as well as through the loudspeaker in the the- ater, and the emotional register turns slightly sinister.

In the next few shots, it remains difficult to tell who the object of the surveillance is and who the object of our attention should be, in part because the sound is not mixed to emphasize the action. Indeed, it is the gestures of a mime, taunting through his mimicry a figure whose crumpled raincoat suggests a desire for anonymity, that we must “listen” to in the first aerial shot if we want to pick out Harry in the crowd. The silent stalker is stalked. Finally, when Harry enters a van where his assistant is stationed, we learn that the target is a young couple, Ann and Mark, played by Cindy Williams and Frederic Forrest [Figure 5.44].

FIlm In FOCuS

157010

157010

The role of Sound and Sound Technology in The Conversation ( 1974 )

See also: Blow Out (1981); The Truman Show (1998); The Lives of Others (2006)

FIlm In FOCuS bedfordstmartins.com /filmexperience

To watch a clip from The Conversation, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

5.44 The Conversation (1974). We eavesdrop on characters that the plot never brings us to know better.

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The sound mix in the scene is quite complicated. The cut to the first shot taken at ground level corresponds to a notable shift in sound perspective with an increase in the diegetic music volume. Quickly a snatch of random conversation is heard, fol- lowed by a snippet of another — this time, the targeted couple — but the succession has already identified for us the arbitrari- ness of continuity sound mixing practices that isolate immediately what we should pay attention to. The closeness of our sound perspective is then given technical justification when we see both Harry and a man with a hearing aid in close proximity to the couple. We stay with Ann and Mark as they continue a conversation about a drunk passed out on the park bench; the volume of the conversation does not change as Harry climbs into the van. Here the continuity in sound perspective signals the importance of this apparently trivial conver- sation. And once again, what seemed like the film’s sound — we hear the conversation — is revealed as sound produced within the story: what we hear is the recording of the conversation as we see the reel-to-reel tape recorder spinning [Figure 5.45].

In the next scene, Harry plays a few lines of recorded conversation over and over again, discovering in the cap- tured sounds clues to a suspicious event. Is the “guilty” party the couple, presumably engaged in an affair, or those who pay to have them watched? And what is the ethical role of the “invisible” bystander, the hired sound recordist, and by extension the film viewer? The open- ing scene of The Conversation functions like a puzzle as Harry and the viewer strive to find the truth behind the sounds captured in the square.

Toward the end of the scene, a new sound ele- ment is introduced. A nondiegetic moody piano theme begins as the couple parts; the music continues, with some street noise in the mix, as Harry starts home. The piano carries over the dissolve to the next scene and ends just as Harry turns the key in his door, when it is abruptly replaced by a shrill sound effect, his alarm being set off. Our newly honed attention to the concrete nature of each sound element encourages us to evaluate this nondiegetic musical theme. Associated almost exclusively with long shots of Harry making his way around town, the wandering theme played on a single instrument underscores his alienation, inviting us as viewers to feel the emotion Harry attempts to keep at bay.

After Harry arrives home, we see him playing the sax. The sound of the saxophone is very solitary; it

connects Harry to the piano theme we’ve just heard as well as to the musicians in the park. Interestingly, however, Harry plays his sax along with a record player, syncing up his own performance of the expres- sive qualities of music with prerecorded sound. This is emphasized by a shot of the record spinning. Such close-ups of sound technology are frequent in the film and remind us of the source of film voices, music, and effects. Often these cutaways are unmotivated by any character’s specific attention to the sounds being emitted at that moment.

As the film progresses, Harry becomes increas- ingly suspicious of his employer’s intentions, and he returns again and again to the evidence gathered in the first scene, in the form of the tape. The film’s theme of paranoia finds a perfect echo in its setting in the world of sound technology, eavesdropping, and surveil- lance. Because of the claims to presence of sound, the incriminating audiotape, with the accidental music and noises it captures, appears “real” and convincing even in a film that is constantly showing off the para- phernalia of sound recording, mixing, and playback. By emphasizing that truth lies in the words spoken in that first conversation, the film upholds the privileged rela- tionship between the voice and inner nature, while also facilitating Harry’s (and the audience’s) identification with other humans through technological mediation. Sound is used in service of narrative, but the narrative is about the uses of sound. Despite the period quaintness of the now-obsolete machines the film lingers on — reel- to-reel tape recorders and oversized headphones, the squeaky sound of rewinding, and the mechanical click of old-fashioned buttons — The Conversation remains an apt commentary on the values and practices of sound technology.

Film Sound: Listening to the Cinema C H A p T E r 5

5.45 The Conversation (1974). Audio technology becomes a pervasive presence in the film.

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p A r T 2 Formal Compositions: Film Scenes, Shots, Cuts, and Sounds208

Several examples from Tout va bien (All’s Well) (1972), made by Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin, illustrate these strate- gies. The film opens with an unidentified male voice-off declaring his intention of making a film. A female voice responds that making films costs money. The image shows a hand writing checks for the production of the film Tout va bien. In another sequence, one of the film’s pro- tagonists speaks directly to the camera about his career as a political filmmaker turned director of commercials, and he is seated next to a camera as he does so. The speech makes us think about Godard’s own position. Another memorable scene is set in a supermarket as it is taken over by anarchists. To add another element, the words of the journalist character played by Jane Fonda [Figure 5.46] are

introduced by loudspeaker tones, such as those that would normally direct shop- pers to a special bargain. This sound element confuses internal and external sound, layering sound in a collage effect. Over a more than forty-year career, Godard has earned a reputation as probably the most exemplary practitioner of sound montage.

But even in Hollywood films, sound montage can dominate. Although it is narratively motivated by the futuristic setting, the soundscape of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner resembles that of an experimental film. Sound, is at least as respon- sible as the mise-en-scène and the story line for the theme of anxiety in a syn- thetic, syncretic world. Director David Lynch’s sound designs are similarly integral to his disorienting onscreen worlds. In their richness, contemporary soundtracks draw more and more on montage traditions of layering sounds, without neces- sarily encouraging reflection on the discrete functions of sound and image. The continuity tradition that subordinates sound to image and accords with screen realism is still dominant. One of the most interesting films to confront questions of sound practice in Hollywood film is The Conversation. Although it does not depart from sound continuity in ways that an experimental film might do, the film asks viewers to consider the meanings and effects of sound as an autonomous element.

5.46 Tout va bien (All’s Well) (1972). The cacophony of this setting is interrupted by the internal diegetic monologue of one of the other main characters, a journalist played by Jane Fonda.

From Edison’s experiments and The Jazz Singer through Singin’ in the Rain and The Conversation, films re-create sounds from the world around us and create new patterns of sound that construct or emphasize meanings and themes in the films. Listening carefully to films is a critical act that engages the films we watch in an audio dialogue that involves, as Singin’ in the Rain so clearly dramatizes, film history and culture, as well as specific formal ele- ments and strategies. Unmistakenly demonstrated in films like Pulp Fiction and the recent version of The Great Gatsby, we listen — consciously or un- consciously — to a film with many layers of sound, from the dialogue to the background score and music soundtracks. While film sound may represent the

C O n C E p T S A T w O r K

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Film Sound: Listening to the Cinema C H A p T E r 5 209

least visible of the formal and technical elements of the movies, listening to movies can quite often provide the most insightful discoveries about a film’s complex vision. Indeed, in films like The Piano, sound becomes the primary motif through which we understand the characters. Listen carefully to the film you are examining, and reconsider two or three of these major objectives:

■ What are some of the historical or cultural influences on its use of sound? Sound technology as in Singin’ in the Rain? Contemporary music as in Tarantino’s films?

■ Which specific ways does the sound interact with the images? As narrative cues, such as those heard in movies like Taxi Driver (1976)? Or perhaps as ironic counterpoints to the action on the screen?

■ Are there distinctive ways that voice or voices are used in the film? Making use of the actor’s voice and tones as happens with Dustin Hoffman’s voice in The Graduate?

■ How does music function in relation to the story? As commentary on the action? As irony?

■ Does the film creatively use sound effects? Perhaps less centrally than in The Conversation but nonetheless in ways that make us understand the story and its world in specific ways?

Activity Select a scene or sequence from a film that uses orchestral music, mute the audio, and try accompanying the scene with other musical choices: jazz, part of a well-known score from a different film, a pop song. How do the changes redirect an understanding of the scene and its meaning?

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p a r t 3

OrGaNIZ atIONaL StrUC tUrES from stories to genres

We go to the movies not just to experience a film’s elaborate scenes, brilliant images, dramatic cuts, and rich sounds. We also go for the gripping suspense of a murder mystery, the fascinating revelations of a

documentary, the poetic voyage of a musical score set to abstract images

and sounds, and the delight of seeing life as if it were a 1930s musical. We

turn to films like James Franco’s As I Lay Dying (2013) for its inventive split-

screen adaptation of William Faulkner’s classic narrative, to 20 Feet from

Stardom (2013) for the intriguing revelations about the amazing background

singers for the Rolling Stones and other rock-and-roll bands, to Pina (2011)

for its stunning 3-D exploration of dance movement through space, and to The

Heat (2013) for Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy’s comic transforma-

tion of the conventions of a buddy film.

Besides the stylistic details found in the mise-en-scène, cinematography,

editing, and sound, movie experiences are also encounters with larger orga-

nizational structures and attractions. Some of us may look first for a good

story; others may prefer documentary or experimental films. Some days we

may be in the mood for a melodrama; other days we may feel like watching a

horror film. Part 3 explores the principal organizations of movies — narrative,

documentary, and experimental films, and movie genres — each of which, as

we will see, arouses certain expectations about the movie we are viewing.

Each shapes the world for us into a distinctive kind of experience, offering a

particular way of seeing, understanding, and enjoying it.

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c h a p t e r 6 Narrative Films: telling Stories ■ Stories and plots

■ Characters

■ Narration and narrative point of view

■ Classical and alternative narrative traditions

c h a p t e r 7 Documentary Films: representing the real ■ Cultural practices

■ Nonfiction and non-narrative images and forms

■ Formal strategies and organizations

c h a p t e r 8 experimental Film and New Media: challenging Form ■ Defining experimental media

■ Aesthetic histories

■ Formal strategies and organizations

c h a p t e r 9 Movie Genres: conventions, Formulas, and audience expectations ■ Genre identification

■ Genre as cultural ritual

■ Prescriptive and descriptive understanding of film types

■ Six genres

■ Meaning through genre

Gemma La Mana/TM and © Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved./Courtesy Everett Collection

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6 chapter

Based on the book series by L. Frank Baum, The Wizard of Oz has been one of the most adapted and ubiquitous narratives in American history, boasting a 1925 silent version, the famous 1939 Technicolor film with Judy Garland, a modernized musical called The Wiz (1978), and Sam Raimi’s 2013 Oz the Great and Powerful. With a black-and-white frame describing Dorothy’s farm life in Kansas, the narra- tive of the 1939 film catapults Dorothy into a strange world where she encounters the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion, who then accompany her as she encounters and overcomes a series of obstacles along her way (such as the Wicked Witch of the West). Despite its fantastical elements, the narrative be- comes structured as a classic paradigm in which the protagonist’s desire to go home propels her down a linear path, which eventually concludes in her return to her home and family. Indeed, the basic outline of this narrative might describe the shape of many very different stories, such as those found in the films of Steven Spielberg. At the same time, this particular narrative is also a fine example of how some narratives can approach the status of a cultural myth, shared by many differ- ent audiences.

Narrative Films Telling Stories

213 Courtesy Everett Collection

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K E Y O B J E C t I V E S

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Movies have thrived on narrative, the art and craft of constructing a story with a particular plot and point of view. Narrative film developed out of a long cultural, artistic, and literary tradition of storytelling, showing characters pursuing goals, confronting obstacles to those goals, and ultimately achieving some kind of closure. In general, narrative follows a three-part structure consisting of a beginning, a middle, and an ending. An established situation is disrupted in the middle of the narrative, and that disruption leads to a restoration of order in the ending. At its core, narrative maps the different ways we have learned to make sense of our place in history and the world, as well as how to communicate with others.

■ Summarize the cultural ubiquity of storytelling in film. ■ Describe the different historical practices that create the foundations for film

narratives. ■ Explain how film narratives construct plots that can arrange the events of a

story in different ways. ■ Identify the way film characters motivate actions in a story. ■ Break down the way plots create different temporal and spatial schemes. ■ Describe how the power of narration and narrative point of view determine

our understanding of a story. ■ Distinguish the differences between classical and alternative narrative traditions.

a Short history of Narrative Film

Over time, stories have appeared in a myriad of material forms and served innumer- able purposes, many of which reappear in movie narratives. Some films, like Little Big Man (1970) and Contempt (1963), make explicit references to the narrative his- tory that precedes them. Little Big Man, for instance, depicts the heritage of Native

Storytelling has always been a central part of societies and cultures. Stories spring from both personal and communal memories and reconstruct the events, actions, and emotions of the past through the eyes of the present. Stories entertain children before bed and sailors at sea, they communicate ideas about social behav- ior, they reconcile us to the changing of the seasons or the inevitability of death, and they strengthen both the memory and the imagination of a society. The many stories of the Bible, Hindu scriptures, Icelandic sagas, oral tales of indigenous cul- tures, and well-known stories of historical events (such as the Civil War) and people (such as Abraham Lincoln) are all driven by these aims. In a sense, stories are both the historical center of a culture and the bonds of a community. More often than not, history itself is recounted in narrative terms.

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Americans gathered around the fire listening to storytellers recounting the history of their people. Contempt, in contrast, struggles with the narrative forms found in Homer’s Odyssey and those demanded by commercial filmmaking — between telling a tale as an epic poem and as a Hollywood blockbuster [Figures 6.1a–6.1c].

To appreciate the richness of film narrative, viewers must keep in mind the unique cultural history of narrative itself. For example, oral narratives, which are

215

(b)

(c)

6.1a–6.1c The history of narrative invariably reflects the historical pressures and conditions that determine how stories are told. Ancient Greek epics, including the renowned Odyssey, were often depicted as visual narratives [6.1a]. Since medieval times, visual arts have incorporated stories and allegories into a single frame — for example, depicting multiple characters and events from the Odyssey in one sixteenth-century painting [6.1b]. More modern visual arts like Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt [6.1c] have engaged directly with the history of narrative; Godard’s film is about the struggle to adapt the Odyssey to the screen. 6.1a courtesy Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY/6.1b © National Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY

(a)

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p a r t 3 Organizational Structures: From Stories to Genres216

spoken or recited aloud, represent a tradition that extends from the camp- fire to today’s stage per- formance artists. Written narratives, such as Charles Dickens’s Bleak House (1853), appear in printed form, while graphic nar- ratives develop through a series of images, such as the stories told through lithographs in the eigh- teenth century and through modern comic books like Spider-Man [Figure 6.2].

In these and other examples, the form and material through which a

story is told affect aspects of the narrative, facilitating some characteristics of expression and prohibiting others. Oral narratives provide more direct and flexible contact with listeners, allowing a story to be tailored to an audience and to change from one telling to another. A visual narrative shows the appearance of characters more concretely than a literary one, while a literary narrative is able to present characters’ thoughts more seamlessly than a visual narrative. A film narrative com- monly draws from and combines these and other narrative traditions, and attend- ing to how a particular film narrative might employ or emphasize the formulas or strategies of, say, oral narratives or operatic narratives illustrates the broad and complex history of storytelling embedded in cinematic form.

1900–1920s: Adaptations, Scriptwriters, and  Screenplays While the first movies were usually content to show simple moving images (such as a train arriving at a station), often these images referred to a story behind them. As film form developed, adaptations of well-known stories were a popular choice of filmmakers. Audiences’ familiarity with the characters and plot helped them to follow emerging motion-picture narrative techniques. As early as 1896, the actor Joseph Jefferson represented Rip van Winkle in a brief short. By 1903, there appeared a variety of similar film tableaux (or images) that assumed audiences would know the larger story behind what was shown on the screen, including Shakespeare’s King John (1899), Cinderella (1900), Robinson Crusoe (1902), and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1905) [Figure 6.3]. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the most popular novel and stage play of the nineteenth century, was adapted for the screen numerous times in the silent film era, including one by Edwin S. Porter [Figure 6.4]. Porter’s films were among the first to use editing to tell stories, and by 1906 the movies were becoming a predominantly narra- tive medium.

These early historical bonds between movies and stories served the development of what we will call the “economics of leisure time.” In the first decades of the twen- tieth century, the budding movie industry recognized that stories take time to tell and that an audience’s willingness to spend time watching stories makes money for the industry. In these early years, most individuals went to the movies to experience

6.2 Spider-Man (2002). The transformation of visual narrative from comic-book page to big screen.

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Narrative Films: Telling Stories C h a p t E r 6 217

the novelty of “going to the movies,” of spending an afternoon with friends or an hour away from work. By 1913, moviemakers recognized that by developing more complex stories they could attract larger audiences, keep them in their seats for lon- ger periods, and charge more than a nickel for admission. Along with the growing cultural prestige of attending films that told serious stories, movies could now sell more time for more money through longer narratives. Quickly cinema established itself among the leading sources of cultural pleasures that included museums, art galleries, and traditional and vaudeville theaters. At the same time, cinema’s own history came to be governed by the forms and aims of storytelling.

As narrative film developed, two important industrial events stand out: the introduction of screenplays, and the advancement of narrative dialogue through sound. Whereas many early silent movies were produced with little advance prepa- ration, the growing number and increasing length of movies from 1907 onward required the use of scriptwriters (or screenwriters), who created film scenarios or scripts either by using original stories or by adapting short stories, novels, or other sources. As part of this historical shift, movies’ narratives quickly became dependent on a screenplay (or film script), which standardized the elements and structures of movie narratives. A copyright lawsuit regarding an early movie ver- sion of Ben-Hur (1907) immediately underlined the importance of scriptwriters who could develop original narratives.

1927–1950: Sound Technology, Dialogue, and Classical Hollywood Narrative The introduction of sound technology and dialogue in the late 1920s proved to be one of the most significant advancements in the history of film narrative. While sound impacted the cinema in numerous ways, perhaps most important was that it enabled film narratives to create and develop more intricate characters whose dialogue and vocal intonations added new psychological and social dimensions to film. More intricate characters were used to propel more complex movie plots. In many ways a product of the new narrative possibilities offered by sound, screwball comedies such as Bringing Up Baby (1938) feature fast-talking women and men whose verbal dexterity is a measure of their independence and wit [Figure 6.5]. Other films of this period use sound devices, such as a whistled tune in Alfred Hitchcock’s

6.3 Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1905). An early tableau narra- tive that assumes the audience knows the larger story behind the image.

6.4 Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1903). One of numerous silent film adapta- tions of the most popular nineteenth-century novel and stage play.

V I E W I N G C U E For the film you recently watched in class, describe as much of the story as you can. What are the main events, the implied events, and the significant and insignificant details of the film’s story?

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p a r t 3 Organizational Structures: From Stories to Genres218

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), to make oblique connections between characters and events and to build more subtle kinds of suspense within the narrative.

The continuing evolution of the relation between sound and narrative helped to solidify and fine-tune the fundamental shape of classical Hollywood narrative in the 1930s and 1940s. During this period, the structure of this increasingly dominant narrative form became firmly established according to three basic features: (1) the nar- ratives focus on one or two central characters; (2) these characters move a linear plot forward; and (3) the action develops according to a realistic cause-and-effect logic. A trio of movies produced in 1939, often heralded as Hollywood’s Golden Year — Gone with the Wind, Stage- coach, and The Wizard of Oz — illustrate sound-era movie narratives as modern-age myths and, despite their many differences, describe narrative variations on this classical Hollywood structure. During these years, the Hollywood studio system grew in size and power, and it provided a labor force, a central producer system, and a global financial reach that created an extraordinarily efficient

industrial system for storytelling. This system became increasingly identified with lucrative narrative genres, such as musicals and westerns (see Chapter 9).

Also during this period, the introduction and advancement of specific movie technologies — for example, deep-focus cinematography and Technicolor processes — offered ways to convey and complicate the narrative information pro- vided by specific images. While the plot structure of the classical narrative remained fully intact, these technologies allowed movies to explore new variations on narrative in the atmosphere of a scene or in the dramatic tensions between characters.

With growing pressure from the Hays Office, the U.S. organization that deter- mined the guidelines for what was considered morally acceptable to depict in films, and its strict Production Code, film narratives during the 1930s turned more conspicuously to literary classics for stories that could provide adult plots accept-

able to censors. These classics included Pride and Prejudice (1938) and Wuthering Heights (1939). For an industry that needed more verbal narratives, Hollywood looked increasingly to New York and other places where literary figures like F. Scott Fitzger- ald could be lured into writing new stories and scripts.

World War II (1939–1945) significantly jolted classical Hollywood narratives. The stark and often horrific events raised ques- tions about whether the classic narrative formulas of linear plots, clear-headed char- acters, and neat and logical endings could adequately capture the period’s far messier and more confusing realities. If the narra- tive of The Wizard of Oz followed the yellow brick road that led a character home, the war-scarred narrative of The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) poignantly questioned what path to follow, and even doubted whether one could ever go home again [Figure 6.6].

6.5 Bringing Up Baby (1938). The witty dialogue of the fast-talking, independent heroines of screwball comedies was made possible by the coming of sound to the movies. Such characters are epitomized by Susan Vance (played by Katharine Hepburn), whose “baby” in this film is in fact a pet leopard.

6.6 The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). This postwar narrative questions the happy ending and closure that a return home usually signifies.

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1950–1980: Art Cinema The global trauma of World War II not only challenged the formulaic Hollywood storytelling style of the time, but it also gave rise to an innovative art cinema that emerged in the 1950s and 1960s in Europe, Japan, India, and elsewhere. This new form of cinema questioned many of the cultural perspectives and values that existed before the war. Produced by such directors as Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, and Agnès Varda, European art cinema experimented with new narra- tive structures that typically subverted or overturned classical narrative models by featuring characters without direc- tion, seemingly illogical actions, and sometimes surreal events. In Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962), for instance, Varda restricts the narrative to two hours in the day of a singer, capturing the real-time details of her life. Although the protagonist fears a cancer diagnosis, the narrative eschews melodrama for the joys of wandering through the everyday [Figure 6.7].

Influencing later new wave cinemas such as the New German Cinema of the 1970s and the New Hollywood cinema of the 1970s and 1980s, these films inten- tionally subverted traditional narrative forms such as linear progression of the plot and the centrality of a specific protagonist. In addition, these narratives often turned away from the objective point of view of realist narratives to create more individual styles and tell stories that were more personal than public. Fellini’s 8½ (1963), for instance, has an unmistakable autobiographical dimension as it recounts the struggles of a movie director wrestling with his anxieties about work and the memories that haunt him.

1980s–Present: From Narrative Reflexivity to Games Contemporary movies represent a wide variety of narrative practices, but three can be identified as particularly significant and widespread in recent decades. Reflect- ing different technological, artistic, and industrial influences, these narratives often reflect back on the process of making films, adapt the excitement and popularity of amusement parks, or mimic the interactivity of gaming culture.

In the practice of narrative reflexivity, filmmakers still tell stories but now call more attention to how they are telling those stories or how these stories are a prod- uct of certain narrative techniques and perspectives. Adaptation (2002) is thus a film about a screenwriter’s struggles to adapt a New Yorker essay on orchids to the formulas of a Hollywood narrative. Meanwhile, replete with references to earlier films and narrative conventions, Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds (2009) is a self-conscious film fantasy about the killing of Nazi leaders during the screening of a film [Figure 6.8].

A second direction in movies of the last few decades is the appropriation of

6.7 Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962). Agnès Varda’s narrative restricts itself to two hours of real time as it documents an afternoon in the life of a young woman in Paris.

6.8 Inglourious Basterds (2009). Contemporary narratives like this film are highly self- conscious and reflexive about the historical sources and materials that construct their stories.

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roller coaster – like narratives with the soaring effects similar to amusement park rides and the physical and psy- chological thrills associated with them. A particularly explicit example would be the Pirates of the Caribbean series, films actually based on a Disney World ride. Similarly, the Harry Potter films, while based on J. K. Rowling’s children’s books rather than a theme park, none- theless seem to aspire, at least in part, to the narrative-ride model, complete with elaborate action sequences and IMAX- ready spectacle.

As films move into the digital age of the new millennium, a third tendency is to structure stories with the effects of

video and digital gaming, making films, and their marketing campaigns, a kind of interactive game for audiences. An increasing number of movies have either implicitly or explicitly constructed stories as an interactive exploration of spaces; Mortal Kombat (1995), for instance, is an early video game adaptation and an example of a nonstory game adapted into a non-story film [Figure 6.9]. Film stories no longer depict a linear plot that an audience simply follows in every instance. Indeed, as film narrative evolves into the twenty-first century, the convergences and exchanges between games and films may represent one of cinema’s most interesting new directions.

6.9 Mortal Kombat (1995). The nonlinearity of plot allows for the convergence between game and film.

the Elements of Narrative Film While narrative is universal, it is also infinitely variable. The origins of cinema storytelling in other narrative forms and texts, the evolution of narrative strategies across film history, and the distinct narrative traditions across cultures give a sense of this variety. However, we can identify the common elements of narrative and some of the characteristic ways the film medium deploys them.

Stories and Plots The main features of any kind of narrative are the story, characters, plot, and nar- ration. A story is the subject matter or raw material of a narrative, with the actions and events (usually perceived in terms of a beginning, a middle, and an end) ordered chronologically and focused on one or more characters, those individuals who motivate the events and perform the actions of the story. Stories tend to be summarized easily, as in “the tale of a man’s frontier life on the Nebraska prairie” or “the story of a woman confronting the violence of her past in Pakistan.” In the next section, we will discuss characters in detail.

The plot orders the events and actions of the story according to particular temporal and spatial patterns, selecting some actions, individuals, and events and omitting others. The plot of one story may include the smallest details in the life of a character; another may highlight only major, cataclysmic events. One plot may present a story as progressing forward step by step from the beginning to the end; another may present the same story by moving backward in time. One plot may describe a story as the product of the desires and drives of a character, whereas

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another might suggest that events take place outside the control of that character. Thus one plot of President John F. Kennedy’s life could describe all the specifics of his childhood as well as the details of his adulthood; another plot might focus only on his combat experience during World War II, the major events of his presidency, and his shocking assassination in 1963. The first might begin with his birth, and the second with his death. Finally, how the plot is formulated can also differ sig- nificantly: one version of this story might depict Kennedy’s life as the product of his energetic vision and personal ideals, whereas another version might present his triumphs and tragedies as the consequence of historical circumstances.

From early films like Edwin S. Porter’s Life of an American Fireman (1903), regarded as one of the first significant narrative films, to recent movies like Chris- topher Nolan’s Memento (2000), with its reverse chronology, movies have relied on the viewer’s involvement in the narrative tension between story and plot to create suspense, mystery, and interest. Even in the short and simple rescue narrative of Porter’s film [Figures 6.10a–6.10d] some incidental details are omitted, such as the actual raising of the ladders. To add to the urgency and energy of the narrative, the rescue is actually repeated from two different camera setups. In Memento, the ten- sion between plot and story is more obvious and dramatic: this unusual plot, about a

V I E W I N G C U E How do story and plot in a film dif- fer? In what order does the plot in the film you’ve just viewed present the events of the story?

6.10a–6.10d Life of an American Fireman (1903). This story proceeds from a fire alarm sounded, to the racing of the firefighters through the streets, to the rescue, with one event — the rescue of a woman via ladder — shown from two different perspectives. Courtesy Photofest

(a) (b)

(c) (d)

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man without a short-term memory, begins with a murder and proceeds backward in time through a series of short episodes, as the film unveils fragments of infor- mation about who the man is and why he committed the murder [Figure 6.11]. In other films, we know the story (of President Kennedy’s life, for instance) or the outcome of the story (that Kennedy was assassinated), but in these cases, what interests us is discovering the particular ways the plot constructs that story.

Characters The first characters portrayed in films were principally bodies on display or in motion: a famous actor posing, a person running, a figure performing a menial task. When movies began to tell stories, however, characters became the central vehicle for the actions; and with the advent of the Hollywood star system around 1910, distinctions among characters developed rapidly. From the 1896 Lone Fisherman to the 1920 Pollyanna (featuring Mary Pickford), film characters evolved from amus- ing moving bodies to figures with specific narrative functions, portrayed by adored actors whose popularity made them nearly mythic figures. With the introduction of sound films in 1927, characters and their relations began to be drawn according to traditions of literary realism and psychological complexity. Today the evolution of character presentation continues as characters now adapt the voices of real actors to animated figures and plots. Through all these historical incarnations, characters have remained one of the most immediate yet under-analyzed dimensions of the movies.

Character Functions According to the discipline of narratology, the study of narrative structure, plots proceed through a fairly limited number of actions or functions — including pro- hibition, struggle, return, and recognition — each of which is performed by one or more characters. Although we often think of film heroes and heroines as unique individuals, as the casting of charismatic stars often encourages us to do, basic character types underlie these figures, and can even shape the personae of the stars who play them. In considering the function of character in the movies, it is useful to look at how we are encouraged to accept fictional entities as rounded individuals even while recognizing that familiar character types recur across different plots.

Characters are either central or minor figures who anchor the events in a film. They are commonly identified and understood through aspects of their appearance, gestures and actions, dialogue, and the comments of other characters, as well as such incidental but important features as their names or clothes.

A character’s inferred emotional and intellectual make-up motivates specific actions that subsequently define that character. His or her stated or implied wishes and fears produce events that cause certain effects or other events to take place; thus the actions, behaviors, and desires of characters create the causal logic favored in classical film narrative, whereby one action or event leads to, or “causes,” another action or event. In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy’s desire to “go home” — to find her way back to Kansas — leads her through various encounters and dangers that create friendships and fears; these events, in turn, lead to others, such as Dorothy’s fight to retrieve the witch’s broom. In the end, she returns home joyfully. The character of Dorothy is thus defined first by her emotional desire and will to

6.11 Memento (2000). A crisis of memory becomes a crisis of plot in Christopher Nolan’s innovative reverse narrative.

V I E W I N G C U E Focus on a single character in the film you’re currently studying. Is the character realistic or extraordinary? Explain how. Does the character’s historical or cultural situation seem at odds with your own?

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go home and then by the persistence and resourcefulness that eventually allow her to achieve that goal [Figure 6.12].

Most film characters are a combina- tion of both ordinary and extraordinary features. This blend of fantasy and real- ism has always been an important movie formula: it creates characters that are recognizable in terms of our experiences and exceptional in ways that make us interested in them. Often the differences and complexities of certain film charac- ters can be attributed to this blending and balancing. For example, the title characters of Million Dollar Baby (2004), Milk (2008), and Lincoln (2012) — a young working-class woman who becomes a prizefighter, the activist who fought for gay rights in San Francisco, and the American president attempting to broker an anti-slavery legislation deal — all com- bine extraordinary and ordinary charac- teristics [Figures 6.13a–6.13c]. Even when film characters belong to fantasy genres, as with the tough but vulnerable heroine of Alien (1979), understanding them means appreciating how that balance between the ordinary and the extraordinary is achieved.

6.12 The Wizard of Oz (1939). Narrative cause-and-effect logic finds Dorothy and her new companions on the yellow brick road toward the Emerald City.

(a)

(c)

6.13a–6.13c (a) Million Dollar Baby (2004), (b) Milk (2008), (c) Lincoln (2012). These characters, whether based on historical figures or wholly invented, represent a balance of the ordinary and the extraordinary.

(b)

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Character Coherence, Depth, and Grouping No matter how ordinary or extraordinary, unique or typical a character, narrative traditions tend to construct behavior, emotions, and thoughts as consistent and coherent. Character coherence is the product of different psychological, historical, or other expectations that see people, and thus characters in fictional narratives, as fundamen- tally consistent and unique. We usually evaluate a character’s coherence according to one or more of the following three assumptions or models:

■ Values. The character coheres in terms of one or more abstract values, such as when a character becomes defined through his or her overwhelming determination or treachery.

■ Actions. The character acts out a logical relation between his or her implied inner or mental life and visible actions, as when a sensitive character acts in a remarkably generous way.

■ Behaviors. The character reflects social and historical assumptions about normal or abnormal behavior, as when a fifteenth-century Chinese peasant woman acts submissively before a man with social power.

Within a realist tradition, the character Sergeant James in Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker (2008) is part of a specialist bomb squad group in the Iraq War. His reckless behavior as he toys with mortal danger and death contrasts with his obsessive countdown of the days until he can return home. Questions about what drives and explains this character become part of the film’s powerful depiction of war. When he finally returns home, only to quickly re-enlist to return to Iraq, this oddly complicated character seems revealed as one who coheres around a death wish of sorts or at least around the addictive excitement of risking death [Figure 6.14].

Inconsistent, contradictory, or divided characters subvert one or more patterns of coherence. While inconsistent characters may sometimes be the result of poor characterization, a film may intentionally create an inconsistent or contradictory character as a way of challenging our sympathies and understanding. In films like Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) — about a bored suburban housewife, Roberta,

switching identities with an offbeat and mysterious New Yorker — characters com- plicate or subvert the expectation of coherence by taking on contradictory personalities. Mulholland Dr. (2001) dra- matizes this instability when its two characters become mirror images of each other. In its tale of an amnesiac woman and a young actress becoming entan- gled in a mysterious plot, fundamental notions about character coherence and stability are undermined [Figure 6.15].

Film characterization inevitably re - flects certain historical and cultural val- ues. In Western cultures, movies promote the concept of “the singular character,” distinguished by one or more features

6.14 The Hurt Locker (2008). The contradictory behavior of Sergeant James coheres strangely around his addiction to danger and death.

6.15 Mulholland Dr. (2001). The double characters of the amnesiac and the young actress complicate character coherence.

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that isolate the character as a unique personality. For example, the unique character of Jason Bourne in the series of Bourne films (2004–2007) is a product of a complex mixture of traits — traits that reflect a modern notion of the advanced individual as one who is emotionally and intellectually complex and one-of-a-kind. The consequent character depth asso - ciated with the unique character becomes a way of referring to personal mysteries and intricacies that deepen and layer the dimensions of a complicated personality. Likewise, the surface actions of Louise in Thelma & Louise (1991) clearly hide a deep trauma (a presumed sexual assault) that she tries unsuccessfully to repress. At other times, the uniqueness of a char- acter may be a product of one or two attributes, such as exceptional bravery or massive wealth, that sepa- rate him or her from all the other characters in the film. We should acknowledge that the value placed on singularity represents a social system that prizes individuality and psychological depth in ways that are open to question. After all, Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and its prequel and sequel is one of the most singular and exceptional characters in film history [Figure 6.16]; our troubling identification with him (at least in part) goes right to the social heart of our admiration for such uniqueness.

Character grouping refers to the social arrangements of characters in rela- tion to each other. Traditional narratives usually feature one or two protagonists, characters we identify as the positive forces in a film, and one or two prominent antagonists, characters who oppose the protagonists as negative forces. As with the sympathetic relationship between a German officer and a French prisoner in Grand Illusion (1937), this oppositional grouping of characters can sometimes be complicated or blurred.

In a film featuring an ensemble cast such as Crash (2004), the conflicting relationships and competing interests among a group of interrelated characters provide much of the film’s drama. Surrounding, contrasting, and supporting the protagonists and antagonists, minor or secondary characters are usually associated with specific character groups. In Do the Right Thing (1989), Da Mayor wanders around the edges of the central action throughout most of the film. Although he barely impacts the events of the story, Da Mayor represents an older generation whose idealistic hopes have been dashed but whose fundamental compassion and wisdom stand out amidst racial anger and strife.

Social hierarchies of class, gender, race, age, and geography, among other deter- minants, also come into play in the arrangements of film characters. Traditionally movie narratives have focused on male protagonists and on heterosexual pairings in which males have claimed more power and activity than their female partners. Another traditional character hierarchy places children and elderly individuals in subordinate positions. Especially with older or mainstream films, characters from racial minorities have existed on the fringes of the action and occupy social ranks markedly below those of the white protagonists: in Gone with the Wind, for exam- ple, character hierarchy subordinates African Americans to whites. When social groupings are more important than individual characters, the collective character of the individuals in the group is primarily defined in terms of the group’s action and personality. Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin (1925) explicitly fashions a drama of collective characters, crafting a political showdown among the czarist oppressors, the rebellious sailors, and the sympathetic populace in Odessa. Mod- ern films, such as Winter’s Bone (2010), may shuffle those hierarchies noticeably

6.16 The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Hannibal Lecter’s dark depth of character is revealed.

V I E W I N G C U E In the film you’re watching for class, select a character that you might define as singular. Does that singularity indicate something about the values of the film? Does the character seem coherent? How?

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so that classes like the underclass poor or groups like women and children assume new power and position, as in this story about a young female determined to find her lost father in a destitute Ozark Mountain region ravaged by a methamphetamine drug culture [Figure 6.17].

Character Types Character types share distinguishing features with other, similar characters and are promi- nent within particular narrative traditions such as fairy tales, genre films, and comic books. A single trait or multiple traits may define character types. These may be physi- cal, psychological, or social traits; tattoos

and a shaved head may identify a character as a “skinhead” or punk, while another character’s use of big words and a nasal accent may represent a New England socialite.

We might recognize the singularity of Warren Beatty’s performance as Clyde in Bonnie and Clyde (1967), yet as we watch more movies and compare different protagonists, we might come to recognize him also as a character type who — like James Cagney as gangster Tom Powers in The Public Enemy (1931) and Bruce Willis as John McClane in the Die Hard series (1988-2013) — can be described as a “tough yet sensitive outsider.” Offering various emotional, intellectual, social, and psychological entrances into a movie, character types include such figures as “the innocent,” such as Elizabeth Taylor’s Velvet Brown in National Velvet (1944); “the villain,” such as Robert De Niro’s Max Cady in Martin Scorsese’s remake of Cape Fear (1991); or the “heartless career woman,” such as the imperious fashion editor played by Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada (2006) [Figure 6.18]. These and other character types can often be subclassified in even more specific terms — such as “the damsel in distress” or “the psychotic killer.”

Usually character types convey clear psychological or social connotations and imply cultural values about gender, race, social class, or age that a film engages and manipulates. In Life Is Beautiful (1997), the father (played by director Roberto Benigni) jokes and pirouettes in the tradition of comic clowns from Charlie Chap- lin and Buster Keaton to Jacques Tati and Bill Murray, outsiders whose physical games undermine the social and intellectual pretensions around them. In Life Is Beautiful, however, this comic type must live through the horrors of a Nazi con- centration camp with his son, and in this context that type becomes transformed

into a different figure, a heroic type who physically and spiritually saves his child [Figure 6.19].

Archetypes. Film characters are also pre- sented as figurative types, characters so exaggerated or reduced that they no longer seem at all realistic and instead seem more like abstractions or emblems, like the white witch in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (2006). In some movies, the figurative character appears as an arche- type, a reflection of a spiritual or abstract

6.17 Winter’s Bone (2010). The remarkable grit and determination of a young woman redefines both class and gender.

V I E W I N G C U E What kinds of social hierarchies are suggested by the character group- ings in the film you’ve just viewed?

V I E W I N G C U E Turn your attention to a film’s most important minor characters. What do they represent?

6.18 The Devil Wears Prada (2006). The “heartless career woman” character type is depicted by Meryl Streep in her role as imperious fashion editor Miranda Priestly.

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state or process, such as when a character represents evil or oppression. In Battle- ship Potemkin, a military commander unmistakably represents social oppression, while a baby in a carriage becomes the emblem of innocence oppressed. In dif- ferent ways, figurative types present char- acters as intentionally flat, without the traditional depth and complexity of real- istically drawn characters, and often for a specific purpose: for comic effect, as with the absentminded professor in Back to the Future (1985); for intellectual argument, as in Battleship Potemkin; or to populate an imaginative landscape, as in The Hob- bit: An Unexpected Journey (2012).

Stereotypes. When a film reduces an otherwise realistic character to a set of static traits that identify him or her in terms of a social, physical, or cultural cate- gory — such as the “mammy” character in Imitation of Life (1934) [Figure 6.20] or the vicious and inhuman Vietnamese in The Deer Hunter (1978) — this figurative type becomes a stereotype. Although Louise Beavers’s role and performance in Imitation of Life are substantive enough to complicate the way the role is written, it is still an example of how stereotypes can offend even when not overtly negative, because they tend to be applied to marginalized social groups who are not represented by a range of character types.

The relationship between film stars and character types has been a central part of film history and practice. For nearly one hundred years of film history, the construction of character in film has interacted with the personae of recogniz- able movie stars. Rudolph Valentino played exotic romantic heroes in The Sheik (1921) and Son of the Sheik (1926), and his offscreen image was similarly molded to make him appear more exotic, with his enthusiastic female fans differentiating little between character and star. In Meet the Parents (2000) and its sequels, Robert De Niro’s character draws on familiar aspects of the actor’s tough-guy persona — for example, his role as a young Vito Corleone in The Godfather: Part II (1974) or as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver (1976) — to humorous effect. Our experience of stars, garnered through pub- licity and promotion, television appearances, and criti- cism, resembles the process by which characters are positioned in narratives. Elements of characterization through clothing or personal relationships, perceptions of coherence or development, all factor in to our inter- est in stars and, in turn, how aspects of stars’ offscreen images affect their film portrayals. One way to con- template the effects of star image on character types is to imagine a familiar film cast differently. Would Cast Away’s (2000) story of everyman encountering his environment be the same if, instead of Tom Hanks, Jack Nicholson or Beyoncé Knowles played the lead?

Character Development Finally, film characters usually change over the course of a realist film and thus require us to evaluate and revise our understanding of them as they develop. In a

6.19 Life Is Beautiful (1997). The “comic” character type, depicted by Roberto Benigni in his role as a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp, is transformed into the “hero” type.

6.20 Imitation of Life (1934). The “mammy” stereotype is identified by her social status and physical features.

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conventional story, characters are often understood or measured by the degree to which they change and learn from their experiences. Both the changes and a char- acter’s reaction to them determine much about the character and the narrative as a whole. We follow characters through this process of character development, the patterns through which characters move from one mental, physical, or social state to another in a particular film. In Hitch- cock’s Rear Window (1954), under the stress of a murder mystery, the beautiful Lisa changes from a seemingly passive socialite to an active detective. In Alex- ander Payne’s Nebraska (2013), an adult son takes his aging and confused father

on a strange road trip and in the process grows to know and love his father in ways he never expected; in Juno (2007), the drama of a bright, sardonic sixteen- year-old’s newly discovered pregnancy becomes ironically less about a social or moral crisis in the community and more poignantly and importantly about her own self-discovery of the meaning of love, family, and friendship [Figure 6.21]. Charac- ter development follows four general schemes: external and internal changes, and progressive and regressive development.

External Change. External change is typically a physical alteration, as when we watch a character grow taller or gray with age. Commonly overlooked as merely a realistic description of a character’s growth, exterior change can signal other key changes in the meaning of a character. Similar to the female protagonist in Pygmalion (1938) and My Fair Lady (1964), the main character in The Devil Wears Prada, Andy, is a rather naive recent college graduate who struggles with her first job at a fashion magazine. The course of Andy’s personal and social growth and maturation becomes partly and problematically measured by her more and more fashionable outfits.

Internal Change. Internal change measures the character’s internal transformation, such as when a character slowly becomes bitter through the experience of numer- ous hardships or becomes less materially ambitious as he or she gains more of a spiritual sense of the world. In Mildred Pierce (1945), though there is minimal external change in the appearance of the main character besides her costumes, her consciousness about her identity dramatically changes — from a submissive house- wife, to a bold businesswoman, and finally to a confused, if not contrite, socialite.

Progressive and Regressive Development. As part of these external and internal developments, what we might call progressive character development occurs with an improvement or advancement in some quality of the character, whereas regres- sive character development indicates a loss of or return to some previous state or a deterioration from the present state. For most viewers of The Devil Wears Prada, Andy grows into a more complex and more admirable woman; Mildred Pierce’s path resembles for many a return to her originally submissive role.

Using these schemes to understand character development can be a complex and sometimes even contradictory process. Some characters may seem to progress materially but regress spiritually, for instance. Other characters may not develop at all or may resist development throughout a film. Character development is fre- quently symptomatic of the larger society in which characters live. When the boy

6.21 Juno (2007). A sixteen-year-old’s unexpected pregnancy and its social or moral implications are less the focus of the film than is her self-discovery.

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Oskar in Volker Schlöndorff’s The Tin Drum (1979) suddenly refuses to grow at all, his distorted physical and mental development reflects the new Nazi society then developing in Germany [Figure 6.22].

Diegetic and Nondiegetic Elements Most narratives involve two kinds of mate- rials: those related to the story, and those not related to the story. The entire world that a story describes or that the viewer infers is called its diegesis, which indicates the characters, places, and events shown in the story or implied by it. The diegesis of Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln includes char- acters and events explicitly revealed in the narrative, such as Abraham Lincoln’s negotiations with lawmakers to pass an anti-slavery bill. However, the film’s diegesis also includes viewers’ knowledge of other unseen figures and events from American history, including the final battles of the Civil War and Lincoln’s impending assassination. The extent to which we find the film realistic or convincing, creative or manipulative, depends on our rec- ognition of the richness and coherence of the diegetic world surrounding the story.

The notion of diegesis is critical to our understanding of film narrative because it forces us to consider those elements of the story that the narration chooses to include or not include in the plot — and to consider why these ele- ments are included or excluded. Despite the similarity of information in a plot and a story, plot selection and omission describes the exchange by which plot constructs and shapes a story from its diegesis. Consider a film about the social unrest and revolution in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century: since the diegesis of that event includes a number of events and many characters, what should be selected and what should be omitted? Faced with this question for his film on the 1905 revolution, Sergei Eisenstein reduced the diegesis to a single uprising on a battleship near the Odessa steps and called the film Battle- ship Potemkin.

Information in the narrative that is nondiegetic includes material used to tell the story that does not relate to the diegesis and its world, such as background music and credits. These dimensions of a narrative indirectly add to a story and affect how viewers participate in or understand it. With silent films, nondiegetic information is sometimes part of the intertitles — those frames that usually print the dialogue of the characters but can occasionally comment on the action — as when D. W. Griffith inserts a line appropriated from Walt Whitman, “Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,” into his complex narrative Intolerance (1916).

Nondiegetic soundtracks are commonly musical scores or other arrangements of noise and sound whose source is not found in the story, as opposed to diegetic soundtracks whose source can be located in the story. Most moviegoers are famil- iar with the ominously thumping soundtrack of Jaws (1975) that announces the unseen presence of the great white shark: in this way, the story punctuates its development to quicken our attention and create suspenseful anticipation of the next event [Figure 6.23].

Credits are another nondiegetic element of the narrative. Sometimes seen at the beginning and sometimes at the end of a movie, credits introduce the actors, producers, technicians, and other individuals who have worked on the film.

6.22 The Tin Drum (1979). Oskar’s arrested character development is a symptom of the new Nazi society.

V I E W I N G C U E Describe the diegesis of the film you just watched in class. Which events are excluded or merely implied when that diegesis becomes presented as a narrative?

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Hollywood movies today open with the names of famous stars, the director, and the producers, while the closing cred- its identify the secondary players and technicians. How this information is pre- sented can often suggest ways of looking at the story and its themes as the story unfolds, or as we look back at it after it has ended. In Se7en (1995), for instance, the celebrated opening credits graphi- cally anticipate a dark story about the efforts of two detectives to track down a diabolical serial killer. Filmed in a suit- ably grainy and fragmented style and set to the sounds of a pulsating industrial

soundtrack, the opening credits depict the obsessive mind of a maniac as he crafts morbid scrapbooks, providing both atmosphere and expository narrative informa- tion [Figure 6.24].

Narrative Patterns of Time Narrative films have experimented with new ways of telling stories since around 1900, the beginning of movie history. One of the first such films, Edwin S. Porter’s The Great Train Robbery (1903), manipulated time and place by shift- ing from one action to another and coordinated different spaces by jumping between exterior and interior scenes. Since then, movie narratives have con- tracted and expanded times and places according to ever-varying patterns and well-established formulas, spanning centuries and traveling the world in Cloud Atlas (2012) or confining the tale to two hours in one town in Agnès Varda’s Cleo from 5 to 7. For more than one hundred years and through different cul- tures around the world, intricate temporal organizations and spatial shapes have responded to changing cultural and historical pressures to develop and alter the art of storytelling on film.

Linear Chronology A narrative can be organized according to a variety of temporal patterns. Individu- als and societies create patterns of time as ways of measuring and valuing experi- ence. Repeating holidays once a year, marking births and deaths with symbolic rituals, and rewarding work for time invested are some of the ways we organize

and value time. Similarly, narrative films develop a variety of temporal patterns as a way of creating meaning and value in the stories and experiences they recount.

Most commonly, plots follow a linear chronology in which the selected events and actions proceed one after another through a forward movement in time. The logic and direction of the plot com- monly follow a central character’s moti- vation — that is, the ideas or emotions that make that person tick. In these cases, a character pursues an object, a belief, or a goal of some sort, and the events in the

6.23 Jaws (1975). In the opening sequence, Chrissie goes swimming during a late-night beach party. At first, all is tranquil, but the ominous thumping in the soundtrack foreshadows her violent death. This sound is used throughout the film to signal the presence of the shark.

6.24 Se7en (1995). The presentation of the credits in a film can suggest ways for viewing its story and its unfolding themes.

V I E W I N G C U E As you view the next film, identify the most important nondiegetic materials and analyze how they might emphasize certain key themes or ideas.

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Most moviegoers attend to the diegetic world of a film narrative: its characters, its story, and the world they inhabit. Punctuating, sur- rounding, and sometimes intruding on that diegetic world, however, are often important and illuminating nondiegetic actions and images.

During the silent era, films relied heavily on nondiegetic inter- titles to describe actions in the story, by providing the characters’ dialogue, or by adding a perspective outside the narrative. An inter- title in D. W. Griffith’s Intolerance offers a powerful poetic metaphor from a Walt Whitman poem about the course of human history [Figure 6.25a].

While intertitles are no longer commonly used, opening credit sequences are still a typical nondiegetic element in nar- rative films. As the first images audiences see, they frequently anticipate some of the main themes of a film without actually using images from the story itself. The opening credits of Ver- tigo (1958) begin with Saul Bass’s powerful close-up of an eye containing a vertiginous spiral — an abstract pattern that resur- faces in various iterations throughout the credits and the diege- sis [Figure 6.25b], anticipating the complex themes of human vision trapped within the spirals of desire and fear in the film.

Closing credits offer other nondiegetic possibilities in a narrative film. In Being There (1979), the credits are run over outtakes from the film [Figure 6.25c]. By showing blundered

takes, the film overtly calls attention to the fictional nature of the diegesis, and the reali- ties of filmmaking outside that diegesis.

Another way in which modern films chal- lenge and break open the closed fictional world of narrative diegesis is by “breaking the fourth wall,” or directly addressing an audience outside the walls of the diegesis. In Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986), the always inventive and troublesome Ferris turns to the audience to detail his strategies for scam- ming parents [Figure 6.25d].

Nondiegetic Images and Narrative

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To watch a video about narrative and nondiegetic images, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

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plot show how that character’s motivating desire affects or creates new situations or actions. Put simply, past actions generate present situations, and decisions made in the present create future events. The narrative of Little Miss Sunshine (2006) structures its linear action precisely in this way: a family of offbeat and dysfunctional characters travels from New Mexico to California to partici- pate in a beauty pageant, and on their drive toward this single goal, over the course of several days, they must overcome numerous, sometimes hilari- ous, predicaments, obstacles, and personalities in order to complete their narrative journey and ulti- mately discover themselves anew [Figure 6.26].

Linear narratives most commonly structure their stories in terms of beginnings, middles, and ends. As a product of this structure, the relation- ship between the narrative opening and closing is central to the temporal logic of a plot. How a movie begins and ends and the relationship between those two poles explain much about a

film. Sometimes this relation can create a sense of closure or completion, as hap- pens when a romance ends with a couple united or with a journey finally con- cluded. Other plots provide less certain relations between openings and closings. In Ang Lee’s Life of Pi (2012), Pi Patel’s story begins with his childhood in a zoo and a dramatic shipwreck that leaves him drifting the seas in a lifeboat with a zebra, an orangutan, a hyena, and a male Bengal tiger nicknamed Richard Parker; at the conclusion, the reality of what actually happened (and what was fantasy) is brought ambiguously into question [Figure 6.27].

Plot Chronologies: Flashback and Flashforward Despite the dominance of various versions of linear chronologies in movie narra- tives, most films deviate, to some extent, from straight linear chronologies to create different perspectives on events in order to lead viewers toward an understanding of what is or is not important in a story or to disrupt or challenge viewers’ notions of the film as a realistic re-creation of events. Plot order describes how events and actions are arranged in relation to each other to create a chronology of one sort

or another. Either within a linear chro- nology or as a variation of it, actions may appear out of chronological order, as when a later event precedes an earlier one in the plot.

One of the most common nonlinear plot devices is the narrative flashback, whereby a story shifts dramatically to an earlier time in the story. When a flashback describes the perspective on the whole story, it creates a retrospective plot, which tells of past events from the perspective of the present or future. In The Godfather: Part II, the modern story of mobster Michael Corleone periodically alternates with the flashback story of his father, Vito, many decades earlier. This

6.26 Little Miss Sunshine (2006). En route to California from New Mexico in this linearly organized plot, the characters find themselves in hilarious predicaments.

6.27 Life of Pi (2012). In Ang Lee’s magical film, the protagonist’s fantastic adventure concludes with a dramatic ambiguity.

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comparison of two different histories draws parallels and suggests differences between the father’s formation of his Mafia family and the son’s later destruc- tion of that family in the name of the Mafia business [Figures 6.28a and 6.28b].

Conversely and less frequently, a film may employ a narrative flashfor- ward, leaping ahead of the normal cause- and-effect order to a future incident. A film narrative may show a man in an office and then flash forward to his plane leaving an airport before returning to the moment in the plot when he sits at his desk. In They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969), the plot flashes forward to a time when Robert, an unsuccessful Hollywood director during the Depression, is on trial; the unex- plained scene creates a mysterious suspense that is not resolved until much later in the film.

Other nonlinear chronological orders might interweave past, present, and future events in less predictable or logical patterns. In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), the two main characters, Joel and Clementine, struggle to resurrect a romantic past that has been intentionally erased from their memories; the flashbacks here appear not as natural remembrances but as dramatic struggles to re-create a part of the personal narrative they have lost [Figure 6.29]. Hiroshima, mon amour (1959) mixes documen- tary photos of the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima at the end of World War II, a modern story of a love affair between a French actress and a Japanese archi- tect, and flashback images of the woman growing up in France during the previous war, when she had her first relationship with a German soldier [Figure 6.30]. Only gradually, and certainly not in chronological order, is the story of her past revealed. Conversations

6.28a and 6.28b The Godfather: Part II (1974). A retrospective plot of a father’s formation of his Mafia family woven into a contemporary tale of the son’s later destruction of it.

(a) (b)

6.29 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004). The film’s chronology attempts to recover what has been lost from the couple’s story.

6.30 Hiroshima, mon amour (1959). The nonlinear mix of past and pres- ent engages us in the main character’s attempt to reconstruct an identity across a historical trauma.

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with her lover and images of Japan during World War II seem to provoke leaps in her memory; as the film narrative follows these flashbacks, we become involved in the difficulty of memory as it attempts to reconstruct an identity across a historical trauma. When a narrative violates linear chronology in these ways, the film may be demonstrating how subjective memories interact with the real world; at other times, as with Hiroshima, mon amour, these violations may be ways of questioning the very notion of linear progress in life and civilization.

The Deadline Structure One of the most common temporal schemes in narrative films, the deadline struc- ture adds to the tension and excitement of a plot, accelerating the action toward a central event or action that must be accomplished by a certain moment, hour, day, or year. These narrative rhythms can create suspense and anticipation that define the entire narrative and the characters who motivate it. In The Graduate (1967), Benjamin must race to the church in time to declare his love for Elaine and stop her from marrying his rival. In the German film Run Lola Run (1998), Lola has twenty minutes to find 100,000 Deutsche marks to save her boyfriend. This tight deadline results in three different versions of the same race across town in which, like a game, Lola’s rapid-fire choices result in three different conclusions [Figure 6.31].

Parallel Plots. The deadline structure points to another common temporal pat- tern in film narrative: the doubled or parallel plotline. Parallel plots refer to the

implied simultaneity of or connection between two different plotlines, usually with their intersection at one or more points. Quite frequently, a movie will alternate between actions or subplots that take place at roughly the same time and that may be bound together in some way, such as by the relationship of two or more characters. One standard formula in a parallel plot is to intertwine a private story with a public story. Jerry Maguire (1996) develops the story of Jerry’s efforts to succeed as an agent in the cutthroat world of professional sports; concur- rently it follows the ups and downs of his romance with Dorothy, a single mother, and his bond with her son, Ray. In some crime or caper films, such as Ocean’s Eleven (2001), a murder or heist plot (in this case, involving a complicated casino robbery) parallels and entwines with an equally complicated love story (here between Danny and Tess Ocean) [Figure 6.32]. In addition to recognizing parallel plots, we need to consider the relation- ship between them.

Narrative Duration and Frequency Movie narratives also rely on various other temporal patterns, through which

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How is time shaped in this clip from Shutter Island (2010)? What especially important instances of frequency or duration can you point to in this narrative’s time scheme?

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6.31 Run Lola Run (1998). In three different versions of the same race against time, Lola is forced to make different choices.

6.32 Ocean’s Eleven (2001). The weaving together of the plot to rob a casino and a love story creates thematic and formal connections.

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events in a story are constructed according to different time schemes. Not sur- prisingly, these narrative temporalities overlap with and rely on similar temporal patterns developed as editing strategies. Narrative duration refers to the length of time within which an event or action is presented in a plot, whereas narra- tive frequency describes how often those plot elements are repeatedly shown. Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995) features a now-standard digital countdown for a bomb that threatens to blow up New York City. The narrative suspense is, in large part, the amount of time the plot spends on this scene, dwelling on the bomb mechanism. Thus the continual return to the mechanism demonstrates narrative frequency, while the drawn-out time devoted to defusing the bomb, much longer than thirty real seconds, shows how the temporal duration can represent not simply a real but also an extended, in this case psychological, time.

At the other end of the spectrum, a plot may include only a temporal flash of an action that really endures for a much longer period. In Secretariat (2010), a rapid montage of images condenses many months of victories during which the renowned racehorse of the title rises to fame. Instead of representing the many details that extend an actual duration of one or more events, the plot condenses these actions into a much shorter temporal sequence.

How often an event, a person, or an action is de - picted by a plot — its narrative frequency — also deter- mines the meaning or value of those events within a narrative. That is, when something is shown more than once, its value and meaning to the story increase. A movie may, for instance, return again and again to an exchange of glances between two specific characters, leaving no doubt that this relationship is central to the plot. In Eric Rohmer’s Claire’s Knee (1970), the witty plot returns again and again to the knee of the  title. The frequency of this return suggests both the main character’s obsession with this part of the young woman’s body and, at the same time, how potentially comic that obsession can become through time [Figures 6.33a–6.33c]. In repetitions like this, it is important to recognize narrative frequency as a way of drawing our attention to significant events, gestures, phrases, places, or actions. (a)

(b) (c)

6.33a–6.33c Claire’s Knee (1970). The frequency with which the knee is invoked becomes comical.

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Narrative Space Along with narrative patterns of time, plot constructions also involve a variety of spa- tial schemes, spaces constructed through the course of the narrative as different mise-en- scènes. These narrative locations — indoors, outdoors, natural spaces, artificial spaces, outer space — define more than just the background for stories. Stories and their characters explore these spaces, contrast them, conquer them, inhabit them, leave them, build on them, and transform them. As a consequence, both the characters and the stories usually change and develop not only as part of the formal shape of these places but also as part of their cultural and

social significance and connotations. Michael Haneke’s Amour (2012) takes place almost exclusively in the apartment where a couple in their eighties have spent their married life [Figure 6.34]. After Anne suffers a stroke, the drama of this single mise-en-scène generates layers and layers of shared emotions and memories, as the couple struggle with the climactic crisis they now face.

In conjunction with narrative action and characters, the cultural and social resonances of these spaces may be developed in four different ways: historically, ideologi- cally, psychologically, and symbolically. Whether actual or constructed, the historical location abounds in film narratives as the recognized marker of a historical setting that can carry meanings and connotations important to the narrative. For example, in Roman Holiday (1953), a char- acter visits the monuments of Rome, where she discovers a sense of human history and a romantic glory missing from her own life [Figure 6.35]. Films from Ben-Hur (1925) to Gladiator (2000) use the historical connotations of Rome to infuse the narrative with grandeur and wonder.

An ideological location in a narrative describes spaces and places inscribed with distinctive social values or ide- ologies. Sometimes these narrative spaces have unmistak- able political or philosophical significance, such as the Folsom Prison where Johnny Cash bonds with prisoners in

Walk the Line (2005) [Figure 6.36] or the oppressive grandeur of the czar’s palace in Eisenstein’s October (1927). Less obvi- ously, the politics of gender can underpin the locations of a film narrative in cru- cial ideological ways: in 9 to  5 (1980), the plot focuses on how three working women successfully transform the patri- archal office space of their jobs into a place where the needs of women are met [Figure 6.37].

Psychological location in a film narrative suggests an important correla- tion between a character’s state of mind and the place he or she inhabits at that

6.34 Amour (2012). The film takes place in an apartment where the confined space intensifies memories, experiences, emotions, and decisions.

6.35 Roman Holiday (1953). During an exploration of Rome, a sense of human history emerges.

6.36 Walk the Line (2005). When Johnny Cash bonds with the inmates, the ideological significance of Folsom Prison emerges.

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moment in the story. In Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation (2003), an American actor (played by Bill Murray) experiences confusion and communication difficulties while visiting contemporary Tokyo; these, along with his isolation in an expensive hotel, connect to deeper feelings of disaffection and disillusionment with his life back home [Figure 6.38]. Less common, symbolic space is a space transformed through spiritual or other abstract means related to the narrative. In different ver- sions of the Robinson Crusoe story — from Luis Buñuel’s The Adventures of Robin- son Crusoe (1954) to Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964) and Cast Away — the space of an island might become emblematic of the providential ways of life or of the absurdity of the human condition [Figure 6.39].

Complex narratives often develop and transform the significance of one or more locations, making this transformation of specific places central to the meaning of the movie. In Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York (2002), the Five Points neighborhood of New York City in 1863 becomes infused with historical, psychological, ideological, and symbolic significance. In this case, the realistic mise-en-scène describes an infamous gangland territory in the nineteenth century, a psychological place of terror and violence, the ideological location of an emerg- ing American social and class community, and a symbol of American culture. In Jim Jarmusch’s Mystery Train (1989), the narrative interweaves the stories of two Japanese tourists, an Italian woman on her way home to bury her husband, and three drifters who hold up a liquor store [Figure 6.40]. All happen to seek refuge in a sleazy Memphis hotel. Although they never meet, the narrative location of the hotel becomes gradually infused with the meanings of their individual dramas: the hotel becomes simultaneously a place of historical nostalgia for 1950s America and

6.37 9 to 5 (1980). Three women transform the gendered politics of office space.

6.38 Lost in Translation (2003). The isolation of an American actor in Tokyo suggests a disaffected psychological space.

6.39 Cast Away (2000). The island as symbolic space becomes em- blematic of the absurdity of the human condition.

6.40 Mystery Train (1989). Japanese tourists, the ghost of Elvis, and bungling drifters transform the space of a sleazy Memphis hotel into an offbeat carnival of loss and desire.

V I E W I N G C U E Identify the three most significant narrative locations in the movie you’ve just viewed. How does the narrative construct different mean- ings for each location?

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of blues music for the Japanese couple; a comically ritualistic and spiritual location for the Italian woman, who takes leave of her husband’s ashes after meeting Elvis Presley’s ghost; and a weird debating hall where the drifters discuss contemporary social violence.

Narrative Perspectives Plots are organized by the perspectives that inform them. Whether this perspective is explicit or implicit, we refer to this dimension of a narrative as its narration — the point of view that emotionally and intellectually shapes how plot materials appear and what is or is not revealed about them. Narration carries and creates attitudes, values, and aims that are central to understanding any movie.

Narrators and narrative frames are frequently used to signal the film’s specific perspective. Both of these elements describe formal tactics for drawing us into a story, and both direct the arrangement of the plot and create a specific position implying attitudes, standards, or powers. Additionally, they indicate certain cul- tural, social, or psychological perspectives on events of the story. The most com- mon narrative perspectives are first-person narration, omniscient narration, and restricted narration.

First-Person Narration and Narrative Frames When narration is identified with the voiceover commentary of a single individual, usually (but not always) someone who is a character in the story, the perspective is called first-person narration. Some films use a character or other person whose voice and perspective describe the action of a film from a point of view outside the story. This first-person organization is signaled by the pronoun “I” in writ- ten or spoken texts. Voiceover, a soundtrack commentary in which the narrator introduces and illuminates the story, serves as a standard device to mark and draw attention to this structural point of view.

First-person narration is an especially tricky notion for films because this use of the voiceover to guide movie images can usually only approximate the full sub- jectivity of a first-person point of view. To attempt a literal first-person narration with film would require the film frame to become the narrator’s eyes, re-creating only what he or she sees. Narrated almost entirely through the first-person point of view of the detective Philip Marlowe, Lady in the Lake (1947) demonstrates how tiresome such a perspective can become. The more common strategy is, accord- ingly, to signal a first-person narration through a voiceover.

Appearing at the beginning and end of a film, a narrative frame is often a vehicle for introducing a first-person narration, but it serves many other func- tions as well. A narrative frame describes a context or person positioned outside the story to bracket the film in a way that helps define its terms and meaning. Sometimes signaled by a voiceover, this frame may indicate the story’s audience, the social context, or the period from which the story is understood. The frame may, for instance, indicate that the story is a tale told to children, that it is being told to a detective in a police station, as in The Usual Suspects (1995), or that it is the memory of a dying woman. In each case, the film’s frame indicates the crucial perspective and logic that define the narration.

In Sunset Boulevard (1950), the presence of the narrator is announced through the voiceover of the screenwriter-protagonist who introduces the setting and circumstances of the story. His voice and death become the frame for the story. Through the course of the film, his voiceover disappears and reappears, but we are aware from the start that the story is a product of his perspective; how we understand the story is at least as dependent on this narrator and his attitudes

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From what point of view is the narration of this clip from The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)? If not controlled by an individual, how might the narration reveal certain attitudes about the story’s logic?

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239Narrative Films: Telling Stories c h a p t e r 6

as it is on the story’s events. For this reason, view- ers realize that although the story and plot seem focused on a delusional movie star whose glory has long since passed, the narrative (as opposed to the story) is perhaps even more about this writer’s experience of her. That we learn from the start that this first-person narrator is dead becomes an unset- tling irony.

Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm (1997) also uses a narrative frame. In this case, the perspective of the frame is that of a young man whose commuter train has stopped en route to his home because of a heavy ice storm [Figure 6.41]. The film begins as he waits in the night for the tracks to be cleared of ice and debris, and he reflects on his family; this isolated moment and compartment frame the flash- back that follows. Although he, too, disappears as a narrator until we return to the train and his voice at the end of the movie, his role makes clear that this tale of a pathetically dysfunctional family in the 1970s is, most importantly, about this young man at a turning point in his life. Indeed, both these examples suggest a question to ask about narrators: does it make a difference if they are seen as part of the story?

Third-Person Narration: Omniscient and Restricted The perspective of a film may assume a more objective and detached stance vis- à-vis the plot and characters by seeing events from outside the story—which is referred to as third-person narration. With third-person narrations like Gravity (2013), it still may be possible to describe a more specific kind of attitude or point of view. Far from being staid and detached, the organizing perspective of this film is forceful and dynamic, with camera movements that observe the main character’s plight [Figure 6.42].

The standard form of classical movies is omniscient narration, a version of third-person narration in which all elements of the plot are presented from many or all potential angles. An omniscient perspective not only knows all; it also knows what’s important and how to arrange it to reveal the truth about a life or a history. While the four films in the Bourne series (2002–2012), for example, employ omni- scient perspectives that follow Jason Bourne’s flight through multiple cities around

6.41 The Ice Storm (1997). When a storm stops his train, a young man’s thoughts on his past become the film’s narrative frame.

6.42 Gravity (2013). While third-person narration maintains objectivity, it can also create dynamic characters and action. text continued on page 242 ▶

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Francis Ford Coppola directed Apocalypse Now (1979), one of Hollywood’s most ambitious film narratives, not long after his blockbuster successes The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II and his ingenious The Conversa- tion. Coppola and his first successful films were part of an American renaissance in moviemaking during the 1960s and 1970s, revealing the marked influence of the French New Wave filmmakers Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, and others who brought decidedly experimental and ironic attitudes to film narrative. Apocalypse Now is also one of the first serious attempts by a U.S. director to confront the lingering anger and pain of the Vietnam War, a then-recent and traumatic memory that Americans struggled to make sense of.

The film’s story is deceptively simple: during the Vietnam War, Captain Willard (played by Martin Sheen) and his crew journey into the jungle to find a maverick and rebellious U.S. Army colonel named Kurtz (Mar- lon Brando). The story describes Willard’s increasingly strange encounters in the war-torn jungles of Vietnam and Cambodia. Eventually he finds and confronts the

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bizarre rebel Kurtz at his riverside encamp- ment in Cambodia.

Apocalypse Now constructs its story through a particular plot with a particular nar- rative point of view. The story of Willard and Kurtz could be plotted in a variety of other ways — by offering more information about the crew that accompanies Willard, for instance, or by showing events from an objective point of view rather than from one man’s percep- tions and thoughts. However, the film’s plot concentrates less on the war or on how Kurtz became what he is (which is the main topic of the characters’ conversations) than on Willard and his quest to find Kurtz.

The plot begins with the desperate and shell-shocked Willard being given the assignment to seek out and kill Kurtz, to “terminate with extreme prejudice,” and then fol- lows Willard on his journey as he encounters a variety of strange and surreal people, sights, and activities [Figure 6.43]. In one sense, the plot’s logic is linear and progres- sive: for Willard, each new encounter reveals more about the Vietnam War and about Kurtz. At the same time, the plot creates a regressive temporal pattern: Willard’s journey up the river takes him farther and farther away from a civilized world, returning him to his most primitive instincts.

The mostly first-person voiceover narration of Apoca- lypse Now focuses primarily on what Willard sees around him and on his thoughts about those events. At times, the narration extends beyond Willard’s perspective, showing actions from the perspective of other characters or from a more objective perspective, while still representing the other characters and events as part of Willard’s confused impressions. Bound mostly to Willard’s limited point of view, the narration colors events and other characters with a tone that appears alternately perplexed, weary, and fascinated. As a function of the film’s narration,

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plot and Narration in Apocalypse Now ( 1979 )

See also: The Deer Hunter (1978); Platoon (1986); Full Metal Jacket (1987)

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To watch a video about narration in Apocalypse Now, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

6.43 Apocalypse Now (1979). Toward the end of his journey and the film, one of many shots that approximate the point of view of Willard, the film’s narrator.

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Americans, Vietnamese, and Cambodians appear increasingly bizarre, unpredictable, and even inhuman: rock music merges with the sounds of helicopters; soldiers surf during a violent attack on a village [Figure 6.44a]; tigers explode from the jungle; U.S. soldiers riot during a Playboy Bunny extrava- ganza in the depths of Vietnam [Figure 6.44b]. In these and other ways, the narra- tion, linked to Willard’s control of the nar- rative point of view, communicates not just what happens but also the disturbing sense of a world gone awry. In Apocalypse Now, the traditional narrative pattern of personal prog- ress and development is both acknowledged and severely challenged.

Indeed, as part of its exploration of the tragedies and horrors of the Vietnam War, Apocalypse Now continually raises questions about its own narrative debts and historical influences, thus suggesting a kind of nar- rative reflexivity. Characters tell each other stories about their lives, use the musical nar- rative of a Wagnerian opera as background for a vicious attack on a village, and (toward the end of the film) even act out a mythic narrative of ritual sacrifice as a bull and Kurtz are simultaneously slaughtered.

The film makes no secret of its loose adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness (1902), set in the nineteenth- century African Congo. Throughout the movie, passing references are made to vari- ous literary practices that question whether a traditional narrative can make sense of the brutality and emptiness of modern life, such as Joseph Campbell’s well-known studies of narrative myths and T. S. Eliot’s 1925 meditative poem “The Hollow Men” that begins with a quote from Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, “Mistah Kurtz — he dead.”

Deep in Kurtz’s dark jungle cavern, we catch glimpses of books on myth [Figure 6.45] and hear Kurtz reciting Eliot’s poems, as if Coppola is acknowledging a narrative lineage that extends from Conrad’s novella to Apocalypse Now, mapping the difficult re - lationship of narrative, modern history, and the darkness of the human heart. Almost a compendium of these narrative materials and traditions, Apocalypse Now seems to suggest that the history of war and coloniza- tion may well be bound up with a long history of attempts to control life and other people through the power of narrative.

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6.44a and 6.44b Apocalypse Now (1979). Although the film seems to follow the path of a linear quest, different scenes and sequences regularly disrupt or break with that pattern: when a battle is intentionally interrupted to go surfing and when a jungle war becomes the scene of a Playboy Bunny show.

6.45 Apocalypse Now (1979). The literary history of a cinematic narrative.

(a)

(b)

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the world, the story itself contrasts the attempt of a covert American agency’s surveillance mechanism to approximate that omniscient perspective in its pursuit of Bourne, while he constantly attempts to escape it.

A limited third-person perspective, or restricted narration, organizes stories by focusing on one or two characters. Even though this perspective on a story also assumes objectivity and is able to pre - sent events and characters outside the range of those primary characters, it largely confines itself to the experiences and thoughts of the major characters.

The historical source of restricted narration is the novel and short story; its emphasis on one or two individuals reflects a relatively modern view of  the world that is mostly concerned with the progress of individuals. Limiting the narration in this way allows the movie to attend to large histori- cal events and actions (battles or family meetings, for instance) while also prioritizing the main char- acter’s problems and desires. Buster Keaton’s The

General (1927), set during the Civil War, follows this pattern. Johnny’s ingenuity becomes apparent and seems much more honorable, and funny, than the grand epic of war that stays in the background of the narrative [Figure 6.46]. With these and other restricted narrations, the logic and attitude of the narration determine why some characters receive more or less attention from the limited narrative point of view.

Reflexive, Unreliable, and Multiple Narrations While omniscient narration and restricted narration are the most common kinds of classical narration, some films use variations on these models. Reflexive nar- ration describes movies that call attention to the narrative point of view of the story in order to complicate or subvert their own narrative authority as a consistent perspective on the world. Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) is a well-known early example of reflexive narration that fractures the veracity and reliability of its narrative point of view when, at its conclusion, we discover that the narrator is a madman.

Contemporary and experimental films commonly question the very process of narration at the same time that they construct the narrative. Unreliable nar-

ration (sometimes called manipulative narration) raises, at some point in the narrative, crucial questions about the very truth of the story being told: in Fight Club (1999), the bottom falls out of the narration when, toward the conclusion of the film, it becomes clear that the first-person narrator has been hallucinating the entire existence of a central character around whom the plot develops [Figure 6.47].

Multiple narrations are found in films that use several different narrative perspectives for a single story or for different stories in a movie that loosely

6.46 The General (1927). Restricted narration limits the plot to the experi- ences of the main character, Johnny Gray, as he rescues his locomotive and his girlfriend from the Northern army during the Civil War.

6.47 Fight Club (1999). A dramatic example of a film whose narration suddenly appears to be the questionable fantasy of the film’s narrator.

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fits these perspectives together. The 1916 movie Intolerance weaves four stories about prejudice and hate from different historical periods (“the modern story,” “the Judean story,” “the French story,” and “the Babylonian story”) and could be considered a precursor to the tradi- tion of multiple narration. Woody Allen’s comedy Zelig (1983) parodies the objec- tivity proposed by many narratives by presenting the life of Leonard Zelig in the 1920s through the onscreen narrations of numerous fictional and real persons (such as Saul Bellow and Susan Sontag). More recent films like Crash (2004) and Babel (2006) weave together different stories from around a city or even the world, coincidentally linked by major events in the characters’ lives [Figure 6.48].

Compilation or anthology films — movies that feature the work of different filmmakers, such as Germany in Autumn (1978), Two Evil Eyes (1990), Four Rooms (1995), and Paris, Je T’Aime (2006) — are more extreme versions of multiple nar- ratives. This type of movie features a number of stories, each made by a different filmmaker. Although the stories may share a common theme or issue — a political crisis in Germany, adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe stories, or zany guests staying in a decaying hotel — they intentionally replace a singular narrative perspective with smaller narratives that establish their own distinctive perspectives.

6.48 Babel (2006). Overlapping multiple narratives in a film about the search for a common humanity.

V I E W I N G C U E What narrative perspective features most prominently in the film you’ve just viewed? If the narration is omniscient or restricted, how does it determine the meaning of the story?

Making Sense of Film Narrative In their reflections of time, change, and loss, film narratives engage viewers in ways that make time meaningful. From historical epics like The Birth of a Nation (1915) to intimate portrayals of life in films like The Hours (2002), narrative mov- ies have been prized as both public and private histories, as records of celebrated events, personal memories, and daily routines. Film, video, and computer narratives today saturate our lives with flashes of insight or events repeated again and again from different angles and at different speeds. As such, film narratives are signifi- cant for two reasons: they describe the different temporal experiences of individu- als, and they reflect and reveal the shapes and patterns of larger social histories of nations, communities, and cultures.

The significance of film narrative never functions independently of histori- cal, cultural, and industrial issues. Many narratives in Western cultures are more inward, centering on individuals, their fates, and their self-knowledge. Individual heroes are frequently male, with female characters participating in their quest or growth primarily through marriage — a pervasive form of narrative resolution.

Moreover, Western narrative models, such as the Judeo-Christian one that assumes a progressive movement from a fall to redemption, reflect a basic cultural belief in individual and social development. Of course, cultural alternatives to this popular logic of progression and forward movement do exist, and in some cul- tures individual characters may be less central to the story than the give-and-take movements of the community or the passing of the seasons. In Xala (1975), for instance, by Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembène, the narration is influenced

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by oral tradition and the central character’s plight is linked to a whole community. This tradition is associated with the griot, story- tellers in some West African cultures who recount at public gatherings the many tales that bind the community together.

Shaping Memory, Making History Film narratives shape memory by describ- ing individual temporal experiences. In other words, they commonly portray the changes in a day, a year, or the life of a character or community. These narratives are not necessarily actual real-time experi-

ences, as is partly the case in the ninety-five-minute Russian Ark (2002), which explores, without a cut, St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum. However, they do aim to approximate the patterns through which different individuals experience and shape time: time as endurance, time as growth, time as loss. In Lee Daniels’ The Butler (2013), the narrative describes the life of Cecil Gaines, the butler for eight U.S. presidents, and intertwines his personal struggles and achievements as a White House servant and the major historical events surrounding him, such as the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War. The often strained interaction between his personal experience and public events celebrates how individual memory partici- pates in the shape of history. In the Dutch film Antonia’s Line (1995), time becomes about women remembering and sharing experiences as their family expands in the years after World War II, and about the generational bonds of the love between mothers and daughters [Figure 6.49].

Through their reflections on and revelations of social history, film narratives make history. Narratives order the various dimensions of time — past, present, and future events — in ways that are similar to models of history used by nations or other communities. Consequently, narratives create public perceptions of and ways of understanding those histories. The extent to which narratives and public histo- ries are bound together can be seen by noting how many historical events — such as the civil rights movement or the first landing on the moon — become the sub-

ject for narrative films. But narrative films can also reveal public history in smaller events, where personal crisis or success becomes representative of a larger national or world history. The tale of a heroic African American regiment, Glory (1989) [Figure 6.50] tells a history of the Civil War left out of such other narratives as The Birth of a Nation and Gone with the Wind. While concentrating on the personal life of Mark Zuckerberg during his college years, The Social Network (2010) also reveals a key dimension of the larger cultural his- tory of the digital revolution and specifi- cally the social networking site Facebook [Figure 6.51]. In these cases, film narratives are about cultural origins, historical losses, and national myths.

6.49 Antonia’s Line (1995). The shape of history becomes woven into the lives of women and their families.

6.50 Glory (1989). A narrative of the heroic African American regiment that fought dur- ing the Civil War tells a different history of that war.

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Narrative Traditions Based on how movies can both shape memory and make history, two prominent styles of film narrative have emerged. The classical film narrative usually presents a close relationship between individual lives and social history, whereas the alter- native film narrative often dramatizes the disjunction between how individuals live their lives according to personal temporal patterns and how those patterns conflict with those of the social history that inter- sects with their lives.

Classical Film Narrative Three primary features characterize the classical film narrative:

■ It centers on one or more central characters who propel the plot with a cause- and-effect logic, whereby an action generates a reaction.

■ Its plots develop with linear chronologies directed at certain goals, even when flashbacks are integrated into that linearity.

■ It employs an omniscient or a restricted narration that suggests some degree of realism.

Classical narrative often appears as a three-part structure: (1) the presentation of a situation or a circumstance; (2) the disruption of that situation, often as a crisis or confrontation; and (3) the resolution of that disruption. Its narrative point of view is usually objective and realistic, including most information necessary to understand the characters and their world.

Since the 1910s, the U.S. classical Hollywood narrative has been the most vis- ible and dominant form of classical narrative, but there have been many historical and cultural variations on this narrative model. Both the 1925 and 1959 films of Ben-Hur develop their plots around the heroic motivations of the title character and follow his struggles and triumphs as a former citizen who becomes a slave, rebel, and gladiator, fighting against the cruelties of the Roman Empire. Both movies spent inordinate amounts of money on large casts of characters and on details and locations that attempt to seem as realistic as possible. Yet even if both these Hol- lywood films can be classified as classical narratives, they can also be distinguished by their variations on this narrative formula. Besides some differences in the details of the story, the first version attends more to grand spectacles (such as sea battles) and places greater emphasis on the plight of the Jews as a social group. The second version concentrates significantly more on the individual drama of Charlton Hes- ton as Ben-Hur, on his search to find his lost family, and on Christian salvation through personal faith [Figure 6.52].

Two important variations on the clas- sical narrative tradition are the classical European narrative, films made in Europe since 1910 and flourishing in the 1930s and 1940s, and the postclassical narra- tive, a global body of films that began to appear in the decades after World War II

6.51 The Social Network (2010). Here the personal history of the founder of Facebook reflects a much broader transformation in the social history of technology.

V I E W I N G C U E For the film you will watch next in class, what type of history is being depicted? What does the narrative say about the meaning of time and change in the lives of the charac- ters? What events are presented as most important, and why?

6.52 Ben-Hur (1959). As the different versions of this film demonstrate, classical Holly- wood narration can vary significantly through history — even when the story is fundamentally the same.

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and that strained but maintained the classical formula for coherent characters and plots. As discussed earlier, this latter tradition remains visible to the present day. Although it is difficult to offer broad or definitive models for these two narra- tive forms, the European model tends to situate the story in large and varied social contexts that dilute the singularity of a central protagonist and is usually less action-oriented than its U.S. counterpart. Thus in Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game (1939), a diverse milieu of many classes and social types (from servants to aristocrats) interact on a large estate to create a narrative that seems less like a single plot than a collage of many stories about sexual escapades and bankrupt social mores. An exchange between two characters summarizes the range of this satiric narrative: one character exclaims, “Stop this farce!” and the other replies, “Which one?” [Figure 6.53].

Conversely, the postclassical model frequently undermines the power of a protagonist to control and drive the narrative forward in a clear direction. As a postclassical narrative, Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver works with a plot much like that of The Searchers (1956), in which an alienated and troubled Civil War veteran searches the frontier for a lost girl, but in Travis Bickle’s strange quest to rescue a New York City prostitute from her pimp, he wanders with even less direction, identity, and control than his predecessor, Ethan. Bickle, a dark hero, becomes lost in his own fantasies (see pp. 370–71) [Figure 6.54].

Alternative Film Narrative Most visible in foreign and independent film cultures, these movies tell stories while also revealing information or perspectives traditionally excluded from classi-

cal narratives in order to unsettle audience expectations, provoke new thinking, or differentiate themselves from more com- mon narrative structures. Generally, the alternative film narrative has the follow- ing characteristics:

■ It deviates from or challenges the lin- earity of the classical narrative.

■ It undermines the centrality of a main character.

■ It questions the objective realism of classical narration.

Both the predominance and motiva- tional control of characters in moving a plot come into question with alternative films. Instead of the one or two central characters we see in classical narratives,

6.53 The Rules of the Game (1939). Classical European narratives, such as this one by Jean Renoir, tend to accentuate larger and more diluted social contexts than classical Hollywood narratives.

6.54 Taxi Driver (1976). Robert De Niro’s character erupts into senseless violence and seems bent on his own destruction.

V I E W I N G C U E How would you describe the narra- tive tradition of the film you’re now studying? What specific features of this film define it as part of one tradition or another?

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alternative films may put a multitude of characters into play, with their stories perhaps not even being connected. In Jean-Luc Godard’s La Chinoise (1967), the narrative shifts among three young people — a student, an economist, a phi- losopher — whose tales appear like a series of debates about politics and revolution in the streets of Paris.

A visually stunning film, Abbas Kiar- ostami’s Taste of Cherry (1997) contains only the shadow of a story and plot: the middle-aged Mr. Badii wishes to commit suicide for no clear reason. After a series of random encounters and requests, his fate remains uncertain at the conclusion. Freed of the determining motivations of classical characters, the plots of alternative film narratives tend to break apart, omit links in a cause-and-effect logic, or proliferate plotlines well beyond the classical parallel plot. As an extreme example, David Lynch’s Lost Highway (1997) seems to abandon its original story midway through the film when the protagonist inex- plicably transforms into another character (played by another actor), leaving the audience unsure as to whether this change is actual, hallucinatory, or metaphorical [Figure 6.55].

Many alternative film narratives question, in various ways, the classical narra- tive assumptions about an objective narrative point of view and about the power of a narrative to reflect universally true experiences. In Rashomon (1950), four people, including the ghost of a dead man, recount a tale of robbery, murder, and rape four different ways, as four different narratives [Figure 6.56]. Ultimately, the group that hears these tales (as the frame of the narrative) realizes that it is impossible to know the true story.

By employing one or more of their defining characteristics, alternative film narratives have also fostered more spe- cific cultural variations and traditions, including non-Western narratives and new wave narratives. Alternative non- Western narratives, such as those found in the cinemas of Japan, Iran, and China, swerve from classical narrative by draw- ing on indigenous forms of storytell- ing with culturally distinctive themes, characters, plots, and narrative points of view. Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray, for example, adapts a famous work of Bengali fiction for his 1955 Pather Pan- chali and its sequels, Aparajito (1956) and The World of Apu (1959), to render the story of a boy named Apu and his impoverished family. Although Ray was influenced by European filmmakers (he served as assistant to Jean Renoir on The River [1951], filmed in India), his work is suffused with the symbols and slow- paced plot of the original novel and of

6.55 Lost Highway (1997). David Lynch’s film is an example of an alternative narrative that upsets the audience’s expectations about the characters’ identities and linear stories.

6.56 Rashomon (1950). Four different narrative perspectives tell a grisly tale that brings into question the possibility of narrative objectivity.

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Very much a part of the classical movie tradition, the narrative of Michael Curtiz’s Mildred Pierce (1945) is an extended flashback covering many years — from Mildred’s troubled marriage and divorce, her rise as a self-sufficient and enterprising businesswoman, and her disastrous af- fair with the playboy Monty. After the opening murder and the accusation of Mildred, the narrative returns to her humble beginnings with two daughters and an irritating husband who soon divorces her. Left on her own, Mildred works determinedly to become a financial success and support her daughters. Despite her material triumphs, her youngest daughter, Kay, dies tragically, and her other daughter, Veda, rejects her and falls in love with Mildred’s lover, Monty. The temporal and linear progressions in Mildred’s material life are thus ironically offset in the nar- rative by the loss of her emotional and spiritual life.

In Mildred Pierce, we find all three cornerstones of classical film form. The title character, through her need and determination to survive and succeed, drives the main story. The narrative uses a flashback frame that, after the opening murder, proceeds linearly, from Mildred’s life as an obsequious housewife to a wealthy and vivacious socialite to her sad awareness of the catastrophe of life. Finally, the restricted narration fol- lows her development as an objective record of those past events.

Set in the 1940s with little mention of World War II, Mildred Pierce is not a narrative located explicitly in public history, yet it is a historical tale that visibly embraces a crisis in the public narrative of America. While focused on Mildred’s personal confusion, the film delineates a critical period in U.S. history. In the years after World War II, the U.S. nuclear family would come under intense pressure as independent women with more freedom and power faced changing social structures. Mildred Pierce describes this

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public history in terms of personal experience; but like other classical narratives, the events, people, and logic of Mildred’s story reflect a national story in which a new politics of gender must be admitted and then incorporated into a tradition centered on the patriarchal family. Mildred Pierce aims directly at the incorporation of the private life (of Mildred) into a patriarchal public history (of the law, the community, and the nation): Mildred presumably recognizes the error of her independence and ambition and, through the guidance of the police, is restored to her ex-husband, strikingly and perhaps ironically summarized in the final image of the film in which two laboring working women visu- ally counterpoint the reunited couple [Figure 6.57].

A very different kind of narrative, Julie Dash’s Daugh- ters of the Dust (1991) recounts a period of a few days in 1902 when members of an African American community

FILM IN

FOCUS

157010

157010

Classical and alternative traditions in Mildred Pierce ( 1945 )

and Daughters of the Dust ( 1991 ) See also: Rebecca (1940); All About Eve (1950); Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975); Vagabond (1985)

FILM IN FOCUS bedfordstmartins.com /filmexperience

To watch a clip of Mildred Pierce and Daughters of the Dust, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

6.57 Mildred Pierce (1945). Mildred’s story reflects a larger national story about gender and labor.

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prepare to move north from Ibo Landing, an island off the coast of South Carolina. The members of the Peazant family meld into a community whose place in time oscil- lates between their memories of their African heritage (as a kind of cyclical history) and their anticipation of a future on the U.S. mainland (where time progresses in a linear fashion) [Figure 6.58].

Daughters of the Dust avoids concentrating on the motivations of a single character. Instead, it drifts among the perspectives of many members of the Peazant family — Nana (the grandmother), Haagar, Viola, Yellow Mary, the troubled married couple Eula and Eli, and even their unborn child.

For many viewers, the difficulty of following this film is related to its nontraditional narrative, which does not move its characters forward in the usual sense but instead depicts individuals who live in a time that seems more about communal rhythms than personal progress, where the distinction between pri- vate and public life makes little sense [Figure 6.59].

A fundamental question or problem appears quietly at the beginning of the film: will the Pea- zant family’s move to the U.S. mainland remove them from their roots and African heritage? Yet the film is more about presenta- tion and reflection than about any drama or crisis emerging from that question. Eventually that question may be answered when some of the characters move to the main- land, where they presumably will be recast in a narrative more like that of Mildred Pierce. But for now, in this narrative, they and the film embrace different temporal values.

In Daughters of the Dust, the shifting voices and per- spectives of the narration have little interest in a unified or objective perspective on events [Figure 6.60]. Besides voiceovers by Nana and Eula, the narrative point of view appears through Unborn Child, a mysterious figure who is usually invisible to the other characters and who narrates as the voice of the future. Interweaving different subjec- tive voices and experiences, the film’s narration disperses time into the communal space of its island world, an orchestration of nonlinear rhythms. Certainly a public his- tory is being mapped in this alternative film, but it is one commonly ignored by most other American narratives and classical films. Especially with its explicit reflections on the slave trade that once passed through Ibo, Daughters of the Dust maps a part of African American history perhaps best told through the wandering narrative patterns inherited from the traditions and styles of African storytellers.

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6.59 Daughters of the Dust (1991). Rather than focus on a single character, the narrative incorporates the perspectives of several Peazant family members.

6.58 Daughters of the Dust (1991). Like this mysterious floating statue that appears and reappears through the film, the narrative drifts between past and present, merging history, memory, and mythology.

6.60 Daughters of the Dust (1991). As a story narrated in many voices, the film resists a unified perspective on events.

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village life, as it rediscovers Indian history from inside India [Figures 6.61a and 6.61b].

New wave narratives describe the prolif- eration of narrative forms that have appeared around the world since the 1950s; often experimental and disorienting, these narra- tives interrogate the political assumptions of classical narratives by overturning their for- mal assumptions. Italian New Wave director Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist (1970) is indicative: it creates a sensually vague and dreamy landscape where reality and night- mares overlap; through the mixed-up motiva- tions of its central character, Marcello Clerici, the film explores the historical roots of Italian fascism, a viciously decadent world of sex and politics rarely depicted in the histories of clas- sical narrative [Figure 6.62].

Both these broad categories draw upon many narrative cultures that differ sharply

from each other, and both suggest not so much a complete opposition to classical narrative as much as a dialogue with that tradition. In this context, Indian film narratives are very different from African film narratives, and the new waves of Greece and Spain represent divergent issues and narrative strategies. All, however, might be said to confront, in one way or another, the classical narrative paradigm.

6.62 The Conformist (1970). In this film by Italian New Wave director Bernardo Bertolucci, the historical roots of Italian fascism are imagined in an alternative narrative set within a dreamy landscape where reality and nightmares overlap.

(a) (b) 6.61 (a) The River (1951) and (b) Pather Panchali (1955). Jean Renoir’s The River influenced the work of Satyajit Ray, but Ray’s adaptation of a famous Bengali novel is suffused with the symbols and slow-paced plot that are indicative of the original work and Indian culture.

From The Wizard of Oz to Daughters of the Dust, narratives are the heart of our moviegoing experience as we seek out good films with interesting char- acters, plots, and narrative styles. In these and other films, characters range across a myriad of roles and functions, from coherent characters to collective

C O N C E p t S a t W O r K

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characters, who can develop in many different and meaningful ways. The narrative perspective of a film may provide an omniscient view of the world or one restricted to the point of view of a single character, as that of Wil- lard in Apocalypse Now, while a film’s narration may organize the diegetic materials of a film according to various plots and patterns of time and space. While many film narratives follow a classical pattern of linear development and parallel plots, many others deviate from those patterns and explore dif- ferent ways of constructing a story and of infusing a film narrative with a larger significance. Whereas Dorothy might be a classically coherent charac- ter whose linear journey follows the yellow brick road to her home, the char- acters in Daughters of the Dust have a significantly more collective profile whose journey circles backward into their past. In all cases, film narratives allow us to explore and think about how time and history can be shaped as a meaningful experience. Recall a few of these key points and questions as a way to examine a narrative film in class:

■ What might be some of the historical practices or foundations that in- form this film narrative? Are the narrative innovations related to changes in technology as in Franco’s adaptation of As I Lay Dying or to changes in social roles as in Mildred Pierce?

■ How specifically does the film construct its plot so as to arrange the events of a story in a way that creates meaning? Does it follow the linear plot found in many classical narratives from The General to Nebraska? Or does it structure its story in a nonlinear fashion as in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind?

■ Identify some character types in the film and explain how they motivate actions in a story. Are they singular and realistic as in Captain Phillips (2013) or more figurative as in The Chronicles of Narnia?

■ In films as different as Hiroshima, mon amour and Gravity, consider the way the plots construct different temporal and spatial schemes and use of patterns of duration and frequency.

■ Try to describe the narration or narrative point of view of the film you are discussing and show how it might determine our understanding of a story. Have you seen other films that use a first-person or restricted nar- ration as does Apocalypse Now or The General? How does that narration determine the story?

■ Is the film you are examining best described as part of a classical or an alternative narrative tradition? Why?

Activity Create a one-page treatment for your own film narrative, employing a clas- sical narrative with parallel plots and five or six well-defined characters. As a commentary on your treatment, indicate the role of a particular narrative point of view in highlighting the themes of your narrative, as well as your goals in creating certain temporal and spatial schemes as part of your plot construction. Then create an “alternative narrative” of the same story, em- phasizing the changes you would make in its major narrative features. How has this re-creation of the story through different structures changed the meaning of the story?

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7 c h a p t e r

Werner Herzog’s 2005 film Grizzly Man is a remarkable example of the many creative and unexpected topics and strategies available to a documentary film. Since John Grierson first described documentary cinema in 1926 as “the creative treatment of actuality,” this particular film practice has continually explored those different actualities and realities in new and imaginative ways. The subject of Herzog’s film, for instance, is Timothy Treadwell, a young man intent on protecting grizzly bears in the wilds of Alaska. Herzog does not directly explore Treadwell’s mission and person, however, but primarily looks at him through video footage left by him after his gruesome death when attacked by a rogue bear. As Herzog pre­ sents and interacts with that footage (as well as with interviews with Treadwell’s friends and acquaintances), reality for Treadwell becomes as much a performance as a fact. The film then gradually expands to become much more than a nature film and to develop as a profound and philosophical documentary about human psychology, the brutality of nature, and how we struggle to bridge the difference between the two. In Grizzly Man as in many other documentary films but with a strangely personal focus, reality is not simply depicted but rather questioned and debated.

Documentary Films Representing the Real

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For most of us, the film experience is primarily about elements like suspense, humor, or intense emotions. Yet that experience can also include the desire to be better informed about a person or an event, to engage with new and chal- lenging ideas, or to learn more about what happens in other parts of the world.

A movie that aims to inform viewers about truths or facts is commonly referred to as a documentary film. John Grierson first used the term to describe a Robert Flaherty picture called Moana (1926) and its “visual account of events in the daily life of a Polynesian youth and his family.” Broadly speaking, a documentary film is a visual and auditory representation of the presumed facts, real experiences, and actual events of the world. Documentary films usually employ and empha- size strategies and organizations that differ from those that define narrative cinema, such as plot and narration. Later Flaherty would team up with German filmmaker F. W. Murnau to integrate the documentary world of Moana into the narra- tive film Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (1931) [Figure 7.1], and this hybrid film raises key ques- tions: How are documentary films different from narrative ones? What attracts us to them? How do they organize their material? What makes them popular, useful, and uniquely illuminating?

If narrative films are prominently about memory and the shaping of time, then documentary movies are about insight and learning — expanding what we can know, feel, and see. Certainly narratives can enlarge and intensify the world for us in these ways as well, but without the primary task of telling a story, documentary

K E Y o b j E c t i v E s ■ Recognize that documentary films are best distinguished as cultural practices. ■ Describe how documentary films employ nonfictional and non-narrative images

and forms. ■ Identify how documentary movies make and draw on specific historical

heritages. ■ Explain the common formal strategies and organizations used in documentary films. ■ Summarize how documentary films have become associated with cultural

values and traditions from which we develop filmic meaning.

7.1 Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (1931). Following the documentary breakthrough of Flaherty’s earlier Moana, Robert Flaherty and F. W. Murnau’s new project combines a tragic love story with documentary images of Polynesian life. Courtesy Everett Collection

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movies — whether they are newsreels, theatrical films, PBS broadcasts, or cable specials — can concentrate on leading our intellectual activities down new paths. Entertainment and artistry are of course not excluded from documentary films. In Searching for Sugar Man (2012), two South Africans take their cameras and iPhones on a search for a Detroit pop singer from the 1960s and 1970s, Rodriguez — who, unbeknownst to him, had achieved cult status in Africa. While Rodriguez is pre- sumed dead by many and now struggling simply to make a living with construction jobs, this investigative quest discovers a lost hero and returns him to another world that celebrates him and his music in ways he had never experienced or imagined. Like the filmmakers and Rodriguez himself, we too discover new human depths and new cultural geographies across the world [Figure 7.2].

While narrative films are at the heart of commercial entertainment, documen- tary movies operate according to an “economics of information” since they usually rely on different sources of funding and different venues for exhibition through which to deliver their ideas and information. Many of the first films made in the 1890s and early 1900s, such as the traveling exhibitions and shows of Lyman H. Howe in America and Walter Haggar in England, were part of lectures, scientific presentations, or visual illustrations of the art of motion. Churches, schools, and cultural institutions supported and financially subsidized these presentations, usu- ally in the name of intellectual, spiritual, or cultural development. Since then, docu- mentaries have remained, to some extent, tied to and often financially dependent on private and public sponsorship, such as museums, government agencies, local social

7.2 Searching for Sugar Man (2012). Entertainment and artistry intermingle in this quest for a lost real- ity that binds two cultures.

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activists, and cultural foundations — from projects of the Works Progress Admin- istration (WPA) that funded U.S. documentaries in the 1930s to the grants of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) that support some nonfiction films today. In addition, many documentaries are made for television, a phenomenon that has increased since the 1980s, when the deregulation of the broadcast industry encouraged the proliferation of such cable networks as Discovery Channel and History. For these channels, documentary programming has become a mainstay.

Although documentary films often claim and sometimes deserve the title “independent films,” their survival has depended on a public culture that promotes learning as a crucial part of the film experience. Outside of or on the fringes of commercial cinema, this “other” culture of films has endured and often triumphed through every period of film history and in virtually every world culture. In the following sections, we will explore the many ways these films have expanded how we observe, listen, and think.

a short History of Documentary cinema From ancient government records to family home movies, charts mapping new territories to school textbooks, we explain and learn about the world in ways that stories cannot fully explore. For example, the journals describing Marco Polo’s travels through China or the early-nineteenth-century treatise by Sir Humphry Davy on the discovery of electricity have, in their own ways, recorded lost worlds, offered new ideas, or changed how we see society.

At the end of the nineteenth century, the search for empirical and spiritual truths produced new educational practices, technological tools, colonial expeditions, and secret societies — these were the vehicles to new experiences, pragmatic thought, and better worlds. In the midst of these trends, film was introduced in 1895 and used to illustrate lectures, offer cinematic portraits of famous people, and guide audiences through short movie travelogues. For many, film was not an art but a tool for inves- tigating and explaining the physical and social worlds. The Edison Company stunned viewers in 1901 with a series of short films documenting the activities of President William McKinley on the day of his assassination, his funeral, and the transition of power to President Theodore Roosevelt [Figure 7.3]. Just as narrative films are rooted

in cultural foundations and histories that preceded the cinema by centuries, so too are documentary films.

A Prehistory of Documentaries For centuries, documentary cinema was anticipated by oral practices such as sermons, political speeches, and aca- demic lectures; visual practices such as maps, photographs, and paintings; musical practices such as folk songs and symphonies; and written practices such as letters, diaries, poems, scientific treatises, and newspaper reports. The essay form, in particular, is considered to have had a great influ- ence on documentary cinema. Spearheaded by Michel de Montaigne, the essay form first appeared in the late six- teenth century and centered around personal and everyday subjects as a fragmented commentary on life and ideas.

Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, journalism developed as a public forum for expressing ideas, announcing events, and recording daily happenings

7.3 President McKinley’s Funeral Cortege at Buffalo, New York (1901). Compelling images of events surrounding President William McKinley’s assassination were recorded by motion-picture cameras. The Library of Congress has made these films available through the online American Memory Project. Library of Congress

v i E w i n g c u E What historical precedents (scientific treatises, essays, news reports) might explain the strategies used in the film you’ve just viewed?

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around town. Around 1800, Mary Wollstonecraft and Thomas Malthus wrote books, pamphlets, and lengthy essays describing the current state of society and insisting on practical ways that social science could improve people’s lives. As the middle class moved to the center of Western societies in the nineteenth cen- tury, people demanded more information about the world.

Photography and photojournalism, evolving from new printing and lithographic technologies, became widespread and popular ways to record and comment on events. Unlike narrative practices, such as realistic novels or short stories, photojournal- ism presented virtually instantaneous and seemingly uncontest- able records, factual representations of people and events frozen in time. One of the most dramatic combinations of social science and photography is Jacob Riis’s How the Other Half Lives (1890) [Figure 7.4], which is part lecture, part photo essay; its pseudo- scientific sermon exposes and condemns living conditions in New York City’s tenement housing.

1895–1905: Early Actualities, Scenics, and Topicals The very first movies appeared in 1895 and were frequently called actualities — that is, moving nonfiction snapshots of real people and events, with the most famous being Louis and Auguste Lumière’s Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory. This film capti- vated audiences with its recording and presentation of a simple everyday activity without explanation or story line. Scenics, a variation of these early nonfiction films, offered exotic or remarkable images of nature or foreign lands. In Birt Acres’s Rough Sea at Dover (1896), an immobile image shows waves crashing against a seawall, while other short scenics present views of Jerusalem or Niagara Falls. When these films captured or sometimes re-created historical or newsworthy events, they would be referred to as topicals, suggesting the kind of cultural, historical, or political rele- vance usually found in newspapers. Around 1898, for example, the ongoing Spanish- American War figured in a number of topicals, often with battle scenes depicting the sinking of the American ship Maine, which was re-created through miniatures. These factual and fabricated images of the war attracted large audiences [Figure 7.5].

The 1920s: Robert Flaherty and the Soviet Documentaries Footage of distant lands continued to interest moviemakers and audiences even after nar- rative film became the norm around 1910. American adventurers Martin and Osa Johnson documented their travels in Africa and the South Seas in such popular films as Jungle Adven- tures (1921) and Simba (1928) [Figure 7.6]. But it was Robert Flaherty, often referred to as “the father of documentary cinema,” who significantly expanded the powers and popularity of nonfiction film in the 1920s, most famously with his early works Nanook of the North (1922) and Moana.

7.4 “Bandit’s Roost,” How the Other Half Lives (1890). Jacob Riis documents the squalor and danger of tenement life in nineteenth-century New York. Jacob August Riis/CorbisNA

7.5 The Motion Picture Camera Goes to War (1898). Many topicals produced between 1898 and 1901 depicted the ongoing Spanish-American War. Archival film and/or video materials from the collections of the Library of Congress

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Blending a romantic fascination with nature and an anthropological desire to document and record other civilizations, Flaherty identified new possibilities for funding these noncommercial films (largely through corporations) and, with the success of Nanook, iden- tified new audiences interested in realistic films that were exciting even without stories and stars.

At the same time, a very different kind of docu- mentary was taking shape in Soviet cinema. Filmmak- ers such as Dziga Vertov and Esfir Shub saw timely political potential in creating documentary films with strong ideological messages conveyed through the for- mal technique of montage. In The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty (1927), Shub compiles and edits existing footage to show the historical conflicts between the aristocracy and the workers. In Man with a Movie Camera (1929), which would become one of the most renowned “city symphony” documentaries, Vertov re-creates and celebrates the energy of the everyday people and the activities of a modern city.

1930–1945: The Politics and Propaganda of Documentary Perhaps more so than for other film practices, the introduction of optical sound recording in 1927 catapulted documentary films forward, as it made possible the addition of educational or social commentary to accompany images in newsreels, documentaries, and propaganda films. Public institutions such as the General Post Office in England, President Roosevelt’s Resettlement Administration, and the National Film Board of Canada, as well as private groups such as New York City’s Film and Photo League, unhesitatingly supported documentary practices in the 1930s and 1940s. These institutions prefigure the more contemporary supporters of documentary film, including the American Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), and the German ZDF television station.

Indeed, documentary film history can never really be divorced from these critical sources of funding and distribution. Perhaps the most prominent figure to forge and develop a relationship between documentary filmmakers and those institutions that would eventually fund them was British filmmaker John Grierson. From the late 1920s through the 1940s, as the first head of the National Film Board of Canada, Grierson not only promoted documentaries that dealt with social issues but also established the institutional foundations that for years funded and distributed them. Government and institutional support for documentary cinema would proceed in a more troubling direction in the 1930s and 1940s in the form of propaganda films [Figures 7.7a and 7.7b] — two famous examples being Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will (1935), com- memorating the sixth Nazi rally in Nuremberg, and Japanese Relocation (1943), a U.S. film justifying the internment of Japanese Americans on the West Coast.

1950s–1970s: New Technologies and the Arrival of Television In the 1950s, changes in documentary practices followed the technological devel- opment of lightweight 16mm cameras, which allowed filmmakers a new kind of spontaneity and inventiveness when capturing reality. Most dramatic was the cinéma vérité movement that appeared in France at this time, whereby a “cinema truth”

7.6 Simba (1928). Early documentaries took the shape of explorations of new lands and cultures, frequently transforming those worlds into strange and exotic objects. Here American adventurers Martin and Osa Johnson documented their travels in Africa and the South Seas. Courtesy of Milestone Film and Video

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was achieved through the use of lightweight cameras to record daily life and public events. Documentary filmmakers like Jean Rouch, with films like Moi un noir (I, a Black) (1958), could now participate more directly and provocatively in the reality they filmed. This new mobile and independent method of documentary filmmaking advanced again with the development of portable magnetic sync-sound recorders in the late 1950s, and then again in 1968 with the introduction of Portapak video equipment. Armed with a lightweight camera and the ability to record direct sound, filmmakers could now document actions and events that previously remained hidden or at a distance. Rouch’s later film, Chronicle of a Summer (1961), has become a clas- sic example of these new cinéma vérité possibilities, as it features random encounters with people on the streets of Paris, answering questions and giving their opinions on happiness, war, politics, love, and work.

Sometimes referred to as the golden age of television documentary, this period also brought a rapid expansion of docu- mentaries aimed at a new television audi- ence. Merging older documentary traditions with television news reportage, these pro- grams were often noted for their tough honesty and social commitment. The work of television journalist Edward R. Murrow, who battled over Senator Joseph McCarthy’s indiscriminate attacks on individuals, set a new benchmark for news reporting.

Perhaps the best-known example of the convergence of new technology, a more mobile style, and television reportage is Robert Drew’s Primary, the 1960 film about the Democratic primary in Wisconsin between John F. Kennedy and Hubert H. Humphrey [Figure 7.8]. This documentary was produced for the series ABC Close- Up! (1960–1961) by Drew Associates, the organization that would train many of the

7.7 (a) Triumph of the Will (1935) and (b) Japanese Relocation (1943). Films like these represented the disturbing propagandistic power of documentaries controlled and supported by governments and other institutional agents. 7.7a: Courtesy Photofest

(a) (b)

7.8 Primary (1960). This documentary about John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign took advantage of the mobility and immediacy produced by new camera and sound equipment.

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documentary filmmakers associated with direct cinema, the American documen- tary version of cinéma vérité that aims to capture unfolding events as unobtrusively as possible.

1980s–Present: Digital Cinema, Cable, and Reality TV In the 1980s, the consumer video camera was taken up by artists and activists, such as the AIDS activist video collective Testing the Limits, as part of the democratization of documentary that would continue with the rapid shift to digital formats. With the introduction in the late 1980s of Avid’s nonlinear digital editing process making

editing so much easier and less expensive, documentary shooting ratio — the ratio of footage shot to footage used in the film — increased exponentially. This led to the growth of personal documentaries, which would eventually achieve theatrical exposure in such films as Morgan Spurlock’s quirky tale of his fast-food consumption quest, Super Size Me (2004) [Figure 7.9]. During this period, changes in the distribution and exhibition of documentaries significantly impacted the availability and popularity of these films.

In addition to increased festival and theatrical exposure and the expanding video rental market, cable and satellite television networks provide more and more oppor- tunities for documentary projects. Under Sheila Nevins, HBO’s documentary division has sponsored numerous powerful and acclaimed films, including Born into Brothels (2004) and If God Is Willing and da Creek Don’t Rise (2010). Planet Earth (2006), the eleven-part nature TV series co-produced by the BBC and Discovery Channel, garnered awards, critical praise, and wide audiences for its state-of-the-art, high- definition cinematography and conservation message, echoed in a successful series of theatrically released documentaries from the DisneyNature label [Figure 7.10]. While

7.9 Super Size Me (2004). Morgan Spurlock at a checkup in this personal documentary on fast-food diets and their effects on American obesity.

7.10 Chimpanzee (2012). Though relatively few documentaries receive wide national releases, Disney has seen success in recent years with their series of nature films. Their Chimpanzee remains one of the highest-grossing documentaries of recent years.

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public television and cable networks provide more venues for independently produced documentaries that may otherwise have limited distribution, the relatively low pro- duction costs of nonfiction programming have also encouraged many channels to fill their schedules with reality television. From Pawn Stars to Top Chef, these formats feature real people in situations that blur the lines between actual events, theatrical performances, and reenactments [Figures 7.11a and 7.11b].

(b)(a)

7.11 (a) Pawn Stars (2009–) and (b) Top Chef (2006–). Just two examples of reality television shows that blur the boundaries between what is real and what is performed. 7.11a: © History Channel/Courtesy Everett Collection/7.11b: David Moir/© Bravo/Courtesy Everett Collection

the Elements of Documentary Films The documentary film, despite sharing elements of cinematic form with narra- tive and experimental films, organizes its material, constitutes its authority, and engages the audience in a distinct fashion. The following section outlines the modes of discourse, organizational patterns, and methods of presenting a point of view typical of the documentary film.

Nonfiction and Non­Narrative Nonfiction and non-narrative, cornerstones of documentary films, are two key con- cepts that are often debated. Although documentary films and experimental films (see Chapter 8) can both be described as non-narrative, nonfiction has primarily been associated with documentary films. Nonfiction films present (presumed) factual descriptions of actual events, persons, or places, rather than their fictional or invented re-creation. Attempts to make a hard-and-fast distinction between “factual descriptions” and “fictional re-creations” have provoked heated debates throughout film history, since facts are arguably malleable. Nonetheless, a funda- mental distinction can be made between, say, a PBS documentary about the life of Queen Elizabeth II of England and Stephen Frears’s feature film The Queen (2006). The first film uses the accounts of journalists, news media, and historians to show the facts and complex issues in the life of one of the great women of history. The second film uses some of the same information but focuses specifically on events immediately following the death of Princess Diana and the queen’s relationship with Prime Minister Tony Blair in order to create a dramatic and entertaining epi- sode in her life.

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However, it is also important to rec- ognize that nonfiction can be used in a variety of creative ways. In Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005), Alex Gibney pursues a nonfictional, behind- the-scenes investigation of the cause behind the corporation’s collapse through interviews with the actual participants in and victims of the event [Figure 7.12]. In contrast, in Of Great Events and Ordi- nary People (1979), Raoul Ruiz turns an assignment to conduct nonfictional interviews in a Paris neighborhood into a complex and humorous reflection on the impossibility of revealing any truth or honesty through the interview process.

Non-narrative films eschew or de- emphasize stories and narratives, instead

employing other forms like lists, repetition, or contrasts as their organizational structure. For example, a non-narrative film might create a visual list (of objects found in an old house, for instance), repeat a single image as an organizing pat- tern (returning to an ancient carving on the front door of the house), or alternate between objects in a way that suggests fundamental differences (contrasting the rooms, clothing, and tools used by the men and the women in the house).

A non-narrative movie may certainly embed stories within its organization, but those stories usually become secondary to the non-narrative pattern. In Koy- aanisqatsi (1983), slow-motion and time-lapse photography capture the open vistas of an American landscape and their destruction against the drifting tones of Philip Glass’s music: pristine fields and mountains, rusty towns, and garbage-strewn high- ways [Figure 7.13]. Through these images, one may detect traces of a story about the collapse of America in what the Hopi Indian title declares is “a life out of balance,” but that simple and vague narrative is not nearly as powerful as the emotional force of the film’s accumulating visual repetitions and contrasts. Diane Keaton’s Heaven (1987) intersperses clips from old movies with angels and other images of heaven and presents a litany of faces and voices to answer such questions as “Does heaven exist?” and “Is there sex in heaven?” Although we may sense a religious mystery tale behind these questions and answers, this movie is better understood as a playful list

of unpredictable reactions to the possibility of a life hereafter.

Nonfiction and non-narrative clearly suggest distinctive ways of seeing the world. Although they often overlap in documentary films, one form of pre- sentation does not necessarily imply the other. A non-narrative film may be entirely or partly fictional; conversely, a nonfiction film can be constructed as a narrative. Complicating these distinc- tions is the fact that both kinds of prac- tices can become less a function of the intentions of the film than of viewers’ perception; what may seem nonfictional or non-narrative in one context may not seem so in another. For example, audi- ences in the 1920s mostly assumed that

7.12 Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005). Alex Gibney’s film is a nonfiction investigation of the corruption that led to the collapse of a powerful American corporation.

7.13 Koyaanisqatsi (1983). A non-narrative catalog of images contrasting America’s beauty and decay.

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Nanook of the North was a nonfictional account of an Inuit tribesman and his family. Now, most viewers recognize that some of the central events and actions were fabricated for the documentary. Similarly, for some viewers, The Cove (2009) is a non-narrative exposé of the capture and slaughter of dolphins by a Japanese company, while for others it is a dramatic narrative about a group of activists on a rescue mission. Keeping in mind how the different meanings of nonfiction and non-narrative can historically and perceptually shift should, however, only make the categories more useful in judging the strategies of a particular documentary as part of changing cultural contexts and as a reflection of an audience’s point of view.

Expositions: Organizations That Show or Describe While narrative film relies on specific patterns to shape the material realities of life into imaginative histories, the documentary employs strategies and forms that resemble scientific and educational methods. For example, a narrative film of a young Thai girl longing to leave an isolated island might describe her adventurous escape to Bangkok. A documentary film, in contrast, might examine the details of her daily chores and intersperse those details with interviews in which she explains her frustrations and describes her hopes and wishes for another life. These different strategies alter our experience of the girl, thus making the character seem like two different people.

The formal expositional strategies used in documentary movies are known as “documentary organizations.” These organizations show or describe experi- ences in a way that differs from narrative films — that is, without the temporal logic of narrative and without the presiding focus on how a central character motivates and moves events forward. Traditional documentaries tend to observe the facts of life from a distance and organize their observations as objectively as possible to suggest some definition of the subject through the exposition itself.

Here we will discuss three distinctive organizations of documentary films: the cumulative, the contrastive, and the developmental. These organizations may appear in different films or may be used in some combination in the same film. Then we will explore how the use of these organizational patterns is often governed by the perspective — or rhetorical position — from which a film’s observations are made.

Cumulative Organizations Cumulative organizations present a catalog of images or sounds throughout the course of the film. It may be a simple series with no recognizable logic con- necting the images. Joris Ivens’s Rain (1929) presents images from a rainstorm in Amsterdam, showing the rain falling in a multitude of different ways and from many different angles [Figure 7.14]. We do not sense that we are watching this downpour from beginning to end; rather, we see this rain as the accumulation of its seemingly infinite variety of shapes, move- ments, and textures. Another example of cumulative organization is Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould (1993). Although some viewers may expect a biography of the renowned pianist Gould, the film intentionally fragments his life into numerical

v i E w i n g c u E Is the film you have just seen in class best described as nonfiction or non-narrative? What elements helped you decide which categorization was more appropriate?

7.14 Rain (1929). The accumulation of images of different kinds of rain showers gradually creates a poetic documentary of various shapes and textures.

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Robert Flaherty’s documentary film Man of Aran (1934) is an early, incisive example of how films employ, albeit in different ways, both nonfictional and non-narrative practices. Man of Aran, a documentary about a small community living on an island off the coast of western Ireland, does not identify the characters or explain their motivations; instead, it lists and describes the activities that make up their daily lives and records the hardships of living on a barren, isolated island. The members of this seemingly primitive community cart soil to grow potatoes on their rocky plots and struggle against the ferocious sea to fish and survive. In an important sense, the film is a histori- cal and cultural record: it documents the routines of the resi- dents’ existence without the drama of a narrative beginning, climax, or conclusion. Adding to the distant atmosphere of a place that seems newly discovered by this film, the char- acters are not named, and the force of the sea constantly overwhelms their meager attempts to create order and meaning in their lives [Figure 7.15]. Well beyond learning about the customs of a distant way of life, audiences find in Man of Aran a dignity of living far removed from common experience and knowledge.

Stories and narratives are not the primary organiza- tional feature in Man of Aran. Instead, the film mostly accumulates, repeats, and contrasts images. The brutal lifestyle on the island is presented by contrasting human activities with natural forces: images of people preparing meals, planting a garden, and repairing fishing nets alter- nate with images of crashing waves, barren rock coasts, and empty horizons.

Yet traces of fiction and narrative are still visible in the film, even if they are subsumed under alternative organizational patterns. Some situations are in fact fab- ricated, such as the episode in which the men are nearly lost at sea in the hunt for a basking shark. Shark hunts

were a part of life two generations earlier but by 1934 no longer took place on the Aran Islands. The episode thus relies on the dramatic suspense that drives any good adventure story.

However innovative and distinctive this film is, it also reminds us of its cultural heritage. While explicitly working out of the tradition of an anthropological report, Man of Aran also adapts the tradition of the travel essay or travelogue, found in the works of writers from Henry James (1843–1916) to Bruce Chatwin (1940–1989). Whereas James describes the sights and sounds of his visits to Venice and Chatwin his encounters in Patagonia, Flaherty’s film shows us a culture on the far reaches of the emerging modern civilizations of the twentieth century.

Film in

Focus

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nonfiction and non-narrative in Man of Aran ( 1934 )

See also: Nanook of the North (1922); Sunless (1982); Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2001)

Film in Focus bedfordstmartins.com /filmexperience

To watch a video about Man of Aran, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

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7.15 Man of Aran (1934). Inhabiting Irish islands unknown to many viewers, nameless individuals fight for survival against the barren and harsh world.

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episodes focused on his playing, on his acquaintances discussing him, and on reen- actments of moments in his life [Figure 7.16].

Contrastive Organizations A variation on cumulative organization, contrastive organizations present a series of contrasts or oppositions meant to indicate the different points of view on its subject. Thus a film may alternate between images of war and peace or between contrasting skylines of different cities. Sometimes these contrasts may be evaluative, distinguish- ing positive and negative events. At other times, contrastive exposition may suggest a more complicated relationship between objects or individuals. Among the most ambitious versions of this technique is a group of films by Michael Apted, begin- ning with his documentary 7 Up (1963) and followed by successive films made every seven years; the films track the changing attitudes and social situations of a group of children as they grow into the adults of 49 Up (2005) and 56 Up (2012). With a new film appearing every seven years, these films contrast not only the differences among developing individuals in terms of class, gender, and family life but also the differences in their changing outlooks as they grow older.

Developmental Organizations With developmental organizations, places, objects, individuals, or experiences are presented through a pattern that has a non-narrative logic or structure but still fol- lows a logic of change or progression. For example, an individual may be presented as growing from small to large, as changing from a passive to an active personal- ity, or as moving from the physical to the spiritual. With a script by W. H. Auden, Night Mail (1936) describes the journey of the mail train from London to Scotland, documenting and celebrating the many precisely coordinated tasks that make up this nightly civil service. With music from composer Benjamin Britten and poetry by Auden, the movement of this journey re-creates the rhythms of the train wheels as they accelerate, steady, and then slow in their developing path across England [Figure 7.17]. More recently, the 2007 The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters fol- lows gamer Steve Wiebe in his attempt to break the record score of Donkey Kong champion Billy Mitchell. The film documents his progressive movement toward that goal and the showdown that threatens to derail it [Figure 7.18].

7.16 Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould (1993). As an expositional organization, the film offers a glimpse into the life of the notori- ously elusive genius through snippets of performance footage intermixed with reenactments of moments in his life. The Kobal Collection/Art Resource, NY

7.17 Night Mail (1936). Within the journey of mail from London to Scotland, a poetry of the everyday develops and progresses, as the film follows the tasks of sorting mail, picking up that mail by trains, and eventually delivering it at the end of the line. Courtesy British Postal Museum & Archive

v i e w i n g c u e bedfordstmartins.com /filmexperience

Examine carefully the organization of this clip from The Cove (2009). Does it follow a clear formal strategy? Explain.

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Rhetorical Positions Just as narrative cinema uses differ- ent types of narrators and narration to tell stories from a certain angle, documentary and experimental films employ their own rhetorical positions, or organizational points of view, that shape their formal practices according to certain perspectives and attitudes. Sometimes these films might assume the neutral stance of the uninvolved observer — referred to as the “voice of God” because of its assumed author- ity and objectivity. At other times, the point of view of the documen- tary assumes a more limited or even personal perspective. Whether clearly visible and heard, omniscient or per- sonal, or merely implied by the film’s organization, the rhetorical positions of

documentary films generally articulate their attitudes and positions according to four principal frameworks:

■ The first is associated with the effort to explore the world and its peoples. ■ The second aims to interrogate or analyze an event or a problem. ■ The third assumes the stance of a debater or polemicist who attempts to persuade

the audience of a certain truth or point of view. ■ The fourth foregrounds and reflects the presence and activity of the filmmaking

process and/or the filmmaker.

Sometimes these frameworks will overlap in a single film. For example, the voice of Peter Davis’s Hearts and Minds (1974) is both explorative and polemical as it tears apart, with strategically placed interviews and newsreel footage, the myths supporting the Vietnam War [Figure 7.19]. Winged Migration (2001) uses both very little commentary and a “bird’s-eye view” to present the flights of migra- tory birds around the world, while at the same time it subtly promotes the natural mysteries of those activities. Capitalism: A Love Story (2009), a film that centers

on director Michael Moore’s perspective on the recent financial crisis and the ensuing bailout, offers an often exaggerated performance as a clearly argumentative perspective meant to incite and arouse audiences and to sway opinion on the current economic situation in the United States.

Explorative Positions Explorative positions announce or suggest that the film’s driving perspective is a scientific search into particular social, psychological, or physical phenomena. Informed by this position, a documentary assumes the perspective of a traveler, an explorer, or an investigator who encounters new worlds, facts, or experiences and aims to present and describe these straightforwardly, often as a witness. Travel films have existed since the first days of cinema when filmmakers would offer short

7.18 The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007). Gaming becomes a world of ever- rising scores, new records, and conquests, as we follow Steve Wiebe’s journey from playing Donkey Kong in his garage to the Funspot Arcade in Laconia, New Hampshire, where he performs a live high score to prove his ability and legitimacy.

7.19 Hearts and Minds (1974). A documentary explores the realities of the Vietnam War, while trying to convince its audience of the misguided decisions that led to the disaster it became.

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records of exotic locations such as Niagara Falls or the Great Wall of China. The first feature-length documen- taries extended that explorative curiosity, positioning the travel film somewhere between the anthropologist’s urge to show different civilizations and peoples, as in Flaherty’s Nanook of the North [Figure 7.20], and the tourist’s pleasure of visiting novel sites and locations, as in Jean Vigo’s tongue-in-cheek wanderings through a French resort town in Apropos of Nice (1930). More recently, Werner Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010) mobilizes 3-D technology to explore the Chavet Cave drawings in Southern France, offering a stunning commentary on these prehistorical paintings and their anticipation of cinematic movement [Figure 7.21].

Interrogative Positions Interrogative or analytical positions rhetorically structure a movie in a way that identifies the subject as being under investigation — either through an implicit or explicit question-and- answer format or by other, more subtle, tech- niques. Commonly condensed in the interview format found in many documentary films, interrogative techniques can also employ a voiceover or an on-camera voice that asks questions of individuals or objects that may or may not respond to the questioning. Frank Capra’s Why We Fight series (1943–1945) explicitly formulates itself as an inquisition into the moti- vations for the U.S. involvement in World War II, while in Trinh T. Minh-ha’s Surname Viet Given Name Nam (1989) a question or problem may only be implied, and succeeding images may either resolve the problem or not. Errol Mor- ris’s Fog of War (2003) creates a visually and musically complex forum, filmed with an innovative camera device he called the “Interrotron,” through which he elicits strained explanations from former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara about the catastrophe of the Vietnam War. One of the most profound and subtlest examples of the interrogative or analytical form is Alain Resnais’s Night and Fog (1955), which offers images without answers [Figures 7.22a and 7.22b]. In short, interrogative and analytical forms may lead to more knowledge, or may simply raise more questions than they answer.

Persuasive Positions Use of interrogation and analysis in a documentary film are often (but not always) intended to convince or persuade a viewer about certain facts or truths. Persuasive positions articulate a perspective that expresses a personal or social position using emotions or beliefs and aim to persuade viewers to feel and see in a certain way. Some films do so through voices and interviews that attempt to convince view- ers of a particular cause. In An Inconvenient Truth (2006), former vice president Al Gore positions himself like a professor before charts, graphs, and images in a sustained argument about the dangers of global warming [Figure 7.23]. Other mov- ies may downplay the presence of the personal perspective and instead use images

7.20 Nanook of the North (1922). Many documentaries mimic the anthropologist’s project of exploring other cultures, in this case the rituals and daily routines of an Inuit family.

7.21 Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010). 3-D images allow Herzog to explore the space of prehistorical drawings in ways never before possible.

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and sounds to influence viewers through argu- ment or emotional appeal, as in propagandistic movies that urge certain political or social views. Leni Riefenstahl’s infamous Triumph of the Will allows the grandiose composition of images to convince viewers of the glorious powers of the Nazi Party; meanwhile, Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer (2013) describes the dramatic protests of three young Russian women about the repressions in Russian society and their subsequent sentence of three years in prison. Between the pounding and energetic rhythms of the music and the absurdi- ties of the trial, there is little question about its persuasive exposure of the Russian church and government.

Persuasive forms can also rely solely on the power of documentary images themselves. Frederick Wiseman’s Titicut Follies (1967), for example, exposes the treatment of and influences attitudes about the criminally insane without any overt argumentation [Figure 7.24]. With such movies, what we are being persuaded to do or think may not be immediately evident, yet it is usually obvious that we are engaged in a rhetorical argument that involves visual facts, intellectual statements, and sometimes emotional manipulation.

Reflexive and Performative Positions Reflexive and performative positions call attention to the filmmaking process or perspective of the filmmaker in determining or shaping the documentary material being presented. Often this means calling attention to the making of the documen- tary or the process of watching a film itself. Certain films, like Laleen Jayamanne’s A Song of Ceylon (1985), which references the classical documentary Song of Cey- lon (1934) through its meditation on colonialism and gender in Sri Lanka, aim to remind viewers that documentary reality and history are always mediated by the film image, and that documentary films do not necessarily offer an easy access to truth. This focus can shift from the filmmaking process to the filmmaker, thus emphasizing the participation of that individual as a kind of performer of reality.

7.22a and 7.22b Night and Fog (1955). As images of liberated survivors of the Nazi concentration camps alternate with contemporary images of the same empty camps, the complex organizational refrain of the film becomes, “Who is responsible?”

(a) (b)

7.23 An Inconvenient Truth (2006). Graphs, charts, and expert opinion help to persuade an audience of the dangers of global warming.

v i E w i n g c u E Describe the presiding voice or attitude of the film you just viewed. Is the dominant rhetorical position appropriate for the subject? Can you imagine another way of filming this subject? Explain.

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A classic example of a reflexive and performative documentary, Orson Welles’s F for Fake (1973) wittily mediates on powers of illusion that bind filmmaking, the illusions of magicians, fraud, and art forgery. In Ross McElwee’s Sherman’s March (1986), the filmmaker sets out on a journey to document the famous Civil War general’s conquest of the South; along the way, however, this witty film becomes more about the filmmaker’s own failed attempts to start or maintain a romantic relationship with the many women he meets [Figure 7.25].

7.24 Titicut Follies (1967). Much of the film’s power resides in shock- ing images of the institutional abuses of the prisoners. Bridgewater Film Company, Inc., permission granted by Zipporah Films, Inc.

7.25 Sherman’s March (1986). A personal documentary about the filmmaker’s attempt to make a historical film that becomes a reflexive performance about love, women, and making movies.

making sense of Documentary Films Although moviegoers have always been attracted to a film’s entertainment value, audiences have also appreciated the cultural and educational values of nonfiction movies produced as early as the 1890s. These films presented sporting events, political speeches, and dramatic presentations of Shake- speare. In 1896, for instance, the Lumière brothers took audiences on an educational railway trip with the “phantom ride” of Leaving Jerusalem by Railway [Figure 7.26]. According to these practices, then, the documentary could presumably offer unmediated truths or factual insights that were unavailable through strictly narrative experiences. Regardless of how this basic view of the documentary may have changed since then, presenting presumed social, historical, or cultural truths or facts remains the foundation on which docu- mentary films are built.

Perhaps more than narrative cinema, documentary films expand and complicate how we understand the world. The relationship between documentary films and the cultural and historical expectations of viewers thus plays a large part in how these movies are understood. Luis Buñuel’s Land Without Bread (1933) might seem to be a kind of travelogue about a remote region of

7.26 Leaving Jerusalem by Railway (1896). Early film allowed audiences to experience the pleasure and education of visiting new lands and vistas.

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Spain — Las Hurdes — but its bitingly ironic soundtrack commentary, which flatly understates the brutal misery, poverty, and degradation in the region, makes the film a searing political commentary on the failure of the state and church to care adequately for the people who live there. So unmistakable was the message of this film, in fact, that the Spanish government repressed it. Without its cultural context, this film might seem odd or confusing to some viewers today, reminding us that in order to locate the significance of a film, we often must understand the historical, social, and cultural context in which it was made.

Throughout the history of documentaries, viewers have found these films most significant in their ability to reveal new or ignored realities not typically seen in narrative films, and to confront assumptions and alter opinions.

Revealing New or Ignored Realities Because narrative movies dominate the cinematic scene, documentary films com- monly have a differential value: successful documentary films offer different kinds of truth from narrative movies. Often this means revealing new or ignored realities by showing people, events, or levels of reality we have not seen before, because they have been excluded either from our social experience or from our experiences of narrative films. To achieve these kinds of fresh insight, documentaries often question the basic terms of narratives — such as the centrality of characters, the importance of a cause-and-effect chronology, or the necessity of a narrative point of view — or they draw on perspectives or techniques that would seem out of place in a narrative movie.

By showing us an object or a place from angles and points of view beyond the realistic range of human vision, such films place us closer to a newly discovered reality: we see the bottom of a deep ocean through the power of an underwater camera or the flight of migrating birds from their perspectives in the skies. Perhaps the object will be presented for an inordinately long amount of time, showing minute changes rarely seen in our usual experiences: one movie condenses the gestation of a child in the womb, while another shows the dread and boredom experienced over one long night by a homeless person in Miami. David and Albert Maysles’s Grey Gardens (1975) portrays the quirky extremes of a mother and daughter, relatives of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, living in a dilapidated mansion in East Hampton, Long Island. Slowly, by following their daily routines and dwell-

ing on the incidentals in their lives, the film develops our capacity truly to see two individuals whose unique personalities and habits become less and less strange [Figure 7.27].

Confronting Assumptions, Altering Opinions Documentary films may present a familiar or well-known subject and attempt to make us comprehend it in a new way. Some documentaries are openly polemical when presenting a subject: as an obvious example, documenta- ries about a political figure or a controversial event may confront viewers’ assumptions or attempt to alter received opinions about the person or event. Other films may ask us to rethink a moment in history or our feelings about what once seemed like a simple exercise, as in Wordplay (2006), a documentary about crossword puzzles and how they inspire intellectual activity [Figure 7.28].

v i E w i n g c u E What makes a documentary film you have recently seen meaningful? How specifically does it achieve its aims and make its values apparent?

7.27 Grey Gardens (1975). The relationship between two quirky and unusual women becomes a touching and entertaining documentary about individualism and humanity.

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With any and all of the formal and organizational tools available to a documentary, these films attempt to persuade viewers of certain facts, attack other points of view, argue with other films, or motivate viewers to act on social problems or concerns. An especially explicit example, Michael Moore’s Sicko (2007) very visibly and tendentiously argues that the health care system in the United States is antiquated and destructive, and that it needs to be changed. Released the same year, the documentary Manufacturing Dissent: Uncovering Michael Moore (2007) takes Moore and his many films to task for fudging or misrepresenting facts. Such polemic is central to this tradition of documentary cinema, which is always about which reality we wish to accept.

Serving as a Social, Cultural, and Personal Lens From the two primary agendas discussed above come two traditions of docu- mentary cinema: the social documentary and the ethnographic film. These two traditions encompass some of the main frameworks for understanding many docu- mentary films throughout the twentieth century.

The Social Documentary Social documentaries examine and present both familiar and unfamiliar peoples and cultures as social activities. Using a variety of organizational practices, this tradition emphasizes one or both of the following goals: authenticity in represent- ing how people live and interact, and discovery in representing unknown environ- ments and cultures. Considered by some scholars and filmmakers as the father of documentary, John Grierson made his first film, Drifters (1929), about North Sea herring fishermen; another early British filmmaker, Humphrey Jennings, continued this tradition with Listen to Britain (1942), a twenty-minute panorama of British society at war — from soldiers in the fields to women in factories. Indeed, the social documentary tradition is long and varied, stretching from Pare Lorentz’s The River (1937), made for the U.S. Department of Agriculture about the importance of the Mississippi River, to Waste Land (2010), about artist Vik Muniz’s encounter with a community who live in and off the world’s largest landfill on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. Two important spin-offs from the social documentary tradition are the political documentary and the historical documentary.

The Political Documentary. Partially as a result of the social crisis of the Great Depression in the United States and the more general economic crises that occurred in most other countries after World War I, political documentaries aimed to inves- tigate and to celebrate the political activities of men and women as they appear within the struggles of small and large social spheres. Contrasting themselves with the lavish Hollywood films of the times, these documentary films sought a balance of aesthetic objectivity and political purpose. Preceded by the films of Dziga Vertov

7.28 Wordplay (2006). This documentary presents viewers with new perspectives, such as that of Merl Reagle, longtime crossword constructor, on the seemingly ordinary subject of crossword puzzles.

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Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell (2012) is an emotionally and intellectually complex example of the creative or- ganizational and rhetorical possibilities that have made contemporary documentaries so exciting and often sur- prising. Years earlier Polley had established an active acting career and had also directed two powerful feature films, Away from Her (2006) and Take This Waltz (2011), both subtle and sensitive depictions of the difficult dy- namics of adult relationships. Aligned with the traditions of the personal documentary and the essay film, Stories We Tell documents and explores her own family history, as Polley questions other family members, views old home movies, and investigates newspapers and other documents to determine if she is in fact her father’s bio- logical child.

In one sense, the film deftly employs all three major documentary expositional strategies. The early part of the film introduces various brothers and sisters — Mark, John, Joanna, Susy — as well as other relations and friends of her mother, as “talking head” figures who comment on the life of Diane Polley, their experiences with this dynamic woman, and her early death from cancer. Woven within this accumulation of commentaries and remem- brances is a series of old photographs and home-movie sequences of Diane frolicking around the house, playing at the beach, and at one point singing “Ain’t Misbehavin’” on an audition tape. Gradually this oblique portrait begins to reveal various contrasts and differ- ences in Diane’s personality that sug- gest an increasingly complex history of a woman, who for all of her extroversion and exuberance carried secrets. Indeed, the central secret that the film uncovers is the nature and source of a pregnancy that produced Sarah herself.

The accumulation of those differ- ent perspectives slowly opens up this secret as a specific question about Sarah’s true biological father. Sarah, who

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is a visibly and audibly prominent presence throughout the film, pursues the mysteries of her parents’ relation- ship and her own birth as a developmental process that moves closer and closer to answers, while refocusing the accumulation of perspectives and commentaries that gradually concentrates on contrasting three possible fathers: Michael, the father whom she knows and loves despite some professed difficulties with the marriage; Geoffrey Bowes, an actor in the Montreal production where Diane worked decades earlier; and Harry Gulkin, a well- known film producer also present in Montreal at the time. These contrasting father figures become a version of the larger and more philosophical contrasts that organize this documentary among the different “stories we tell” about our experiences and lives.

The title of the film indicates a focus on various individual tales about the mother, and the exposi- tional organization accumulates, contrasts, and devel- ops through these little narratives. The “stories” of the title have been shaded and shaped by the limits and prejudices of memory; ultimately they demonstrate how no over-arching narrative can fully explain the mother’s character, personality, and history. One of the possible

Film in Focus

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stories we tell ( 2012 ) See also: Daughter Rite (1980); Capturing the Friedmans (2003); Bright Leaves (2003)

Film in Focus bedfordstmartins.com /filmexperience

To watch a clip from Stories We Tell, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

7.29 Stories We Tell (2012). Polley’s biological father, Harry Gulkin, contends it is his history to tell, not Sarah’s, since he was Diane’s lover and so has a prior claim to truth.

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fathers, Harry Gulkin, claims, toward the conclusion of the film, that only two people have the “right” to tell the story of Diane’s affair since only she and he were there [Figure 7.29]. Otherwise, he says, “you can’t ever touch bottom.” Indeed, for Polley, that elusive “bottom” of any experience or personality can never actually be touched or documented, which is perhaps the fundamental truth of this film.

Early on, Sarah Polley describes the interviews that organize the film as part of an “interrogation process,” the primary rhetorical position of the film. Yet, just as it complicates the truth of its talking-head interviews and anecdotes, Stories We Tell twists that rhetorical position in contemporary ways. It reflexively engages and undermines the narrative interrogations that support most memories and, at the same time, calls attention to its own work as a personal film that uses theatrical reenactments to create its different perspectives on an elusive history.

At different points in the film, Michael reads narration which, we later learn, he was inspired to write because of the film’s climactic revelation and because of his subsequently renewed bond with Sarah [Figure 7.30]. As he moves in and out of his own narrative, he appears sometimes as part of a third-person perspective on his his- tory, while at other times he expresses himself through a first-person testi- mony about his experiences with Diane. Throughout this theatricalized narra- tion, Sarah regularly interrupts Michael to have him reread lines (“take that line back”) and so calls attention to the

constructive fabric of narration itself, set within her fragmented documen- tary interrogation. As a related strat- egy, past events in the film are often retrieved through what seems to be authentic found footage and home mov- ies, but at the conclusion of the film, many of these events and film clips are revealed as reenactments with scenes reconstructed and actors playing the roles of the main characters. Like the deconstruction of Michael’s narrative, these reenactments make what at first seem like the traditional facts and actu- alities of documentary form into a rep- resentational dramatization which may or may not be a fully accurate portrayal of those facts [Figure 7.31].

Whereas the many stories and personal testimonies about Diane seem to make her the heart of the film, the reflexive frame and the use of reenactments gradually and somewhat surprisingly reposition the film’s per- spective and meaning, so that what actually happened in Diane’s history may not be the most important truth for this documentary. When, near the conclusion, Sarah reveals to Michael that he is in fact not her biological father, she hugs him in a way that, according to him, “made the revelation worth it,” so that for both him and Sarah, the search through Diane’s past and the truth it revealed “doesn’t make any difference.” More than a poign - ant documentary about a mother whom no one will ever completely know, Stories We Tell is also a documentary about the love and loyalty of a daughter for the father in her life.

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7.31 Stories We Tell (2012). Old home movies — some real, some fabricated — offer glimpses of the mother, Diane, who may also be part fiction within this documentary.

7.30 Stories We Tell (2012). In Sarah Polley’s inventive documentary, her father Michael tells his version of the past as a performative reading.

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and the Soviet cinema of the 1920s (such as Man with a Movie Camera), political documentaries tend to take analytical or persuasive positions, hoping to provoke or move viewers with the will to reform social systems. Narrated by Ernest Hemingway, Joris Ivens’s The Spanish Earth (1937) presents, for example, the heroic resis- tance of the “Loyalists” as they fight valiantly against the brutal forces of a fascist government [Figure 7.32]. While political documentaries such as these can some- times be labeled propaganda films because of their visible efforts to support a particular social or political issue or group, they frequently use more complex argu- ments and more subtle tactics than bluntly manipulative documentaries.

Since World War II, political documentaries have grown more varied and occasionally more militant. In 1968, Argentine filmmakers Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino produced The Hour of the Furnaces, a three-hour-long examination of the colonial exploita- tion of Argentina’s culture and resources that inspired heated political discussions and even demonstrations

in the street. In recent decades, feminist documentaries, gay and lesbian docu- mentaries, and documentaries about race explored political issues and identities that have traditionally not been addressed. The variety of these films indicates the power and purpose of this tradition. American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs (2013) examines the life and work of a Detroit activist who con- tinues, at age ninety-seven, to work for social change at a grassroots level. Robert Epstein and Richard Schmiechen’s The Times of Harvey Milk (1984) describes the assassinations of the San Francisco mayor and of Milk, an activist who was the first gay supervisor elected in the city, and Jennie Livingston’s Paris Is Burning (1991) documents the Harlem drag ball scene [Figure 7.33]. Spike Lee’s HBO documentary When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (2006), about the government mishandling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, is a worthy heir to a long tradition of documentaries that make the politics of race the centerpiece of the politics of the nation [Figure 7.34].

7.32 The Spanish Earth (1937). A celebration of the heroic resistance of fighters in Spain against an emerging fascist political machine. Courtesy Everett Collection

7.33 Paris Is Burning (1990). A sympathetic and witty portrayal of the subculture of drag balls in New York City.

7.34 When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (2006). Spike Lee’s HBO documentary uses the medium as a powerful tool for political statements.

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The Historical Documentary. Another form related to social documentary is the historical documentary, a type of film that concentrates largely on recovering and representing events or figures in history. Depending on the topic, these films are often compilations of materials, relying on old film footage or other materi- als such as letters, testimonials by historians, or photographs. Whatever the materials and tactics, however, historical documentaries have moved in two broad directions.

Conventional documentary histories as - sume the facts and realities of a past history can be more or less recovered and accurately represented. Atomic Cafe (1982), though a rather satirical documentary, uses media and government footage to describe the paranoia and hysteria of the nuclear arms race during the Cold War [Figure 7.35]. The films of Ken Burns, including the PBS series The Civil War (1990), Baseball (1996), and The War (2007), use a range of materials, techniques, and voices to re-create the layered dynamics of major historical and cultural events.

Reflexive documentary histories, in con- trast, adopt a dual point of view: alongside the work to describe an event (for instance, one associated with a historical trauma such as the Holocaust or the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima) is the awareness that film or other discourses and materials will never be able to fully retrieve the reality of that lost history. Despite their vastly different topics (the Nazi death camps and the racist murder of a Chinese Ameri- can automotive engineer), Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah (1985) and Christine Choy and Renee Tajima’s Who Killed Vincent Chin? (1987) engage specific historical and cultural atrocities and simultaneously reflect on the extreme dif- ficulty, if not impossibility, of fully and accu- rately documenting the truth of those events and experiences [Figure 7.36].

Ethnographic Cinema Ethnographic documentaries, with roots in early cinema, are a second major tradi- tion in documentary film. While social documentaries tend to emphasize the politi- cal and historical significance of certain events and figures, ethnographic films are typically about cultural revelations, aimed at presenting specific peoples, rituals, or communities that may have been marginalized by or invisible to the mainstream culture. Here we will highlight two practices within the ethnographic tradition: anthropological films and cinéma vérité.

Anthropological Films. Anthropological films explore different global cultures and peoples, both living and extinct. In the first part of the twentieth century, these

7.35 Atomic Cafe (1982). By employing archival footage and conventional documentary devices, this film satirizes the paranoia of 1950s culture.

7.36 Who Killed Vincent Chin? (1987). This film documents a local hate crime that resonates in larger historical terms; at the same time, it reflects on the difficulty of communicating the full historical truth. Courtesy of Filmmakers Library

v i E w i n g c u E Identify a documentary film you’ve seen that can be considered a social documentary. What type of social documentary is it? Explain.

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films often sought out exotic and endangered communities to reveal them to viewers who had little or no experience of them. Such docu- mentaries generally aim to reveal cultures and peoples authentically, without imposing the filmmaker’s interpretations, but in fact they are often implicitly shaped by the perspectives of their makers. In the 1940s and 1950s, such works as Jean Rouch’s The Magicians of Wan- zerbe (1949) transformed film into an exten- sion of anthropology, searching out the social rituals and cultural habits that distinguish the people of particular, often primitive, societies. Robert Gardner’s Dead Birds (1965) examines the war rituals of the Dani tribe in New Guinea, maintaining a scientific distance that draws out what is most unique and different about the people [Figure 7.37].

The scope and subject matter of ethno- graphic documentaries have expanded consid- erably over the years, sometimes finding lost

cultures in the West’s own backyard. This contemporary revision of anthropological cinema investigates the rituals, values, and social patterns of families or subcultures, such as the skateboard clan of Dogtown and Z-Boys (2001), rather than directing its attention to cultures or communities that are “foreign” to its producers. Using found footage or archival prints of home movies made before 1950, Karen Shopsowitz’s My Father’s Camera (2001) argues that reality is sometimes best revealed by amateur filmmakers capturing everyday life though home movies and snapshots. One of the most ambitious films in movie history, Chris Marker’s Sans soleil/Sunless (1983) shuffles and experiments with many of the structures and tropes of ethnographic doc- umentaries as it follows a cameraman’s letters as he who travels the world between Japan and Africa or, as the film puts it, between “the two extreme poles of survival.”

Cinéma Vérité and Direct Cinema. One of the most important and influential docu- mentary schools related to ethnographic cinema is cinéma vérité, French for “cin- ema truth.” Related to Dziga Vertov’s Kino-Pravda (“cinema truth”) of the 1920s, cinéma vérité insists on filming real objects, people, and events in a confrontational way, so that the reality of the subject continually acknowledges the reality of the camera recording it. This film movement arose in the late 1950s and 1960s in Canada and France before quickly spreading to film cultures in the United States and other parts of the world.

Aided by the development of lightweight cameras and portable sound equip- ment, filmmakers like Jean Rouch created in their images a jerky immediacy to suggest the filmmakers’ participation and absorption in the events they were recording. Rouch’s Moi un noin/I, a Negro (1958), filmed in Treichville, a neighbor- hood in Ivory Coast’s capital city, portrays the everyday life of a group of young Africans accompanied by the voiceover narration of one who refers to himself as Edward G. Robinson (after the “tough guy” actor in American films of the 1930s). In this version of cinéma vérité, rules of continuity and character development are willfully ignored. Here reality is not just what objectively appears; reality is also the fictions and fantasies that these individuals create for and about themselves and the acknowledged involvement of the filmmaker as interlocutor. Moreover, unlike its American counterpart, French cinéma vérité draws particular attention to the subjective perspective of the camera’s rhetorical position: in Rouch’s film, the voiceover frequently makes ironic remarks about what is being shown.

7.37 Dead Birds (1965). This remarkable ethnographic film provides audiences with a glimpse of life in the Dani tribe in New Guinea, focusing on Weyak, a farmer and warrior, and Pua, a young swineherd. Courtesy of DER

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The North American version of cinéma vérité, referred to as direct cinema, is more observa- tional and less confrontational than the French practice. Its landmark film, Primary, follows Democratic candidates John F. Kennedy and Hubert H. Humphrey through the Wisconsin state presidential primary. D. A. Pennebaker and the Maysles brothers, who were all involved in the making of Primary, continued to work in this tradition, gravitating toward social topics in which the identity of the subjects is inseparable from their role as performers. Pennebaker made numerous cinéma vérité–like films such as Dont Look Back (1967) [Figure 7.38], a portrait of the young Bob Dylan, and The War Room (1993), about the 1992 political campaign of Bill Clinton. In addition to Grey Gardens, Albert and David Maysles made many films in direct cinema style, including Salesman (1968), about itinerant Bible salesmen, and Gimme Shelter (1970), a powerful and troubling record of the 1969 Rolling Stones tour across the United States. Albert Maysles continues to be active, serving as an adviser to new generations of documentarians.

Personal Documentaries, Reenactments, and Mockumentaries Three specific strategies or tendencies have come to the foreground in recent years to define contemporary traditions in documentaries. As the line between social documentaries and ethnographic films has wavered, and, as mentioned, filmmak- ing equipment becomes more widely available, per- sonal or subjective documentaries that look more like autobiographies or diaries have become more common. This subgenre has roots in earlier films: In Lost, Lost, Lost (1976), Jonas Mekas portrays his fears and hopes in a diary film about his growing up as an immigrant in New York; counterpointing home movies, journal entries, and a fragmented style that resembles a diary, the rhythmic interjec- tions of the commentator-poet express feelings ranging from angst to delight. In A Healthy Baby Girl (1996), filmmaker Judith Helfland explores the causes of her cancer diagnosis in her mother’s use during pregnancy of the drug DES (diethylstilbes- trol), which was prescribed to prevent miscarriage. While the film exposes and indicts this breach of medical ethics and its impact on women’s health, its primary focus is on the personal journey of the filmmaker and her family [Figure 7.39].

Questions about the truth and honesty of docu- mentaries have shadowed this practice since Flaherty’s reconstruction of “typical” events for the camera in Nanook of the North and his other films in the 1920s. Recently more and more documentaries have seized on the question of the veracity of the cam- era in order to complicate or to spoof documentary

7.39 A Healthy Baby Girl (1996). Some documentaries, such as this one about the filmmaker and her mother, entwine a personal story with larger issues, here a breach of medical ethics. Courtesy Women Make Movies

7.38 Dont Look Back (1967). Direct cinema contemplates the inside of the celebrity world of Bob Dylan.

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practices. Increasingly visible and debated today, documentary reenact- ments use documentary techniques in order to pre sent a reenactment or theat- rical staging of presumably true or real events. An early example of this blur- ring of boundaries, The Battle of Algiers (1966) depicts the Algerian revolt against the French occupation (1954–1962) as a re-creation, a film about a real historical event that uses documentary techniques while de veloping the story with a script and actors (some playing themselves). Indeed, an opening caption boasts that no documentary footage is used in the film.

Errol Morris’s The Thin Blue Line (1988) is a documentary about Randall Adams, a man convicted of killing a Dallas police officer in 1976, but it

also becomes a mystery drama about discovering the real murderer. While it uses the many expository techniques of documentary film such as close-ups of evidence and talking-head interviews, The Thin Blue Line alternates these with staged reenactments of the murder evening, invented dialogue, an eerie Philip Glass soundtrack, courtroom drawings, and even clips from old movies [Figure 7.40]. The debates and questions surrounding the practice of reenactment are explored in Manufacturing Dissent, Rick Caine and Debbie Melnyk’s documentary on Michael Moore’s use of reenactments in his films.

At the other end of the spectrum, mockumentaries take a much more humor- ous approach to the question of truth and fact by using a documentary style and structure to present and stage fictional (sometimes ludicrous) realities. The mock- umentary is an extreme example of how documentaries can generate different experiences and responses depending on viewing context and one’s knowledge of the traditions and aims of such films. For example, with the initial release of This Is Spinal Tap (1984), some viewers saw and understood it as a straightforward rock-music documentary (or “rockumentary”), while most recognized it as a spoof

on that documentary tradition. The two responses dramatize how people’s different ideas of, knowledge about, and associations with documentaries can elicit very different interpretations of the “reality” of the film [Figure 7.41]. The popular and controversial Borat (2006) integrates a similar mock- umentary style by following a fictional Kazakh television talking head as he travels “the greatest country in the world” in search of celebrities, cowboys, and the “cultural learning” found on the streets of America. Actor Sacha Baron Cohen mixes his imper- sonation of the character Borat with inter- views of people who accept his persona as genuine. As such, the film raises questions about the boundary between a parody of viewers’ assumptions about the truth and

7.40 The Thin Blue Line (1988). Reenacting a crime as a part of a documentary investiga- tion, Errol Morris’s film set the stage for more experimental documentary formats.

7.41 This Is Spinal Tap (1984). Mockumentaries like this cult film remind us that the authenticity of cinematic documentaries relies on the experiences and expectations of their audiences.

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a dangerous distortion of the integrity of documentary values [Figure 7.42].

Closely related to the mockumentary but with more serious aims is the fake documentary, a tradition that extends from Buñuel’s Land Without Bread through Orson Welles’s F for Fake, a movie that looks at real charlatans and forgers while itself questioning the possibilities of docu- mentary truth. A more recent film, Cheryl Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman (1996), is a fictional account of an African American lesbian documentary filmmaker researching a black actress from the 1930s. The archive of photos and film footage she assembles for the fake documentary within the film represents a lovingly fabricated work by the film’s creative team — an imagining of a history that has not survived [Figure 7.43].

As we have seen, documentary films create movie experiences markedly different from those of narrative cinema. While some of these experiences are non-narrative portraits that envision individuals in ways quite unlike the narrative histories of the same people, others are about the truth of events. Narrative movies encourage us to enjoy, imagine, and think about our temporal and historical relationships with the world and to consider when those plots and narratives seem adequate according to our experiences. Documentary movies remind us, however, that we have many other kinds of relationships with the world that involve us in many other insightful ways — through debate, through exploration, and through analysis.

7.42 Borat (2006). Some of the most important assumptions about documentary integrity are violated in this film, perhaps as a way to satirize the pretensions of those assumptions.

7.43 The Watermelon Woman (1996). As a serious use of a mockumentary tradition, this film suggests a history that has not survived — or perhaps not yet arrived.

v i E w i n g c u E Consider a documentary you recently viewed. What were its aims and assumptions? How might seeing this documentary in a different historical or cultural context distort or change those aims and assumptions?

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Contemporary documentaries often appear especially conscious of the styles and forms that have preceded them; they experi- ment with old and new tactics, such as emphasizing personal perspectives or exploring reenactments. Not surprisingly, mocku- mentaries, which self- consciously parody the common styles and strategies of traditional documentaries, have become increas- ingly popular.

Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010) is a fascinating example of the contemporary documentary, largely because it is unclear what is being documented, what is authentic, and what or who it might be mocking. The film begins as the tale of Thierry Guetta, who decides to make a documentary about street art- ists, most notably the mysterious and famous Banksy. Gradually, however, Banksy assumes control of the film, and it becomes about Guetta’s sudden, bizarre rise as a celebrity street artist.

Early on, Guetta is seen as a cinéma vérité artist who captures the hidden world of street artists [Figure 7.44a]. However, when Guetta meets and joins forces with Banksy, the line between art and self-parody blurs. After documenting Banksy’s success at his farcically famous art exhibit in Los Angeles [Figure 7.44b], Guetta wonders: If Banksy can triumphantly mock the values and truth of public life, then why can’t I [Figure 7.44c]? With encouragement from Banksy, Guetta mounts his own extravagant opening of his newly discovered talents [Figure 7.44d]. In the end, the mysterious and hooded Banksy can only wonder at (and regret) the monster he has created [Figure 7.44e]. If street art represents a way to inter- vene in day-to-day realities of the world, what does it mean when those interventions begin to look like a commercial scam? And if that art appears as a scam, does a documentary about it — by Banksy — also mock itself?

the contemporary Documentary:

Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)

Form in action bedfordstmartins.com/filmexperience

To watch a video about Exit Through the Gift Shop, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

Form in

action

7.44c

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7.44e

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Form in

action As different as they are, Grizzly Man, Man of Aran, Stories We Tell, and the other documentaries discussed in this chapter provoke similar analytical and conceptual questions. All these films have developed their own strate- gies and formal features: from expositional organizations that contrast, accumulate, or develop facts and figures to rhetorical positions that work to explore, analyze, persuade, or even “perform” the world. Grizzly Man might be said to accumulate images of Treadwell through a perspective that at once performs and analyzes, while Man of Aran develops its explorative survey of life on the Aran Islands through images that span a day. What we often value about films like Stories We Tell is their ability to reveal that world to us in new ways and to provoke us to see it with fresh eyes, outcomes that have generated numerous and complex traditions from the many types of social documentaries to the many kinds of ethnographic films and personal documentaries. For the documentary film you are considering in class, reflect carefully and precisely on the following questions:

■ Can the film be characterized as primarily nonfiction like the autobio- graphical Stories We Tell, or primarily non-narrative like Grizzly Man?

■ How would you describe the organizational strategies of the film? ■ Is there a clear rhetorical strategy for the film as in Man of Aran? ■ How do you make sense of the values and traditions that inform the film?

Does it aim primarily to alter opinions, to investigate a different cultural world, or, perhaps like Grizzly Man, to do both?

Activities ■ Choose what you consider to be a very specific and very pressing contem-

porary social issue as the topic for a documentary you will make. ■ Describe the presiding point of view that the film will use (its rhetorical

position). ■ Then sketch some of the central scenes or images you intend to use and

explain their organization. ■ Finally, explain the tradition that seems most to align with the themes,

strategies, and aims of the film.

c o n c E p t s a t w o r K

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8 c h a p t e r

In the wake of the popular protests against the 2009 presidential election results in Iran, filmmaker Jafar Panahi was arrested and given a six-year prison sentence. He was also banned from making films for twenty years. Acclaimed in international film festivals for films like Offside (2006) and The White Balloon (1995), Panahi was supported by prominent filmmakers and actors in the West, who signed peti- tions objecting to his sentence. Inside Iran, Panahi and fellow filmmaker Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, well acquainted with evading the Iranian censors, made This Is Not a Film. Shot with an iPhone and a low-end digital camera in Panahi’s apartment as he waits for word of his appeal, This Is Not a Film challenges the boundaries between narrative, documentary, and experimental film, asking viewers to engage with an open-ended situation defined as much by what isn’t shown as by what is. The diary format captures the surreal in the everyday, like the pet iguana that wan- ders in and out of the frame. Smuggled out of Iran on a flashdrive hidden inside a cake, the result of Panahi and Mirtahmasb’s experiment was shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 2011. Questioning the nature of the film event, the potential for self-expression, and the ontology of the medium, This Is Not a Film shows the vari- ety and longevity of cinematic experimentation across technologies and borders.

Experimental Film and New Media Challenging Form

283 © Kanibal Films/courtesy Everett Collection

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W hile narrative films relate to the human desire for stories, and documentaries address the desire to see and understand society and history, other aspects of human experience — sensory states, intellectual puzzles, emotions, memories, and dreams — are invoked by the range of non-narrative, non-realist practices explored in experimental film, video, and other audiovisual media. Experimental film is often likened to poetry, with narrative film likened to fiction. Not only does this analogy underscore the lyrical impulse that often drives experimental work, but it also captures something of its economic marginality. Experimental work is made by individual art-

ists rather than by large crews or studios, and its audi- ences have generally been small ones, composed of those who seek out and are motivated to engage with alterna- tive filmic strategies. But this mode of engagement with aesthetics and expression profoundly influences film form and thus reaches all viewers.

Experimentation with form and abstract imagery has occurred consistently over the past century of film history. Adventurous filmmakers have used film to go beyond other media and outside the bounds of traditional narrative and documentary forms, combin- ing images and sounds of the seemingly mundane, the unusual, and even the bizarre in order to address and challenge their audiences in fascinating ways. For ex- ample, the cryptic imagery and structure of a surrealist classic like The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928) are echoed in the form of music videos. In Michel Gondry’s video for Björk’s “Human Behavior” (1993), the singer inhabits a fairy-tale world in which animals and humans are no longer distinct and music allows us to transcend physical limits [Figure 8.1]. Experimental

K E Y o b j E c t i v E S ■ Describe experimental film and media as cultural practices. ■ Explain how experimental works make and draw on aesthetic histories. ■ Point out how these works explore the formal properties of their media. ■ Discuss how experimental media can both challenge and become part of

dominant film forms and institutions. ■ Examine some of the common organizations, styles, and perspectives in

experimental media. ■ Show how viewers can prepare themselves to watch and appreciate experi-

mental works. ■ Explain ways that the challenges of experimental media contribute another

dimension of significance to the film experience.

8.1 “Human Behavior” (1993). Contemporary music videos are indebted to experimental film traditions such as surrealism. This video by Michel Gondry combines pop culture and the avant-garde, as does singer Björk’s music.

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cinema also engages with medium and form in ways that bridge technological change. This chapter explores experimental audiovisual media from its origins to the present day, giving you the necessary tools to watch and discuss some of film history’s most complex, challenging, and rewarding endeavors.

The word “cinema” is derived from the Greek word for movement, kinema. Arguably neither the storytelling ability of the medium nor its capacity to reveal the world is as basic to cinema as is the simple rendering of movement. So while narrative film defines the commercial industry and much of viewers’ experience of the movies, and documentary builds on viewers’ assumption of the camera’s truth-telling function, experimental film focuses on the very properties that make film what it is — images in motion. Historically a variety of terms have been used to denote the works we discuss in this chapter. Most notable is avant-garde, a military term for advance guard or vanguard that is used to describe innovative movements in the arts. We have retained the more general term “experimental” for its emphasis on the way filmmakers experiment with specific elements of film form for aesthetic expression or technical innovation in ways that may not be tied to specific avant-garde movements.

Experimental films commonly explore the material specificity of the film medium itself and the conditions in which it is experienced by audiences — including such basic elements as film stock, sprocket holes, light, figure movement, edit- ing patterns, and projection before an audience. Changes in technology bring changes in the form and object of these reflections. For example, film- makers working in an amateur format like Super-8 may scratch directly on the film emulsion, as Su Friedrich does in Gently Down the Stream (1981), while video artist Joan Jonas deliberately set the video monitor to display a rolling image to explore the medium of television in Vertical Roll (1972) [Figure 8.2]. The introduction of portable video equipment in the late 1960s, the shift to digital formats in the 1990s, and the convergence and multiplication of media platforms in the 2000s expanded the resources of artists working in what can be broadly termed moving-image media.

Although this chapter primarily discusses the larger body and longer history of experimental film, we will also attempt to show how its histories and preoccupations are related to those of video art and new media. Video art originated in the late 1960s and comprised a range of artists’ use of the medium in installations, gallery exhibitions,

8.2 Vertical Roll (1972). Video artist Joan Jonas’s piece takes its name from a television malfunction in which the unstable video image appears to roll. Here her face appears as if trapped in the monitor. Courtesy of the Video Data Bank, www.vdb.org

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festivals, and other venues. A term used in information science and communica- tions as well as the arts to refer to an array of technologies, new media includes the Internet, digital formats, video game consoles, smartphones, touchscreen devices, and the software applications and imaginative creations they support. Just as artists in the early twentieth century explored cinema’s form and its place in modern life, many artists today use new media technologies to reflect on life in the information age. The very fact that experimental films that were often difficult to see outside of urban arts or university contexts are now accessible through the Internet attests to a renewed energy in the realm of experimental moving-image media.

a Short History of Experimental Film and Media practices

Experimental films and the vision they express have their roots in wider techno- logical and social changes associated with modernity, a term that both names a broad period of history stretching from the end of the medieval era to the pres- ent and identifies an attitude toward progress and science centered on the human capacity to shape history [Figure 8.3].

As modern society embraced progress and knowledge, some individuals rejected the scientific and utilitarian bias of the quest for facts. In “A Defence of Poetry” (1819), Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley proclaimed that poets were the unacknowledged legislators of the world. Walter Pater, in The Renais- sance (1873), argued for the power of art to reveal the importance of the human imagination and create experiences unavailable in commerce and science. Pre- Raphaelite paintings like those of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the glimmering Impressionist paintings of Claude Monet expressed aesthetic commitments to sen- sibility, creativity, and perception over factual observation [Figure 8.4]. Romantic

8.3 Chicago World’s Fair (1893). Spectacles of nineteenth-century modernity celebrated visuality and technology, anticipating cinema’s ways of seeing. Hulton Archive/Getty Images

8.4 Claude Monet, Water Lilies (c. 1916–1920). This panel from Monet’s triptych anticipated experimental film in its energetic depiction of light. Monet, Claude (1840–1926). Water Lilies. 1914–26. Oil on canvas, three panels, each 6' 634" × 13' 11

1 4" (200 × 424.8 cm), overall 6' 6

3 4" × 41' 10

3 8" (200 × 1276 cm).

Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund. (666.1959.a–c) The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY U.S.A. Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/ Art Resource, NY

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aesthetic traditions would later influence the emphasis on individual expressivity central to much experimen- tal film practice [Figure 8.5].

The early twentieth century, when motion-picture technology was perfected, saw rapid industrial and cultural change that was mirrored and questioned in developments in the arts. Modernist forms of paint- ing, music, design, and architecture captured new ex - periences of accelerated and disjunctive time, spatial juxtaposition, and fragmentation enabled by such technologies as the railroad, the telegraph, and electric- ity. Because cinema is literally made with machines, the medium was considered a central art of modern- ism. Experiments with space and time emerged early in the medium’s history, and film attracted experimental artists from other media.

1910s–1920s: European Avant-Garde Movements In the silent film era, experimental film practices and movements emerged in a number of countries and were often linked to other innovations in art. In Germany, for instance, Dada artists Hans Richter and Viking Eggeling began exploring abstraction in what they called absolute film [Figure 8.6] while the expressionist painters in the group Der Sturm worked on the set designs of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). In 1920s France, avant-garde filmmakers such as Jean Epstein and Germaine Dulac drew on impres- sionism in painting as well as new musical forms in their work. At the same time, film artists explored cinematography and editing to develop the cinema as a unique art form. In Ballet mécanique (1924), French cubist painter Fernand Léger col- laborated with American director Dudley Murphy in a celebration of machine-age aesthetics originally intended as a visual accompaniment to American composer George Antheil’s musical piece of the same name (see Film in Focus, pp. 298–99).

One of the most significant experimental film movements in history occurred in the Soviet Union after the Russian Revolution in 1917. Vladimir Lenin considered cinema the most important of the arts for the new society. Soviet filmmakers were inspired by constructivism — dynamic, machine- age art that served a social purpose and influenced painting, theater, poetry, graphic design, and pho- tomontage at the time. In fact, avant-garde film- making in the silent era was international in spirit. In the United States, Germany, as well as the Soviet Union, filmmakers paid tribute to the modern metropolis in the “city symphony” genre. Charles Sheeler and photographer Paul Strand documented New York City scenes in Manhatta (1921) [Figure 8.7]. Filmic impressions of Berlin are orchestrated in Walther Ruttmann’s Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927), and Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera (1929) shows the dynamism of modern Soviet life. In Britain, internationalism was advocated by writers and artists such as

8.5 The Garden of Earthly Delights (1981). The work of prolific experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage is indebted to the nineteenth-century tradition of Romantic poetry and its conception of artistic insight. This two-minute film was made by pressing actual flowers and leaves between strips of film and optically printing the images.

v i E W i N g c u E What historical precedents in the arts might have shaped the strategies used in the film you just viewed? Does aligning the film with a historical precedent shed light on its aims? Explain.

8.6 Rhythmus 21 (1921). German artist Hans Richter claimed that this exploration of shapes in motion was the first abstract film.

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Kenneth Macpherson, Bryher, and the American poet h.d. through their transla- tion of writings by Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein in their journal Close Up, and in their strange and unique film, Borderline (1930). Featuring the politically outspoken African American actor Paul Robeson and his wife, Eslanda, Borderline engaged themes of race, sexuality, and Freudian psychoanalysis [Figure 8.8].

1930s–1940s: Sound and Vision The international spirit of avant-garde cinema was challenged in the 1930s by the introduction of sound and thus language barriers and by the rise of fascism in Europe. While many experimental filmmakers resisted the incorporation of synchronized sound and continued to produce silent films long after its introduc- tion at the end of the 1920s, some were immediately attracted to the formal pos- sibilities of the soundtrack. Vertov incorporated his interest in radio and industrial sounds in Enthusiasm (1931). German animator Oskar Fischinger composed abstract visual music in films such as Allegretto (1936), which he produced in the United States [Figure 8.9]. American ethnomusicologist Harry Smith produced dozens of short films to be accompanied by musical performances, records, or radio; and artist Joseph Cornell re-edited a Hollywood B-movie to make Rose Hobart (1936) and played a samba record to accompany its projection. Playwright Jean Cocteau began making his influential poetic, surrealist films in 1930 with The Blood of a Poet, which combines lyric imagery with music by French composer Georges Auric [Figure 8.10].

Most historians consider Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) by Russian-born Maya Deren and her Czech husband, Alexander Hammid, the beginning of the American avant-garde’s historical prominence (see Film in Focus, pp. 290–91). Lightweight 16mm cameras, introduced as an amateur format and widely used during World War II for reportage, appealed to Deren and other midcentury artists seeking more personal film expression. The striking imagery and structure of Deren’s films, and her tireless advocacy for experimental film as a writer and lecturer, shaped the conditions for, and aesthetics of, American “visionary film,” the term coined by scholar P. Adams Sitney for this movement.

8.7 Manhatta (1921). One of the first avant-garde films made in the United States, this tribute to the metropolis is echoed in European “city symphony” films.

8.8 Borderline (1930). The editors of the British film journal Close Up put their modernist ideas into practice in this experimental narrative featuring the American actor Paul Robeson.

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1950s–1960s: The Postwar Avant-Garde in America Stan Brakhage, a protégé of Deren’s, is the most influential of the next generation of American avant-garde filmmakers, with four hundred 16mm and 8mm films, mostly silent, produced in a career spanning almost half a century. While most of his films arrange imagery in sensual, abstract patterns, they also rely on very personal subject matter, such as the intimate images of his wife Jane giving birth in Window Water Baby Moving (1959) [Figure 8.11]. Working with the film stock itself — painting, scratching, and even taping moth wings to celluloid in Mothlight (1963) — Brakhage emphasized the materiality of film and the direct creative process of the filmmaker.

The American experimental film community established its own alterna- tive exhibition circuit, including New York’s Cinema 16 and the Anthology Film Archives — established in 1969 and overseen to this day by co-founder and filmmaker Jonas Mekas — as well as distribution cooperatives such as the Film-Makers’ Cooperative and Canyon Cinema. The exchanges fos- tered among artists and audiences profoundly influ- enced later generations of filmmakers working with film as personal expression.

The countercultural impulses of many U.S. film- makers of the 1960s were reflected in their preferred term underground film. In New York, pop artist Andy Warhol definitively shaped the underground film movement. He explored the properties of cinema as a time-based medium in his eight-hour view of the Empire State Building, Empire (1964), the five-hour Sleep (1963), and other films. He also created his own version of the Hollywood studio system at the Factory, whose “superstars” — underground male and female devotees of glamour such as Viva, Mario Montez, and Holly Woodlawn — were featured in films he either directed or produced, including Chelsea Girls (1966) and Flesh (1968), respectively [Figure 8.15]. A legendary

8.9 Allegretto (1936). The films of animator Oskar Fischinger are designed as visual music.

8.10 The Blood of a Poet (1930). Cocteau’s first poetic experiment on film remains one of the best-known avant-garde films.

8.11 Window Water Baby Moving (1959). The visceral impact of images of childbirth is tempered by silence and the lyrical play of light and water.

text continued on page 292 ▶

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Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid’s experimental film Meshes of the Afternoon forged a new American avant- garde cinema, drawing from Hammid’s filmmaking expe- rience in Europe and Deren’s wide interests in poetry, dance and choreography, ritual, and psychoanalysis. Introspective and mysterious in its explorations of one woman’s dream world, the film evokes symbolic associa- tions and its sequences invite narrative speculations.

Meshes of the Afternoon opens by juxtaposing a brightly lit exterior with an interior reality of fantasies, fears, and unarticulated feelings when a hand holding a flower reaches into a frame and abruptly disappears. A woman, played by Deren, enters a house with some difficulty and falls asleep in a chair. After images of her sleeping eyes alternate with a window to the outside world, we see symbolic objects — a key, a knife — begin to take on a life of their own. A figure cloaked in black turns, revealing a mirror where a face should be, sug-

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gests a figure of death and duality [Figure 8.12]. A man enters the house: a phone is off the hook, another mirror breaks into shards on a bed. Are these images external or imagined? Is the broken mirror a symbol of violence or of insight? The woman sits down at a table, and is joined by two other figures of herself. Following the laws of the imagination rather than of reality, Meshes of the After- noon is a visionary exploration of a woman’s conscious- ness that deploys symbols of the unconscious, a puzzle that never comes completely together as a clear picture.

The challenge of the film lies in the fact that nar- rative is not its primary organizational feature. Instead, images accumulate, repeat, and contrast in associative chains that create internal patterns. The key to the door is dropped, it reappears in the woman’s hand, then dis- appears [Figure 8.13]. The key suggests interpretation, but no interpretation is definitive. The knife is associated with domesticity when used to cut bread, but it may also

FilM iN

FocuS

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avant-garde visions in Meshes of the Afternoon ( 1943 )

See also: Un chien andalou (1929); Scorpio Rising (1964)

FilM iN FocuS bedfordstmartins.com /filmexperience

To watch a clip from Meshes of the Afternoon, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

8.12 Meshes of the Afternoon (1943). A cloaked figure seems to beckon, and then recedes around the corner; the figure’s face is a mirror, adding to its ambiguity.

8.13 Meshes of the Afternoon (1943). The central image of the key suggests the viewer’s search for the key that will unlock the film’s meaning.

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perpetrate domestic violence when the woman appears to be dead on a bed, or it may be the instrument of self- inflicted violence when she approaches her double with it in hand.

The window, which represents the border between inside and outside, functions as a metaphor for the film frame [Figure 8.14]. As the woman who looks out of the window is played by Deren herself, Meshes of the After- noon could be said to enact a woman’s desires, fears, and struggle to escape domestic confinement. When the woman approaches her sleeping double with the dagger in her hand, each of the five different steps she takes is placed in a space that moves from outside to inside: a step by the ocean, another on the earth, the next on grass, the fourth on the pavement outside the house, and the last on the rug inside the room. Interior and exte- rior are explored psychologically — drawing on women’s

association with the home and on film genres such as gothic melodramas that render the domestic sphere threatening.

Meshes of the Afternoon infuses the emerging Ameri- can avant-garde cinema with a deeply personal passion that Deren would bring to her future filmmaking, teaching, and writing. Like William Blake’s illustrated poems about the dark side of the imagination or Odilon Redon’s picto- rial voyages into the subconscious, Deren’s film aims to transform reality through the power of the imagination. As individually expressive as the film is, however, it also subtly shows a critical perspective on conventional film traditions. After the film’s title appear the words “Holly- wood 1943.” Made within miles of the film studios often referred to as the “dream factory,” Meshes of the Afternoon left the industrial tradition behind to pursue a dream of film as art.

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8.14 Meshes of the Afternoon (1943). Deren looking out from the window has become an iconic image of this avant-garde exploration of women’s subjectivity.

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figure in this gay underground film scene, New York filmmaker Jack Smith incor- porated his sublime and campy films and slides into erratically timed live perfor- mances in his downtown loft. In one notorious incident, a screening of Smith’s Flaming Creatures (1963) was shut down by the police for the film’s provocative content [Figure 8.16].

The underground film movement frankly explored gender and sexual politics, and the political radicalism of the late sixties was addressed at the border between documentary and experimental practice. African American actor, independent filmmaker, and documentarian William Greaves investigated the power relations on a film shoot in his feature-length Symbiopsychotaxiplasm (1968), made in Central Park [Figure 8.17]. Thirty-five years later, Greaves incorporated footage from the summer of 1968 with new scenes featuring the same actors in the sequel, Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take 2 1/2 (2005), produced with the assistance of inde- pendent film stalwarts Steven Soderbergh and Steve Buscemi.

Experimental filmmaking also flourished outside of New York. San Francisco, the heart of the counter- culture and gay and lesbian rights movements, hosted its own vibrant avant-garde film scene, exemplified in the work of poet and filmmaker James Broughton and the prolific lesbian experimental filmmaker Barbara Hammer, who began her career in the Bay Area with such short explorations of nature and the female body as Multiple Orgasm (1976). Canadian filmmaker Michael Snow explores space, time, and the capacity of the camera to transcend human perception in works identi- fied as structural film. In La région centrale (1971), a camera mounted on a specially built apparatus pans, swoops, and swings to provide an unprecedented view of the mountainous Quebec region named in the film’s title [Figure 8.18]. The avant-garde tradition is rich in Canada, and some of its significant practitioners include Joyce Wieland, notable for films such as Rat Life and Diet in North America (1968), and, in the next genera- tion, Bruce Elder, whose forty-two-hour cycle of films

8.15 Chelsea Girls (1966). The singer and Warhol “superstar” Nico in Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey’s film. Composed of vignettes filmed in New York’s Chelsea Hotel, the film was projected on two screens arranged side by side.

8.16 Flaming Creatures (1963). Perhaps the most famous (and most notorious) of Jack Smith’s works, this film, which featured several surreal and disturbing sex scenes, was seized by the police during its premiere and banned for being “obscene.”

8.17 Symbiopsychotaxiplasm (1968). A hybrid of fiction and documentary, William Greaves’s film about making a film in Central Park in 1968 is a fascinating record of the counterculture.

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collectively titled The Book of All the Dead was com- pleted in installments from 1975 to 1994.

1968–1980: Politics and Experimental Cinema Outside North America, experimental film impulses have often been incorporated into narrative filmmak- ing and theatrical exhibition rather than confined exclusively to autonomous avant-garde circles. During the postwar period in Europe, Asia, and Latin America, innovative new wave cinemas challenged and energized commercial cinemas with their visions and techniques. Such experimentation was spurred by student unrest, decolonialization and independence movements, and opposition to the American war in Vietnam.

Radical content and formal rigor characterized the films of Jean-Luc Godard and Chris Marker in France, Alexander Kluge in Germany, and Peter Wollen and Laura Mulvey in Britain. The massive traffic jam depicted in Weekend (1967) foregrounds Godard’s revolutionary critique of consumerist culture through the consistent use of lateral tracking shots that are intended to hold viewers at arm’s length [Figure 8.19]. Kluge, a central figure in the New German Cinema, addressed the Nazi legacy through experimental means in such films as The Patriot (1979), in which a history teacher literally digs for the past with a spade. The theoretical writings of Peter Wollen and Laura Mulvey critiqued cinematic illusionism and narrative as complicit with the capitalist culture of individualism. They explored these topics as well as their ideas about the conventional representation of women’s bodies in their collaborative film Riddles of the Sphinx (1977).

Cinema in the postrevolutionary and postcolonial periods of such countries as Algeria, Cuba, and Senegal was also very concerned with the politics of represen- tation. However, limited means and populist intentions meant that experimental techniques were used in conjunction with realist filmmaking strategies. Under the political repression of a military dictatorship, Argentine filmmakers Fernando Sola- nas and Octavio Getino called for a Third Cinema for the Third World, one that rejected both commercial cinema and “auteur” or art cinema in order to engage directly with the people. Their epic docu- mentary film The Hour of the Furnaces (1968) was made to engage audiences directly in the ongoing revolutionary struggles in Latin America. Cuban film- maker Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s Memories of Underdevelopment (1968) uses experi- mental techniques such as the incor- poration of documentary footage and self-reflexive voiceover in its narrative of a European-identified intellectual’s sense of displacement in the aftermath of the Cuban revolution [Figure 8.20].

The first feature film made in sub- Saharan Africa, Ousmane Sembène’s Black Girl (1966), about an African domestic worker’s alienation in France, makes an aesthetic virtue of economic necessity, notably in its use of postsynchronized

8.18 La région centrale (1971). Michael Snow’s 16mm camera moves wildly on a special mount, rendering the landscape abstractly through mechanized vision. Courtesy of Michael Snow

8.19 Weekend (1967). Godard’s blistering critique of middle-class values is a famous example of the European avant-garde or counter cinema.

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sound. Sembène shot the film silent and added the voiceover later; the device adds to our perception of the heroine’s isolation. In Perfumed Nightmare (1978), Filipino filmmaker Kidlat Tahimik creates a witty parable of the clash between the “devel- oped” world and the village of his birth by using a home movie aesthetic that incor- porates cheap props and found footage.

Boundaries between experimental and documentary forms also began to blur dur- ing this period. In essay films by such film- makers as Chris Marker in France, Kluge and Harun Farocki in Germany, and Jonas Mekas and Jill Godmilow in the United States, the “truth” of documentary is ques- tioned. Self-reflexive techniques foreground experimental film’s ability to see referential imagery in new ways. These richly interac- tive traditions are an important legacy for later video and digital-based media.

1980s–Present: New Technologies and New Media While filmmakers continued to experiment using Super-8 and 16mm (and Super 16) formats, a radical shift to use and interrogate new technologies was driven by the introduction of consumer video formats. With the Sony Portapak in the late 1960s, electronic video technology became available to artists for the first time. Video art pioneer Nam June Paik brought television into confrontation with the art world in video works that were often also works of installation art. During the 1980s, the advent of inexpensive consumer video formats spurred growth in both activist video and video art. Exemplary of both is Marlon Riggs’s Tongues Untied (1989), a personal and poetic depiction of black gay men and HIV [Figure 8.21]. On

the other end of the commercial spectrum, the launch of MTV in 1981 brought many previously experimental techniques — such as rapid montage, use of handheld cameras, breaking of continuity rules, and juxtaposition of different film stocks — into the mainstream, where they were quickly incorporated into commercials, tele- vision shows, and movies. Spike Jonze, for instance, developed the nonlinear narratives and inventive visuals of his commercial and music video work in his feature film Being John Malkovich (1999).

The integration of computers and digital video in the 1990s blurred the lines between video and film, which in the independent and experimental sector of filmmaking had distinct histories, cultures, and aesthetics. Com- mercial filmmakers used digital effects (like the credit sequence of Se7en [1995] that paid homage to Stan Brak- hage), and video artists found new theatrical audiences for their work by transferring it to film. At the same time, new media artists drew on moving-image traditions in computer-based work. The development of the Internet revolutionized the potential for interactive art, allowing

8.20 Memories of Underdevelopment (1968). Documentary footage interrupts the musings of an alienated intellectual in postrevolutionary Cuba in this commonly cited example of Third Cinema.

8.21 Tongues Untied (1989). Poet Essex Hemphill in Marlon Riggs’s Tongues Untied, one of the best known of the many experimental video works exploring issues of politics and identity that were facilitated by the availability of camcorders in the 1980s.

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users to participate actively and determine their experience of the artwork. Other examples include machinima, which uses video game engines to modify computer animation, and Web series as a platform for artists to explore serial form. Finally, widespread access to computer technology has blurred the boundaries between art- ists and viewers, democratizing experiments with media forms and technologies.

variations of Experimental Media A common understanding of the origins of cinema is that the Lumière brothers’ short scenes of everyday life and scenic views represent the beginnings of the docu- mentary tradition, and that Georges Méliès’s trick films represent the beginnings of narrative film. But as film scholar Tom Gunning has pointed out, both types of film had a common objective — to solicit the viewer’s desire simply to see something. Gunning suggests that early cinema’s “look at me!” quality shapes such ongoing film traditions as special effects, musical numbers, comedy skits, and avant-garde cinema, which demands that viewers see with fresh eyes. Gunning’s framework also implies that documentary and narrative forms have connections to the origins of experimental practice. From Émile Cohl’s Automatic Moving Company (1910), which used animation to show spoons and other household items magically pack- ing themselves away, to Douglas Gordon’s 24-Hour Psycho (1993), which slows down Hitchcock’s 1960 film to play around the clock in a museum installation, experimental media forms have intrigued, delighted, and challenged viewers.

Formalisms: Narrative Experimentation and Abstraction Film, video, and multimedia have been embraced in turn as means of artistic expression distinct from, but drawing upon, other arts such as photography, music, and theater. Commonalities include the properties of camera lenses shared with photography, the unfolding in time shared with music, and the configuration of audience and spectacle shared with theater. And like avant-garde movements in these other arts, experimental films often explore formal questions specific to the medium. Indeed, a great many experimental films are formalist — concerned with problems of form over issues of content. Formal exploration of the qualities of light, the poetry of motion, and the juxtaposition of sound and image, as well as phenomenological inquiry into our ways of seeing, motivate many different experi- mental practices — from the camera-less film (made by exposing film stock) to video pastiche (made by re-editing television shows) to computer art (which depends on the user to determine the work’s final form).

Within the wide range of experimental media, there are many different kinds of formalisms. William Wees refers to the avant-garde film tradition as “light moving in time,” and notes that the three elements of light, motion, and time are shared with human vision. Considered in these terms, Kenneth Anger’s Lucifer Ris- ing (completed in 1972 and released in 1980), a richly imagistic film about esoteric ritual, is primarily about the principle of light. Chantal Akerman’s films are formal- ist in a different way, through her consistent use of a stationary medium shot to frame images as flat planes. Frequently, as in her most widely praised film, Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), her formal concerns are joined to narrative. A third example of formalist experimental film, Tony Conrad’s The Flicker (1965) rigorously uses editing of black-and-white frames to produce a phenomenological experience — the flicker effect to which the audience is subjected when the film is projected.

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A play with narrative expectations is often central to experimental media. Many experimental films are non-narrative in that they lack well-defined characters or plots (see Chapter 7), and some are anti-narrative, explicitly refusing the seemingly passive relationship viewers have with storytelling film. But it is hard to avoid narrative; its basics are implied in the unfolding of time itself — beginning, middle, and end. For some viewers, Alain Resnais’s Last Year at Marienbad (1961) seems primarily a non-narrative study in the structural repetition and geometry of the rooms, hallways, and gardens of a baroque estate; for others, the film’s for- malism holds clues to an elusive plot about a man’s sinister pursuit of a woman [Figure 8.22]. Similarly, an interactive artwork can be thought of in terms of either game strategy or narrative archetypes. Often the relationship to wider cultural as well as particular narratives can be one of the most fruitful routes of interpretation for formalist films.

Formalism is central to one of the most fundamental impulses in experimen- tal film — abstraction. Abstract films are formal experiments that are also non- representational. They use color, shape, and line to create patterns and rhythms that are purely form-based or abstracted — that is, made more conceptual than concrete — from real actions and objects. Just as an abstract painting might fore- ground the texture of paint and the shape of the canvas, an abstract film might explore the specificities of film as a time-based medium by alternating forms rhythmically. Abstraction has been embraced by a range of movements, from the 1920s “absolute cinema” of Richter and Eggeling, to 1960s psychedelic films such as Storm De Hirsch’s Third Eye Butterfly (1968) [Figure 8.23], to current-day computer animation.

Experimental Organizations: Associative, Structural, and Participatory While mainstream narrative films have predictable patterns of enigma and reso- lution, and documentaries follow one of a number of expository practices, exper- imental works organize experiences either in ways that defy realism and rational logic or in patterns that follow strict formal principles. Whether experimental

8.22 Last Year at Marienbad (1961). Characters and mise-en-scène suggest a narrative, but formal patterns disrupt linear time and coherent space.

8.23 Third Eye Butterfly (1968). Patterns emerge from natural and spiritual imagery in Storm De Hirsch’s abstract film. Courtesy of Anthology Film Archives, All Rights Reserved

v i E W i N g c u E Consider how abstraction is achieved and used in a film screened for class. How do repeti- tion and variation contribute to the film’s shape?

v i E W i N g c u E What is the principle of organiza- tion of the next experimental film you see in class? Identify the most representative shot or sequence and discuss its meaning.

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forms are abstract or in some way representational, and whether or not they draw on narrative, we can think of their organizations in the following ways: associative, structural, or participatory.

Associative Organizations Freud used free association with his patients to uncover the unconscious logic of their symptoms and dreams. Associative organizations create psychological or for- mal resonances, giving these films a dreamlike quality that engages viewers’ emotions and curiosity. Associa- tive organizations can be abstract, such as in musicolo- gist Harry Smith’s films that relate shapes in succession or create resonances between objects and shapes or colors [Figure 8.24]. They can also be representational, like in music videos, whose narratives may follow a dreamlike logic of psychological patterns or violent juxtaposition.

Metaphoric Associations. Metaphoric associations link different objects, images, events, or individuals in order to generate a new perception, emotion, or idea. In a film, this might be done by indicating a connection between two objects or fig- ures by a cut or within a single frame, or by creating metaphors in the voiceover commentary as it responds to and anticipates images in the film. Juxtaposing images of workers being shot and a slaughtered bull, as Sergei Eisenstein does in Strike (1925), metaphorically evokes the brutal dehumanization of the workers. Derek Jarman’s Blue (1993) — perhaps best described as an experimental autobiog- raphy — is a metaphoric meditation on the color blue and its chain of associations in the life of the filmmaker dying of AIDS. Accompanying one single blue image, a voice meditates: blue becomes associated with the “blue funk” created by a doc- tor’s news, the “slow blue love on a delphinium day,” and “the universal love in which all men bathe.” Bill Morrison’s Decasia (2002) edits together old films whose nitrate stock has dete- riorated so that recognizable images and spaces blend into abstract splotches and blobs [Figure 8.25]. Meta- phorical associations emerge in the dance of fleeting shapes, edited juxtapositions, and imagery called forth by Michael Gordon’s symphonic soundtrack.

Symbolic Associations. Unlike the concrete associations that bind metaphoric images, symbolic associations iso- late discrete objects or singular images that can generate or be assigned abstract meanings — either those already given those objects or images by a culture, or ones cre- ated by the film itself. The symbolic significance may be spiritual as with the Christian cross, or political, such as the flag of a particular country, or it may be tied to some other concept that has been culturally and histori- cally grafted onto the meaning of a person, an event, or a thing. For example, in Czech filmmaker Jiří Trnka’s experimental film The Hand (1965), a puppet struggles

8.24 Film Number 7 (1951). Famous for his collections of American folk music, Harry Smith also made inventive animations in which found objects are organized in abstract associative patterns.

8.25 Decasia (2002). Patterns created by decaying nitrate film stock emerge on the surface of found footage, the layering suggesting impermanence and loss.

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Painter Fernand Léger collaborated with filmmaker Dudley Murphy on Ballet mécanique, a film designed to accom- pany George Antheil’s musical composition of the same title, which called for player pianos and airplane propel- lers among other instruments. Cubist painters broke from realism in order to present the process of perception in their work, transforming the flat canvas with angular shapes and lines. Léger’s paintings borrowed from cub- ism and from futurism’s celebration of the machine age; his distinctive elongated shapes and thick black outlines suggest mechanical dynamism. His film explores related principles, literally setting geometrical shapes in mo- tion — quick cuts transform a circle to a triangle and back again. Léger was among the first of many modernist visual artists in the 1920s who saw cinema as a perfect medium to explore dynamism — one of the primary prop- erties of the new art and the new age.

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Formal play in Ballet mécanique ( 1924 ) See also: Anemic Cinema (1926)

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To watch a clip from Ballet mécanique, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

Circles and triangles are introduced in Ballet mécanique by abstracted photographic images: a straw hat filmed from above is echoed in the circle, the back-and-forth of a woman on a swing traces a triangular shape. Rather than referencing reality or building a story, these recognizable images become part of a rhythmic chain. Photographic images of moving parts are even less identifiable. Not only are they filmed in motion and moved onscreen and offscreen by the editing that associates one moving part with the next, but they are also refracted, mirrorlike, by optical printing techniques so that they are repeated in multiple sectors within the frame itself [Figure 8.26]. The title’s suggestion of a mechanized dance is clearly figured in these groups of images.

The film’s title also implies that cinema could be regarded as a mechanization of what we know to be a human activity — ballet. As in all visual arts, the human form onscreen has

a special attraction to the viewer. It orients us, invites our identification and narrative expectations: who is the woman on the swing, and what does she want? Many modernist artists use the human figure in a notably dif- ferent way, as an object rather than a subject, as an ele- ment like any other in the frame or as part of a machine. The swinging woman is the first image of the film, and we might think of the images that follow as her daydream, an interpretation supported by the final image of her smell- ing a flower. But we are also encouraged to abstract her image into one among many in a pattern of shapes and movements, as when the same footage of her swinging is shown upside down.

Indeed, one of the most notable ways that avant- garde art of the 1920s explored the connection between the human form and the machine was through frag- mented images of modern women. In Ballet mécanique, a second female form appears, first simply as a pair of lips

8.26 Ballet mécanique (1924). Movement proliferates onscreen through refracted images of machine parts in motion.

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sharply outlined in lipstick (cosmetics were widely popu- larized during this period) and isolated in the frame by a black mask over the rest of the face [Figure 8.27]. The lips smile and relax, intercut with the image of the straw hat. The same woman also becomes part of the patterns of the film — in a later shot her plucked eyebrows echo the curved shape of her eyes so that a quick cut of the eyes upside down goes by almost undetected. We do eventually see the woman’s full head in profile, but the

bobbed hair and stylized pose make her a sculptural image rather than a character to identify with.

A later “dance” of alternating images of mannequin legs adorned with garters is at the same time a delight- ful visual joke and a disturbing evocation of dismember- ment. The male form is treated differently in the film: a male head appears at the center of the refracted frame, perhaps signifying mind instead of body. Yet this image’s closest visual rhyme is with a parrot framed in the same way, a surreal association that prevents us from reading him as a guiding consciousness behind the film’s suc- cession of images.

Approaching an abstract film, or any experimental media work, is made easier by close description of its formal elements, identification of its patterns, and syn- thesizing of its themes, as we have attempted here. An intriguing clue to the formal concerns of Ballet mécanique lies in the image that appears before the title: Hollywood silent film comedian Charlie Chaplin is rendered in a fragmented form very reminiscent of Léger’s paintings. The film, the credit says, is presented by “Charlot,” the French name for Chaplin. At the end of the film, the image does a little animated dance of its own, a mechanized ballet [Figure 8.28]. An actor’s iconic film image is thus first paid tribute to by a painter in a graphic form, and then enfolded into the last of the film’s sequence of everyday objects set in motion, demonstrating the vibrant exchange between cinema and the other arts in this period of modernist experimentation.

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8.27 Ballet mécanique (1924). The fragmentation and abstraction of the female form is a common practice in modernist art.

8.28 Ballet mécanique (1924). Charlie Chaplin’s iconic image animated by Fernand Léger.

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against the domination of a single, live-action hand that demands he make only other hands and not flowerpots [Figure 8.29]. The hand is a chillingly effective symbol of totalitarian regimes in Eastern Europe.

Structural Organizations Experimental films that employ structural organizations engage the audience through a formal principle rather than a narrative or chain of associations. Such films may focus on the material of the film itself, such as its grain, sprockets, and passage through a projector. This organization, which may follow a particular editing logic or image content, informs a wide variety of media artworks, from the stationary camera films of Andy Warhol and the video works of artist Bruce Nauman, to digital artworks generated by algorithms.

Artist Christian Marclay’s The Clock (2010) is a widely acclaimed example of a structural film. This

24-hour film is compiled entirely of clips from films and television shows that include clocks or other timepieces referencing the real time of viewing. The museum installation is conceptual and experiential; the viewer can tell the time from the artwork itself, as well as engage in the pleasure of an extended “mash-up” of thou- sands of time-related scenes.

Some filmmakers weave images, framings, camera movements, or other for- mal dimensions into patterns and structures that engage the viewer perceptually and often intellectually. Michael Snow’s Wavelength (1967) is a forty-five-minute image that slowly moves across a room in an extended zoom-in and ends with a close-up of a picture of ocean waves [Figure 8.30]. Punctuated with vague ref- erences to a murder mystery, and accompanied by a high-pitched sound that explores another meaning of “wavelength,” this movie is an almost pure investiga- tion of the vibrant textures of space: as flat, as colored, as empty, and most of all, as geometrically tense.

Other films central to the structural film movement in the United States include Ernie Gehr’s Serene Velocity (1970) and Hollis Frampton’s Zorns Lemma (1970).

Serene Velocity consists of images of the same hallway taken with structured variations in the camera’s focal length, creating a hypnotic, rhythmic experience of lines and squares. In Zorns Lemma, a repeated sequence of one-second images of words on signs and storefronts arranged in alphabetical order creates a fascinating puzzle as they are replaced one by one with a set of consistent, though arbitrary, images [Figure 8.31]. The viewer learns to associate the images with their place in the cycle, in a sense relearning a picture alphabet. Such structural principles are fascinating intellectually, but Frampton’s films, like the most effective structural films, also work on the viewer’s senses.

Participatory Experiences A third approach to experimental film emphasizes partici- patory experiences — the centrality of the viewer and the time and place of exhibition to the cinematic phenom- enon. Often the film is part of a live performance by the

8.29 The Hand (1965). The hand symbolizes a figure of tyrannical power in this Eastern European puppet film.

8.30 Filmstrip showing frames of Wavelength (1967). An extended zoom-in for the duration of the film creates suspense through its formal structure. Courtesy of Michael Snow

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filmmaker. Nervous System (1994), a film performance by underground filmmaker Ken Jacobs, uses two projectors, a propeller, and filters through which audiences view the work. In 1970, Gene Youngblood coined the term expanded cinema for such work and predicted that video and computer technology would allow moving-image media to extend consciousness. Nam June Paik delivered on this prediction in conceptual video art pieces like Video Fish (1975), which combined video monitors displaying images of fish and aquariums containing real fish.

Many filmmakers working in the art world design their pieces around the audience’s experience. Rapture (1999), an installation by Iranian-born Shirin Neshat, projects 16mm film footage of men and women on opposite gallery walls to signify their separation in Iranian society under Islamic law, with the viewer both mediating and separating these worlds [Figure 8.32].

Multimedia artists may produce works for museum installations or individual use that rely on users’ se - lections, the sense of touch, and inter - face design as crucial artistic components. In an early Internet-based work, multi- media artist Shu Lea Cheang built several kinds of participatory experiences into the design of Bowling Alley (1995). A museum installation at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and an actual bowling alley were linked to a Web site that gathered contributions by collaborating artists. The actions of the bowlers and the online par- ticipants affected what museum visitors experienced. Artists may work with online interactive environments like Second Life and World of Warcraft as well as social media to create networked and constantly changing user experiences. Fan art, video blogs, and the vast range of user-generated content on YouTube help shape these participatory traditions.

8.31 Zorns Lemma (1970). Hollis Frampton’s films are often organized around structural principles, as in this film’s central sequence of images corresponding to cycles of the alphabet. Courtesy of Anthology Film Archives, All Rights Reserved

8.32 Rapture (1999). Shirin Neshat is one of many contemporary fine artists who use film and video in gallery contexts to generate meaning through audience interaction. Shirin Neshat, Untitled (Rapture Series–Women Pushing Boat), 1999. Gelatin silver print; 44 × 6814 inches; Edition of 5. Copyright Shirin Neshat. Courtesy Gladstone Gallery

Making Sense of Experimental Media Perhaps more than any other form of media, experimental film and video ask view- ers to reflect actively on the viewing experience, contemplating the way human senses and consciousness function. Some of these works, in setting out to explore the phenomenon of vision or hearing, are about perception and its relationship to consciousness; some can even be about the experience of boredom. Whether we are challenged to figure out the meaning of symbolism or to relate a film to an artist’s wider body of work or to a social context, we are always required to engage in some way.

Experimental film is also a way of reflecting on technological change. Just as the potential of the Internet and other new technologies generates excitement

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and even utopian claims today, so did the invention of cinema a little more than a century ago. French filmmaker Jean Epstein enthusiastically anticipated the way “slow motion and fast motion” could reveal secrets of the world. Dziga Vertov celebrated the camera’s capacity to see more, and differently, than the human eye in Man with a Movie Camera. Decades later, television’s ways of seeing became the object of similar reflection in video art. In Technology/ Transformation: Wonder Woman (1978–1979), Dara Birnbaum scrutinized the TV heroine’s gestures as she transforms into her superhero persona by slowing and repeating them in a ritualistic fashion [Figure 8.33].

Challenging and Expanding Perception As part of a thorough examination of the medium, experimental works make meaning through challeng- ing and expanding how viewers see, feel, and hear. Such films, videos, and other artwork press us to open

our senses and our minds in unaccustomed ways. For example, Hollis Frampton’s Lemon (1969) presents only a single piece of fruit in changing light — for those seeing this film, a lemon will never look the same again. An experimental movie might use unusual filmic techniques or materials, such as abstract graphic designs and animation, as vehicles for seeing and thinking in fresh ways. It might present a rapid series of images that seem to skip about randomly — much like the experi- ence of a dream. Shirley Clarke’s Bridges-Go-Round (1958) uses unexpected camera angles and zooms to turn the massive structures of various bridges into an ethereal dance (see Form in Action, p. 306).

Each new medium brings new perceptual possibilities. The use of the Internet as a site of user-generated content, social networks, and massively multiplayer online role-playing games has given rise to new kinds of experiences. These expe- riences are based in representations of ourselves through avatars and connections with others whom we may never meet in the flesh. Works of art may explore these experiences by combining “old” and new media.

As with feature films or documentaries, how experimental media forms are understood depends on the cultural and historical expectations of viewers. Educa- tion in ways of watching and artistic contexts plays a much greater part in the interpretation of experimental film, however, because of the difficulty and margin- ality of the medium or the specificity of the technological platform.

Experimental Film Styles and Approaches Old media were once new media. One paradox of the avant-garde is that it cannot remain a literal “advance guard” for very long. Innovations are absorbed into more dominant traditions, or artists’ visions expand viewers’ imaginations to encom- pass new forms. There are often historical precedents even for the most seemingly shocking, original, or technologically innovative works of art. Exploring these contexts exposes little-known traditions and enriches our experience of current works that often make reference to previous forms.

In its early decades, cinema was heralded as the “seventh art,” and its practi- tioners and theorists were proud of incorporating practices from all the other arts.

8.33 Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman (1978–1979). Dara Birnbaum was one of the first artists to explore the video medium’s relationship with television by appropriating pop culture imagery. Dara Birnbaum. Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman, 1978–79. Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York

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Experimental traditions also have direct ties to influences outside of film. Revolu- tions, resistance movements, and student unrest have influenced media politically. Experimental filmmakers declare their independence through the formation of journals, clubs, societies, and networks of nonprofit institutions that distribute and exhibit their work, but they must also rely on larger cultural institutions such as museums, government agencies, and private corporations (in the case of new media) for sponsorship. And of course, audiences are essential to these tradi- tions — not only for financial viability but for the work of interpretation, advocacy, and aesthetic fulfillment. The ways in which experimental works interact and chal- lenge their viewers can be categorized into two distinct traditions: expressive and confrontational.

Expressive Styles and Forms Expressive styles emphasize personal expression and communication with an audi- ence and are tied to long-standing notions of artistic originality, authenticity, and interiority. Impressionist painters used new techniques to render color and light as they were perceived, not as academic painting traditions prescribed. Cubist painters attempted to integrate spatial perception and temporal duration into their canvasses. These ways of seeing had a significant influence on the emergence of film art. In Paris in the late 1910s, Louis Delluc founded journals and cine-clubs that defined the impressionist film movement. Germaine Dulac, Jean Epstein, and his sister Marie Epstein made films, wrote articles, and lectured about the new film art. While some argued that film should be composed like music, others embraced narrative components and photographic realism.

Expressive forms are generally rooted in lyrical and poetic traditions. Lyrical styles express emotions, beliefs, or some other personal position in film, much like the voice of a lyric poet does in literature. Lyrical films may emphasize a personal voice or vision through the singularity of the imagery or through such techniques as voiceovers or handheld camera movements — using stories as the skeletons on which to elaborate and explore novel cinematic techniques and special effects. Werner Herzog’s Heart of Glass (1976) is based on a Bavarian legend about the death of a glassblower and the subsequent loss of a secret formula that supported the village industry. Its characters wander directionless and speak in poetic non sequiturs, and the heart of the film explores the hypnotic images floating through a world that has lost its sense of time. Perhaps the most poetic and most prolific filmmaker of a lyrical/ poetic tradition is Stan Brakhage, who made films from the 1950s until his death in 2003. Themes of insight and blindness run through many of his films, which range in length from the nine-second-long Eye Myth (1967) to the five-hour-long The Art of Vision (1965). Similarly, Ken- neth Anger’s lyricism fuses homoeroticism, ritual, popular culture, and esoterica, from his landmark Fireworks (1947) [Figure 8.34] made when he was seventeen, to Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969). Brakhage and Anger represent just two of the many avant-garde filmmakers whose visions are so distinctive that their work is instantly recognizable.

v i E W i N g c u E bedfordstmartins.com /filmexperience

Watch the clip of Gently Down the Stream (1981) online. What specific images or words solicit your attention? What devices remind you of the elements of cinema? Are there any elements that bring to mind influences outside of film?

8.34 Fireworks (1947). Kenneth Anger’s lyrical homoerotic reverie is one of the key early works of the American avant-garde.

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Another expressive form takes cues from an art movement: some experimen- tal filmmakers employ a surrealist style, using recognizable imagery in strange contexts — simultaneously defying the realist tendencies and narrative logic of mainstream film, and building on the medium’s basis in photographic reproduc- tion and the idea of unfolding images in time. Surrealist cinema was a driving force in Europe in the 1920s, especially in France. Early works include René Clair’s Entr’acte (1924) and Germaine Dulac’s The Seashell and the Clergyman, based on a script by Antonin Artaud, but certainly the most renowned surrealist film is Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí’s Un chien andalou (An Andalusian Dog). Begin- ning with a shocking assault on a woman’s eye [Figure 8.35], the film teases view- ers with the possibility of a story about a woman and her relationship with one or more men, drifts among unexplained objects (like a recurring striped box), and never emerges from its dream state. Through the powers of film to manipulate time, space, and material objects, surrealist filmmakers confronted middle-class assump- tions about normalcy and created a dream world driven by dark desires.

Expressive styles are often a good fit for animation: Stephen and Timothy Quay’s Street of Crocodiles (1986), constructed through stop-motion photography and based on the memoirs of Polish author Bruno Schulz, is a dark tale of a porcelain doll trapped in a sinister, nightmarish environment of animate screws and threads. Here the remarkable life of thread and other objects — and not the thread of a story — shapes and organizes the film. Surrealism in particular has had a great influence on animation: both directly, as in Dalí’s collaboration with Disney, Destino (1945, 2003) [Figure 8.36], and more indirectly, as in Japanese master Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away (2001) — both of which create utterly unique, surreal worlds.

An expressive impulse is also at the heart of the American underground film. During the 1960s and 1970s, the American counterculture of “sex, drugs, and rock and roll” broke free of the perceived repressive social values, barriers, and gender roles of the 1950s. The San Francisco–based Kuchar brothers made campy films like Hold Me While I’m Naked (1966) [Figure 8.37], while Marie Menken discovered a more painterly film language in such works as Glimpse of the Garden (1957). Subcultures — artistic and sexual — embraced filmmaking, and independent sub- cultures emerged around experimental filmmaking itself. A network of alternative cinemas and university screenings brought these works and their makers into

8.35 Un chien andalou (1928). The opening scene simulating a woman’s eye slit by a razor — arguably the most famous moment in experimental film — exemplifies surrealism’s use of shock. Courtesy Photofest

8.36 Destino (1945, 2003). Dalí ’s unlikely collaboration with Disney remained unfinished until its release in 2003. Courtesy Photofest

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contact with what became devoted audi- ences of filmmakers, critics, students, and other artists.

Expressive traditions also emerge from specific technologies and properties of the medium. For example, the small- gauge formats of 16mm and 8mm and, later, portable video equipment, were developed for amateur use and were taken up very early for artistic purposes. Artists exploited the intimacies of these media, such as the diary-like formula used by Jonas Mekas in the 1950s and adopted by video artists in the 1970s and digital filmmakers today. Indeed, new media present a range of expressive possibilities. The nonprofit site Rhizome hosts and preserves work by new media artists that would otherwise have very limited chances of exposure. Although the vast majority of the user-generated work posted online would not be associated with experimental film by their makers or viewers, the very technology that is being used and the expressive impulse fit very much into this tradition.

Confrontational Approaches The shock of the modern — beautiful machines capable of brutal destruction; jux- tapositions of commerce and art; time sped up and distances eliminated — was incorporated in the 1920s in a confrontational modernist impulse across the arts. Sometimes the urge was to shock the middle class — as in Olympia (1863), the frank painting of a prostitute by Édouard Manet [Figure 8.38], or the eyeball slicing of Un chien andalou (see Figure 8.35 on p. 304). Sometimes it was to document the democratization of art in a changing world, such as in Eugène Atget’s photographs of Paris storefronts. As German cultural theorist Walter Benjamin argued in his famous 1936 essay, “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility,” the very notion of artistic originality was challenged by the photograph and taken even further by film, which courted a mass, public audience.

Because cinema was seen as the quintessentially modern medium, artists active in other media, like Dada artist Marcel Duchamp, experimented with film. Artists saw their role as vitally linked to the times, whether in embracing a machine aesthetic in their work, or in mak- ing films suitable to the proletarian revolution in the Soviet Union. Such an attitude goes against Romantic traditions of artistic expressivity and shapes the experi- mental film tradition of confrontation — of conventions, audiences, or expectations and associations in the con- text of a wider social, political, or aesthetic critique. Confrontational experimental modes may overlap with documentary and narrative ones. In Jean-Luc Godard’s Two or Three Things I Know About Her (1967), charac- ters directly address the viewer, responding to questions

8.37 Hold Me While I’m Naked (1966). Filmmaker George Kuchar stars as a director frustrated by his failure to create the highly artistic film he envisions. The campiness and comic nature of the film are compounded by his pitiful getup.

8.38 Olympia (1863). Édouard Manet’s work was condemned at the time as vulgar and immoral, not because it depicted a nude woman but because the woman was clearly shown to be a prostitute. Erich Lessing /Art Resource, NY

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Pioneering American independent filmmaker Shirley Clarke (1919–1997) first trained as a dancer. But after studying with artist Hans Richter, who made some of the first abstract films in the early 1920s, she became drawn to avant-garde filmmaking. Using footage left over from another project, she made a “dance film without dancers” in Bridges-Go-Round.

In four brief minutes, a series of tinted, superimposed, and rhythmi- cally edited shots of New York bridges — taken from unusual angles with the lightweight 16mm camera favored by experimental filmmakers at the time — make these massive objects seem light as air and agile as gulls. At the start of the film, simple credits appear over rapidly moving shots of sparkling blue water. Next, the water is overlaid with structural elements of a bridge, animated by a series of pans, tracks, and tilts [Figure 8.39a].

Superimposition remains a common pattern across several sets of differently tinted shots. In one sequence, a city skyline seems to sail past its mirror image. This is followed by two horizontal images of the same bridge superimposed; as they move past each other we feel a sense of rapid transit [Figure 8.39b]. The camera finally comes to rest on a striking montage of identical, expressionistic images of a bridge shot from below, each image saturated in a different color [Figure 8.39c].

In the final sequence, a montage of brief shots converges in a rapid frontal flight over the bridge, until in the last image the actual bridge has disappeared and we are left suspended in a gravity-defying shot that brings us back to the skyline and blue tint from the beginning of the film [Figures 8.39d and 8.39e].

Cinema itself becomes a kind of bridge leading to a new perception of the dynamism of the city. Finally, the lyrical style of Clarke’s abstract editing is emphasized by the film’s two very different commissioned soundtracks that can be heard on the DVD produced by the National Film Preservation Foundation. The electronic score by Louis and Bebe Barron echoes industrial images with industrial noises; Teo Macero’s arrange- ment uses voices and jazz instrumentation to uncanny effect. Clarke’s collaborations with these composers, as much as the novel images and rhythms of this film, attest to her central role in the New York avant-garde.

lyrical Style in Bridges-Go-Round ( 1958 )

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For videos about experimental film, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

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such as “What is language?” whispered by the offscreen director. In Trinh T. Minh-ha’s Sur- name Viet Given Name Nam (1989), Vietnamese women living in the United States act the roles of interviewees living in Vietnam, narrating their wartime experiences. The combination of this device, the filmmaker’s voiceover text and other soundtrack elements, and unusual framings com- plicates the identities of these women and any effort to portray their experiences authentically or completely. As a result, the film raises more questions than it answers.

Counter Cinema. The European avant-gardes of the 1920s became a conscious model for filmmak- ers like Jean-Luc Godard. His films in the 1960s were partly experimental, challenging commer- cial film conventions through unusual sound and image juxtapositions or by having actors go in and out of character. But as the critical and political environment of this period became more intense, the confrontational impulse of what became known as counter cinema went deeper. Godard started making consciously noncommercial films like British Sounds (1970) with collaborators under the name Dziga Vertov Group. In 1972, Godard and his partner, Jean-Pierre Gorin, made a film called Letter to Jane that scrutinizes a still photograph of liberal American actress Jane Fonda listening sympathetically on a visit to Vietnam. In voiceover, Godard and Gorin critique this image for its politi- cal naivete [Figure 8.40]. The radicalism of this period was hard to sustain, but the confrontational impulse informs all of Godard’s work. For example, the intricate image and sound montages of the multipart Histoire(s) du cinéma (1988–1998) ask viewers to look at all the meanings that images accumulate over time.

Many critical and confrontational techniques are associated with political or theoretical positions that dismantle the assumed relationship between a word or an image and the thing it represents, encouraging audiences to participate in the experiments at hand. Such aesthetic strategies are rooted in the social critiques of the late 1960s, and are sometimes referred to as political modernism. One of the most interesting and influential approaches to the image-oriented society of consumer capitalism was advanced by Guy Debord in a book and film called The Society of the Spectacle (1967 and 1973, respectively). Debord argued that images themselves — taken out of context through a process called détournement or diversion — were the only way to transform the image-oriented society. Feminist filmmakers like Yvonne Rainer and Laura Mulvey, and Peter Wollen used critical techniques to question the representation of women in film. In the 1980s, video art- ists extended this critical function toward mainstream media, and new media works today often demand that viewers question how they are looking at something as well as what they are looking at.

Filmmakers of color have embraced experimental strategies alongside documen- tary’s potential as counter cinema. From Britain, Sankofa’s Passion of Remembrance (1986) combines political debate with newsreel footage and home movies, and the Black Audio Film Collective’s Handsworth Songs (1986) juxtaposes footage of riot- ing and West Indian carnival traditions with a voiceover that analyzes colonial history and the reasons for current racial unrest. In Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy (1989), Australian Aboriginal artist Tracey Moffatt uses stylized sets and sounds

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8.40 Letter to Jane (1972). Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin critique a photograph of American actress Jane Fonda for the liberal — rather than radical — politics it represents. While prescient in its scrutiny of celebrity culture, the film can be seen as misogynist and even cruel in its confrontational style.

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and disjunctive editing to tell a story about the assimilation policies that forced Aboriginal children to be adopted by white families through the 1960s [Figure 8.41].

Activist Media. In the 1980s, activist video — particularly that inspired by govern- ment indifference to the AIDS crisis — employed a confrontational style. While based in documentary in its presentation of information, it also used experimental techniques of editing, design elements drawn from advertising and propaganda, and self-conscious voiceover and personal reflection. Tom Kalin’s They Are Lost to Vision Altogether (1989) combines elegiac imagery with footage of marches, portraying strategies of mourning and militancy employed by AIDS activists [Figure 8.42].

Confrontational tactics in new media are often about deflecting the messages of mainstream media. Groups like the Yes Men make fake Web sites offering corpo- rate apologies for environmental degradation that mainstream news outlets some- times pick up and report. With the increasing fragmentation of audiences by cable programming, blogs, and Internet video, confrontational media-making techniques are also multiplying.

These experimental works confronting the audience’s complacency or histories of injustice and misrepresentation are often hybrids of documentary and narrative work. Sometimes voices and visions that have been marginalized find less-settled traditions like experimental film more fruitful areas to employ.

8.42 They Are Lost to Vision Altogether (1989). Artist Tom Kalin conveyed competing impulses of mourning and militancy in response to the AIDS crisis in the elegiac imagery of this videotape.

8.41 Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy (1989). The fraught relationship between a grown Aboriginal daughter and the elderly white mother who adopted her as a child is conveyed without dialogue through the film’s innovative sets, lush 35mm cinematography, and sound work. Courtesy of the artist and Roslyn Oxley 9 Gallery, Sydney

v i E W i N g c u E Consider the film you’ve just viewed for class. Is it part of an expres- sive or a confrontational tradition? Explain.

Experimentation is part of the film experience: the words share the same root. The dream logic of a film like Meshes of the Afternoon is readily understood by the viewer without requiring rational explanation. Film form reflects mod- ern ways of seeing through abstract pattern in Ballet méchanique and lyrical camera movement in Bridges-Go-Round. We encounter experimental tech- niques in the work of the most innovative contemporary filmmakers, such as the complex storytelling and whimsy of Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine

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of the Spotless Mind (2004), the lyricism of Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life (2011), or the conceptual nature of Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia (2011). Today, with our pervasive self-consciousness about the presence of media in our lives, technology and aesthetics cannot be approached separately. The question “What is a film?” is posed by experimental work in formal terms, just as it is in political terms by Jafar Panahi’s This Is Not a Film.

■ Look at how editing works within a fragment of Meshes of the Afternoon. Be sure to count the shots. How might the same scene look if it were edited in continuity style?

■ Discuss how media art like The Clock functions within the museum setting.

■ Find the structural patterns in Zorns Lemma and consider the aftereffects of viewing this film. Do you continue to seek such patterns?

■ Identify experimental practices in a mainstream film.

Activities ■ Experimental media texts are difficult to access. Research the venues

and other institutions that support this media and consider what kinds of audience expectations go into encounters with it.

■ Explore film’s connection with music, architecture, painting, and sculp- ture by tracing an element that occurs across each of these different media.

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9 c h a p t e r

In Shaun of the Dead (2004), Shaun’s life appears to be heading in all the wrong directions. He despises his job; his girlfriend constantly berates him about his slacker lifestyle; and his stepfather relentlessly complains about Shaun’s treat- ment of his mother. To make matters worse, suddenly all the people around him seem to be turning into zombies. Quickly his dull and irritating life morphs into an apocalyptic horror film in which Shaun and his equally incompetent band of friends fight off and destroy the seemingly endless parade of slow-moving zombies, breaking apart gory bodies with cricket bats, shovels, pool cues, and any other objects on hand. The film is replete with tongue-in-cheek references to modern horror classics such as Night of the Living Dead (1968) and 28 Days Later (2002) with their conventional pseudoscientific explanations about what started this grue- some epidemic of walking dead. But it also borders on parody, as early in the film it appears difficult to distinguish the behavior and gestures of presumably normal human beings from the slumping, mechanical movements of the zombies. Director Edgar Wright and comedic actors Simon Pegg and Nick Frost would follow Shaun with two other generic parodies, Hot Fuzz (2007) and The World’s End (2013), the first a goofy version of cop-buddy films like the Lethal Weapon series (1987– 1998) and the second a send-up of the alien invasion genre. Watching these films becomes a kind of generic game — we recognize and anticipate the formulas of genre and even watch the films reference slapstick and romantic comedy at vari- ous points. The pleasure of playing the game is at the heart of the intelligence and pleasure of watching many generic films.

Movie Genres Conventions, Formulas, and Audience Expectations

© Rogue Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection. World’s End photo: Laurie Sparham 311

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In film studies, a genre is a category or classification of movies that share similar narrative and stylistic patterns in the presentation of their subject matter. Grounded in audience expectations about characters, narrative, and visual style, a film genre is a set of formulas and conventions repeated and developed through film history. Movies rely on variations of genres to allow audiences to share in expectations and routines. As viewers, we may choose to see a movie because we identify it with its character types. We return to science fiction films — from the 1927 Metropolis to the 1979 Alien or the 2012 companion piece Prometheus — because we recognize and appreciate some version of a “mad scientist” who works in a mysteri- ous laboratory in which new technology leads to strange and dangerous discoveries. One viewer may rush out to see The Fighter (2010) for the very same reason that another viewer resolutely chooses not to see it: because it is a boxing movie whose formulas and images — a down-and-out working-class hero trying to redeem him- self or herself, physically powerful and graphic fight scenes, overwhelming obsta- cles, and a usually triumphant ending — are part of a well-known genre designed to appeal to viewers’ awareness of these conventions [Figure 9.1]. In an important sense, our different responses to particular genres define the film community to which we belong.

As we will learn in this chapter, film genres carry their own specific cul- tural values. Narrative, documentary, and experimental films have each created par- ticular genres associated with their respec- tive organizations, but in this chapter we will focus specifically on six narrative film genres: comedy, western, melodrama, musical, horror, and crime. For each genre, we will identify its primary formulas and conventions and consider how it reflects and regulates specific social, cultural, and historical experiences.

K E Y O B J E C T I V E S ■ Understand why film genres attract audiences. ■ Describe the historical origins of film genres and explain how they can

change over time. ■ Define what conventions, formulas, and expectations are seen in genre films. ■ Identify six major genres — comedy, the western, melodrama, the musical, the

horror film, the crime film — and their subgenres. ■ Summarize how audiences understand certain film types as a way of making

meaning through genre.

9.1 The Fighter (2010). The genre formulas of the classic boxing film are recognizable but updated in this film.

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A Short History of Film Genre More explicitly and inventively than most filmmakers, Mel Brooks has made a career of recycling and parodying the history of genre films: Blazing Saddles (1974) toys with the history of the western, brilliantly turned upside down with a pro- tagonist who is an African American sheriff; Young Frankenstein (1974) transforms the monster movie and the 1931 Frankenstein specifically when the traditionally passive female assistant jilts the usually neurotic scientist for the sexy monster he creates; High Anxiety (1977) [Figure 9.2] mashes together the generic formulas of the thriller and exact iconic scenes from various Hitchcock films to comically expose the nervous anxiety that has always propelled the genre; and Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993) becomes less about the adventure and romance genres epito- mized in so many Robin Hood films and more about a band of rather silly men who like to wear tights in the woods. While Brooks’s films have a transparent and ironic relationship with the history of the genres that precede these films, virtually all genre films implicitly or explicitly carry the marks and traces of a long generic history.

Historical Origins of Genres Well before the advent of the movies, genres were used to classify works of literature, theater, music, painting, and other art forms. Tragedy was considered the most important genre in Aristotle’s Poetics in 350 b.c.e., and more specific literary genres like poetic ballads, pastoral and epic poems, and dime novels were identified and refined in subsequent historical periods. Musical genres included classical sonatas and symphonies as well as popular love songs and chil- dren’s lullabies. The seventeenth- century Dutch painter Pieter de Hooch created genre paintings that depicted scenes of domestic life and daily social encounters. In the eighteenth-century and early- nineteenth-century paintings of David Wilkie, William Hogarth, and others, genre came to suggest an image of a “slice of life,” or scenes aimed at familiarity, recog- nition, and shared (if heightened)

9.2 High Anxiety (1977). A film that playfully and ironically spoofs the history of the thriller and Hitchcock’s thrillers in particular.

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human emotions [Figure 9.3]. This combination of domes- tic realism and theatricality linked genres to the stage, particularly to the staging of melodramas, the most popular genre of the nineteenth century [Figure 9.4]. In these different forms, three functions for genre began to take shape:

■ to provide models for producing other works ■ to direct audience expectations ■ to create categories for judging or evaluating a

work

For painters in the eighteenth century, for exam- ple, historical paintings would need to follow certain generic rules about what objects to include in a paint- ing about a naval victory; classical audiences would learn to expect all epic poems to begin with a generic invocation to the gods or a muse.

Early Film Genres Early cinema immediately employed genres, building on the lessons of its predecessors in photography, literature, art, and music halls. Nineteenth-century portrait pho- tography repeated standardized poses and backgrounds, and music halls developed formulas that would, for in - stance, predictably alternate a musical number with a comic skit, both of which would often feature recogniz- able conventions and rhythms. Although the first films of the 1890s searched out new subject matter, objects, and events, rough generic patterns quickly developed. Common formulas for short films included scenics such as Panoramic View of Niagara Falls in Winter (1899), historical events as in Carrie Nation Smashing a Saloon (1901), and, less often acknowledged, semi-pornographic scenes in “blue movies,” such as From Show Girl to Burlesque Queen (1903) [Figure 9.5]. As the film indus- try and its audiences expanded through the 1900s, other types of films filled the catalog of early genres: scenes from the theater, sporting events, and slapstick comedies. And as outdoor filming increased, westerns became common subjects.

1920s–1940s: Genre and the Studio System Since the beginning of film history, the importance of genre and the popularity of specific genres have waxed and waned depending on the historical period and cul- ture. Although films have used repeated subjects and formulas — think Shakespearean plays and chase scenes, respectively — from their very beginnings, the rise of the studio system through the 1920s and 1930s pro- vided extraordinarily fertile grounds for movie genres.

9.3 Shortly After Marriage (1743). Prominent English genre painter William Hogarth painted satirical views of everyday life and contemporary mores. Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY

9.4 Human Nature (1885). Nineteenth-century stage melodramas, like this one by Henry Pettitt and Augustus Harris, were forerunners of a central film genre. The Art Archive/Art Resource, NY

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In this context, the movie industry’s model for genre parallels the industrial model for the Ford Motor Company. Fordism, the economic model that defined U.S. industry through much of the twentieth century, increased the amount and quality of output of a specific car through the division of labor and the mass production of parts. As a result of that increased output, cost would decrease and, ideally, consumption of the product would increase.

Tied to a studio system that adapted the industrial system of mass production, film genres enabled movie producers to reuse script formu- las, actors, sets, and costumes to create, again and again, many different modified versions of a popular movie. In the same way that a consumer might buy a Ford automobile in a new color or different style every seven years, an audience might return every year to see the latest version of a swashbuckler adventure film starring Douglas Fairbanks, like The Thief of Baghdad (1924).

The most famous Hollywood studios differed in size, strategies, and styles — from the smaller United Artists to the massive MGM — but each used a production system based on the efficient recycling of formulas and conventions, stars, and sets. The system was headed by a mogul who assigned a producer, who in turn oversaw those many moveable parts that a studio had at its disposal. In this environment, individual studios refined their production line techniques, established their association with specific genres, and used and refined that exper- tise to develop those genres. Thus by the 1930s, Warner Bros. was identified with gangster films, Paramount with sophisticated comedies, MGM with musicals and melodramas, RKO with literary adaptations, Columbia Pictures with westerns, and Universal with horror films.

1948–1970s: Postwar Film Genres The U.S. v. Paramount decision of 1948, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the major studios violated antitrust laws by also owning movie theaters and therefore monopolizing the film business, undid the studio system and thus a cornerstone of movie genres. Without control of a distribution network of theaters to ensure the profitability of its production decisions, the studio system gradually began its decline, and with it waned the golden years of American film genres. Certainly genre movies continued to be made and enjoyed. Some, like film noir, appeared during this waning, and others, like blaxploitation, came about in the ensuing fragmentation. Film noir, with its shadowy characters and violent crimes, reflected the cultural stresses and instabilities that followed World War II, while blaxploitation, featuring African American urban life and often aggressive masculine stereotypes, developed in the 1970s against the background of turbulent race relations.

The popularity of many other genre films in the 1960s and 1970s depended on a recycling of formulas through other cultures and American social move- ments of the time. These revisionist genre films, like Robert Altman’s west- ern McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971) in which the myth of the heroic western becomes violently redefined against the backdrop of the Vietnam War [Figure 9.6] and Wim Wenders’s German film noir The American Friend (1977) in which the Hollywood thriller becomes a lens through which to rethink postwar Ger- many, often returned to the earlier conventions and icons but with an ironic

9.5 From Show Girl to Burlesque Queen (1903). Erotic “blue movies” emerged as an early film genre.

V I E w I n G C u E Consider the historical precedents for the genre film screened in class. Do they come from literary or theatrical history? From a cultural or religious ritual?

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and self-conscious perspective on those formulas and their relation to a chang- ing world.

1970s–Present: New Hollywood, Sequels, and Global Genres Jaws (1975) and Star Wars (1977) brought forth the era known as New Hollywood with film-school-educated directors draw- ing on established genres, special effects, and large advertising budgets to cre- ate blockbusters. Video and foreign sales helped such movies generate worldwide business, and the new corporate entities that owned the studios relied heavily on sequels and franchises, including those for blockbusters like Star Wars, to guarantee repeat successes. The Godfather: Part II (1974), for example, deepened the saga of the Corleone Mafia family and was hailed as a masterpiece, while contempo- rary sequels like Fast & Furious 6 (2013) and Mission: Impossible — Ghost Proto- col (2011) combine characters and plot elements with new situations to deliver familiar entertainment [Figure 9.7]. Fran- chises such as the live-action Spider-Man films (2002–2012) spread genre elements into other platforms — for instance, video games.

Increasingly, the commercial movie business was not centered only on Hol- lywood. Hong Kong action films — for example, John Woo’s The Killer (1989) — established a worldwide fan base by combining the successful national and regional genre of martial arts films with formulas of Hollywood action films, and they proved that films made outside Hollywood could be globally profitable. Bollywood films, characterized by their extravagant song-and-dance sequences and megastars, deepened their popular- ity beyond the Indian subcontinent and

South Asian communities abroad by relying on the Internet and DVD distribution. Devdas (2002), a spectacular romance about two young soul mates separated when young and doomed to live lives of unfulfilled love, became widely distributed and popular, especially in England and the United States [Figure 9.8].

History renews some genres but demands the invention of new ones. Because genre is always a historical negotiation, an awareness of the vicissitudes of cultural history only makes movie genres more vital and meaningful. Recognizing those vicissitudes, however, also requires an understanding of the formal elements that define a particular genre.

9.6 McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971). Robert Altman and other New Hollywood filmmakers offered revisionist takes on Hollywood genres like the western.

9.7 Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol (2011). Sequels and franchises cash in on the repetitive pleasures of genre formulas.

9.8 Devdas (2002). Internationally successful, Devdas illustrates the successful globalization of national genres.

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The Elements of Film Genre Genres identify group, social, or community activity and seem opposed to the individual creativity we associate with many art forms, including experimental films. A film may work creatively and individually within its genre, but the work must begin within the framework of acknowledged conventions and formulas that audiences expect. Our recognition of these formulas represents a bond between filmmakers and audiences, determining a large part of how we see and understand a film. Film genres thus describe a kind of social contract, one that allows us to see a film as part of both a historical evolution and a cultural community. For instance, the western, recognizable by scenes of open plains and lone cowboys, engages audiences’ common knowledge of and interest in U.S. history and “how the West was won” in different ways and to different ends over time [Figures 9.9a and 9.9b].

Conventions The most conspicuous dimensions of film genres are the conventions, formulas, and expectations through which we identify certain genres and distinguish them from others. Generic conventions are properties or features that identify a genre, such as character types, settings, props, or events that are repeated from film to film. In westerns, cowboys often travel alone; in crime films, a seductive woman often foils the hard-boiled detective. Generic conventions also include iconography, images or image patterns with specific connotations or meanings. Dark alleys and smoky bars are staple images in crime movies; the world of the theater and entertainment industry is frequently the setting for musicals, as in Hairspray (2007) [Figure 9.10].

These conventions and iconographies can sometimes acquire larger meanings and connotations that align them with other social and cultural archetypes — that is, spiritual, psychological, or cultural models expressing certain virtues, values, or timeless realities. For example, a flood is an archetype used in some disaster films to represent the end of a corrupt life and the beginning of a new spiritual life, such as in Peter Weir’s The Last Wave (1977) with its ominous visions of a tidal wave that will destroy Australia, according to the Aborigines who predict it, as part of a spiritual process [Figure 9.11].

9.9 (a) My Darling Clementine (1946) and (b) Bad Girls (1994). Genres represent a bond between filmmakers and audiences that must be renegotiated by each genre film. While one western may meet expectations about cowboys in gunfights, another may realign those expectations by making women gunfighters the center of the story.

(a) (b)

V I E w I n G C u E For a movie you have recently watched, identify the genre and describe three conventions typically associated with this genre.

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Formulas and Myths When generic conventions are put in motion as part of a plot, they become generic formulas, the patterns for devel- oping stories in a particular genre. Generic formulas suggest that individual conventions used in a particular film can be arranged in a standard way or in a variation on the standard. With hor- ror films, such as Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980), we immediately recog- nize the beginning of one of these formu- las: a couple and their child decide to live alone in a large, mysterious hotel isolated

in the mountains of Colorado [Figure 9.12]. The rest of the formula proceeds as fol- lows: strange and disturbing events indicate that the house/hotel is haunted; the haunting possesses the husband/father; the haunting leads to frightening visions and begins to destroy the characters, who flee into the night.

In some cases, these generic formulas can also become associated with myths — spiritual and cultural stories that describe a defining action or event for a group of people or an entire community. All cultures have important myths that help secure a shared cultural identity. One may celebrate a national event associ- ated with a particular holiday, such as the Fourth of July; another culture may see the birth and rise of a great hero from the past as the key to its cultural history. From Patton (1970) to Malcolm X (1992), historical epics often re-create an actual historical figure as a cultural myth in which the character’s actions determine a national identity — in these cases, a U.S. army commander who turned the tide of World War II, and a black American Muslim minister who served as spokesperson of the Nation of Islam and is a central figure in the black power movement in the United States [Figures 9.13a and 9.13b].

The narrative formulas of science fiction films can also relate to broader myths, such as the Faustian myth of selling one’s soul for knowledge and power or the story of Adam and Eve’s eating from the tree of knowledge and their subsequent punishment. Science fiction films, such as Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey

9.10 Hairspray (2007). The set of The Corny Collins Show, around which much of the film revolves.

9.11 The Last Wave (1977). Archetypal imagery, such as the tidal wave shown here, underpins generic conventions.

9.12 The Shining (1980). Jack Nicholson as a writer who suffers a mental breakdown within the walls of a deceptively peaceful Colorado hotel.

V I E w I n G C u E Reflect on a film trailer you recently saw. Based on the generic expecta- tions triggered by the trailer, what conventions or narrative formulas could you expect in the film itself?

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(1968), frequently recount explorations or inventions that violate the laws of nature or the spiritual world.

Audience Expectations Triggered by a film’s promotion or by the film itself, generic expectations inform a viewer’s experience while watching a film, helping him or her anticipate the meaning of the movie’s conventions and formulas. Thus a narrative’s beginning, characters, or setting can cue certain expectations about the genre that the film then satisfies or frustrates. The beginning of Jaws, in which an unidenti- fied young woman swims alone at night in a dark and ominous ocean, leads viewers to anticipate shock and danger, participate in the unfolding of the genre, and respond to any surprises this partic- ular film may offer. In the case of Jaws, the fact that much of the ensuing plot takes place on a sunny beach and open ocean, rather than in the darkened, con- fined houses of the usual horror film, is a clever variation that keeps the formula fresh and viewers’ expectations attentive.

Indeed, generic expectations under- score the important role of viewers in determining a genre and how that role connects genres to a specific social, cul- tural, or national environment. Partly because of Hollywood’s global reach and the extensive group of genre films it has produced, most audiences around the world will, for instance, quickly recognize the cues for a horror film or a western. Other non-Hollywood genres may not generate such clear expectations outside their native culture. Generic expecta- tions triggered by a martial arts film are likely to be more sophisticated in China than in the United States. Hence, while Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon intro- duced the flying martial arts scenes of “wuxia” to widespread American audi- ences in 2000, they were a commonly recognized generic figure in Asia well before that date. Likewise, the religious films, or cine de sacerdotes, of the 1940s and 1950s were well known in Spain, but their conventions and formulas may hardly be recognized by viewers from other cultures [Figure 9.14].

9.13 (a) Patton (1970) and (b) Malcolm X (1992). Historical epics often use a heroic figure to build a national myth.

(a)

(b)

9.14 Viridiana (1961). Reactions to Luis Buñuel’s film, which employs a particular Spanish genre to satirize the Catholic Church, will vary according to the audience’s familiarity with the genre of religious films it attacks. Courtesy of Anthology Film Archives, All Rights Reserved

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Even within a culture the popularity of cer- tain genres depends on shifting audience tastes and expectations over time. Movie producers’ beliefs about which films audiences will want to pay to see reflect historical and social condi- tions, and a genre’s ability to assimilate those conditions. For example, musicals proliferated in the 1930s because they offered audiences a clear escape from the anxieties of the Depression; film noir crime films flourished in the 1940s and early 1950s during and in the wake of the social upheaval of World War II; U.S. science fiction films had their heyday in the 1950s, when films like The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) packaged and mythologized fears about political and other invasions as concrete aliens and monsters that could be confronted and understood [Figure 9.15]. Audience expectations signal the social vitality of a particular genre, but that vitality changes as genres move from culture to culture or between

historical periods within a single culture. In this sense, genres can tell us a great deal about community or national identity.

9.15 The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). Science fiction films took over the Cold War era.

Six Movie Genres From their first days, movies were organized as genres according to subject matter: films about a famous person, panoramic views, and so on. As movies became more sophisticated, however, genres grew into more complex narrative organizations with recognizable formal conventions.

Assembling a list of movie genres can be more daunting and uncertain than it appears. Genres are a product of a perspective that groups individual movies together, sometimes in many different ways. For some scholars or viewers, for instance, film noir is an important movie genre that surfaced in the 1940s, whereas for others, it is less a film genre than a style that appears in multiple genres of the

period. Moreover, a particular genre des- ignation may encompass too much or too little: comedies might appear too grand a category for some critics, and screwball comedies may seem too limited a group to be termed a genre. To better under- stand the multiple combinations and sub- divisions of genres, two terms are helpful: hybrid genres are those created through the interaction of different genres to pro- duce fusions, such as romantic comedies or musical horror films like The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) [Figure 9.16]. Subgenres are specific versions of a genre denoted by an adjective, for example, the spaghetti western (produced in Italy) or the slapstick comedy. The idea of genres as constellations suggests how genres, as distinctive patterns, can overlap and shift

9.16 The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). A hybrid of horror film and musical comedy genres, this film also shares characteristics with other cult films.

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their shape depending on their relation to other genres or as extensions of a primary field. Blazing Saddles, for example, belongs both to the subgenre of comedic western and to the hybrid genre of western comedy; seeing that film from one per- spective or the other can make a difference in how we appreciate it [Figure 9.17].

While hybrid genres and subgenres show the complexity of genres as constellations, it is also helpful to demarcate major genres. Here we will focus on six important groupings of films that are generally talked about as genres: comedies, westerns, melodramas, musicals, horror films, and crime films. We’ll aim to define each genre as it has appeared in different cultures and at different points in history, as well as how its social contract changes with dif- ferent audiences. We will also highlight a selection of defining characteristics for each genre, including

■ the distinguishing features of the characters, narrative, and visual style

■ the reflection of social rituals in the genre ■ the production of certain historical hybrids or subgenres out of the generic paradigm

Although these generic blueprints will inevitably be reductive and the generic dis- tinctions will overlap, mapping each of these paradigms can guide our explorations of specific films and how they engage their audiences.

Comedies Film comedies have flourished since the invention of cinema in 1895, as comic actors took their talents to the screen where they could be appreciated even without synchronized sound. Rooted in the commedia dell’arte, Punch and Judy, and the vaudeville stage acts that would produce Buster Keaton and a host of other early comedians, film comedy is one of the first and most enduring of film genres. Its many variations can be condensed into these main traits:

■ central characters who are often defined by dis- tinctive physical features, such as body shape and size, costuming, or manner of speaking

■ narratives that emphasize episodes or “gags” more than plot continuity or progression and that usually conclude happily

■ theatrical acting styles in which characters physically and playfully interact with the mise-en-scène that surrounds them

From the 1920s comedies of producer Mack Sennett to the awkward and stumbling Woody Allen as Alvy Singer in Annie Hall (1977), comic figures stand out physically because of their body type, facial expressions, and characteristic gestures. Although comedies can develop intri- cate plots, their focus is usually on individual vignettes. In Sennett’s Saturday Afternoon (1926), Harry Langdon balances between moving cars and hangs from telephone poles [Figure 9.18]. In

9.17 Blazing Saddles (1974). Comedic western or western comedy?

V I E w I n G C u E Think back to a film you recently watched. Can you identify it as a particular hybrid and/or subgenre?

9.18 Saturday Afternoon (1926). Classic silent comedies, such as this Mack Sennett film, depend on physical gags.

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Annie Hall, Alvy jumps around a kitchen chasing lobsters and later squirms at a family dinner table where he imagines himself per- ceived by others as a Hasidic Jew. In these episodic encounters, the comic world becomes a stage full of unpredictable gags and theatri- cal possibilities.

Comedies celebrate the har- mony and resiliency of social life. Although many viewers associate comedies with laughs and humor, comedy is more fundamentally about social reconciliation and the triumph of the physical over the

intellectual. In comic narratives, obstacles or antagonists — in homes, marriages, communities, and nations — are overcome or dismissed by the physical dexterity or verbal wit of a character, or perhaps by luck, good timing, or magic. In Bringing Up Baby (1938), Katharine Hepburn is a flighty socialite who moves and talks so fast that she bewilders the verbally and physically bumbling paleontologist Cary Grant, who will inevitably forsake his scientific priorities for the joys of an improb- able romance with her. In Groundhog Day (1993), Bill Murray plays a weatherman with many social and professional flaws who falls into a magical world where he relives the day again and again, with the ability to correct his previous errors and romantic blunders. In Bridesmaids (2011), anxieties and conflicts between two women friends erupt around the impending marriage of one of them; after a series of slapstick misunderstandings and fallouts, they rediscover their bond and learn how to integrate it into their romantic relationships with men [Figure 9.19].

Perhaps the most obvious convention in comedies is the happy ending, in which couples or individuals are united in the form of a family unit or the promise of one to come. Very often, traditional comedies begin with some discord or disrup- tion in social life or in the relationship between two people (lovers are separated or angry, for instance); after various trials or misunderstandings, harmony is restored and individuals are united. In The Proposal (2009), for example, a demanding boss asks her assistant to marry her so she can avoid deportation back to Canada. Despite their mutual annoyance with the arrangement, they visit his family home in Alaska where they comically struggle to maintain the sham engagement, only to actually fall in love in the end [Figure 9.20].

Historically, as the Hollywood film comedy responded to audience expec- tations in changing contexts, the genre itself endured numerous permutations

and structural changes. Three salient subgenres emerged as a result: slap- stick comedies, screwball comedies, and romantic comedies.

Slapstick Comedies Slapstick comedies, marked by their physical humor and stunts, comprised some of the first narrative films. In the 1910s, the initial versions of this sub- genre used printed intertitles rather than spoken dialogue and ran from a few min- utes to about fifteen minutes in length.

9.19 Bridesmaids (2011). Within the tensions and transitions of an upcoming wedding, Annie and Lillian remake themselves and their relationship as a comedic reconciliation.

9.20 The Proposal (2009). Comic resiliency ultimately brings a seemingly mismatched couple together.

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Early films like those of Mack Sennett’s Keystone Kops revolved around physical stunts set within fairly restricted social spaces.

By the 1920s, comedy had integrated its gags and physical actions into feature- length films. This move allowed physical games to develop new twists and turns over the course of narrative time within a social arena. Even so, the singular slapstick instants are what stand out. For example, unforgettable is the moment in The General (1927) when Buster Keaton misfires the cannon vertically into the air and manages to avoid disaster when the cannonball fortuitously misses him and just happens to destroy an enemy bridge. Slapstick comedies reemerged in the 1980s with such films as Porky’s (1982) and Police Academy (1984). The ingenuity of physical comedy gave way to scatological and sexual jokes in these films targeted at young male audiences. In Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (1983) [Figure 9.21] and Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), slapstick becomes an ingredient of nonstop social satire. Today the genre is popular again, featuring comic stars such as Will Ferrell in Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013) [Figure 9.22] and Melissa McCarthy in Identity Thief (2013) and The Heat (2013).

Screwball Comedies In the 1930s and 1940s, screwball comedies transformed the humor of the physical into fast-talking verbal gymnastics, arguably displacing sexual energy with barbed verbal exchanges between men and women when the Production Code barred more direct expression. In effect, these films usually redirected the comic focus from the individual clown to the confused heterosexual couple. It Happened One Night (1934), Bringing Up Baby (1938), His Girl Friday (1940), and The Philadel- phia Story (1940) are among the best-known examples of screwball comedies; each features independent women who resist, mock, and challenge the crusty rules of their social worlds. When the right man arrives or returns, one who can match these women in charm and physical and verbal skills, confrontation leads to love. Focused on the nonstop chatter and quirkiness of its heroine, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008) revives some elements of this formula and its pleasures.

Romantic Comedies In romantic comedies, humor takes a second place to happiness. Popular since the 1930s and 1940s, romantic comedies like Small Town Girl (1936), The Shop Around the Corner (1940), and Adam’s Rib (1949) concentrate on the emotional attraction

9.21 Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (1983). This birthing scene is an example of the slapstick that fills this social satire.

9.22 Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013). Slapstick comedy has reinvented itself for new audiences, often through exaggerated physical humor and bizarre dialogue. Courtesy Everett Collection

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of a couple in a consistently lighthearted manner. This subgenre draws attention to a peculiar or awkward social predicament (in Adam’s Rib, for example, the husband and wife lawyers oppose each other in the courtroom) that romance will eventually overcome on the way to a happy ending. More recent examples of the “rom-com,” as its recent exemplars have come to be known, include Nora Ephron’s You’ve Got Mail (a 1998 remake of Ernst Lubitsch’s The Shop Around the Corner), where the comic predicaments have contemporary twists — e-mail replaces the letters of the first version — but the formula and conventions remain fairly consistent. Stephen Frears’s romantic comedy My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) suggests, however, the range of possibilities in the creative (and here political) reworking of any genre. In this case, the social complications include a wildly dysfunctional Pakistani family in London and the romance that blossoms between the entrepreneurial son and a white man who is his childhood friend and a former right-wing punk [Figure 9.23].

Westerns Like film comedies, westerns are a staple of Hollywood, although their popularity has waxed and waned in different historical eras. This genre grew out of late-nineteenth- century stories, dime novels, and journalistic accounts of the wild American West [Figure 9.24]. The western began to take shape in the first years of the movie industry, as a kind of travelogue of a recent but now-lost historical period. From The Great Train Robbery (1903) to the HBO series Deadwood (2004–2006), the western has grown over one hundred years into a surprisingly complex genre while also retaining its fundamental elements:

■ characters, almost always male, whose physical and mental toughness separate them from the crowds of modern civilization

■ narratives that follow some version of a quest into the natural world ■ a stylistic emphasis on open, natural spaces and settings, such as the western

frontier regions of the United States

John Wayne as the Ringo Kid in Stagecoach (1939) has a physical energy and determination that is echoed by Paul Newman and Robert Redford as Butch Cas- sidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) [Figure 9.25]. Never at ease with the law or the restrictions of civilization, these men find themselves on vague searches for justice, peace, adventure, freedom, and perhaps a treasure that offers all these rewards.

9.23 My Beautiful Laundrette (1985). Director Stephen Frears and writer Hanif Kureishi update romantic comedy to tell an interracial gay love story.

9.24 Buffalo Bill’s Wild West (1899). At the end of the nineteenth century, William Cody’s adventures as an army scout were reenacted in dime novels, stage melodramas, and his wildly popular show, establishing cowboy iconography for movie westerns to build upon. Courtesy MPI/Getty Images

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Quests through wide-open canyons and deserts seem at once to threaten, inspire, and humble these western heroes.

Through the trials of a lone protago- nist, rugged individualism becomes the measure of any social relationship and of the values of most western communities. Even when they are part of a gang, as in The Magnificent Seven (1960), these indi- viduals are usually loners or mavericks rather than representative leaders. More than in historical epics, violent confron- tations are central to these narratives, and this violence is primarily measured by the ability and will of the individual rather than the mass, nation, or community, even when it is directed against Native Americans. In High Plains Drifter (1973), the moody Clint Eastwood must protect a frightened town from the vengeance of outlaws [Figure 9.26]. When a violent showdown concerns two groups — as in the gunfight at the OK Corral between the Earps and the Clantons in John Ford’s My Darling Clementine — the battle is often about individual justice or revenge (of sons and brothers) or about who has the rightful claims to the frontier.

Like most film genres, westerns have responded to changing audiences. During the early twentieth century, they were popular among the mass audiences of early cinema and associated with such popular forms as Wild West shows. With several significant exceptions, includ- ing The Covered Wagon (1923), westerns were not a particularly respected genre in the 1920s and early 1930s. Since then, however, three hybrids or subgenres have distinguished the western: the epic western, the existential western, and the political western.

Epic Westerns Within the constellation of westerns, the epic western concentrates on action and movement, developing a heroic character whose quests and battles serve to define the nation and its origins. With its roots in literature and epic paintings, this genre appears early and often in film history, foregrounding the spectacle of open land and beautiful scenery. An early instance of the epic, The Covered Wagon follows a wagon train of settlers into the harsh but breathtaking frontier, where their fortitude and determination establish the expanding spirit of America. Years later, Dances with Wolves (1990) describes a more complex struggle for national identity as a traumatized Civil War veteran allies himself with Native Americans [Figure 9.27].

9.25 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). Paul Newman and Robert Redford incarnate western heroes for the 1960s.

9.26 High Plains Drifter (1973). The western hero is often a loner for whom violence comes naturally.

9.27 Dances with Wolves (1990). Kevin Costner plays a sympathetic Civil War veteran who commiserates with Native Americans in this modern epic western.

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Existential Westerns In the 1950s, one of the most interesting decades for westerns, the existential western took shape. In this introspective version of the genre, the traditional western hero is troubled by his changing social status and his self-doubts, often as the frontier depicted in these films is more populated and civilized. The Search- ers (1956), The Furies (1950), Johnny Guitar (1954), Shane (1953), and The Left- Handed Gun (1958) are existential westerns with protagonists who are troubled in their sense of purpose. The traditionally male domain of the West is now contested by women, evil is harder to locate and usually more insidious, and the encroach- ment of society complicates life and suggests the end of the cowboy lifestyle. Even during the 1990s, this subgenre endured, most notably with Unforgiven (1992): here the formerly unbendable Clint Eastwood is now financially strapped, somewhat hypocritical, and disturbingly aware that killing is an ugly business.

Political Westerns By the 1960s and 1970s, the political western had evolved out of the troubled ter- ritory of existential westerns: in this more contemporary and critical western, the ideology and politics that have always informed the genre are foregrounded; the heroism associated with individual independence and the use of violence natural- ized in epic westerns become precisely what is questioned. In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), the heroic myth of the American West is exposed as a lie. With only communities rather than frontiers to conquer in The Wild Bunch (1969), aging cowboys are less interested in justice and freedom than in indiscriminate and grotesque killing. More recently the western genre has remained visible in a variety of contemporary films, such as There Will Be Blood (2007) and No Country for Old Men (2007), where many of the conventional motifs and icons of violence and conquest reappear in more horrifying and exaggerated forms than ever before [Figure 9.28].

Melodramas Movie melodramas are one of the more difficult genres to define because melo- dramatic characters and actions can be part of many other kinds of movies. The word itself indicates a combination of the intensities of music (melos) and the interaction of human conflicts (drama). Indebted to a nineteenth-century theatri- cal heritage in which social and domestic oppression created heightened emotional dramas, film melodramas arrived virtually simultaneously with the first develop- ments in film narrative. While the term “melodrama” was used in different ways

by early film critics, the contemporary definition developed by film scholars includes these fundamental formulas and conventions:

■ characters defined by their situation or basic traits rather than their deeds, who struggle, often desperately, to express their feelings or emotions

■ narratives that rely on coincidences and reversals and build toward emo- tional or physical climaxes

■ a visual style that emphasizes emo- tion or elemental struggle, whether in interior scenes and close-ups or in action tableaux

9.28 There Will Be Blood (2007). Contemporary films incorporate traditional western conventions and formulas like frontiers and violent conquests — but often in more grotesque and unsettling ways, such as the often brutal and unexpected violence in this film.

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From D. W. Griffith’s Way Down East (1920) to Kimberly Peirce’s Boys Don’t Cry (1999), the central character is restrained, repressed, or vic - timized by more powerful forces of society. These forces may pit a dominating masculinity against a weaker femininity. In Griffith’s film, a city villain threatens an innocent virgin, and in Boys Don’t Cry, Nebraska country boys assault and murder Brandon Teena when they discover that he was born female (named Teena Brandon) and has been living as a male. In the first film, claustrophobic rooms dramatize this victimiza- tion [Figure 9.29], until a climactic chase over a frozen river brings the conflict between good and evil outside for the world to witness. In the second, medium shots and close-ups of the protagonist emphasize the strains and contradic- tions of identity [Figure 9.30]. In each of these films, true to the conventions of melodrama, the story reaches a breaking point with the threat of death: one character almost drifts away on ice floes; the other is senselessly shot and killed.

As social rituals, melodramas parallel and contrast with westerns. Individual- ism and private life anchor this genre as well, but the drama is not about conquer- ing a frontier and finding a home; rather, it is about the strain on and often failure of the individual to act or speak out within an already established home, family, or community. Melodramas thus develop a conflict between interior emotions and exterior restrictions, between yearning or loss and satisfaction or renewal. One or more women are typically at the center of melodrama, illustrating how historically women have been excluded from or limited in their access to public powers of expression.

Mise-en-scène and narrative space also play a major stylistic role in melodrama: for example, in Griffith’s films, individuals, usually female, retreat into smaller and smaller private spaces while some obvious or implied hostile force, often male, threatens and drives them further into a desperate internal sanctuary. These rituals are often graphically acted out. In Elia Kazan’s film version of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Blanche and Stella, confined in a run-down, claustrophobic home in New Orleans, also confine and repress their memories of a lost family history; their desires to escape are channeled through their sexuality. For Stella, that means accepting her husband Stanley’s violent control of her; for Blanche, it means becoming a victim of Stanley’s power and, after he rapes her, retreating into madness.

Whereas early melodramas depicted female distress and entrapment in time and space, those formulas have grown subtler, or at least more realistic, over the years. Three subgenres of melodramas that usually overlap and rarely appear in complete isolation from one another can be distinguished: physical, family, and social melodramas.

9.29 Way Down East (1920). Claustrophobic interiors represent the melodramatic heroine’s victimization.

9.30 Boys Don’t Cry (1999). Melodrama relies on close-ups to tell stories of contested identity — here the protagonist’s expression of gender.

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Physical Melodramas Physical melodramas focus on the physical plight and material conditions that repress or control the protagonist’s desires and emotions; these physical re - strictions may be related to the places and people that surround that person or may simply be a product of the person’s physical size or color. One of the first great film melodramas, D. W. Griffith’s Broken Blossoms (1919) is also one of the most grisly: in an atmosphere of drugs, violence, and poverty, a brutal boxer, Battling Burrows, hounds and physically terrifies his illegitimate and frail daugh-

ter, Lucy. He eventually beats her to death (as she retreats into smaller and smaller rooms) and is himself killed by Lucy’s one friend, a Chinese immigrant, identified in the subtitles only as the Yellow Man, who then commits suicide. Although most melodramas do not so definitively emphasize the physical plight of the heroine, viewers can still recognize this generic focus on bodily or material strain in such melodramas as Dark Victory (1939), about a woman with a terminal brain illness, and Magnificent Obsession (1954), about a blind woman whose vision is ultimately restored. Even a film like Black Swan (2010) might be best understood as a con- temporary variation on a melodrama about sexual identity, bodily restraint, and the eruption of violence [Figure 9.31].

Family Melodramas Although physical arrangements play a part in them, family melodramas elaborate the confines and restrictions of the protagonist by investigating the psychologi- cal and gendered forces of the family. For many viewers, this is the quintessential form of melodrama, in which women and young people especially must struggle against patriarchal authority, economic dependency, and confining gender roles. In Douglas Sirk’s Written on the Wind (1956), a Texas millionaire marries a beautiful but naive secretary and then tortures himself wondering whether the baby they are expecting is his or his best friend’s — the man she should have married. The cor- ruption and confusion of this household grow more intense and manic through the

constant baiting and manipulations of a sister whose restlessness is expressed as sexual promiscuity.

The family melodrama came to prominence in the postwar period as gender and familial roles were being redefined. In Ordinary People (1980), an outwardly prosperous family is emotion- ally crippled by the loss of one son, the mother’s withdrawal of affection from the other, and the father’s powerlessness. In Mira Nair’s The Namesake (2006), family melodrama becomes a genera- tional and transnational affair in which parents who emigrated from India and a son raised in New York struggle to find common ground [Figure 9.32].

9.31 Black Swan (2010). While ostensibly about the world of ballet, this film is perhaps best understood as a melodrama about physical and sexual repression, as Nina battles pres- sures from her mother, her director, and herself to become the “perfect” Swan Queen.

9.32 The Namesake (2006). Generations of an immigrant family struggle to find common ground in this transnational family melodrama.

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Social Melodramas Social melodramas extend the melo- dramatic crisis of the family to include larger historical, community, and eco- nomic issues. In these films, the losses, sufferings, and frustrations of the pro- tagonist are visibly part of social or national politics. Earlier melodramas fit this subgenre — for example, John Stahl’s Imitation of Life (1934), remade by Doug- las Sirk in 1959, makes the family melo- drama inseparable from larger issues of racism as a black daughter passes for white. Contemporary melodramas also commonly explore social and political dimensions of personal conflicts: in Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave (2013), when a father is kidnapped, the harmony and happiness of an African American fam- ily from Saratoga, New York, is shattered by and intimately linked to the brutality and horror of slavery in mid-nineteenth- century America [Figure 9.33]. In Broke- back Mountain (2005), male lovers are kept apart by social conventions as well as possibly generic ones as well, as cowboys are not usually shown falling in love with each other [Figure 9.34].

Musicals As we noted in Chapter 5, when syn- chronous sound came to the cinema in 1927, the film industry quickly embraced the new technology and moved to inte- grate music and song into the stories. Precedents for film musicals range from traditional opera to vaudeville and musical theater, in which songs either supported or punctuated the story. Since the first musicals, the following have been their most common components:

■ characters who act out and express their emotions and thoughts through song and dance

■ plots interrupted or moved forward by musical numbers ■ spectacular sets and settings, such as Broadway theaters, fairs, and dramatic

social or grand natural backgrounds, or animated environments

In Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) and The Sound of Music (1965), groups of char- acters escape the complexities of Depression-era society and Nazi encroachment into Austria by breaking into song [Figure 9.35]. Whether on a Broadway stage or against the beauty of an Alpine setting, characters in musicals speak their hearts and minds most articulately through music and dance.

As social markers, musicals are the flip side of melodramas, highlighting the joy of expression rather than the pain of repression. With musicals, the tearful cries of melodrama give way to the beautiful articulations of music. Both focus on personal

9.34 Brokeback Mountain (2005). The political melodrama of homosexual lovers kept apart by social and generic conventions.

9.33 12 Years a Slave (2013). This searing melodrama about a father snatched from his family becomes an emotional and personal depiction of the brutality of slavery in the nineteenth century. © Fox Searchlight Pictures. All rights reserved. Courtesy Everett Collection.

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emotions, but in musicals, song and dance become the longed-for vehicles for the repressed and inexpressible emotions of the melodrama. In musicals, the present easily usurps the past. There are certainly romantic crises, social problems, and physical dangers in the narrative, but in most cases, these obstacles are secondary and any difficulties can be remedied or at least put into perspective by the imme- diacy of song, music, and dance. With more plot than most musicals, West Side Story (1961) features all the tragedy and violence found in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (on which it is based) and a social commentary on Puerto Rican/ white relationships in New York: gangs fight, lovers are separated, and horrible deaths happen. But even during the most troubling situations, song and dance transform battle cries into gaiety (“The Jet Song”) [Figure 9.36], patriotic ideal- ism into comic satire (“America”), and even a tragic death into a peaceful vision (“Somewhere”).

Julie Taymor’s Across the Universe (2007) [Figure 9.37], similarly rich with plot and narrative, weaves together the stories of several characters living in New York City during the turbulent 1960s. Musical enactments of Beatles songs express the “free love” spirit and the darker, politically charged moments of the decade: “I Am the Walrus” illus- trates the drug-fueled art scene of the era, while “Let It Be” sums up the emo- tion and angst surrounding the tragic deaths of a brother and a boyfriend resulting from the 12th Street riot in Detroit and the Vietnam War.

After the first feature-length musical, The Jazz Singer (1927), musicals adapted to reflect different cultural predicaments. Of the many types of musicals, we can identify three subgenres: theatrical, inte-

grated, and animated musicals. Many examples of each subgenre are adaptations of Broadway musicals or other theatrical sources.

Theatrical Musicals No doubt the best known, theatrical musicals situate the musical convention onstage or “backstage”; here it is unmistakable that the fantasy and art of the theater supersede the reality of the street. One of the finest early musicals, 42nd Street (1933) is partly about the complicated love lives of its characters: a Broad- way director who wants one last hit play; the starlet Dorothy Brock who juggles

9.35 The Sound of Music (1965). The Nazi threat cannot dampen the spirit expressed through song.

9.36 West Side Story (1961). Social antagonisms are expressed through song and dance.

9.37 Across the Universe (2007). Beatles songs are reimagined as wild production numbers with a music-video influence.

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lovers offstage; and the chorus girl Peggy Sawyer who substitutes for the star and saves the show. What ultimately gathers all these hopes and conflicts is, of course, the musical show itself: through the remarkable choreography of Busby Berkeley and hit tunes like “Shuffle Off to Buffalo,” jealousies and doubts turn into a spectacular celebration of life on Broadway [Figure 9.38].

Although theatrical musicals later waned in popularity, All That Jazz (1979) resurrected this subgenre as an exaggerated and even self- indulgent staging of the autobiography of cho- reographer Bob Fosse. In a recent resurgence, Chicago (2002) weaves the drama of abused and downtrodden women into an energetic musical in which the theatrics of song and dance burst open prison cells, and Dreamgirls (2006) dramatizes the story of Motown.

Integrated Musicals When musicals began to integrate musical numbers into more common situa- tions and realistic actions, they became integrated musicals. Here the idyllic and redemptive moments of song and dance are part of everyday lives. In My Fair Lady (1964), the grueling transformation of a street girl into a glamorous aristocrat is described by song; in the case of numbers like “The Rain in Spain,” songs actually assist that transformation. Dancer in the Dark (2000) and Pennies from Heaven (1981) are more ironic ver- sions of this subgenre. In both films, musical interludes allow the characters (a blind woman accused of murder and a sheet-music salesman during the Depression, respectively) to unexpectedly transcend the tragedies and traumas of life. More recently, Les Misérables (2012) [Figure 9.39] weaves its operatic songs of love and rebellion into its famous tale of Jean Valjean in nineteenth-century France.

Animated Musicals Beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and increasing in popularity and frequency within the last decades, animated musicals use cartoon figures and stories to present songs and music. Moving in the opposite direction of integrated musicals, these films — from Fantasia (1940) and Yellow Submarine (1968) to the Disney features The Little Mermaid (1989) [Figure 9.40] and Beauty and the Beast (1991) and offbeat versions such as Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and Sylvain Chomet’s The Triplets of Belleville (2003) — fully embrace the fantastic and uto- pian possibilities of music to make animals human, nature magical, or human life, as Mary Poppins says, “practically perfect in every way.”

9.38 42nd Street (1933). The “Shuffle Off to Buffalo” number is presented as part of a Broadway show, which acts as the central mise-en-scène of the narrative.

9.40 The Little Mermaid (1989). The resurgence of the animated musical highlights the utopian impulse of film genres, through which songs link the characters to fantasies and fantasy worlds.

9.39 Les Misérables (2012). The long-running Broadway hit was finally translated into an integrated movie musical in 2012.

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Horror Films Horror has been a popular literary and artistic theme at least since Sophocles’s account of Oedipus’s terrifying realization of his fate, the horrifying suicide of his mother, and his ghastly self-blinding. The supernatural mysteries of Gothic novels such as The Monk (1796) were followed in the nineteenth century by tales of monsters and murder, such as Frankenstein (1818) and Dracula (1897). Occa- sionally overlapping with science fiction, horror films have crossed cultures and appeared in various forms throughout film history. The fundamental elements of horror films include

■ characters with physical, psychological, and/or spiritual deformities ■ narratives built on suspense, surprise, and shock ■ visual compositions that move between the dread of not seeing and the horror

of seeing

In Carl Boese and Paul Wegener’s The Golem (1920) [Figure 9.41] and Ridley Scott’s Alien [Figure 9.42], monstrous characters terrify the humans around them with their grotesque shapes and actions, lurking on the fringes of the visible world. Each film is infused with a nervous tension at the mere prospect of seeing a

horror that exists just out of sight, a suspense that explodes when the creatures suddenly appear.

Horror films are about fear — physical fear, psychological fear, sexual fear, even social fear. The social repercussions of dra- matizing what we fear are often debated, but regardless of whether showing horror on film has any effect on society, the genre’s wide- spread popularity suggests that it is a central cultural ritual. Like scary stories around a campfire, horror films dramatize our personal and social terrors in their different forms, in effect allowing us to admit them and attempt to deal with them in an imaginary way and as part of a communal experience. Horror films make terror visible and, poten- tially, manageable. An eerie tale about alien invaders taking over bodies in an American town, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) acts out the prevalent fears in the 1950s about military and ideological invasion. The frightening story of a high school misfit with telekinetic powers, the 1976 Carrie and its 2013 remake unveil all the anxiety and anger of female adolescence, while 28 Days Later unleashes hordes of zombies, the product of a scientific experiment on a dangerous virus [Figure 9.43].

Within this genre, horror and fear have taken many shapes in many different cultures over the past century, addressing audiences in specific historical terms. Here we call attention to three subgenres characterized by dominant elements: supernatural, psychological, and phys - ical horror (slasher) films.

9.41 The Golem (1920). Horror takes monstrous physical form in this German expressionist film.

9.42 Alien (1979). Suspense and terror build as the grotesque creature lurks on the fringes of the visible, until finally bursting into view.

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Supernatural Horror Films In supernatural horror films, a spiri- tual evil erupts in the human realm, sometimes to avenge a moral wrong and sometimes for no explainable reason. This subgenre includes such movies as Henrik Galeen and Paul Wegener’s The Golem (1915), an early film version of the myth of a clay monster brought to life to save the persecuted Jews; it also includes the Japanese film Kwaidan (1964), which features four tales based on the writ- ings of Lafcadio Hearn about samurai, monks, and spirits; and The Sixth Sense (1999), about a boy able to see the dead. In The Exorcist (1973), Satan pos- sesses a young girl’s body, deforming it into a twisted, obscenity-spewing nightmare [Figure 9.44]. The Exorcist is typical of supernatural horror in that how and why this evil has invaded the life of this modern and affluent family is never made entirely clear. Japanese horror films made in the aftermath of nuclear destruction featured ostensibly supernatural fig- ures like Godzilla, while the contemporary Korean horror film The Host (2006) taps into political relations with the United States as well as into environmental issues [Figure 9.45]. Following the contemporary fascination with paranormal investiga- tions, The Conjuring (2013) [Figure 9.46] explores and confronts the satanic forces that inhabit a Rhode Island farmhouse.

Psychological Horror Films Another variation on the threat to modern life, psychological horror films locate the dangers and distortions that threaten normal life in the minds of bizarre and deranged individuals. While German expressionist films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) dealt with psychological themes, the modern cycle of such films begins with Psycho (1960). Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), Don’t Look Now (1973), The Stepfather (1987), The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992), and Funny Games (2007) all participate in this subgenre. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

9.43 28 Days Later (2002). The social and physical world crumbles in a horror film about a zombie-creating virus.

9.44 The Exorcist (1973). Satan possesses a young girl in this 1970s masterpiece of supernatural horror.

9.45 The Host (2006). A monstrously successful horror film, this Korean production pits a family against a frightening sea creature that suddenly emerges from the Han River in Seoul and terrorizes the entire community.

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is characteristic: although it fea- tures scenes of nauseating physi- cal violence, it is Hannibal Lecter’s diabolically brilliant mind and his empathetic bond with the protago- nist, Clarice Starling, that make this film so mentally, rather than physi- cally, horrifying.

Physical Horror Films Films in which the psychology of a character takes second place to the depiction of graphic violence are examples of physical horror films,

a subgenre with a long pedigree and a consistent place in every cycle of horror film. Tod Browning’s Freaks (1932) testifies to both the longevity and the more intel- ligent potential of physical horror. Cut and banned in many countries, Freaks tells a morality tale of rejection and revenge. It features performers from actual carnival sideshows who, despite their shocking appearance and the repulsive revenge they perpetrate, ultimately act in more generous and humane ways than the physically “normal” villains.

Psycho is an originator, this time of the contempo- rary horror films known as slasher films. Other grisly films that belong in this subgenre include The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) [Figure 9.47], the story of a cannibalistic Texas family who attacks lost travelers;

Halloween (1978), the first of a sequence of films about ghastly serial killings that spawned many imitators, including Saw (2004), which creates a gruesome mise- en-scène fashioned by a twisted mind to test and torture two captives competing to survive.

Crime Films Like other genres, crime films represent a large category that describes a wide variety of films. From the mysteries of Edgar Allan Poe and the tales of Sherlock Holmes to the pulp fiction of the 1920s, such as Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest (1929), and Walter Mosley’s ongoing Easy Rawlins series, crime stories have been a staple of modern culture. When early movies searched for good plots, criminal dramas that contained physical action and relied on keen observation were recog- nized as a genre made for the cinema, where movement and vision are central. A crime film’s chief characteristics include

■ characters who live on the edge of a mysterious or violent society, either criminals or individuals dedicated to crime detection

■ plots of crime, increasing mystery, and often ambiguous resolution ■ urban, often dark and shadowy, settings

From Underworld (1927) to The French Connection (1971), the principal char- acters of crime movies are usually either criminals or individuals looking for criminals. In Underworld, gangster Bull Weed flees and then faces his relentless police pursuers in the mean streets of Chicago. In The French Connection, detective Popeye Doyle becomes entangled in New York’s narcotics underworld. In the first

9.46 The Conjuring (2013). Supernatural horror permeates this tale of a haunted New England farmhouse.

9.47 The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). This classic slasher film goes to extremes — cannibalism.

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film, the law triumphs but the tantalizing attraction of underworld life remains. In the second, legal victory is only partial and the glamour of the international drug market far outshines the tattered life of a New York cop [Figure 9.48].

In crime films, deviance becomes a barometer of the state of society. If the outsider characters in horror films represent what we most physically and psychologically fear and repress, then the outsider characters in crime films describe what we socially reject as upholders of the status quo. As with horror films, the illegitimate groups and illegal behaviors of crime movies fascinate us as much as the savvy and determination of the detectives and other guardians of the law who track them. Perhaps the foundation for this fascination is that most people are capable of both social and antisocial inclinations at one time or another. Two of the most grip- ping and socially complex crime movies in film history, The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather: Part II offer a picture of twentieth-century America that culmi- nates in the transformation of Michael Corleone from a respectable son and war hero into a ruthless mob boss willing and able to destroy any enemies or competitors [Figure 9.49]. The films reveal both sides of the Mafia cult: its familial dedication and loyalty, and its vicious thirst for power at any cost. Echoing this duality, these films suggest that U.S. society has grown from a struggling immigrant community into a rich and intimidating nation.

The different incarnations of crime films, from the 1920s to the present, include three prominent and popular subgenres: the gangster film and the hard-boiled detective film, as well as the stylistically distinctive film noir.

Gangster Films Gangster films are typically (but not necessarily) set in the 1930s, when under- world criminal societies thrived in defiance of Prohibition. In these films, criminal activity characterizes a social world continually threatened by the most brutal instincts of its outcasts. Scarface (1932) depicts a vicious mob war in which rivals coolly manipulate and shoot each other [Figure 9.50a], while The Public Enemy (1931) follows Tom Powers’s rise from a juvenile delinquent to a bootlegging killer who terrorizes Chicago. More recent versions of gangster films — the remake Scarface (1983) [Figure 9.50b], Goodfellas (1990), Road to Perdition (2002), and The Departed (2006), for example — tend to escalate the violence and explore the peculiar personalities of the criminals or the strained rituals that define them as a subculture.

The original 1930s gangster formula has been adapted in other cultures. The urban milieu of hip hop and so-called “gangsta” rap characterizes a cycle of African American crime films of the early 1990s, including Boyz N the Hood (1991), New Jack City (1991), and Juice (1992), in which the codes of loyalty and family are

9.48 The French Connection (1971). Within the complex web of an international drug cartel, a determined New York detective relentlessly pursues its multiple and mysterious agents.

9.49 The Godfather: Part II (1974). Michael Corleone balances a life of organized crime and power with familial dedication and loyalty.

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strained by the lure of fame, drugs, and cash. Japanese actor-director Takeshi Kitano has received wide acclaim for his reworking of the traditional Japanese gangster, or yakuza, film in Hana-bi (1997) and other films, while two Hong Kong films, Johnnie To’s Exiled (2006) [Figure 9.51] and Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s Infernal Affairs (2002; remade in 2006 as Mar- tin Scorsese’s The Departed) demonstrate both the global reach of this genre and its ability to return from abroad to reshape Hollywood films.

Hard-Boiled Detective Films On the other side of this generic crime coin, hard-boiled detective films focus on a protago- nist who represents the law or a more ambigu- ous version of it, such as a private investigator. Usually these individuals must battle a criminal element (and sometimes the police) to solve a mystery or resolve a crime. In one of the most renowned films of this type, The Maltese Falcon (1941), detective Sam Spade pursues both a mysterious treasure (the falcon statue) and the murderers of his partner (killed for the statue). Suspected by the police, Spade embarks on a personal quest not so much for the treasure but, through his loyalty to his partner, for truth and integrity. Reinterpreted and reinvented in dif- ferent cultures and with protagonists other than white males, this subgenre remains visible in such unusual movies as Jean-Luc Godard’s med- itation on crime detection, Détective (1985), and Lizzie Borden’s feminist story of a sex crimes investigation in Georgia, Love Crimes (1992).

Film Noir Although regularly discussed as a film style of shades and shadows, film noir can be consid- ered a subgenre of crime films that emerged in the 1940s and one that distinctly elevates the legal, moral, and atmospheric ambiguity and confusion found in earlier examples of the genre. No longer simply about law versus crime

or the ethical toughness of a detective, these films, such as the 1944 Double Indemnity, uncover a darkness and corruption in virtually all their characters that never seem fully resolved. Translated roughly as “black film,” film noir suggests a visual style that emphasizes darkness and shadows that, in turn, reflect the shady moral universes common in these films. Protagonists waver between the law and lawlessness, and relationships commonly appear determined by violence and sexuality, characterized notably in the femmes fatales who surround the male protagonist. In recent decades, neo-noir films, such as the 1981 Body Heat and the 2005 Sin City, represent a more self-conscious awareness of the generic conventions of film noir and often create characters and crimes far more confused and corrupt than their historical prototypes.

9.50a and 9.50b Scarface (1932 and 1983). A classic gangster film from the genre’s heyday in the 1930s, later remade as the 1983 Scarface with Al Pacino. 9.50a: courtesy of Photofest

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Orson Welles’s Touch of Evil (1958) is one of the most powerful examples of film noir. Arriving in a Mexican town wild with drugs, prostitution, and mur- ders, lawman Mike Vargas searches the dark alleys and filthy canals in pursuit of a murder mystery; he discovers that the heart of the corruption is Hank Quin- lan, “a good detective but a lousy cop” [Figure 9.52]. In David Lynch’s neo-noir Blue Velvet (1986), the naive Jeffrey Beaumont takes on the role of detective to solve the mystery of a decaying ear found in a field. Soon he finds himself a participant in the kinky sexual world of Dorothy Vallens [Figure 9.53]. His girlfriend, Sandy, wonders whether he is “a detective or a pervert,” and after his nightmarish wanderings through an underworld that he keeps returning to, Jeffrey can do no better than repeat that “it’s a strange world, isn’t it?”

Since the beginning of the twentieth century when chase films were an inter- national fashion, the economics of the film industry were tied to the standard- ized formulas of film genre. Fashioned in accordance with the assembly-line productions of other industrialized busi- nesses, these formulas, while meant to increase efficiency, also became the foundation for movie studios as they emerged through the 1920s. These studios would come to define themselves through the predictable scripts, sets, and actors of one or more genres. Gradually audiences learned what to expect from these genres and their associated studios. Although film genres have changed and spread considerably since the 1930s, they remain a critical measure of audience expecta- tions as well as of the film’s ability to satisfy or disappoint, and surprise or bore, the movie viewer.

9.51 Exiled (2006). Hong Kong gangster films such as this one are influencing recent Hollywood genre films.

9.52 Touch of Evil (1958). Orson Welles as Hank Quinlan, rotten with corruption in this classic example of film noir.

9.53 Blue Velvet (1986). David Lynch makes the perversion at the heart of classic film noir explicit and surreal.

V I E w I n G C u E bedfordstmartins.com /filmexperience

Watch a clip from The Searchers (1956) online. Which characteris- tics of this genre are most apparent in its iconography? How does this sequence use these generic ele- ments in its own way?

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Film genres describe, in short, a social contract between filmmakers and their audiences, a contract in which each side recognizes a common language of conven- tions, formulas, and expectations. Since genres typically reflect historical and cultural contexts, these contracts give rise to different genres at different times and in different places. From comedies to crime films, film genres act out, mediate, and elaborate the pertinent myths and rituals that often inform our lives.

Making Sense of Film Genres While specific film genres vary and evolve in different ways, viewers make sense of those genres according to their developing and expanding experience of genre. As viewers see and think about how genre films are enjoyed and understood, certain conceptual frameworks shape, consciously or unconsciously, the experi- ence of film genres. Two broad frameworks for understanding film genres are a prescriptive approach and a descriptive approach. Within these frameworks, view- ers may see genres as part of a classical tradition, which might emphasize the historical origin or structural ideal of a genre, or as part of a revisionist tradition, which might understand genres as adapting to different cultures and different historical periods. Finally, genres can be considered in spatial terms as local and global genres.

Prescriptive and Descriptive Approaches Viewers and filmmakers alike classify a movie according to their experience and understanding of a genre. A viewer who has seen and considers Touch of Evil the gold standard of film noir may have less patience accepting Drive (2011) in the same category, whereas a different viewer may have a more flexible view of the genre. The first viewer would hold a prescriptive approach that assumes a pre- existing model for any particular film in the same category. In the case of Drive, a viewer with a prescriptive approach might ask “Is this protagonist the classically conflicted hero?” “Is Hollywood a seedy underworld?” and “Is there an adequately dark, traumatic crime in this film?” This viewer believes that a successful genre film deviates as little as possible from the prescribed model, and that a viewer can and should be objective in determining a genre.

A second viewer might respond with a descriptive approach, one that assumes a genre changes over time by building on older films and developing in new ways. This viewer prizes genres for different reasons and accepts that viewers’ subjectivity can help determine a genre. In the case of a contemporary film noir, Black Swan, the heroine Nina (played by Natalie Portman) walks a precarious line between san- ity and madness, and darkness and light in the competitive world of professional ballet. That Nina has an uncertain hold on reality itself lends to the ambiguous atmosphere, and that she may or may not have been seduced by her rival, Lily (played by Mila Kunis), serves as a contemporary twist on the film noir themes of sexuality, masculinity, and the femme fatale.

A filmgoer looking at genre descriptively might survey the history of melodrama and deduce how its chief characteristics have altered through time. Admitting that such an exercise will necessarily depend on a person’s particular perspective and knowledge (such as which films she has access to and the assump- tion that a particular genre exists), this viewer will value specific films for how they develop, change, and innovate within a generic pattern.

From this perspective, a film like Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974), about the social prejudices that hound the relationship between a young Arab migrant worker and an older German woman, may be a remarkable

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variation on the melodramatic formula, which in the different cultural context of the 1950s produced Doug- las Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows (1955), a version of the story in which a gardener and a wealthy socialite fall in love. With Fassbinder’s “remake” in mind, Todd Haynes’s Far from Heaven (2002) then reshapes and develops that same basic story and generic formula into a contemporary film in which the melodramatic crisis turns on a married man’s discovery of his gay identity and his wife’s potential interracial affair with their gardener [Figures 9.54a–9.54c].

Both prescriptive and descriptive approaches can point viewers to particular readings of films. A studio or journalist may, for instance, reference a particular genre as the framework for how a specific movie should be seen and evaluated. A studio may promote Nebraska (2013), a film about an aging father’s stressful relation- ship with his family, as an offbeat melodrama, whereas a journalist may urge audiences to see it as a road movie. Following one or the other of those prescribed genres will most likely result in different understand- ings of the film.

Conversely, a movie historian may examine a number of similar films in order to describe the basic formulas of a genre (say, science fiction), but if the body of films that generate her description is limited to Hollywood movies since 1950, that model will empha- size and overlook generic features that a wider survey, one including silent or Asian films, for example, might not. In both instances, the resulting model of a film genre reflects the prescriptive or descriptive approach used and generates meanings that limit, expand, or focus a viewer’s understanding accordingly.

Classical and Revisionist Traditions The significance of a particular film’s engagement with genre conventions is also shaped by its situation within classical or revisionist traditions. Classical genre traditions are aligned with prescriptive approaches that place a film in relation to a paradigm that remains the same over time and that a genre film either successfully follows or does not. Classical generic traditions estab- lish relatively fixed sets of formulas and conventions, associated with certain films or with a specific place in history.

Stemming from descriptive approaches, revisionist genre traditions see a film as a function of changing historical and cultural contexts that modify the con- ventions and formulas of that genre. A particular western, for example, will be understood differently from a classical perspective than from a revisionist one. Together these two traditions identify one of the central paradoxes of any genre: genres can appear to be at once timeless and time bound, to both create patterns that transcend history and to be extremely sensitive measures of history.

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9.54a–9.54c (a) All That Heaven Allows (1955), (b) Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974), (c) Far from Heaven (2002). Melodrama’s generic characteristics are both foregrounded and modified in loose remakes of Douglas Sirk’s original by filmmakers Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Todd Haynes.

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Set in the 1930s Los Angeles of crime writers Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, Roman Polanski’s Chinatown (1974) is a crime film that features elements of the gangster film, film noir, and especially the hard- boiled detective film. It opens in the offices of private investigator J. J. (Jake) Gittes, a location and a charac- ter that immediately recall such classics of the crime film genre as The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep (1946). The room is scattered with light and shaded by partially closed venetian blinds, and the tough but cool Gittes (Jack Nicholson), wearing a white suit, controls the scene in every way as he presents pictures of an unfaithful wife to the distraught husband who has hired him [Figure 9.55]. A former police officer who worked the Chinatown district of Los Angeles, Gittes now operates between the legitimate law and the underworld, seeking out the seedy, dark side of human nature and exposing “other people’s dirty laundry.”

Familiar conventions and formulas are everywhere in this modern version of the crime film plot. Gittes takes

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what he believes is an everyday assignment and follows Los Angeles water commissioner Hollis Mulwray, who is suspected of having a sexual affair. However, Gittes soon becomes entangled in events that are more complicated and devious than he can understand. The woman who hired him to spy on Mulwray turns out to be an imposter, and the real Evelyn Mulwray becomes the foil that both attracts Gittes and makes it clear that, in this case, he is no longer in control.

Like other crime film detectives who survive with their independent moral vision, Gittes gradually and painfully uncovers the twisted and complicated truth that underlies this plot: Noah Cross, Mulwray’s father-in-law and former partner, has killed Mulwray as part of a vast scheme to exploit the water shortage in Los Angeles. Indeed, it slowly becomes clear that the cryptic title of the movie refers to a section of urban life — and by extension, to all of life in this film — where conventional law and order have little meaning, where, in Gittes’s words, “you can’t always tell what’s going on.”

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Crime Film Conventions and Formulas: Chinatown ( 1974 )

See also: The Maltese Falcon (1941); The Big Sleep (1946); L.A. Confidential (1997)

FIlM In FOCuS bedfordstmartins.com /filmexperience

To watch a video about Chinatown, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

9.55 Chinatown (1974). Jake Gittes, the classic bitter, smart, and handsome hard-boiled detective.

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Shades and shadows, specialties of classic film noir, line the faces and spaces in this unclear world, and the addition of rich yellows, reds, and browns to the Los Angeles urbanscape creates a sickly, rather than sunny and natural, climate.

As in other crime films, the shadowy haze of corrup- tion and violence appears also as a sexual darkness. However, unlike the aggressive sexuality of femmes fatales in older crime films, the sexual danger and dis- order in Chinatown is far more horrifying. Here Evelyn’s sexuality poses little threat compared to the reality that Gittes discovers behind it: that she was raped by her own father, Noah Cross, and that her daughter, the mysteri- ous “other woman” involved with Hollis Mulwray, is also her sister [Figure 9.56]. These facts are climactically revealed in the dark streets of Chinatown when Evelyn is killed trying to flee with her daughter/sister.

The powerful and malevolent Cross walks away with his illegitimate daughter, the police stand idly by, and

Gittes’s only consolation is that “this is Chinatown.” Although tentative and sometimes personal solutions to crime and corruption are a convention of crime films, the ambiguity is considerably darker and seamier in Chinatown.

Like the ending to Chinatown, many of the varia- tions in these crime film formulas may be the product of changing times. With the Great Depression, Prohibition, and urban crowding and unrest, the crime film of the 1930s acted out social instabilities through the marginal success of a marginal detective, like Sam Spade and others. In the 1970s, after the government corruption of Watergate, the moral ambiguities of the Vietnam War, and the confused sexual legacy of the 1960s, the genre returned with a new relevancy. In Chinatown, hard-boiled detectives are less confident than before, femmes fatales are more neurotic, and corruption is more sickly and widespread.

341Movie Genres: Conventions, Formulas, and Audience Expectations c h a p t e r 9

9.56 Chinatown (1974). Not your typical femme fatale: Evelyn’s dark backstory proves to be much more dangerous than her sexuality.

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p A r T 3 Organizational Structures: From Stories to Genres342

Historical Paradigms Classical traditions can be viewed as both historical and structural paradigms. A historical paradigm presumes that a genre evolved to a point of perfection at some point in history and that one or more films at that point describe the generic ideal. For film critic André Bazin, John Ford’s Stagecoach is the historical paradigm for the western that reached its pinnacle in the United States in 1939. For others, F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922) is the historical paradigm for the horror film, achieving its essential qualities in the climate of 1920s Germany [Figure 9.57].

Structural Paradigms A structural paradigm relies less on historical precedent than on a formal or structural ideal that may or may not be actually seen, in a complete or pure form, in

any specific film. For example, regardless of the many variations on science fic- tion films, a viewer familiar with the genre may develop a structural paradigm for the classic science fiction film. After viewing a wide spectrum of films — from The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) to The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) and Pacific Rim (2013) — a viewer may understand that the paradigm for the genre requires a visual and dramatic conflict between earth and outer space, the centrality of special effects, and a deadline plot structure. Some films will then fit this paradigm easily, whereas others, such as the frolicking Repo Man (1984) about teenage angst, the repossessing of cars, and a mad scientist, may seem less convincing participants in the genre.

Generic Revisionism In contrast, generic revisionism assumes that a genre is subject to historical and cultural flux, continually changing as part of a dialogue with films of the same genre. Films within a genre adapt their conventions and formulas to reflect dif- ferent times and places. From this perspective, Fred Schepisi’s Barbarosa (1982) is as much a western as Stagecoach, but it is adapted to a contemporary climate

that sees outlaws and their myths in a more fan- tastic light.

More modern films may demonstrate generic reflexivity — that is, they are unusually self- conscious about their generic identity and clearly and visibly comment on the generic paradigms. Young Frankenstein and L.A. Confidential surely fit this model, the first a goofy look at one of the most famous models for a horror film and the sec- ond a serious self-conscious reworking of the crime film. Less obviously perhaps, Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) does not simply re-create the original Nosferatu, but also returns to many of its conventions and icons as a way of commenting on the continuing relevance of the vampire myth and how it still reveals much about contemporary society [Figure 9.58].

9.57 Nosferatu (1922). A historical paradigm for horror films.

9.58 Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979). As an example of generic reflexivity, Herzog’s film re-creates and manipulates the conventions and formulas of a horror film classic, specifically referencing images and themes from F. W. Murnau’s 1922 Nosferatu.

V I E w I n G C u E Place a film you recently watched in a generic tradition and discuss whether, how, and why it exemplifies classical or revisionist characteristics.

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Genre revisionism: Comparing

True Grit ( 1969 ) and True Grit ( 2010 )

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We can think of revisionist genres as a map of the history of film — they show how filmmakers regularly rethink and re-create generic formulas and conventions to reflect changing times and cul- tures. A comparison of the two versions of True Grit (1969, 2010) illustrates how a contemporary remake can be faithful to the original generic icons and formulas while revising and altering them to create a new film. That the Coen brothers’s remake stays remarkably close to the original content and style only highlights those instances where it revises the western genre and Henry Hathaway’s original film. Cen- tral to True Grit is the tough and independent cowboy Rooster Cog- burn (played by John Wayne in the 1969 version) — a true western icon. He is hired by the tough but refined fourteen-year-old Mattie to help track down her father’s killer [Figure 9.59a]. Jeff Bridges as the remade Rooster in the 2010 film is a more dissolute, lost, and troubled character — though equally iconic [Figure 9.59b]. While both versions are set in the open plains of the U.S. frontier, the 1969 film often frames and focuses the sets and setting around concen- trated actions, such as the gunfight around a cabin [Figure 9.59c]. The remake opens the spaces of the western in ways that seem to exaggerate the extreme isolation of the characters [Figure 9.59d]. Finally, in the climactic sequence in which Rooster races to find help for the dying Mattie, the 1969 film concentrates on the frantically clipped action in the bright light of day as Wayne drives a wagon pulled by horses [Figure 9.59e]. In contrast, the 2010 film presents a dramatic revision of this generic formula as it extends this long race through a surreal night, focusing on Mattie’s features as she fights against time and death. The action of the western now becomes a strangely meditative space [Figure 9.59f].

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To watch clips from both versions of True Grit, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

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p A r T 3 Organizational Structures: From Stories to Genres344

Local and Global Genres Although major Hollywood genres may be the most recognizable, we also notice generic patterns in films connected to more specific times, places, events, and cul- tures — what we might call “local” genres. Modern American “teen films” such as The Breakfast Club (1985), Heathers (1988), Clueless (1995), Bring It On (2000), and Easy A (2010) can be considered examples of a genre that relates in very particular ways to the characters, crises, and rituals of contemporary American youth [Figure 9.60].

In a sense, all genres are local because they first take shape to reflect the inter- ests and traditions of a particular community or nation. Westerns are essentially an American genre, although they have traveled successfully around the world to Australia, Italy, Spain, and many other countries. Although horror is now a global genre, horror films may have their roots in the expressionistic cinema of Germany around 1920.

Of the many local genres that have appeared around the world, two clearly stress the connection between genre and a particular culture: the Japanese jidai- geki films and the Austrian and German Heimat films. Popular since the 1920s, the Japanese jidai-geki films are period films or costume dramas set before 1868, when feudal Japan entered the modern Meiji period. Movies such as Revere the Emperor (1927) and A Diary of Chuji’s Travels (1927) work as historical travelogues to resurrect the customs and glory of times long past. Like most nations’ relationship to their preindustrial past, the Japanese view this period with curiosity, nostalgia, and pride, often seeing in these early films a kind of cultural purity that was lost in the twentieth century. Through the years, however, this genre, like all successful genres, has assimilated current affairs into its conventions and formulas: besides feudal courts and sword battles, jidai-geki films develop plots about class unrest and social rebellion. Akira Kurosawa’s Ran (1985) is an interesting engagement with this essentially Japanese genre: a feudal Japanese costume drama replete with many of the jidai-geki conventions, it is a film adapted from Shakespeare’s King Lear that, ultimately, describes the end of an ancient world [Figure 9.61].

Set in idyllic countryside locales, Austrian and German Heimat films depict a world of traditional folk values in which love and family triumph over virtually any social evil, and communities gather around maypoles and sing traditional German folk songs. Hailed by Austrian and German audiences throughout the

9.60 Easy A (2010). This film about a teenage girl using rumors about her promiscuity to elevate her social standing is part of the cycle of local teen films prevalent since the 1980s.

V I E w I n G C u E Consider whether and how the cultural or historical context seems to shade and shape the generic formulas used in a film you recently watched.

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Movie Genres: Conventions, Formulas, and Audience Expectations C H A p T E r 9 345

first half of the twentieth century, this genre thrived in both countries with films ranging from The Priest from Kirchfeld (1914) and Heimat (1938) to The Trapp Family (1956). As German filmmakers became more self-conscious about their historical background and the connection between this political history and the movies, modern films resurrected the Heimat genre, now reinterpreted as com- plicit in the social history of Germany. Peter Fleischmann’s Hunting Scenes from Bavaria (1969), Volker Schlöndorff ’s The Sudden Wealth of the Poor People of Kombach (1971), Edgar Reitz’s sixteen-hour Heimat (1984) [Figure 9.62], and

9.61 Ran (1985). The classical Shakespearean story of King Lear retold in this essentially Japanese genre film.

9.62 Heimat (1984). The traditional values of German home life are subjected to the conditions of postwar occupation.

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For some, Easy Rider (1969), which features two motor- cycle buddies driving aimlessly through America, rep- resents the historical center of the road movie genre [Figure 9.63]. A prescriptive definition of the road movie would doubtless place automobiles or motorcycles at the center of a narrative about wandering or driven men who are or eventually will become buddies. Structurally, the narrative develops along a linear path, as a quest that episodically unfolds and is punctuated by traveling shots of open roads and landscapes representing the stylistic heart of the genre. A descriptive definition would place at the center of this classically linear and episodic narra- tive an aimless odyssey toward freedom or an otherwise undefined place. If this structural paradigm can be found in Easy Rider, the genre has evolved and reappeared in numerous guises over the years.

The road movie genre has its origins in the 1930s, where the central motif of road travel occurs in such precursors as Wild Boys of the Road (1933), You Only Live Once (1937), and The Grapes of Wrath (1940), films that make traveling on the road the underpinning of the story. By the 1940s and 1950s, the more serious and existential dimensions of the road movie surface in They Drive by Night (1940), Detour (1945), and The Wages of Fear (1953), in which a lone male or male camaraderie (frequently inflected with anger and violence) moves to the center of the genre. Dur- ing the 1950s in the United States, the social turbulence associated with the road movie began to spread (especially to adolescents who sought for ways to express their angst against their families). That the automobile became the country’s social and industrial backbone only added to the per- tinence of the central convention of this genre.

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The 1960s and 1970s featured both classical road movies like Monte Hellman’s Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) and, more often, revisionist versions such as Weekend (1967), Duel (1972), Paper Moon (1973), Badlands (1973), Road Movie (1974), and The Car (1977). If Two-Lane Blacktop is a straightforward account of two young men racing across America to a romantically apocalyptic end, the latter movies revised those central themes and icons to reflect the changing times and styles: irony and pathos now permeate the adventure, and junk and garbage strew the highways. In the 1980s and 1990s, both culturally displaced and formally reflexive versions of road movies appeared: Mad Max (1979), Paris, Texas (1984), and Thelma & Louise (1991). In The Living End (1992), which resurrects the genre with searing relevancy, the two HIV- positive road buddies have more on their minds than the direction of the road. More recently, the witty and self- conscious O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) returns the genre to its historical roots, reappropriating its title and certain scenes from the 1941 comic road movie Sullivan’s Travels as it remakes Homer’s Odyssey into the frolicking road adventure of three escaped convicts.

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Genre History in Vagabond ( 1985 ) See also: La Strada (1954); Thelma & Louise (1991);

Happy Together (1997); Wendy and Lucy (2008)

FIlM In FOCuS bedfordstmartins.com /filmexperience

To watch a clip from Vagabond, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

9.63 Easy Rider (1969). Two disaffected bikers go searching for the “real America” and ride, direc- tionless, into violence, drugs, rock and roll, and eventually death.

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As part of this historical development, French film- maker Agnès Varda’s feminist film Vagabond (1985) is one of the most radical contemporary revisions of the road movie. At first glance, this film about a hitchhiking vagrant only partly resembles a road movie, lacking that prominent icon of a car, motorcycle, or other motorized vehicle. Moreover, rather than moving forward down the road, this film moves backward, beginning with the corpse of the female protagonist, Mona, in a roadside ditch. In order to explain how her body ended up there, the narrative presents a series of flashbacks, trac- ing her wanderings as she hitchhikes through the French countryside [Figure 9.64]. It recounts forty-seven different episodes, eighteen of which describe individual meetings with Mona on the road. A migrant worker, a tree special- ist named Landier and her assistant Jean-Pierre, a maid-servant named Yolande, and Mona’s temporary boy- friend David are some of the different people who befriend Mona and try to stop her wanderings or to just under- stand her.

An undefined search for identity propels the protagonists of most road movies and usually leads to some version of self-knowledge. Vagabond, however, changes the terms of that search. Instead of following the protag-

onist’s point of view as she searches the horizon or the rearview mirror for some insight into her present and past self, the film assumes the points of view of the eighteen people along the road, hoping their roadside perspec- tives will provide the key to this road warrior. Throughout, Mona remains an enigma, often refusing help and com- panionship, explaining herself only with quips like “Being alone is good” and “I move” [Figure 9.65]. Her movement becomes a refusal to have an identity or a claim to a self, knowable either to herself or to others.

The key to the generic detours in this road movie is clearly that a woman has now taken the road tradi- tionally claimed by men. Road movies commonly focus on male anxiety and desire; Vagabond, like the later Ameri-

can film Thelma & Louise, alters that central feature and, with this change, maps a new road and explores different questions about identity. Men may attack Mona or be put off by her, but on this road they will not contain or con- trol her. As in the classic road movie, the narrative and the film image continually move and progress in Vaga- bond. Here, however, progression and movement are the means of staying alive to the potential inherent in one’s self, rather than a way to search for some uncertain goal at the end of the road.

Movie Genres: Conventions, Formulas, and Audience Expectations c h a p t e r 9

9.64 Vagabond (1985). Unconventional in form and content, this movie opens up the road movie genre.

9.65 Vagabond (1985). Throughout the film, Mona is consistently impenetrable to those she meets on the road.

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p A r T 3 Organizational Structures: From Stories to Genres348

The six genres examined in the central section of this chapter are broad, but hardly all encompassing. Each of these genres draws on specific con- ventions, formulas, and audience expectations, while hybrid genres and subgenres extend the possibilities to the limits of those generic paradigms. Comedies can become more precisely slapstick comedies like 22 Jump Street (2014) or screwball comedies like His Girl Friday. Classical westerns evolve into political westerns such as No Country for Old Men. The family melo- drama Written on the Wind can be distinguished from the social melodrama Brokeback Mountain. And horror films run the gamut from the supernatual horror of The Exorcist to the grisly physical horror of Saw. Identifying films by their genre helps place them in their historical context by connecting them not just to similar generic movies, but to the plays, books, and works of art that have come before, and to the cultural and historical contexts that help define them. Since a film is a generic dialogue or social contract between filmmaker and audience, the genre is an unspoken agreement on the language of that dialogue, one that is often announced in a film’s open- ing frames.

For the next genre film you examine, ask these key questions:

■ Which generic expectations are created by the film and through which recognizable conventions and formulas? Through a setting, as with the theatrical sets of Hairspray or the opening of The Shining?

■ How does a film like Gravity (2013) engage and transform the conven- tions and formulas of science fiction found in films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey or another classic science fiction film?

■ Does the film fit a specific genre or subgenre as does the integrated musi- cal Les Misérables or the gangster crime film The Departed?

■ Consider your approach to genre. Are you working with a classical model that might read a film like Chinatown next to precedents like The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep? Or are you evaluating the film according to the ways it revises its generic tradition — as does Vagabond?

C O n C E p T S A T w O r K

Stefan Ruzowitzky’s The Inheritors (1998) are all explicit attacks on the mythology of this genre or reexaminations of its social meaning and power.

Recognizing film genres is a key part of the film experience, but understand- ing and evaluating those genres as part of larger historical, cultural, and con- ceptual frameworks enriches and broadens both our pleasure in and knowledge of what a specific film achieves. Identifying the prescriptive or descriptive model that informs your point of view and placing a film in a specific generic tradi- tion give that film layers and resonances that can add considerably to our film experience.

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Movie Genres: Conventions, Formulas, and Audience Expectations C H A p T E r 9 349

Activities ■ As an example of the communicative power of genre conventions, exam-

ine a film trailer or teaser, preferably for a film you have not seen, and try to identify the film’s genre as quickly as possible based on conven- tions and contextual clues. What visual and aural aspects indicate the film’s genre? Trailers often attempt to establish a film as one genre to trick audiences into setting up particular expectations before suddenly introducing a generic shift. Does your initial assessment change by the end of the trailer/teaser?

■ Choose a scene from a film that exemplifies that film’s genre. For a hor- ror film, this might be the moment when the killer finally steps out of the shadows. For a melodrama, this could be a scene of the heroine suffering. Try to determine what subtle changes would need to occur to change this scene to one that would exemplify a different genre. Consider diegetic and nondiegetic sound, lighting, and mise-en-scène as you proceed.

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P A R T 4

C R i T i C A l P e R s P e C T i v e s history, methods, writing

Often our feelings and thoughts about a particular film linger well after we leave the theater, eject a DVD, or turn off our computer. We may puzzle over a film’s meanings or over how it has managed to move us so

deeply. We may then seek out reviews, essays, or books about the film, its

director, or the country where it was made. As we become interested in film

history, criticism, theory, and analysis through our reading, we can also be

inspired to write about films.

In the next three chapters, we will explore and explain how knowledge

of film history, film criticism and theory, and the act of writing about film

deepen and enrich our experience of the movies. In Chapter 10, we survey

film history and consider different models used to understand cinema’s past.

Determining a “correct” or complete history of the cinema may be less im-

portant than recognizing the assumptions about film history that help shape

our understanding and enjoyment. Chapter 11 introduces theories of film and

examines different critical methods that have evolved over the years, while

Chapter 12 maps the steps and procedures for turning our initial perceptions

about a movie into a sophisticated essay. Through an understanding of film

history and historiography, theoretical speculation, and critical analysis, our

film experience grows and develops in as many directions as we are willing to

take it.

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C H A P T e R 10 History and Historiography: Hollywood and Beyond ■ Early cinemas

■ Cinema between the wars

■ Postwar cinemas

■ Contemporary film culture

■ The lost and found of film history

C H A P T e R 11 Reading about Film: Critical Theories and Methods ■ Early and classical film theory

■ Postwar film culture

■ Contemporary film theory

■ New directions in film theory

C H A P T e R 12 Writing a Film essay: Observations, Arguments, Research, and Analysis ■ Analytical film essays

■ Preparing to write

■ Elements of a film essay

■ Researching the movies

Photo: Jaap Buitendijk/© Paramount Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection

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10 chapter

Three films retell a similar story at different points over nearly fifty years of film history: All That Heaven Allows, a Hollywood melodrama made in 1955 by German émigré director Douglas Sirk; Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, directed in 1974 by German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder; and Far from Heaven, made in 2002 by Amer- ican independent Todd Haynes. The first, starring Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman in a romance between a middle-class widow and her gardener, is a glossy Tech- nicolor tale of social prejudice in small-town U.S.A. The second, concentrating on the love affair between an older cleaning woman and a young Arab guest worker, is a grittier story about age, race, class, and immigration in modern Germany. The third juxtaposes a husband’s desire for men with his wife’s developing interracial intimacy with their gardener, critiquing the facade of a typical 1950s family. While these are very different films — one a product of the Hollywood studio system, the second a low-budget film by an acclaimed German filmmaker of the 1970s, and the third an independent art-house film — they are deeply connected as remakes of a love story as social critique. At the same time, they represent threads in the rich tapestry of the film past, approached as a series of partial histories and historical viewpoints.

History and Historiography Hollywood and Beyond

353 © Focus Features/courtesy Everett Collection

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every decade, the British Film Institute (BFI) polls film critics and directors worldwide for their lists of the greatest films of all time. The results are enshrined as the cinematic canon; the Sight and Sound lists retain their prestige even in an era when “top ten” lists proliferate on the Internet. The 2012 critics’ poll results represented an exciting turn of events: Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane (1941) had finally been deposed after fifty years at the top in favor of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958), a film that did not appear on the list till 1982. There was also praise for some new additions, such as Man with a Movie Camera (1929) at number eight, and some laments, such as the lack of women directors.

Recognizing that the poll is both authoritative and “a barometer of critical tastes,” Sight and Sound took advantage of the BFI’s online presence to present a number of specialty lists to make up for the perception of stuffiness in the official top ten; “best post-68 films” and “top films by living directors,” for example, both address the lack of recent films. The number of alternate lists responds as well to the expansive archive now at critics’ disposal. The accessibility of decades of film his- tory through new technologies was unthinkable when the polls began — for example, Vertigo’s reputation and its late entry into the list were influenced by the fact that it was taken out of distribution for a decade. The impossibility of a definitive list of greatest films only encourages more ways of discovering the histories of cinema.

Movie history can take many shapes and forms from “best of ” lists to social and economic histories. In our discussion of film history, we aim not only to pre- sent key facts, names, and events, but also to indicate how our sense of history becomes richer and more insightful through an awareness of film historiography, the study of the methods and principles through which the past becomes organized according to certain perspectives and priorities.

K e Y O B J e C T i v e s ■ Draw the broad outlines and periods of film history. ■ Explain global dimensions of film history, emphasizing the distinctive nature

of different national cinemas as well as transnational influences. ■ Identify film practices and filmmakers marginalized by traditional Hollywood-

centered histories. ■ Describe “lost” film history and the importance of film preservation.

Since the first days of moving pictures, movies have attempted to make his- tory. The first movies, with their remarkable ability to present people and events as living images, began to record actual historical happenings and re-create historical moments. Since those early years, the cinema has become one of the most common ways people encounter the figures of the past. From the tale of the eighteenth- century Russian monarch Catherine the Great in The Scarlet Empress (1934) [Figure 10.1] to the story of John Reed and the Greenwich Village leftist movement in Reds (1981), movies have so powerfully and convincingly reconstructed the

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past that they have become the dominant framework through which many of us see and understand history.

Just as the movies construct visions of history for us, how we look at film history is the product of certain formulas and models. In the first half of this chapter, we present a chronological overview of film history. In the second half of the chapter, we introduce aspects of film history that can be overlooked in an approach based on periodization.

Periodization is a method of dividing film history into segments that help identify movies’ shared the- matic and stylistic concerns. For each of the following broad periods in our film survey — early, between the wars, post–World War II, and contemporary — we will reference key social events that define film histories. We will highlight formal and stylistic features of each period, as well as a few representative films and film- makers. While selecting only a few “masters and mas- terpieces” can downplay the many material forces that determine their status and value, knowledge of such major figures and films is an essential orientation to film history.

While Hollywood has a dominant economic and stylistic position in world film history, any view of film history would be sorely incomplete if it were to ignore the rich traditions of filmmaking beyond Hollywood. This chapter will examine film cultures from around the world — some as old as Hollywood and some just beginning to emerge.

In addition, we will consider lesser-known film cultures within the United States, exploring the extent to which women, African Americans, and lesbian, gay, transgender, and bisexual (LGBT) people have participated in independent cinema. Finally, we look at indigenous media and at the issue of preserving our rich and diverse film history.

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10.1 The Scarlet Empress (1934). History in the movies: Marlene Dietrich portrays a very glamorous Catherine the Great.

early Cinema The early cinema period, stretching from 1895 until roughly 1913, was character- ized by rapid development and experimentation in filmmaking before Hollywood achieved dominance and settled into the more defined patterns of its classical period. In the United States, massive industrialization attracted large numbers of immigrants and rural Americans to urban centers, shifting traditional class, race, and gender lines as the country experienced economic prosperity. Industrialization also fostered

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P A R T 4 Critical Perspectives: History, Methods, Writing356

the growth of leisure time and commercialized leisure activities, allowing popular culture to compete with high culture as never before. These patterns of modernization occurred all around the world; the invention of cinema and its rapid integration into the life of the masses was also an international phenomenon.

For many historians, the beginning of cinema history proper is the first screening of Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory on March 22, 1895, followed by the public screening of this and other Lumière films on December 18, 1895. Seeking the shock of the new, viewers in major cities all over the world flocked to see demonstrations of the new medium, like R. W. Paul’s 1896 racing film The Derby [Figure 10.2]. Soon commercial and the- atrical venues for showing movies to the general public arrived in the form of nickelodeon theaters, and in the United States, the major film companies standardized practices by forming the Motion Picture Patents Company (known as “the Trust”).

Stylistically, early cinema was characterized by the shift from single to multiple shots, and the beginnings of continuity

editing and variations in camera distance in the early elaboration of narrative form. From simple scenes like Fred Ott’s Sneeze (1896), movies quickly evolved to the dramatization of real or fictional events using multiple shots, logically connected in space and time. Released in 1903, Edwin S. Porter’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin presents fourteen shots introduced by intertitles to depict the highlights of the famous novel and play. By 1911, D. W. Griffith’s The Lonedale Operator, a short film about burglars threatening a telegraph operator, used around one hundred shots and parallel editing to build suspense.

Early genres ranged from slapstick comedy to Victorian literary adaptations. The characters in these short films were originally anonymous actors and actresses, but the emergence of the star system enhanced the cultural power of film. By 1911, the “Biograph Girl” was identified as Florence Lawrence, and celebrities like Mary Pickford — “America’s Sweetheart” — became the subject of fan magazines. In the 1910s, films produced in Italy, Denmark, and Japan circulated internationally. Eventually American movie production advanced in length and complexity, and Hollywood extended its reach around the world, producing half the films made worldwide in 1914, on the cusp of World War I.

10.2 The Derby (1896). The finish of the annual horse race, captured by British filmmakers R. W. Paul and Birt Acres, stands at the beginning of cinema’s evolution.

Cinema between the Wars Before the introduction of sound at the end of the 1920s, artistic film movements flourished internationally. But the devastating effects of World War I (1914–1918) in Europe and the emergence of the studio system and classical narrative style further consolidated Hollywood’s dominance as an exporter of commercial films. Hollywood experienced a golden age during the 1930s, and a number of other national cinemas developed distinctive linguistic and cultural traditions.

Classical Hollywood Cinema Classical Hollywood cinema includes both silent and sound films. Hollywood’s classical silent period, from roughly 1917 to 1927, saw the basic structures of clas- sical narrative and the studio system put into place. By 1920, comedies, lavish spectacles, and thrilling melodramas attracted fifty million weekly moviegoers, and attendance continued to soar during that decade.

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Silent Films Hollywood came of age with three major historical developments: the standardization of film produc- tion, the establishment of the feature film, and the cultural and economic expansion of movies through- out society. As the industry grew, standardized for- mulas for film production took root, and the studios created efficient teams of scriptwriters, producers, directors, camera operators, actors, and editors and established the longer feature-film model with a run- ning time of approximately one hundred minutes. The movies also found more sophisticated subject matter and more elegant theaters for distribution, reflecting their rising cultural status and their ability to attract audiences from all corners of society. Inter - nationally, Hollywood continued to extend its reach: while World War I wreaked havoc on European eco n- omies, Hollywood increased its exports fivefold and its overseas income by 35 percent. The most pronounced and important aesthetic changes dur- ing this period included the development of narrative realism and the integration of the viewer’s perspective into the editing and narrative action. Narrative realism came to the forefront of movie culture as the movies sought legitimization. From D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916) [Figure 10.3] through King Vidor’s The Big Parade (1925), films learned to explore simultaneous actions, complex spatial geographies, and the psychological interaction of char- acters through narrative — with camera movements, framing, and editing situating viewers within the narrative action rather than at a theatrical distance.

With these aesthetic developments came the refinement of genres. During this time, comedians and prominent silent film directors Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton drew audiences in with their slapstick vignettes and early narratives, defin- ing the art of the comedy in 1920s Hollywood. Although Chaplin and Keaton each created distinct styles and stories, both replaced the clownish and chaotic gym- nastics of early film comedies (such as Mack Sennett’s Keystone comedies) with nuanced and acrobatic gestures that dramatized serious human and social themes. Providing a bombastic counterpoint to silent comedies and dramas, Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (1923) was an expensive and technically advanced spec- tacle that marked another direction in silent film history [Figure 10.4]. Perhaps the most interesting balancing act in The Ten Commandments is its portrayal of lurid sex and violence, scenes that are continually reframed by a clear and strong moral perspective. A similar contradic- tion characterized American attitudes toward the movies more generally; the early 1920s saw a series of shocking sex and drug scandals involving Hollywood stars, and calls for censorship became widespread.

Sound Films The introduction of synchronized sound in 1927 in - augurated a period of Hollywood consolidation that lasted until the end of World War II in 1945. The Great Depression, triggered in part by the stock market col- lapse of 1929, defined the American cultural experience

10.3 Intolerance (1916). D. W. Griffith intertwines stories set in four different historical periods in this landmark in the evolution of narrative film form.

10.4 The Ten Commandments (1923). Cecil B. DeMille’s first version of the biblical story was a silent movie spectacular.

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at the beginning of the 1930s. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal became the politi- cal antidote for much of the 1930s, pumping a determined spirit of optimism into society. The catastrophic conflict of World War II then defined the last four years of the classical period, in which the country fully asserted its global leadership and control.

The film industry followed the turbulent events with dramatic changes of its own. The “Big Five” studios (Fox, MGM, Paramount, Warner Bros., and RKO) along with the “Little Three” (Columbia, Universal, and United Artists) dominated the industry by controlling distributors and theater chains and exerting great industrial and cultural power. With social issues more hotly debated and the movies gaining more influence than ever, the messages of films came increasingly under scrutiny.

Formed in 1922, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association of America (MPDAA, now the MPAA) enlisted former Postmaster General William H. Hays to internally regulate movies’ moral content in order to avert the threats of local censors through what became known as the “Hays Office.” The Motion Picture Production Code, adopted in 1930, was at first widely ignored, but in 1934 the MPDAA set up the Production Code Administration, headed by Joseph I. Breen, to enforce it strictly. The code’s conservative list of principles primarily governing the depiction of crime and sex kept censorship efforts within the industry.

At this time, Hollywood films followed these industry shifts with two important stylistic changes: the elaboration of movie dialogue and the growth of characteriza- tion in films, and the prominence of generic formulas in constructing film narratives.

Sound technology opened a whole new dimension to film form that allowed movies to expand their dramatic capacity. Accomplished writers flocked to Holly- wood, literary adaptations flourished, and characters became more psychologically complex through the use of dialogue. Meanwhile, generic formulas, like musicals and westerns, became the primary production and distribution standard. In fact, genres sometimes superseded the subject matter and actors in defining a film and expectations about it.

During Hollywood’s golden age, an exceptional number and variety of studio classics emerged. Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night (1934) is perhaps one of the best representations of the energy that was making its way from the New York theatrical stage to the Hollywood screen after the arrival of synchronized dialogue.

The film’s social allegory about common people correct- ing the greed and egotism of the rich would continue to define Capra’s vision throughout this decade and into the 1940s [Figure 10.5]. Similarly, veteran director John Ford elevated the western with Stagecoach (1939) — a film widely considered one of the finest examples of classi- cal Hollywood style. It depicted the tense journey of a mismatched group of passengers through the spectacular landscape of Monument Valley and established Ford’s long-lasting partnership with John Wayne. Stagecoach joined Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Wuthering Heights, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington as a con- tender for the best picture Oscar, making 1939 a banner year for classical Hollywood.

German Expressionist Cinema By the end of the 1930s, the aesthetic movements and national film industries that had developed in Europe during the silent and early sound eras were shaken by the threat of conflict. But the internationalism of the first decades of cinema meant that the aesthetic influences

10.5 It Happened One Night (1934). Frank Capra’s delightful screwball comedy about a rebellious socialite (Claudette Colbert) who flees her wealthy father and takes up, reluctantly, with a reporter (Clark Gable) who hopes to use her scandalous behavior as a news scoop, is a quintessential 1930s Hollywood film.

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of these movements were still considerable and lasting. Expressionism (in film, theater, painting, and the other arts) turned away from realist representation and toward the unconscious and irrational sides of human experi- ence. German expressionist cinema (1918–1929) veered away from the movies’ realist drive, representing irra- tional forces through lighting, set, and costume design.

After a national film industry was centralized toward the end of World War I, German films began to compete successfully with Hollywood cinema. The postwar Weimar Republic was a period in which cul- ture, science, and the arts flourished, and social norms were relaxed and modernized. Weimar-era cinema dif- fered from Hollywood models in that it successfully integrated an explicit commitment to artistic expres- sion into studio production through the giant national Universal Film AG, or UFA. The most famous achieve- ment of the expressionist trend in film history is Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), a dreamlike story of a somnambulist who, in the service of a mad tyrant, stalks innocent victims [Figure 10.6]. Along with its story of obsessed and troubled individuals, the film’s shadowy atmosphere and strangely distorted artifi- cial sets became trademarks of German expressionist cinema.

Two of the most important filmmakers at UFA are Fritz Lang, director of Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler (1922), Metropolis (1927), and M (1931), and F. W. Murnau, director of Nosferatu (1922) and The Last Laugh (1924). In Nosferatu, Murnau re- creates the vampire legend within a naturalistic setting, one that lighting, camera angles, and other expressive techniques infuse with a supernatural anxiety. Other notable “street films” — so called for their exterior urban settings — are G. W. Pabst’s The Joyless Street (1925) and Josef von Sternberg’s The Blue Angel (1930). In both, the realities of the streets become excessive, morbid, and emotionally twisted.

In the early sound film The Blue Angel, simultaneously filmed in German, French, and English, Marlene Dietrich plays her breakthrough role as a cabaret singer who seduces an aging professor. His decline into decadence under her erotic spell plays out the grim and seedy brilliance of German expressionism. During the rise of Nazism, much of the Weimar cinema’s creative personnel emigrated to the United States, where they intro- duced expressionist formal elements and moral ambiguities to films like Lang’s film noir The Woman in the Window (1944) [Figure 10.7].

Soviet Silent Films Soviet silent films from 1917 to 1931 represent a break from the entertainment history of the mov- ies. The Soviet cinema of this period developed out of the Russian Revolution of 1917, suggesting its distance from the assumptions and aims of the capitalist economics of Hollywood. This resulted in an emphasis on documentary and historical subjects, and a political concept of cinema cen- tered on audience response.

Dziga Vertov, a seminal theoretician and prac- titioner in this movement, established a collective

10.6 The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). Expressionist sets make this one of the most visually striking films in history.

10.7 The Woman in the Window (1944). Fritz Lang, the most prominent director in pre-Nazi Germany, later had a successful Hollywood career. This film — with its stylistic use of shadow and a protagonist whose obsession with a woman brings about his downfall — highlights the direct connection between American film noir and German expressionism.

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workshop — the Kinoki or “cinema-eyes” — to inves- tigate how cinema communicates both directly and subliminally. He and his colleagues were deeply com- mitted to presenting everyday truths rather than dis- tracting fictions, yet they also recognized that cinema elicits different ideas and responses according to how images are structured and edited. Thus they developed a montage aesthetic suited to the modern world into which the Soviet people were being catapulted (see pp. 137–38). In the spirit of these theories, Vertov’s creative documentary Man with a Movie Camera records not only the activity of the modern city but also how its energy is transformed by the camera recording it. Moving rapidly from one subject to another; using split screens, superimpositions, and variable film speeds; and continually placing the camera within the action, this movie does more than describe or narrate the city [Figure 10.8].

Although Soviet cinema at this time produced many exceptional films, Sergei Eisenstein’s Battle­

ship Potemkin (1925) quickly became the most renowned outside the U.S.S.R. (see pp. 170–71). About an uprising of oppressed sailors that heralded the coming revolution, the film retains its place in film history because of its brilliant demon- stration of Eisenstein’s theories of montage. The film’s extraordinary international and critical success enabled Eisenstein to travel throughout Europe and even to Hollywood, before beginning a project in Mexico. Eventually he returned to the Soviet Union, where, under Joseph Stalin, socialist realism had become the official program in filmmaking. Consequently, the careers of Eisenstein, Vertov, and the other major experimental filmmakers of the revolutionary period suffered.

French Impressionist Cinema and Poetic Realism While Hollywood cinema was mostly preoccupied with the new possibilities of dia- logue and the creation of generic formulas in the 1920s and 1930s, French directors conducted radical experiments with film form. As in contemporaneous visual arts like impressionist painting, French impressionist cinema destabilized familiar or objective ways of seeing and revitalized the dynamics of human perception.

Representative of the early impressionist films are Germaine Dulac’s The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928), Jean Epstein’s The Fall of the House of Usher (1928), Marcel L’Herbier’s L’Argent (1928), and Abel Gance’s three daring narra- tive films, I Accuse (1919), The Wheel (1923), and Napoléon (1927). Dulac’s sur- realist film illustrates the daring play between subject matter and form typical of these  films: The Seashell and the Clergyman barely concentrates on its story (a priest pursues a beautiful woman), focusing instead on the memories, hallucina- tions, and fantasies of the central character, depicted with split screens and other strange imagistic effects [Figure 10.9].

Developing out of these avant-garde films in the 1930s was the more com- mercial poetic realism of René Clair, Jean Vigo, Marcel Carné, and Jean Renoir. These socially conscious directors integrated poetic innovations into traditional narrative realism.

Renoir’s The Rules of the Game (1939) [Figure 10.10] is on one level a realistic account of social conflict and disintegration. A tale of aristocrats and their servants gathered for a holiday in the country, the film is a satirical and often biting critique of the hypocrisy and brutality of this microcosm of decadent society. The film’s insight and wit come from lighting, long takes, and framing that draw out dark ironies not

10.8 Man with a Movie Camera (1929). The image of the cameraman looms over the city, implying the central role of cinema in modern life.

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visible on the surface of the relationships. One of the film’s most noted sequences features a hunting expedition in which the editing searingly equates the slaughter of birds and rabbits with the social behavior of the hunters toward each other.

Jean Vigo’s Zero for Conduct (1933) takes up the themes of rebellion and social critique by depicting tyranny at a boys’ boarding school. The spirit of rebellion in the boys is conveyed in a combination of realistic narrative and lyrical, sometimes fantastical, images. These images dramatize the wild and anarchic vision of the young boys: at one point a pillow fight erupts in the dormitory, and the whirlwind of pillow feathers transforms the room into a paradise of disorder. The spirit of poeticism and critique that informed these directors’ visions, while not impossible to convey in Hollywood films of the period, was discouraged by the industrial and commercial orientation of filmmaking in Hollywood.

10.9 The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928). In a surreal image from the film collaboration between Germaine Dulac and Antonin Artaud, the main character sees his own head in the seashell.

10.10 The Rules of the Game (1939). Jean Renoir’s masterwork of French cinema is known for its fluid style and critique of bourgeois society.

Postwar Cinemas The aftermath of World War II — from the inhuman nightmare of the Nazi con- centration camps to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 — overshadowed economic prosperity and surface optimism in the United States and reshaped geography and politics worldwide. This period, which extended roughly from 1946 to 1968, saw numerous global film movements, including the turbulent and transitional postwar Hollywood cinema, Italian neorealism, the French New Wave, the recognition of Japanese cinema in the West, and the emergence of Third Cinema. A new consciousness of film’s role in national and cultural life, along with decolonization and other great changes and challenges wrought by the war, breathed vitality into cinema globally.

Postwar Hollywood Unrest characterized postwar America. The start of the Cold War with the Soviet Union and the Communist bloc began an extended period of tension and anxiety about national identity and security. Traditional institutions, such as the family

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unit, sexual relationships, and established social relations stood on the brink of tre- mendous change. In the 1950s and 1960s, the civil rights movement and women’s liberation would begin to mobilize to challenge social injustice. Changes within the film industry dismantled some of the power of the studios, opening American cinema to many of these social and political changes.

The most notorious ideological conflict in Hollywood history occurred immedi- ately after the war, when the film industry came under congressional investigation for alleged Communist infiltration. The movie colony was a sensational target for the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) hearings held as part of the Red Scare instigated by Senator Joseph McCarthy [Figure 10.11].

Ten writers and directors who refused to answer the committee’s question, “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?” were cited for contempt of Congress and eventually served short prison terms [Figure 10.12]. Others served as “friendly witnesses,” naming names. Although HUAC’s charges remained unconfirmed, its intimidation tactics were influential. Accusations of present or past Communist Party affiliation devastated Hollywood’s creative pool and led to the blacklisting of more than three hundred screenwriters, directors, actors, and technical personnel.

A number of other events had great impact on Hollywood during the postwar period. In the Supreme Court’s 1948 U.S. v. Paramount decision, the studios were ordered to divest their theater chains and end their control of the industry. This decline in studio power was accompanied by the arrival of television and its rapid spread in the 1950s. Finally, in 1968, the Production Code era officially ended and the ratings system was introduced. Movies grew more daring and darker as they loosened or challenged the formulas of classical Hollywood and explored more controversial themes and issues. Competing with television, they also developed a more self-conscious and exaggerated sense of image composition and narrative structure.

Beginning with The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) and its layered tale of postwar trauma in small-town America, films delved into such subjects as family betrayal, alcoholism and drug abuse, sexuality, racial injustice, and psychological breakdowns. These topics introduced more unpredictable characters and narratives as well as sometimes subversive and violent visual styles, exemplified in Orson Welles’s Touch of Evil (1958) and Alfred Hitchcock’s shocking Psycho (1960).

10.11 Senator Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy’s anti-Communist fervor planted the seeds for the blacklisting of numerous progressive film personnel, including directors, screenwriters, and actors. AP Photo

10.12 The Hollywood Ten. Refusing to answer HUAC’s questions, these ten directors, screenwriters, and producers were jailed for contempt of Congress. © Bettmann/CORBIS

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John  Ford’s westerns can be seen as historical barometers of this transitional and turbulent period in Hollywood: My Darling Clementine (1946), the prototypical western, is a meditation on the power of nature and communal indi- vidualism to overcome evil, while The Searchers (1956) is a morally ambivalent tale about where violence resides, featuring an older John Wayne as a racist cowboy [Figure 10.13].

Examples of the film noir cycle, Charles Vidor’s Gilda (1946) and Howard Hawks’s The Big Sleep (1946) both reflect the postwar period’s social and personal instability and explore the perceived threat of female sexuality. As if re - flecting their troubled characters and actions in their form, film noir narratives seem to lose their direction, and their visual styles are over- whelmed with gloom. Rita Hayworth’s perfor- mance in Gilda transforms the femme fatale into a sympathetic character, however, appealing to female audi- ences who were confronting the conflicted roles of women in the 1940s, when their new freedoms in the workforce were perceived as a threat to returning veterans [Figure 10.14].

By the late 1950s and 1960s, younger audiences came to the forefront of movie culture: drive-ins and teenage audiences are one example; another is the college and urban audiences for art films and other alternative cinemas that proliferated after 1960. Nicholas Ray’s Rebel Without a Cause (1955) gives a then-shocking depiction of a gen- erational crisis in America in which teenagers drift aim- lessly beyond parental guidance [Figure 10.15]. At the same time, with films like Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal (1957) and Federico Fellini’s 8½ (1963) — two very different meditations on existential questions — movies came to be considered complex artistic objects that justified aesthetic appreciation and academic study.

Italian Neorealism One of the most profound influences on the emerging international postwar art cinema was Italian neorealism (1942–1952), whose relatively short history belies its profound historical impact. At a critical juncture of world history, Italian cinema revitalized film culture by depicting post- war social crises and using a stark, realistic style clearly different from the glossy enter- tainment formulas of Hollywood and other studio systems.

Earlier in the century, Italian film spectacles such as Quo Vadis? (1913) and Cabiria (1914) had created a taste for lavish epics. The films produced at the Cinecittà (“cinema city”) studios under Benito Mus- solini’s Fascist regime (1922–1943) were similarly glossy, decorative entertainments. During wartime in 1942, screenwriter Cesare

10.13 The Searchers (1956). John Ford’s late western uses lead actor John Wayne, and the Monument Valley settings familiar from their long collaboration, to bring out dark themes of racist violence in the settling of the West. The film’s structure and hero had a profound effect on the New Hollywood directors of the 1970s.

10.15 Rebel Without a Cause (1955). Teenage angst and juvenile delinquency are on display in Nicholas Ray’s CinemaScope classic.

10.14 Gilda (1946). Set in a casino in Argentina at the end of World War II, this film indirectly represents fears about shifting gender roles on the home front.

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Zavattini called for a new cinema that would forsake entertainment formulas and promote social realism instead. Luchino Visconti responded with Osses­ sione (1943), and Vittorio De Sica directed Zavat- tini’s screenplays to produce such classics as Bicycle Thieves (1948). Perhaps the best example of the accomplishments and contradictions of this move- ment is Roberto Rossellini’s Rome, Open City (1945), shot under adverse conditions at the end of the war [Figure 10.16]. Set during the Nazi occupation of Rome (1943–1944), the film intentionally approxi- mates newsreel images to depict the strained and desperate street life of the war-torn city. The plot also employs the harsh reality of life in the city, as it tells of a community trying to protect a resistance fighter being hunted by the German SS and of the tragic deaths of those caught in between. One of its most shocking scenes shows the torture of one of these individuals. Despite the melodrama of its plot about lovers and families torn apart, the grim real- ism of Rome, Open City sounded a note that rever-

berated through postwar movie cultures. Subsequent Italian cinema — including the work of directors Pier Paolo Pasolini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Vittorio and Paolo Taviani, Marco Bellocchio, Bernardo Bertolucci, and even Federico Fellini — follows from this neorealist history even when it introduces new forms and subjects.

French New Wave A particularly rich period of cinema history occurs in the wake of Italian neoreal- ism, from the 1950s through the 1970s, when numerous daring film movements, often designated as new waves, appeared in Brazil, Czechoslovakia, England, France, Germany, and Japan, among other countries. Despite their exceptional variety, these different new waves share two common postwar interests that coun- terpoint their often nationalistic flavor: the use of film to express a personal vision, and a break with past filmmaking institutions and genres.

The first and most influential new wave cinema, the Nouvelle Vague or French New Wave, came to prominence in the late 1950s, with an exceptionally rich vari- ety of films influenced by filmmakers as diverse as Robert Bresson and Jacques Tati. Within a little more than a year, three definitive films appeared: Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (1960), François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (1959), and Alain Resnais’s Hiro­ shima, mon amour (1959). Although the style and subject matter of these films are extremely different, they each demonstrate the struggle for personal expression and the formal investigation of film as a communication system.

The vitality of these films made a break with the past and an immediate impact on international audiences. Indeed, this vitality was often expressed in memorable stylistic innovations, such as the freeze frame on the boy protagonist’s face that ends The 400 Blows, the jump cuts that register the restlessness of the antihero of Breathless, and the time-traveling editing of Hiroshima, mon amour.

Much of the inspiration for the French New Wave filmmakers sprang from the work of film critic and theoretician André Bazin. In 1951, Bazin helped estab- lish the journal Cahiers du cinéma, a forum from which emerged some of the most renowned directors and critics of the movement, including Eric Rohmer and Claude Chabrol [Figure 10.17] as well as Truffaut and Godard. The revitalization of film language occurred in conjunction with the journal’s policy of auteurism

v i e W i n g C u e bedfordstmartins.com /filmexperience

View the online clips of Gilda (1946) and Rome, Open City (1945), which were produced at roughly the same time. What makes them identifiable by period? Can you identify contrasts between classical Hollywood and Italian neorealist style?

10.16 Rome, Open City (1945). Roberto Rossellini’s film exemplifies Italian neorealism in its use of war-ravaged locations, nonprofessional actors, and contemporary subject matter.

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(la politique des auteurs) or auteur theory, which emphasized the role of the director as an expres- sive author (see pp. 406–7). Writing and directing their own films, paying tribute to the important figures emerging in other national cinemas — like Michelangelo Antonioni, Ingmar Bergman, and Akira Kurosawa — and rediscovering the work of Hollywood directors, the young French filmmaker- critics helped shape the perspective and culture that elevated film to the art form it is considered to be today.

Japanese Cinema Japan is one of the world’s largest film-producing nations, with a long and varied tradition using distinct perceptual and generic forms and drawing on a range of cultural and artistic traditions. After World War II and the subsequent Allied occupation, Japanese films increasingly incorporated Hollywood forms and styles, yet generally they emphasize the contemplative aspect of images and place character rather than action at the center of a narrative.

Kenji Mizoguchi, Yasujiro Ozu, Akira Kurosawa, and Nagisa Oshima are among the most celebrated names in Japanese cinema, with the long careers of the first two beginning in the silent period (which lasted into the 1930s in Japan). Ozu’s mid-career masterpiece, Tokyo Story (1953), highlights his ex - quisite sense of the rhythms of everyday life, con- veyed through carefully composed frames, long takes, and a low camera height [Figure 10.18].

The energies of postwar cinema are especially evident in Kurosawa’s Rashomon (1950), which uses multiple, contradictory narrations of the same crime from characters’ differing points of view. The film won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival, and Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu (1950) received the fes- tival’s Silver Lion soon after. Recognition at European film festivals established Japanese cinema’s centrality to postwar art cinema and helped Japanese auteurs achieve international notoriety. Japanese filmmakers continued to make a mark. Oshima’s violent erotic masterpiece, In the Realm of the Senses (1976), helped define Japan’s new wave. Juzo Itami’s Tampopo (1985) bridges the culturally specific and the culturally shared with its depiction of the pleasures of noodle eating.

Going beyond art cinema, many distinctly Japa- nese genres produced for national audiences eventually earned international followings. The first of dozens of films featuring the monster Godzilla was produced in 1954, and Japanese animation, or anime, was launched in the postwar period. The distinctive style and complex plots of later anime like Ghost in the Shell (1995) won worldwide audiences and influenced Hollywood pro- ductions [Figure 10.19].

10.17 Claude Chabrol (1980). Chabrol was both a critic for Cahiers du cinéma and one of the directors associated with the rise of the French New Wave. His more than forty films were often influenced by Alfred Hitchcock, about whom he and Éric Rohmer published a book in 1957. Nancy R. Schiff/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

10.18 Tokyo Story (1953). Carefully composed images suggest the rhythms of everyday life.

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Third Cinema The growing influence of film festivals in the decades after World War II helped foster film art and commerce internationally. Inspired by the politicized atmosphere of Third World decolonization in the 1960s, Argentine film- makers Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino championed revolutionary films in opposition to Hollywood and to state-dominated film cultures elsewhere, which they dubbed “first cinema,” and in response to the elitist aesthet- ics of auteurist art cinema or “second cinema.” Third Cinema, a term coined in their 1969 manifesto “Towards a Third Cinema,” has been used to unite films from many countries un - der one political and formal rubric, including

some made by Europeans, such as The Battle of Algiers (1966), directed by Italian Marxist Gillo Pontecorvo in cooperation with the victorious Algerian revolutionary government. In Latin America, Solanas and Getino’s The Hour of the Furnaces (1968) incited political oppo- sition and cultural renewal in Argentina, and Black God, White Devil (1964) by prominent Brazilian cinema novo director Glauber Rocha embraced cultural diver- sity and violence.

Third Cinema aimed both to reject technical per- fection in opposition to commercial traditions, and to embrace film as the voice of the people. These goals often entailed combining modernist techniques drawn from Soviet montage and from filmmakers like Jean- Luc Godard — such as fragmented formal structures and analytical voiceovers — with populist documentary sub- ject matter and traditions.

The creation of the Cuban Institute of Cinemato- graphic Art and Industry in postrevolutionary Cuba provided the ideal testing ground for integrating film

with an emerging nation’s cultural identity. Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s Memories of Underdevelopment (1968) is one of the best-known examples of Third Cinema. Its politically engaged story of a middle-class intellectual contemplating the changes in postrevolutionary society is innovatively filmed [Figure 10.20].

The very term “Third Cinema” evokes its particular era in world politics — one that was dominated by First and Second World superpowers, preoccupied with the Cold War, and that witnessed the sometimes violent nation-building struggles of the Third World. The ways in which politics and culture intersect on global, regional, national, and local levels would continue to shift beyond this era.

10.19 Ghost in the Shell (1995). The film’s unique style and dramatic science fiction plot appealed to audiences all around the world and influenced The Matrix (1999).

10.20 Memories of Underdevelopment (1968). Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s postrevolutionary Cuban film is an example of Third Cinema.

Contemporary Film Cultures We will discuss the most recent period in film history, beginning around 1965 and continuing through the present, under the designation “contemporary cinema." In the United States, the social anger and confusion of the Vietnam War colored the early part of this era, and new pressures emerged when that war ended in 1975.

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Racial and gender politics, which had informed the strains and shifts of the 1950s, became a defining part of the landscape. These events and changes brought cultural issues like immigration, multiculturalism, and gender and sexual identity to the forefront of film culture.

The dissolution of the Soviet bloc in the 1990s redistributed global power. Postcolonial migrations continued to transform European societies and global cit- ies, and international debt policies impacted developing nations. The rise of new nationalisms and fundamentalisms ignited violent conflicts and prolonged wars. Cinema and other kinds of cultural production became crucial to mediating indi- viduals’ experiences of these global events and transformations.

It would be impossible to be fully inclusive of contemporary global film culture in a few pages. New cinemas regularly leap to prominence on the global scene, and the economy of global film production and distribution reinforces the tendency toward international co-productions. We have selected a few examples that illu- minate important histories and trends — contemporary Hollywood and European, Indian, Chinese, African, and Iranian cinemas — with the recognition that there are a host of other national and regional cinemas, as well as directors, aesthetic move- ments, and institutions that would reward attention.

Contemporary Hollywood Since the 1960s, the commercial movie industry in the United States has been noticeably affected by four forces: the dominance of youth audiences, the increasing influence of European art films, globalization, and the rise of such economic and technological innovations as blockbusters, cable, home video, and media convergence.

In the 1970s, Hollywood turned some of its power over to young filmmakers, who began to address the teenage audiences that made up larger and larger por- tions of the moviegoing public. The Godfather (1972) and Taxi Driver (1976) are part of a remarkable series of films from the so-called New Hollywood [Figure 10.21]. Influenced by European art cinemas, this movement took imaginative risks in form and subject matter. Hollywood’s strategy for courting youth audiences changed signifi- cantly, however, when global conglomerate enterprises began to assimilate and shape Hollywood. Corporate Hollywood redirected youthful energy toward more commercial blockbusters and global markets. Finally, VCRs, cable television, and later DVDs and Internet streaming disseminated movies in ways that offered viewers more variety and control.

Amid so many cataclysmic changes in film cul- ture, two trends dominate the contemporary period: the elevation of image spectacles and special effects, and the fragmentation and reflexivity of narrative constructions.

On the one hand, contemporary movies frequently drift away from the traditional focus on narrative and instead emphasize sensational mise-en-scène or dra- matic manipulations of the film image. In this context, conventional realism gives way to intentionally artifi- cial, spectacular, or even cartoonish representations of characters, places, and actions. Playful films like Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) [Figure 10.22] allow cartoon characters to interact with human ones, whereas a more

v i e W i n g C u e Scan local film and television listings, noting how many differ- ent countries are represented. If the range is limited, why do you think this is so? If you have located foreign films, what kinds of venues or channels show them?

10.21 The Godfather (1972). Perhaps the key example of New Hollywood, Francis Ford Coppola’s film was an economic and artistic success.

10.22 Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). Cartoon characters interacting with actors exemplifies a contemporary interest in spectacle and a self-consciousness about film form.

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serious drama like The King of Comedy (1983) shows an obsessive fan replacing the real world with strange fantasies.

On the other hand, contemporary movies that do fully engage narrative tradi- tions often intentionally fragment, reframe, or distort the narrative in ways that challenge its coherence. Memento (2000) reconstructs narrative through its con- tinually changing retrospective perspectives, all subject to the narrator/protago- nist’s lack of short-term memory; the result is a series of overlapping episodes that eventually leads back to the murder that started the film. In Babel (2006), an inter- national co-production directed by Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu, interlocking story lines unfold in multiple languages and on several continents. This new narrative complexity may relate to viewers’ familiarity with game worlds and to their ability to watch and rewatch these complex works on DVD to piece together narrative strands.

One characteristic of the most recent chapter of Hollywood moviemaking, from about 1980 to the present, has been the idea of the auteur, most often the director, as a brand. We can pinpoint three signature films of the 1980s and 1990s as evidence of this phenomenon: Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982), David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986), and Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994). Each of these films is a dramatic visual and narrative experiment that investigates the confusion of human identity, violence, and ethics at the end of the twentieth century. In Blade Runner, Deckard (played by Harrison Ford) hunts down human replicants in a fascinatingly dark and visually complex dystopia where technol- ogy creates beings “more human than human.” With Blue Velvet, Lynch fashions a nightmarish version of small-town America in which Jeffrey, the protagonist, discovers violence seething through his everyday community and his own naive soul. In Pulp Fiction, where violence is also a measure of human communication, the narrative follows the unpredictable actions and reflections of two hit men who philosophically meditate out loud about the Bible, loyalty, and McDonald’s hamburgers [Figure 10.23]. These exceptional films demonstrate not only great imaginative quality but also professional skill and innovativeness. These filmmak- ers are in part able to produce such daring and disturbing projects and success- fully distribute them within mainstream film culture because their own personae become part of what is marketed.

The prominence of the director in driving movie commerce has taken on even higher financial stakes as studio film budgets have soared. This is nowhere more evident than in the career of James Cameron. While the huge budgets, innovative technology, and massive promotional campaigns of Titanic (1997) and Avatar (2009) helped make them two of the highest-grossing films in both the United States and the worldwide box office, Cameron’s reputation and “brand” were also key to their success.

Contemporary Independent Cinema Auteurism, or the promotion of a director’s vision, is one of the ways that independently financed films began to see commercial viability in the 1980s. New York–based writer-directors committed to their own visions like Jim Jar- musch — Stranger Than Paradise (1984) — and Spike Lee — She’s Gotta Have It (1986) — earned critical praise and audience attention. The suc- cess of Steven Soderbergh’s sex, lies, and video­

10.23 Pulp Fiction (1994). The running commentary of the hit men played by John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson marks this as a Quentin Tarantino film.

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tape at both the Cannes and Sundance film festivals in 1989 marked a new era of American independent filmmaking, with Sundance at its center. Independent feature films are often noted for controversial sub- ject matter and dark tone; examples include Todd Solondz's Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995) and Mary Harron's American Psycho (2000). The aggressive marketing model of distributor Miramax’s films, and the expan- sion of art-house cinemas outside university towns made for a viable independent sec- tor. This attracted the notice of Hollywood, which began to distribute and develop such films through specialty divisions. Stars were drawn to the possibility of challenging roles, and they were often promoted for awards. While such practices blur the distinction between Hollywood and independent film- making, a director-driven, lower-budget form of feature and documentary film- making still provides a vital alternative to mega-budget blockbusters developed for worldwide markets. Recent movies like Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012), Frances Ha (2012), and Man Push Cart (2005) [Figure 10.24] are examples of the additional points of view that can be offered by independent movies.

In part because the big-budget Hollywood production model of the 1990s and 2000s is unattainable anywhere else, many national and regional cinemas have organized themselves around what makes them aesthetically distinctive, at the same time enacting funding, import/export, and distribution policies that can keep them competitive. One way that these cinemas have counteracted Hollywood’s continuing commercial dominance is with an increasingly organized circuit of film festivals that fosters contributions from many nations and the development of transnational and regional industrial alternatives.

Contemporary European Cinema A number of youth-driven new wave movements emerged in both Eastern and Western Europe in the 1960s and 1970s, notable among them the Czech New Wave and New German Cinema. Although the spirit of these movements, and the formal innovations of the films, challenged entrenched state- and commercially domi- nated national film industries, they were still largely identified with the concept of “the nation.” Here we present New German Cinema as an example and then relate it to the transnational models of European cinema today.

New German Cinema was launched in 1962, when a group of young filmmak- ers declared a new agenda for German film in a film festival document called the Oberhausen Manifesto. A unique mix of government subsidies, international critical acclaim, and domestic television and worldwide film festival exposure established New German Cinema as an integral product of West Germany’s national culture. This extraordinarily vital and stylistically diverse cinema can nevertheless be char- acterized by a confrontation with Germany’s Nazi and postwar past, approached directly or through an examination of the current political and cultural climate, and an emphasis on the distinctive, often maverick, visions of individual directors.

Alexander Kluge, one of the political founders of New German Cinema, uses mod- ernist film practices to question the interpretation of history in Yesterday Girl (1966).

10.24 Man Push Cart (2005). Contemporary American independent cinema includes quiet dramas like this story of a former Pakistani rock star’s life as a street vendor as well as more commercially oriented fare.

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One reason Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver remains such a powerful and rich film today is its keen self- consciousness about its place in film history and the complex historical references it puts into play. Taxi Driver is suffused with the historical events that colored and shaped U.S. society in the 1970s and shares many char- acteristics with other films of the era. At the same time, it echoes and recalls Hollywood’s classical and postwar periods, suggesting that one of the defining features of contemporary film is its awareness of past cinematic tra- ditions. For instance, Scorsese commissioned the film’s haunting score from composer Bernard Herrmann, best known for his collaborations with Orson Welles on Citizen Kane and Alfred Hitchcock on Vertigo, Psycho, and other films. The darkness lurking in these films is fully em- braced in Taxi Driver and resonates in Herrmann’s music.

The story, written by filmmaker Paul Schrader, fo - cuses on a New York cabdriver, Travis Bickle (played by Scorsese regular Robert De Niro), and his increasing alienation from the city in which he lives and works. As he cruises New York locked in the isolated compartment of his cab, his voiceover narration rambles and meditates on his entrapment in a world that has lost its innocence and seems to be progressing only toward its own destruc- tion. Travis decries the filth and decadence of the city and considers violent and apocalyptic solutions like assassinating a politician. Attempting to break out of the bitter routines of his existence, he imagines himself the savior of Iris (played by a thirteen-year-old Jodie Foster), a young prostitute, and attracts the ire of her pimp. The film ends with a ghastly bloodbath in which Travis murders the pimp, followed by the unsettling announcement that Travis has become a media hero.

The issues and atmosphere of 1970s U.S. society pervade Taxi Driver. Flagged by Travis’s veteran’s jacket and the traumatized personality associated with young sol- diers returning from the Vietnam War, the specter of that war haunts the film. Travis’s violent personality echoes a whole decade of U.S. violence: the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. and, as an explicit source for the film, Arthur Bremer’s attempted

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assassination of Alabama governor George Wallace. The violence in Taxi Driver associates it with many other films made since the 1970s. These range from A Clockwork Orange (1971) to Natural Born Killers (1994), in which modern life and identity are tied to the psychological and social prevalence of violence, and graphic and often unmotivated violence becomes a desperate means of expression for lost souls. Five years after its release, Taxi Driver remained a barometer of modern America. When John Hinckley Jr. tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in 1981, he claimed to have been inspired by Taxi Driver and had hoped, in killing a president, to “effect a mystical union with Jodie Foster.”

As a part of its consciousness about the burdens of the past, the film’s plot explicitly recalls John Ford’s The Searchers and implicitly recalls other classical west- erns, such as Ford’s Stagecoach via the Mohawk haircut Travis acquires midway through the film and the Native American look of the pimp Travis kills. Like Ford’s Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) in The Searchers, Travis becomes alienated from most social interaction, yet he yearns, through his determination to “save” Iris, to restore some lost form of family and community. He wants to be a hero in an age when there is little possibility for heroic action. Yet the recollection of earlier periods of Hollywood history and the plots and characters they produced only highlights the historical differences of this film: Travis is a fully modern antihero, one with no frontier to explore and only imaginary heroics to motivate him. New York is not the Wild West, and Travis clearly lacks the proud, clear vision and the noble purpose of a western hero like the Ringo Kid in the classic Stagecoach. That a younger, more cynical audience was the primary target of and the vehicle for the success of Taxi Driver indicates that the changing social tastes and attitudes of audiences play a large part in determining the variations among films of different historical periods.

Stylistically, Taxi Driver consistently suggests a high degree of self-consciousness about its narrative organization and images. Scorsese employs two formal patterns typical of New Hollywood films: exaggerated or

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Taxi Driver and new Hollywood ( 1976 ) See also: The Graduate (1967); Chinatown (1974)

FilM in FOCus bedfordstmartins.com /filmexperience

To watch a clip from Taxi Driver, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

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hyper- realistic cinematography and an often interiorized narrative perspective. Both of these patterns suggest the influence of French New Wave directors on Scorsese and on other films of this period, such as Apocalypse Now (1979). Taxi Driver paints New York City through hyper- realistic images that seem to be the product of either a strained mind or a strained society. Shots of New York at night gleam and swirl with flashing colors, creating a carnivalesque atmosphere of neon and glass. Frames (like those of the cab window and its rearview mirror) constantly call attention to a subjective, partial point of view [Figure 10.25]. This attention to the frames through which we see and understand the world then crystallizes in one of the most renowned shots of the movie. Mid- way through the film, Travis equips himself with various guns, and while he poses before a mirror, he repeatedly addresses himself with the famous line “You talkin’ to me?” As he watches himself in the mirror, identity appears to split, one image of self violently confronting the other [Figure 10.26]. This line could be an epigraph for contemporary movies on divided identity.

Similarly, the first-person narration of Taxi Driver provides an almost psychotic staging of Travis’s per- sonal desires and anxieties. “One day, indistinguishable from the next, a long continuous chain,” Travis rambles

on through the private voiceover. This drifting interior narrative jumps from one psychological state and illogi- cal action to another: Travis tries, for instance, to court a woman with a date at a pornographic movie, and later he plans to assassinate her employer, a politician run- ning for office, for no apparent reason. When Travis initi- ates his final bloody attack on Iris’s pimp, the narrative takes its most unpredictable turn: despite the bizarre motivation for this event (to rescue a young woman who does not wish to be rescued) and the shockingly graphic slaughter that leaves a trail of shredded bod- ies, Travis becomes a community hero, celebrated in newspapers for his rescue of Iris. At this moment of anticipated closure, narrative logic becomes strained to the point of fracturing. A “happy ending” to a narrative motivated and shaped by a narcissistic and unbalanced mind seems to subvert the possibility of a traditional narrative logic in Taxi Driver — and possibly even in this contemporary world.

Taxi Driver acts out the signs of its times, socially and artistically. However, this film demonstrates that recent cinema also bears the burden of its past. Being true to its present requires unusual awareness of the dramatic changes and fissures that distinguish the film from its historical heritage.

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10.25 Taxi Driver (1976). The windshield functions as a frame for Travis Bickle’s limited point of view.

10.26 Taxi Driver (1976). The famous scene in which the main character, Travis Bickle, confronts his mirror image demonstrates a divided and shifting identity.

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Perhaps the movement’s most celebrated and prolific director, Rainer Werner Fass- binder produced a trilogy of films about postwar Germany. The first, The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979), adapts the Holly- wood melodrama to tell of a soldier’s widow who builds a fortune in the after- math of the war [Figure 10.27]. By 1984, Edgar Reitz’s sixteen-hour television series Heimat, in part a response to the American television miniseries Holocaust (1978), demonstrated that the cultural silence about the Nazi era had definitively been broken.

On the international stage, how- ever, the hallmark of New German Cin- ema was less its depiction of historical, political, and social questions than the distinctive personae and filmic visions of its most celebrated participants. The

visionary Wim Wenders, the driven Werner Herzog, and the enormously produc- tive, despotic, and hard-living Fassbinder were easily packaged as auteurs with outsized personalities. Wim Wenders’s films, including Alice in the Cities (1974) and Wings of Desire (1987), are philosophical reflections on the nature of the cine- matic image and the encounter between Europe and the United States. Werner Her- zog’s Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972) and Fitzcarraldo (1982) are bold depictions of extreme cultural encounters set in Latin American jungles. Several of the most successful directors began to work abroad, and with wider social shifts and changes in cultural policy in Germany, the heyday of New German Cinema came to an end. In unified Germany, where many of these filmmakers continue to work, interest- ing new directions are indicated by Tom Tykwer’s international hit Run Lola Run (1998); Fatih Akin’s films exploring Turkish-German culture, including The Edge of Heaven (2007) [Figure 10.28]; and Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s Academy Award–winning The Lives of Others (2006), set in the former East Germany.

As these examples of recent German filmmaking suggest, traditional under- standings of the category of “national” do not adequately encapsulate contem- porary cinema. Take, for example, the success of Danish cinema since the 1990s. Subsidized by the government in collaboration with other Scandinavian countries,

sustained by the activities of the Danish Film Institute, and bolstered by the notoriety of the Dogme 95 film movement that called for a new realism facilitated by the possibilities of digital filmmaking, Danish films have been embraced by Danish audiences, inter- national festivals, and art-house audiences. The high profile of Danish film ranges from the controversial films of Lars von Trier such as Breaking the Waves (1996) and Antichrist (2009) to Susanne Bier’s socially conscious drama In a Better World (2010) about a Danish doctor who works in Africa and his son’s rebellion at home, which won the Acad- emy Award for best foreign language film.

As Bier’s film illustrates, globalization is reflected in both the subject matter and the

10.27 The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979). Rainer Werner Fassbinder made forty feature films in a short career as one of the most celebrated representatives of New German Cinema. This historical drama featuring frequent Fassbinder star Hanna Schygulla was one of his most commercially successful films.

10.28 The Edge of Heaven (2007). Several of Fatih Akin’s films address the German-Turkish culture clash in the lives of their characters.

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model of financing of much of European cinema today. International European co- productions emerged in the wake of World War II to increase available financing and to combat the perceived cultural and commercial threat of American imports. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the founding of the European Union in 1993, trans- and supranational film production, distribution, and exhibition structures are as prominent in the landscape of contemporary European cinema as are culturally and industrially distinct national cinemas.

Indian Cinema Indian cinema is the world’s most prolific industry, and it has thrived since the first Indian film premiered in 1913. The subcontinent’s large population is served by films produced not only in Hindi in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) studios, but also in a number of other languages of India, including Bengali, Marathi, and Tamil. Audiences outside India — in South and Southeast Asia and the Middle East as well as Indian diasporan audiences in the West — contribute to the industry’s success and influence.

The golden age of Indian cinema came after independence in 1948 with the ascendance of the Bombay-based industry with its stars, songs, and spectacu- lar successes. During the same period, Parallel Cinema, an alternative to India’s commercial cinema centered mainly in Calcutta and exemplified by the films of renowned director Satyajit Ray, achieved prominence. Ray’s modest black-and- white film Pather Panchali (1955) has been heralded internationally as a master- piece of realist style. This film, together with the two subsequent features in the “Apu trilogy” (named after their main character), is rooted in Bengali literature, landscape, and culture. Both traditions — popular blockbusters and realist, regional dramas — continue to thrive in contemporary Indian cinema.

In the 1970s, India overtook Hollywood as the world’s largest film producer, driven largely by the hundreds of Hindi-language films produced annually in Mumbai. Often referred to as Bollywood films, they are a dominant cultural form notable for rootedness in Hindu culture and mythology and for elaborate song- and-dance numbers.

With an episodic narrative form based in theatrical traditions that accommo- date musical numbers, many Hindi films highlight star performances: Nargis plays the title role of Mehboob Khan’s Mother India (1957) [Figure 10.29], and the phe- nomenally successful action star Amitabh Bachchan was featured in the most popular Bollywood film of all time, Sholay (1975). In the 1990s, Shahrukh Khan skyrocketed to popularity in such films as Dilwale Dul­ hania Le Jayenge (1995) and Shanti Om (2007), with a fan base numbering in the billions.

The cricket film Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India (2001) capitalized on the international popular- ity of Indian cinema to bid for attention from more mainstream critics and audiences abroad, especially in North America and the United Kingdom. This strategy became more successful throughout the decade with international releases like My Name Is Khan (2010) [Figure 10.30]. The transnational dimension of Indian film can also be seen in movies directed by filmmakers of the Indian diaspora. For example, Gurinder Chadha’s Bride & Prejudice (2004), an adaptation (with musical numbers) of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and Mira Nair’s award-winning Monsoon Wedding (2001) borrow some of the visual and narrative tropes of

v i e W i n g C u e Compare a Western and a non- Western film. What differences exist in the narrative or visual elements?

10.29 Mother India (1957). Legendary Indian actress Nargis (born Fatime Rashid) in the iconic role of a mother who withstands hardship and becomes an allegorical figure of an independent India.

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Bollywood cinema. In  2008, when Slumdog Millionaire, British director Danny Boyle’s film about a Mumbai street kid turned game-show contestant, won the Oscar for best picture, the international influence of Indian cinema could not be contested.

African Cinema African cinema encompasses an entire conti- nent and, hence, many languages, cultures, and nations, each with varying levels of economic development and infrastructure. An initial dis- tinction can be made between North African and sub-Saharan African cinema.

North African cinema has a long history, beginning with the Egyptian debut of the Lumières’ Cinématographe in 1896. After the introduction of sound, a com- mercial industry developed in Egypt that still dominates the movie screens of Arab countries. Youssef Chahine, working both in popular genres and on more politi- cal and personal projects (in which he sometimes appeared), was a cosmopolitan presence in Egyptian cinema from the 1950s to his death in 2008. His autobio- graphical trilogy, beginning with Alexandria . . . Why? (1979), is notable for its humor, frank approach to sexuality, and inventive structure. In recent Tunisian production, art films predominate, several of which are directed by and/or tell the stories of women. Moufida Tlatli’s The Silences of the Palace (1994) opens in the postindependence period and follows a young woman singer as she remembers her girlhood as a palace servant. Many prominent filmmakers from Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria have received training or financing from France, which allows for high production values and distribution abroad but also draws upon their countries’ colonial past, at least in the filmmaking context.

Taking shape in the 1960s after decolonization, and often linked to the politi- cal and aesthetic precepts of Third Cinema, sub-Saharan African cinema encom- passes the relatively well-financed francophone, or French-language, cinema of West Africa; films from a range of anglophone, or English-speaking, countries; and films in African languages such as Wolof and Swahili. Although it is difficult to generalize about this rapidly expanding film culture, some of its most influen-

tial features and shorts have been united by a focus on social and political themes rather than commercial interests, and an exploration of the conflicts between tradition and modernity.

At the forefront of this vital development is the most respected proponent of African cinema, Senega- lese filmmaker Ousmane Sembène, who in 1966 directed sub-Saharan Africa’s first feature film, La noire de . . . (Black Girl), with extremely limited technical and financial resources. The film, based on Sembène’s own novel, follows a young woman who travels from Dakar, Senegal, to Monte Carlo to work with a white family as a nanny. She soon becomes disillusioned with her situation, trapped in the home, cooking and cleaning. Her French voiceover records her increasing despair. Simply composed long shots depict her as enclosed and restricted by her surroundings [Figure 10.31]. Although he made only eight features before his death in 2007, Sembène’s films are remarkable for their moral vision,

10.30 My Name Is Khan (2010). This successful vehicle for power couple Shahrukh Khan and Kajol deals with anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States after 9/11. Ironically, during a promotional visit to the United States, Khan was detained by airport security — because of his name.

10.31 Black Girl (1966). Simple long shots and a stark mise-en-scène depict the young woman’s sense of entrapment and alienation.

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accessible storytelling, and range of characters. His protagonists represent aspects of traditional and modern African life without becoming two- dimensional symbols.

Internationally known francophone film- makers include Idrissa Ouedraogo from Burkina Faso (Tilai, 1990) and Souleymane Cissé (Finye, 1982; Yeelen, 1987) and Abderrahmane Sissako (Life on Earth, 1998; Bamako, 2006) from Mali. Sissako’s films have been hailed as exquisite commentaries on the impact of globalization on Africa. Filmmakers are active all over the continent — in Ghana, Congo, Zimbabwe, and South Africa — and the shift to digital production has made a significant impact in these under- capitalized industries. The Nigerian film industry, known as Nollywood, has witnessed a stunning boom in the 1990s and 2000s driven by the hun- ger of audiences for African-produced images that are relevant to them and their lives. Producing popular genre films shot and distributed on video, such as Tunde Kelani’s Arugbá (2010) [Figure 10.32], Nollywood overtook Hollywood in 2006 in terms of the number of films released annually.

Besides the limited financial and technical resources for film production, one of the biggest hurdles to the development of cinema in Africa is the lack of dis- tribution and exhibition infrastructure that would enable African audiences to see African-made films in theaters. The Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO) in Burkina Faso is vital in this context. Filmmakers from all over the continent and the African diaspora meet at the festival, held every other year, to show and view others’ work and to strategize about how to extend the cinema’s popular influence.

Chinese Cinema Chinese cinema poses its own challenge to models of national cinema because it includes films from the “three Chinas” — the People’s Republic of China (or mainland China); Hong Kong, which reverted to Chinese sovereignty in 1997; and Taiwan. Each of these areas developed under a different social and political regime, so the industries vary greatly in terms of commercial structure, the degree of government oversight, audience expectations, and even language. Yet they are all culturally united and increasingly economically interdependent.

Film in the People’s Republic of China In mainland China after the 1949 Communist Revolution, cinema production was nearly halted and strictly limited to propaganda purposes. It was further disrupted during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, when leader Mao Zedong referred to American films as “sugar-coated bullets.” It was not until the 1980s that a group of filmmakers emerged, the so-called Fifth Generation (referring to their class at the Beijing Film Academy), who were interested both in the formal potential of the medium and in critical social content. Two characteristics stood out: an emphasis on rural or historical subjects filmed with great beauty, and ordinary protagonists.

The enthusiastic reception given Huang tu di (Yellow Earth) (1985) at interna- tional film festivals made director Chen Kaige and cinematographer Zhang Yimou the most acclaimed filmmakers of this movement. The strong aesthetic vision of Fifth Generation films, stemming from the filmmakers’ experiences growing up as

10.32 Arugbá (2010). Veteran Nigerian filmmaker Tunde Kelani’s film, which depicts the issues facing an accomplished young woman selected to participate in the annual community festival, was embraced by critics and audiences but economically undermined by video piracy.

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marginalized artists during the Cultural Revolution, made a critical statement in its own right. However, this body of work, essentially art films, did not reach China’s vast popular audiences.

With Zhang Yimou’s directorial turn came a series of lush, sensuous films featuring Gong Li, an unknown actress who became an international film star. Zhang’s films Ju dou (1990) and Raise the Red Lantern (1991) [Figure 10.33] were the targets of censorship at home and the recipients of prizes and co-financing offers abroad. Later forays into wuxia, or martial arts films — Hero (2002) and House of Flying Daggers (2004) — and his direction of the Beijing Olympic ceremonies in 2008 established Zhang as a commercially successful, breathtaking visual stylist.

After the violent suppression of protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989, a new underground film movement emerged in the People’s Republic of China. The work of the so-called Sixth Generation was characterized by exploration of controversial themes in contemporary urban life and production without official approval. For example, Zhang Yuan’s East Palace, West Palace (1996) was mainland China’s first film about gay life. One of the most internationally acclaimed filmmakers of this group, Jia Zhangke, was finally granted state approval to make his fourth feature, The World (2004), which depicts the uprooted lives of young employees at a Bei- jing theme park in heartbreaking, wry visual compositions [Figure 10.34]. Jia works modestly in both documentary and fiction, a versatility facilitated by his use of digital cinema. Still Life (2006), a drama set against the background of the Three Gorges Dam, won the Venice Film Festival’s top prize.

Hong Kong Cinema After the phenomenal international success of low-budget Hong Kong kung-fu films in the 1970s, the sophisticated style of the Hong Kong New Wave led by producer-director Tsui Hark exploded on the scene. These Hong Kong films were known for lucrative production methods and a canny use of Western action ele- ments. Director John Woo became internationally known for his technical exper- tise and visceral editing of violent action films like The Killer (1989). Along with legendary stunt star Jackie Chan, Woo brought the Hong Kong style to Hollywood in such films as Face/Off (1997).

The stylish, even avant-garde work of Wong Kar-wai made an impact with its quirky stories of marginal figures moving through a postmodern, urban world, photo- graphed and edited in an utterly distinctive style that finds beauty in the accidental and the momentary. Happy Together (1997) is the ironic title of a tale of two men drifting in and out of a relationship, set in a Buenos Aires that is not so different, in its urban anxiety, from the men’s home of Hong Kong. Wong’s In the Mood for Love (2000) is set in the 1960s among cosmopolitan former residents of Shanghai who are trying to establish a pattern of life in Hong Kong [Figure 10.35].

10.33 Raise the Red Lantern (1991). Gong Li became an international art-film star in the films of Fifth Generation Chinese director Zhang Yimou.

10.34 The World (2004). The Beijing theme park in which this film is set provides ironic visual commentary on the characters’ limited options.

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Taiwan Cinema Contemplative family sagas by acclaimed auteurs of the new Taiwan cinema, Hou Hsiao-hsien’s A City of Sadness (1989) and Edward Yang’s Yi yi (2000) reflect on the identity of contemporary Taiwan, positioned between mainland China, where much of its popula- tion comes from, and the West with which it trades. The work of their younger colleague Tsai Ming-liang builds on these directors in the use of formal precision, such as very long takes often deployed to convey a pervasive melancholy. While these directors have been heralded in international contexts, their films are less successful at home. In 2008, the box-office smash Cape No. 7 by Wei Te-Sheng, featuring pop stars and a his- torical mystery, capped a trend of audiences supporting youth-oriented domestic films at the Taiwan box office.

Iranian Cinema While many Chinese films have achieved strong commercial as well as critical suc- cess internationally, Iranian cinema is notable for its many festival prizes and critical acclaim abroad. The art films of this Islamic nation are characterized by spare picto- rial beauty, often of landscapes or scenes of everyday life on the margins, and an elliptical storytelling mode that developed in part as a response to state regulation.

Following the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, cinema was attacked as a corrupt Western influence and movie theaters were closed, but by the 1990s, both a popular cinema and a distinctive artistic film culture developed. The latter became a way to enhance Iran’s international reputation, especially during the more moderate rule of Mohammad Khatami from 1997 to 2005. Films by such directors as Abbas Kiarostami and Mohsen Makhmalbaf became the most internationally admired and accessible expressions of contemporary Iranian culture as well as some of the most highly praised examples of global cinema. In Kiarostami’s Taste of Cherry (1997), beautiful, barren landscapes are the settings for wandering characters’ existential conversations. Jafar Panahi’s popular The White Balloon (1995) depicts a little girl’s search for a goldfish. Rural settings and child protagonists helped filmmakers avoid the censorship from religious leaders that contemporary social themes would attract. These strategies also evaded strictures forbidding adult male and female characters from touching — a compromise that at least avoided offering a distorted picture of domestic and romantic life.

More recently, however, filmmakers have used the international approval accorded Iranian films to tackle volatile social issues such as drugs and prostitu- tion in portrayals of contemporary urban life. Panahi’s The Circle (2000), banned in Iran, focuses on the plight of women, some of whom find prison a refuge; Makhmalbaf ’s Kandahar (2000) depicts the situation of neighboring Afghanistan just before that country became the focus of international attention and the target of a U.S.-led military campaign [Figure 10.36]. These depictions of controversial issues have tested the limits of the government’s tolerance. In December 2010, Panahi was sentenced to a six-year jail term and banned from making films for twenty years by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s regime (see Chapter 8).

10.35 In the Mood for Love (2000). In this film by Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar-wai, stylish characters make chance connections amid the urban alienation of Hong Kong.

10.36 Kandahar (2000). Makhmalbaf’s film explores the volatile social issues in Afghanistan just prior to the U.S.-led military campaign there.

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One of the most interesting apparent contradic- tions in Iranian cinema is the prominence of women filmmakers. Strict religious decrees require that female characters be portrayed with their heads covered and forbid a range of onscreen behaviors, including sing- ing. Nevertheless, behind the camera many Iranian women filmmakers — such as Tahmineh Milani, who was arrested for her film The Hidden Half (2001), and Samira Makhmalbaf (daughter of Mohsen Makhmal- baf ), whose first feature film, The Apple (1998), was made when she was only eighteen — have achieved more than their contemporaries in many Western countries. Similar themes are more explicitly treated in the French animated film Persepolis (2007) by Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi, based on the latter’s graphic novel about her girlhood in Iran [Figure 10.37] (see pp. 412–13).

In each of these examples of contemporary film cultures, we can see the role of cinema’s powerful images and narratives in defining and challenging national and regional identities. A global perspective looks at cinema in the context of multiple and overlapping political and cultural histories. Providing alternatives to Hollywood, film culture in the twenty-first century depends increasingly on inter- national financing and the circulation of films through networks of festivals, where prizes and reviews help publicize not only the films and their directors, but also the changing circumstances of their places of origin.

10.37 Persepolis (2007). Marjane Satrapi’s autobiographical graphic novels satirize the Islamic Revolution, and their film adaptation, made with Vincent Paronnaud in France, was not looked upon favorably in the country of her birth.

v i e W i n g C u e Compare at least two films from the same movement (such as New German Cinema or Hong Kong New Wave). Do the characteristics discussed in this chapter apply?

The lost and Found of Film History Writing film history is not a straightforward enterprise; it involves interpreta- tion and making choices about what to include. The process is made more dif- ficult because important dimensions of the past remain hidden to the historian. For example, an estimated 80 percent of American films from the silent era are presumed to be lost. Moreover, standards of what’s important are not timeless or universally shared. Debates about criteria of inclusion and exclusion are familiar in literary studies, where the accepted list of essential great works is called the canon. However, the concept of a film canon may give cultural weight to movies that audiences do not particularly enjoy, and it inevitably sets up some films and filmmakers as more authoritative than others.

Is it possible to write histories that remove the element of biased selection? One approach is to excavate the cinematic past for undervalued contributions and tradi- tions and thereby to discover the unacknowledged antecedents of some of today’s diverse film practices. Such a corrective history does not argue that rediscovered films should replace or even be put on a par with previously lauded masterpieces. Rather, it tries to consider different questions about the past and its artifacts and uncover which version of the past has been accepted in order to supplement this version with missing perspectives.

In the shadow of canonized filmmakers and films, many others have been denied major status despite their significant historical contributions. Of these many omissions, we will focus on several histories that are key to a full under- standing of U.S. cinema: women filmmakers, African American cinema, lesbian/ gay/bisexual/transgender (LGBT) film culture, and indigenous media. Finally, we will provide an introduction to issues of film preservation through the concept

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of “orphan films.” These are ephemeral or noncommer- cial films that, despite their lack of traditional cultural value, have survived or been rescued, yielding fascinat- ing glimpses of the past.

Women Filmmakers The American movie industry today remains male dominated, with women directing only 6 percent of the 250 top-grossing films in the United States in 2013. In independent, documentary, and experimental filmmak- ing, access for women is much less prohibitive, but these arenas are less visible than Hollywood filmmaking.

Interestingly, in the early years of a wide-open industry, women entered film in great numbers as direc- tors and producers as well as assistants, writers, editors, and actresses. Alice Guy Blaché, who made what some consider the first fiction film, La fée aux choux (The Cabbage Fairy) in 1896 in France, set up her own U.S. company and turned out hundreds of films from her New Jersey studio [Figure 10.38]. Lois Weber, an actress turned writer, director, and producer, was one of the most important and highly paid American filmmakers in the 1910s — almost as well known as fellow directors Cecil B. DeMille and D. W. Griffith. She directed scores of movies, often on social issues. Where Are My Children? (1916), for example, opposed abortion but advocated birth control [Figure 10.39]. Nevertheless, both Alice Guy Blaché and Lois Weber have been excluded from most mainstream his- tories of the cinema.

By the 1920s, as the movies became established in Hollywood as big business, most women who were active behind the scenes in the early U.S. industry began to encounter difficulties. In the studios, only writers and editors continued to work in any notable numbers. The most prominent and, for a considerable period, the only active female director in sound-era Hollywood was Dorothy Arzner [Figure 10.40]. Her films Christopher Strong (1933) and Dance, Girl, Dance (1940) feature strong heroines played by top stars, and they portray significant bonds between women. The next woman to achieve director credit in the industry, Ida Lupino, originally

10.38 Alice Guy Blaché in 1915. The earliest and most prolific woman director in history has barely been acknowledged in mainstream film histories. Ft. Lee Public Library, Silent FIlm Collection, Ft. Lee, NJ

10.39 Where Are My Children? (1916). The film by Lois Weber deals with the controversial social issues of birth control and abortion.

10.40 Dorothy Arzner. Arzner was the only woman to direct Hollywood films in the 1930s, the heyday of the studio system. Courtesy Photofest

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a well-known actress, directed hard-hitting, low-budget independent films such as Hard, Fast and Beautiful (1951), about a mother who pushes her daughter to suc- ceed in a tennis career. Lupino later had a successful directing career in television, a new arena that offered more opportunities for women. Since their rediscovery by feminists in the 1970s, Arzner and Lupino have been the focus of rewarding scholarship on what it meant to be a woman director in the male-dominant power structure of the studio system.

Women in Independent Film Because of their position outside the capital-intensive world of Hollywood main- stream filmmaking, the avant-garde, documentary, and independent movements have been more accessible to women filmmakers than feature filmmaking. Prob- ably the best-known American avant-garde filmmaker is Maya Deren. A Russian immigrant, Deren began making her poetic, dance-inspired films in the early 1940s and paved the way for other female avant-garde filmmakers (see Chapter 8). Shirley Clarke made both abstract films and the remarkable interview film Portrait of Jason (1967) and co-founded the influential Film-Makers’ Cooperative of New York (see Chapter 8). Yoko Ono pursued filmmaking in addition to music and other areas of artistic expression, producing the humorous Film No. 4 (Bottoms) (1966) and the harrowing Rape (1969).

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, an explicitly feminist avant-garde move- ment emerged with artists and filmmakers like Carolee Schneemann, who filmed herself and her husband making love in Fuses (1967), and Yvonne Rainer, who incorporated her work as a dancer, as well as experiments with language and text, in the feature-length Film about a Woman Who . . . (1974). Barbara Hammer has used experimental film language to explore lesbian identity and eroticism, as well as other questions of representation, in more than eighty short films produced since the early 1970s. Lizzie Borden’s Born in Flames (1983) imagined a postrevo- lutionary future in which women, still unequal citizens, organized to fight back [Figure 10.41]. Much of this work, as well as that of experimental feminist film- makers outside the United States, including Belgium’s Chantal Akerman, England’s Sally Potter, and France’s Marguerite Duras, was analyzed in and fostered by the galvanizing critical work by feminist film theorists such as Laura Mulvey in the 1970s and 1980s.

Social justice issues are frequently highlighted in documentary and short film forms, where women have a strong foothold. Prominent among docu- mentarians is Barbara Kopple, who has earned two Academy Awards for her documentaries on striking workers, Harlan County, U.S.A. (1976) and American Dream (1990). Christine Choy has produced many documentaries on social issues, including Who Killed Vincent Chin? (1987), made with Renee Tajima. African American filmmaker Ayoka Chenzira uses an animated format for Hairpiece: A Film for Nappy­ headed People (1984). Julie Dash’s influential short film Illusions (1982), the story of a black woman who “passes” as white in order to enter the motion-picture business during World War II, was a precursor to her breakthrough independent feature, Daughters of the Dust (1991). These and many other works by women filmmakers typically circulate outside theatrical exhi- bition structures, in places such as universities and media arts centers.

10.41 Born in Flames (1983). A multiracial group of New York women rebel in the not-too-distant future in Lizzie Borden’s collaboratively scripted feminist film.

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Independent features by women writers, directors, and producers are appearing in ever greater numbers. Allison Anders makes films based on her own experiences, such as Gas Food Lodging (1992), and on those of other girls and women, such as Mi Vida Loca (1993), about Chicana gang members. As an indepen- dent feature film producer, Christine Vachon has brought to the screen daring and acclaimed works by a number of women directors, includ- ing Rose Troche and Guinevere Turner’s lesbian romance Go Fish (1994); Kimberly Peirce’s de - but drama based on the murder of transgender Brandon Teena, Boys Don’t Cry (1999); and Mary Harron’s The Notorious Bettie Page (2005), a feminist take on the life of the 1950s pinup model. While there are still only a few indepen- dent women directors, such as Mira Nair (The Namesake, 2006) and Sofia Coppola (The Bling Ring, 2013), who have established the critical and commercial success needed to sustain high-profile careers, women like Nicole Holofcener (Enough Said, 2013) [Figure 10.42] and Debra Granik (Winter’s Bone, 2010) are garnering signifi- cant media and popular attention with their distinctive artistic visions. A number of women of color and lesbian directors are also making their mark in independent feature filmmaking, including Lisa Cholodenko (Laurel Canyon, 2002; The Kids Are All Right, 2010), Gina Prince-Bythewood (Love & Basketball, 2000; The Secret Life of Bees, 2008), Angela Robinson (D.E.B.S., 2004; Herbie Fully Loaded, 2005), and Karyn Kusama (Girlfight, 2000; Jennifer’s Body, 2009) [Figure 10.43]. Many of these directors work in television as they get their feature film projects off the ground.

Women in Contemporary Hollywood Women entered contemporary Hollywood production slowly, with some of the first inroads to the prestigious position of director made by actresses who already had indus- try clout: Elaine May, Barbra Streisand, Penny Marshall, and Jodie Foster, for example. Women directors are rarely assigned to the highest-budget films, and therefore most are excluded from histories that focus on prestige or blockbuster films. Indeed, women have often more readily been hired as directors in such genres as youth films and romantic and family comedies. Pioneering Hollywood women filmmakers who made interesting statements in these genres include Amy Heckerling with Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) and Clueless (1995), Penny Mar- shall with A League of Their Own (1992), and Penelope Spheeris with The Decline of Western Civilization (1981) and Wayne’s World (1992). Susan Seidelman wrote and directed the New York–based comedy Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), giving Madonna her first film role.

On a larger scale, writer and director Nora Ephron mastered the romantic comedy formula in Sleepless in Seattle (1993) and continued to focus on women’s themes in Julie & Julia (2009); Nancy Meyers (It’s Complicated, 2009) was well established as a writer and producer before turning to directing films aimed comfortably at women consumers. A director with an art-school background who specializes in traditionally male genres, Kathryn Bigelow broke from this mold

10.42 Enough Said (2013). Nicole Holofcener’s comic drama about midlife dating features one of James Gandolfini’s final performances.

10.43 Jennifer’s Body (2009). Screenwriter Diablo Cody teamed up with Karen Kusama to make this feminist horror film. Although it garnered pre-release buzz, it failed at the box office.

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with films such as Near Dark (1987), a bizarre vampire film, and the surfer film Point Break (1991). In 2010, Bigelow became the first woman to receive the Oscar for best director for her war film The Hurt Locker (2008), which also won the best picture award [Figure 10.44]. Bigelow's follow-up Zero Dark Thirty (2012), a controversial depiction of the hunt for Osama bin Laden, also includes the adrenaline-pumping action sequences for which she is noted.

The rediscovery of women filmmakers in American film history and the advocacy for increased participation of women in all levels and forms of film production are crucial steps toward equity. Going beyond the recovery of forgotten names and films, viewers can ask of all films to what extent women are featured in the story, anticipated in the audience, or employed in nontraditional capacities.

African American Cinema Dominant Hollywood cinema has afforded only a limited range of representation for African, Asian, Latino, Arab, and Native Americans. When not absent from the screen altogether, these groups have traditionally been present in a small repertoire of stereotyped roles. The role of people of color behind the screen has historically been even more restricted.

Some of the earliest U.S. films featured racial themes, usually drawn from the egregious stereotypes circulating in minstrel shows and other forms of popular culture. Later, performers such as Carmen Miranda and Lena Horne were

highlighted in specialty numbers in Hollywood musicals but were denied starring roles. Such representations have been challenged by the alternative perspectives put forward in independent films by people of color.

African American cinema provides an important case study because of its his- torical scope and contemporary breadth as well as its economic impact. In addition, African American identity bears a symbolic weight in a nation that is increasingly willing to acknowledge its historical conflicts in terms of black and white, though often still marginalizing the images and voices of other people of color.

Spike Lee’s Bamboozled (2000) revisits the terrain of African American images in entertainment: in order to expose his white boss’s hypocritical appropriation of African American culture, a contempo - rary black television producer proposes a modern-day television minstrel show, replete with stock nineteenth-century stereotypes of subservient, caricatured African Americans [Figure 10.45]. The protagonist is stunned by the enormous success of the show, which even starts a fad for blackface. However, the film implies that the success of the show is in part due to the enormous talent the per- formers channel into the songs and dances. Featuring the brilliant dancer Savion Glover, Lee’s film acknowledges the genius of his- torical performers like African American

v i e W i n g C u e Consider a recent film you watched that was directed by a woman. How would you characterize and distin- guish the filmmaker’s perspective behind the camera?

10.44 Kathryn Bigelow. In 2010, Kathryn Bigelow was the first woman to be acknowledged by the Academy for best director — and only the fourth to be nominated in the history of the Oscars. Courtesy AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill

10.45 Bamboozled (2000). Spike Lee’s aggressive and historically informed film confronts the legacy of racist stereotyping in American entertainment.

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blackface artist Bert Williams and dancer Bill Rob- inson, known for his pairings with Shirley Temple.

Early Independent African American Cinema Representing a distinguished and even heroic alter- native to Hollywood history, independent African American film culture developed in the 1910s and 1920s in response to various phenomena — from the “race consciousness” of African American audi- ences cultivated by the burgeoning literature of the Harlem Renaissance and recordings by black musicians, to the realities of racism and segrega- tion in the South. Opposition to the inflammatory depictions of blacks in The Birth of a Nation was a significant impetus for claiming film as a medium for self-representation. So-called race movies fea- tured African American casts and were circulated to urban African American audiences in the North and shown in special segregated screenings in the South (including late-night screenings known as “midnight rambles”) [Figure 10.46]. Some race mov- ies were produced by white entrepreneurs, but several prominent production com- panies were owned by African Americans. As early as 1910, for example, Bill Foster founded the Foster Photoplay Company in Chicago, while in 1916, actor Noble Johnson formed the all-black Lincoln Motion Picture Company in Los Angeles with his brother and other partners.

The most important figure in early independent African American cinema is the novelist, writer, producer-director, and impresario Oscar Micheaux, who directed the first African American feature film [Figure 10.47]. Micheaux owned and operated his own production company from 1918 to 1948, producing nearly forty feature films on extremely limited budgets. He fashioned a distinctly non-Hollywood style whose “errors” have been interpreted as an alternative aes- thetic. His most controversial film, Within Our Gates (1920), which realistically portrayed the spread of lynching, was threatened with censorship in Chi- cago, which had just seen a wave of race riots. Later, in Body and Soul (1925), Micheaux teamed up with actor, singer, and activist Paul Robeson in a power- ful portrait of a corrupt preacher.

Another important writer-director-actor, Spencer Williams contributed considerably to African Ameri- can film history and aesthetics with his religious films. The pictorial beauty of his The Blood of Jesus (1941) is echoed in scenes from Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust. Although Williams contributed to sound- era cinema, and Micheaux continued to make films into the 1940s, the era of race movies peaked before the introduction of sound at the end of the 1920s. By World War II, the participation of African Americans in the war effort led to increased expectations of equality in other sectors, including the Hollywood film industry. The studios themselves were eager to improve

10.46 Movie poster, The Song of Freedom (1936). “Race movies” depicting African American lives and concerns targeted black audiences during the era of segregation. Courtesy Everett Collection

10.47 Oscar Micheaux. One of film history’s most resourceful figures, Micheaux wrote, produced, and directed feature films for African American exhibition networks from 1918 to the 1940s. Courtesy Photofest

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relations with audiences and journalists by updating the stereotyped images of the 1930s. Paradoxically, an agreement between the studios and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to enhance the portrayal of blacks contributed to the waning of the vibrant alternative — though segregated — culture of films about, for, and often by African Americans.

From Blaxploitation to Contemporary African American Directors After the studio system waned in the 1960s, new markets were sought by Hollywood, and the genre known as blaxploitation emerged. Although the term cynically sug- gests the economic exploitation of black film audiences — particularly an urban mar- ket likely to attend films about streetwise African American protagonists — the genre was also made possible in part by the black

power movement. While many blaxploitation films were made by white producers, some African American filmmakers turned the genre to their own purposes with significant impact. The immensely successful Shaft (1971) was directed by noted photographer Gordon Parks. Melvin Van Peebles wrote, directed, scored, and starred in Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971), which incorporates revolutionary rhetoric in a kinetic tale of a black man pursued by racist cops [Figure 10.48].

In the final two decades of the twentieth century, the commercial and artistic leader of the resurgence of African American cinema production was Spike Lee. With his debut feature She’s Gotta Have It (1986), Lee helped revive U.S. indepen- dent cinema aesthetically and financially through a sophisticated use of cinematic language and engaging storytelling. Working through his production company, 40 Acres and a Mule, Lee addresses an important moment in African American history in the biopic Malcolm X (1992) [Figure 10.49] and explores personal issues in Mo’ Better Blues (1990), while also producing the work of many other young filmmak- ers of color. Lee has also directed documentaries with HBO, such as 4 Little Girls

(1997) and When the Levees Broke (2006), and the Hollywood hit Inside Man (2006).

Lee’s success spurred an African Ameri- can film boom in the early 1990s, centered on a wave of “hood” films about young men in urban settings. These included, for example, John Singleton’s Boyz N the Hood (1991), Mario Van Peebles’s New Jack City (1991), and the Hughes brothers’ Menace II Society (1993). Offering a different perspec- tive on African American life from that portrayed in urban films, Oprah Winfrey produced adaptations of acclaimed works by black women writers — Beloved (1998), based on Toni Morrison’s 1987 novel of a former slave mother, and Their Eyes Were Watching God (2005), an adaptation of Zora Neale Hurston’s 1937 classic.

10.48 Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971). Melvin Van Peebles’s militant blaxploitation film became a hit.

10.49 Malcolm X (1992). Spike Lee argued that a big-budget biographical film about the slain leader should be directed by an African American.

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The first decade of the 2000s saw the spec- tacular success with African American audi- ences of playwright-producer-actor-director Tyler Perry’s comedies. Diary of a Mad Black Woman (2005) introduced his signature char- acter, no-nonsense grandmother Madea (played by a cross-dressing Perry) to the screen; more than a dozen films have followed, grossing half a billion dollars at the box office. When Lee Daniels’s drama Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (2009), an at once devastat- ing and soaring story of an overweight young woman’s life of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival without a distributor, Perry and Winfrey came on board to help promote the film. Perry’s and Winfrey’s commercial clout helped bring the film to the attention of audiences and critics, making it an unexpected Oscar contender. The director’s next film made with Winfrey’s support, Lee Daniels’ The Butler (2013), is based on the life of an African American man who worked on the White House staff under eight different presidents. An equally prominent release that year, 12 Years a Slave depicts the brutal treatment of a free black man who was kidnapped into slavery in 1841. The films indicate a shift in the national conversation about the country’s racial past, provoked, in the case of 12 Years a Slave, by British director Steve McQueen's uncompromising vision.

Films by and for other racial and ethnic groups have been made throughout U.S. film history and have increased in number as people of color obtain greater access to the means of film production. With the fostering of independent feature filmmaking in general and with more emphasis on the multicultural nature of U.S. society, Chinese American Wayne Wang launched his significant filmmaking career with Chan Is Missing (1982), and playwright and director Luis Valdez brought important stories from Chicano history to the screen with Zoot Suit (1981) and La Bamba (1987). It was not until 1998 that a feature film by and about Native Americans was produced: director Chris Eyre and writer Sherman Alexie’s break- through film, Smoke Signals, provided a gently funny picture of the contradictions of contemporary Native American life. More recently, Cherien Dabis’s Amreeka (2009) [Figure 10.50] is a modest immigration tale about a Palestinian mother work- ing at a Midwestern fast-food place.

In addition to these feature films, many experimental, documentary, and community-based works are produced by artists of color. Each year film festi- vals dedicated to Asian-Pacific American and Latin American cinema showcase hundreds of short films, videos, and documentaries, as well as feature-length films from Asian and Latin American countries. All of these traditions expand the concept of American cinema beyond the genres, personalities, and stories that Hollywood has promoted.

Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender (LGBT) Film History The history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in film pro- vokes reflection on the relationship between representation and sexuality in gen- eral. Looking at LGBT film history tells us not only about changing representations of same-sex desire but also about continuity and discontinuity in definitions of sexual identity and community and about the social regulation of sexuality and its representations. This history has become more accessible since the 1990s, when

10.50 Amreeka (2009). A Palestinian American family experiences life in suburban Chicago.

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Oscar Micheaux’s Within Our Gates (1920) is a crucial film in the counterhistory of American cinema because of its content, its circumstances of production and recep- tion, and its fate [Figure 10.51]. Produced independently

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in 1919 and released in 1920, it is the earliest surviving feature film by an African American filmmaker. Despite its historical significance, however, the film was lost for decades. Greeted with controversy upon its initial release, it came back into circulation in the 1990s after the Library of Congress identified a print titled La Negra in a film archive in Spain as Micheaux’s lost film and then restored it. The film’s recovery was part of the efforts of film historians and black cultural critics to re-investigate the vibrant world of early-twentieth-century race movies and the remarkable role Micheaux played in this culture. The film’s long absence from the historical record de- prived generations of viewers and cultural producers of a picture of African American life and politics in the North and South during that era, and of any concept of the audi- ence that Micheaux addressed.

Within Our Gates is important to an alternative film history because it offers a corrective view of a devastat- ing historical phenomenon, the lynching of African Ameri- cans, which had reached epidemic proportions in the first decades of the twentieth century. When the film was returned to circulation in the 1990s, viewers immediately saw it as a countervision to D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation, which boldly uses cinematic techniques like parallel editing to tell the inflammatory story of a black man pursuing a white virgin, who commits suicide rather than succumb to rape. The Klan is formed to avenge her death, and the would-be rapist is captured and punished in what the film depicts as justified vigilante justice.

Micheaux offers an equally visceral story that coun- ters the myth of lynching as a reaction to black male violence by presenting a testament to white racist mob violence against African Americans. After an African American tenant farmer, Jasper Landry, is unjustly ac - cused of shooting the wealthy landowner Girdlestone (the guilty party is actually an angry white tenant), a lynching party attacks Landry’s family. Within Our Gates poignantly depicts the lynching of the mother and father and the last-minute escape of their small son as a public

FilM in

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lost and Found History: Within Our Gates ( 1920 )

See also: The Blood of Jesus (1941); Bamboozled (2000)

FilM in FOCus bedfordstmartins.com /filmexperience

To watch a clip from Within Our Gates, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

10.51 Poster for Within Our Gates (1920). Oscar Micheaux’s rediscovered film about the lives and philanthropic work of middle-class African Americans includes dramatic scenes of lynching. Courtesy Oscar Micheaux Society, Duke University, with thanks to Jane Gaines

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spectacle attended by the townspeople, including women and children. This powerful sequence stands as perhaps the strongest cinematic rebuttal to The Birth of a Nation’s racist distortion of history. It uses the power of the visual to make history, just as Griffith’s film does. Finally, as a director, Micheaux offers an important contrast to Griffith. Whereas Griffith has been consistently heralded as a father of American cinema, Micheaux’s diverse tal- ents, his unique approach to film language, his business savvy, and his modernity have waited decades for full recognition.

The structure of Micheaux’s film also rewards his- torical inquiry because it requires viewers to think about how certain modes of storytelling become naturalized. Although Within Our Gates’s treatment of lynching is its most noted feature, this controversial material, which threatened to prevent the film’s exhibition in Chicago where racial tensions had recently erupted in rioting, is buried in an extensive flashback. The flashback fills in the past of Sylvia Landry, described by a title card as someone “who could think of nothing but the eternal struggle of her race and how she could uplift it.” The lan- guage of racial uplift directly addresses the racially con- scious, middle-class black audiences for Micheaux’s film. Sylvia’s quest to raise funds for a black school in the South, her romance with the politically active Dr. Vivian, and several side plots featuring less noble characters,

make the lynching story at the film’s heart feel even closer to the historical record [Figure 10.52]. The story serves a didactic purpose in the film: the demonstration of the racial injustice that propels Sylvia’s struggle.

But the film does not spare melodramatic detail. The inclusion of white male violence against black women is another rebuttal of the distortions in The Birth of a Nation. We learn that Sylvia, the Landrys’ adopted daughter, escapes the lynch mob only to be threatened with rape by landowner Girdlestone’s brother [Figure 10.53]. The attack is diverted when the would-be rapist notices a scar that reveals she is actually his daughter. The improbabil- ity of the rescue scenario can be understood as the use of melodramatic coincidence to right wrongs that cannot easily receive redress in other ways. In other words, Micheaux uses the form of the movies to imagine social reality differently.

Micheaux’s films were made with extreme ingenuity on low budgets. When Micheaux’s affecting melodrama of African American hardship and determination dis- appeared from film history, a great deal was lost. The film’s subject matter was not undertaken in mainstream cinema. The perspective of African American filmmakers was absent in Hollywood, and black audiences were not addressed by Hollywood films. The title Within Our Gates speaks to the film’s own status — a powerful presence within American film history too long unacknowledged.

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10.52 Within Our Gates (1920). In the framing story of Oscar Micheaux’s film, Dr. Vivian hears the story of Sylvia Landry’s past. Courtesy Oscar Micheaux Society, Duke University, with thanks to Jane Gaines

10.53 Within Our Gates (1920). In the flashback, a last-minute coincidence saves the heroine from assault by a white man who is revealed to be her biological father. Courtesy Oscar Micheaux Society, Duke University, with thanks to Jane Gaines

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mainstream images of lesbians and gay men became much more common and less stigmatized, provoking interest in the images of the past.

Homosexuality and Gender Deviance Onscreen In 1934, the U.S. motion-picture industry began to strictly enforce self-imposed restrictions on film content. The document known as the Production Code stated that “homosexuality and any infer- ence to it are prohibited.” Lillian Hellman’s play The Children’s Hour dealt with the consequences of a malicious child’s lies about the lesbian rela- tionship between the two headmistresses of her school. The play was a hit on Broadway in 1934, but the 1936 movie version, These Three, implied that the child’s gossip was about one teacher’s

heterosexual affair with the other’s fiancé, a change that was transparent to the many members of the audience who were familiar with the play or the publicity surrounding it.

Strictures on the theme of homosexuality finally relaxed in the 1960s, in part due to a Supreme Court decision declaring that the movies were entitled to the con- stitutional protections of freedom of speech. One of the first films to capitalize on this shift was William Wyler’s remake of The Children’s Hour (1961) [Figure 10.54]. However, nearly a quarter of a century after the original, and with the feminist and gay rights movements just around the corner, the film’s depiction of one teacher’s suicide — when the child’s accusations provoke her recognition of her own desire for her friend — had a negative impact. The trend of doomed or murderous gay characters continued in mainstream treatments for a considerable period, includ- ing the notorious examples Cruising (1980) and Basic Instinct (1992). The vocal protests surrounding both films’ perpetuation of stereotypes were probably more instrumental in achieving lesbian and gay visibility than were the films themselves.

During the 1980s, mainstream heterosexual stars began to appear in films offering more complex images of gay men and sometimes lesbians, such as Wil- liam Hurt’s award-winning performance in Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985). While openly gay comic and character actors like Harvey Fierstein and Nathan Lane ben- efited from increased LGBT visibility in the 1990s, it remained difficult for openly gay actors to obtain leading roles. Two later films that featured gay and lesbian

characters and appealed to a wide cross-section of audiences, Ang Lee’s cowboy love story Broke­ back Mountain (2005) [Figure 10.55] and lesbian director Lisa Cholodenko’s comedy The Kids Are All Right, had popular heterosexual stars in the main roles. In fact, The Kids Are All Right would not have been viable without its stellar cast of Annette Bening and Julianne Moore.

LGBT Filmmaking Much like the absence of LGBT representation onscreen, the contributions of LGBT filmmakers are often erased or overlooked. It is important to recognize that, like any cultural identity, the sexual orientation of a filmmaker does not

10.54 The Children’s Hour (1961). Lillian Hellman’s 1936 play was finally faithfully adapted to the screen after the Production Code was relaxed in the 1960s, but by then its depiction of the main character’s suicide was dated and damaging.

10.55 Brokeback Mountain (2005). An appealing cast and new take on the traditional western made a gay male love story a mainstream success.

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necessarily have any specific impact on his or her work. However, knowing whether a filmmaker identified himself or herself as les- bian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, or whether there is significant biographical evidence of same-sex erotic attachments, can make a difference when sexual identity arguably affects the filmmaker’s subject matter or aesthetic approach, and when withholding in - formation about a filmmaker’s sexual identity erases a specific historical legacy. Filmmakers might choose to be explicit about their sexual identity and affiliation with the LGBT community or movement in order to target a specific audience or LGBT cause, or because they consider sexuality an integral part of their experi- ence and vision as artists.

The first LGBT activist movie, Anders als die Andern (Different from the Others), was produced in Germany in 1919 in the socially tolerant Weimar era between the two world wars. Dramatizing the risk of blackmail to a prominent citizen because of his sexual pref- erence, the film advocates the decriminalization of male homosex- uality (no statute specifically prohibited lesbianism) and features a lecture by German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld. Another famous Weimar-era film, Mädchen in Uniform (1931), was written by les- bian author Christa Winsloe and based on her own play [Figure 10.56]. Featuring an all-women cast and directed by a woman, Leontine Sagan, the film depicts a young woman’s boarding-school crush on a sympathetic teacher. It achieved international success despite its censorship, including in the United States.

Withholding information about a filmmaker’s sexual identity can sometimes erase a significant historical legacy. George Cukor, the MGM studio director whose classic films include The Women (1939) and A Star Is Born (1954), was often called a “women’s director” because of the excellent performances given by such female stars as Greta Garbo, Judy Garland, Katharine Hepburn, and Judy Holliday under his direction. The term was also intended as a euphemism, often pejorative, for gay, and Cukor was even replaced as director of Gone with the Wind at the behest of its macho star Clark Gable. But this characterization of Cukor can also be the basis of a more nuanced reading of his work and its depiction of desire.

Another important example of how a historiography sensitive to gay presence can illuminate the cinema’s past can be found in the underground films of the 1960s. Chroniclers of the films of Jack Smith, Andy Warhol, and Kenneth Anger sought to have them taken seriously as art, describing their outrageous transvestite actors and transgressive sexual content but often failing to mention that the direc- tors themselves were gay. Correcting this omission enriches both social history and film interpretation.

The 1970s saw the rise of the gay rights movement and the collectively pro- duced Word Is Out (1977). One of the filmmakers, Rob Epstein, later went on to make the award-winning The Times of Harvey Milk (1984) and, with Jeffrey Fried- man, a series of acclaimed documentaries on LGBT issues, including The Celluloid Closet (1995), based on Vito Russo’s book about the depiction of lesbians and gay men in film. Howl (2010), featuring James Franco as beat poet Allen Ginsberg, is Epstein and Friedman’s first fiction feature, and it incorporates documentary and animation elements in its unique style [Figure 10.57].

During the 1980s, there was an explosion of activist video advocating for money for AIDS research and combating the stigma associated with the epidemic. At the same time, British director Derek Jarman produced a significant oeuvre, including such lyrical and subversive interpretations of historical and literary sub- jects as Caravaggio (1986) and Edward II (1991). Probably the most internationally

10.56 Mädchen in Uniform (1931). This Weimar-era film about a student’s crush on her teacher features an all- female cast and was written and directed by women. Courtesy Photofest

v i e W i n g C u e What models or types of sexuality appear in one of the films you’ve recently seen? How does its histori- cal moment shape these models?

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celebrated gay filmmaker, Jarman became one of many talented artists lost to AIDS.

By the early 1990s, gay-themed works had prepared critics and audiences for a crop of commercially success- ful, aesthetically innovative films by an impressive group of young LGBT film- makers. This trend, dubbed New Queer Cinema, arose from a cultural moment when the LGBT community had become more militant in response to the AIDS crisis, embracing the formerly pejorative term “queer” for its connotations of going against the norm; the best of these films were “queer” in relation to cinematic as well as gender and sexual norms. Key New Queer Cinema works include Jennie Livingston’s documentary Paris Is Burn­

ing (1990) [Figure 10.58] and fiction films such as Todd Haynes’s Poison (1991) and Safe (1995), Gregg Araki’s The Living End (1992), and Rose Troche and Guinevere Turner’s Go Fish. The industry took notice, and big-budget dramas like Philadel­ phia (1993) and comedies like In and Out (1997) addressed gay issues more openly than ever before. Preceding and accompanying these feature films’ recognition is the burgeoning of independent LGBT documentaries produced for non-theatrical exhibition, notable examples of which include Pratibha Parmar’s Khush (1991), about South Asian lesbians and gays, and Marlon Riggs’s acclaimed video Tongues Untied (1989), about African American gay men.

With the proliferation of LGBT images in mainstream television and films, some commentators felt that the political edge of New Queer Cinema had been blunted. What had before been an activist audience was now courted as a lucrative market segment. The success of a film like Milk (2008), the story of the murder of openly gay San Francisco city supervisor Harvey Milk in 1978 — a watershed moment in the gay rights movement — testifies to the significantly changed terrain for films by, about, and for the LGBT community. Directed by Gus Van Sant, one of the most significant figures in catalyzing New Queer Cinema, the film brings the story of the LGBT community to the forefront of American history.

Indigenous Media Thus far we have offered corrective histories of American cinema that to a certain degree emphasize the politics of identity and the image. The history of indigenous media is perhaps even more concerned with self- representation, but it also challenges the pur- poses of the film medium as primarily about entertainment or communication. The history of depicting native cultures is one of assert- ing power through the control of the image.

One of the earliest uses of film was to record the ways of life of other cultures for exhibition to audiences in the West. In the first decades of film history, little distinction was made between science and sensation:

10.57 Howl (2010). James Franco as Allen Ginsberg in Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman’s imaginative film about Ginsberg’s famous poem.

10.58 Paris Is Burning (1990). This documentary about New York City drag balls won critical acclaim, but it was shut out of the Oscars, possibly due to what was deemed its unconventional subject matter.

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Ernest B. Schoedsack and Merian C. Cooper, the team that made Grass (1925), a record of an Iranian migration, went on to make King Kong (1933), whose premise, it is sometimes forgotten, is a moviemaking expedition to Sumatra. But with the increased specialization of anthropology, a distinct practice of ethnographic documentary — the use of film to document cultures for others to study — emerged as an indispensable tool.

Film can record rituals in a way that written ethnographies cannot. Filming inter- views minimizes the mediation of an interpreter by capturing the subject’s own words and gestures through the lens. However, the camera can never grant complete access to a cultural context. In a culture that does not use cameras, the equipment can hardly be invisible or neutral. But because it can capture conversations and gestures, sounds and settings, time and space, film can give a strong impression of documenting a culture despite such mediations.

Nowhere do claims of film as an impartial record become more loaded than in the filming of indigenous people by outside observers, and not until recently have indigenous groups been able to appropriate video and film technology to tell their own stories. Deploying a technology like the movies in such a cultural encounter means claiming the power to represent others and their history. The camera con- veys a profound feeling of presence that also puts the viewer in the place of the observer or “expert.”

Widely considered the first feature-length documentary film and certainly one of the most influential movies ever made, Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North (1922) is a record of the lives and customs of the Inuit people of the Canadian Arctic. The isolation of the people in a harsh environment, and the duration of Flaherty’s stay among them, required that the film be produced in close collabora- tion with its subjects. In the film, Nanook (played by the uncredited Allakariallak), his family, and others engage in traditional behavior, including an exciting seal hunt and the construction of an igloo. Although some of these activities were performed and modified for the purposes of the film, they were “real” records of Inuit people carrying out Inuit hunting and building techniques [Figure 10.59]. Part of Nanook of the North’s impact at the time lay in the use of a still relatively new technology to deliver an image of a technology-free universe, so that the viewer marveled at both.

Flaherty’s claims that he presented an accurate representation of Inuit life are compromised by the use of reenactments and by his having paid his subjects. The film is also often “primitivist,” seen as reinforcing stereotypes of non-Western people as simple, childlike, and outside the process of history. For example, Nanook is shown trying to eat a gramophone record, yet he and other native collabora- tors were familiar with modern technology and worked as Flaherty’s (uncredited) crew, operating the film cam- eras and developing the footage. The complex legacy of this film is explored in the video Nanook Revisited (1988), which returns to the village where Flaherty’s classic was made to take on the myths and realities surrounding his great film among the people whose ancestors participated in its making. Nanook Revisited gives a glimpse of another side to the story of the con- junction of “camera” and “primitive.”

The introduction of video technology to indigenous people, such as the Kayapo and Waipai Indians in the Amazon Basin of Brazil, has resulted in considerable output that has several empowering uses [Figure 10.60]. These include the preservation of traditional culture for future generations; video activism for land rights and the environment; and a new form of visual expression

10.59 Nanook of the North (1922). Robert Flaherty re-created traditional activities for the camera, but his images are nevertheless striking records of the Inuit.

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in a culture that has always relied on pictorial com- munication. While the Kayapo are entering a new his- torical moment by employing this technology, the video work’s primary purpose is to preserve the past.

The indigenous people of Canada also left behind their legacy as objects of ethnographic film and cam- paigned for self-representation. Organized activism re - sulted in the licensing of the Inuit Broadcasting Network in 1982, featuring programming by, for, and about native Canadians. A new phase of indigenous media making was marked by the historic release of Atanar­ juat (The Fast Runner) (2001). Shot in digital video, this extraordinary film, directed by Inuit filmmaker Zacha- rias Kunuk, appropriately enough deploys the genre of epic to explore a people’s past [Figure 10.61]. But it por- trays a cultural legend, not a factual past. Although at first it resembles an ethnographic film, Atanarjuat is set a millennium ago. By setting its depiction of the tradi- tional way of life in the mythic past, the film represents an Inuit claim to self-representation on several levels. The film’s use of amateur actors lends an “authenticity” to the scripted scenes, and its script represents the lon- gest text ever written in the Inuit language. Its images also implicitly acknowledge and respond to the beauty as well as the problems of a film like Nanook of the North. Two subsequent films made in 2006 and 2009 complete the Fast Runner trilogy.

Excavating Film History As we consider the different ways that film history can be regarded, it is important to remember that the very idea of reflecting on our film heritage is a relatively recent one. Precisely because film and photography capture the fleeting moment, they have been regarded as ephemeral and of little long-term value. Film is also

materially ephemeral — because the earliest nitrate-based film stock was extremely flammable, negatives and prints of countless titles have been lost or simply destroyed. Film prints that were once in circulation have been altered by censors, damaged in transit and projection, and improperly stored. Approximately 80 per- cent of our silent film heritage has been lost. Even some films that were celebrated and successful in their day no longer exist and so cannot be consulted by contem- porary historians or shared with new audiences.

The historical record looks as it does because of lucky accidents — informed and not-so-informed decisions about what to keep and what to throw away — and rare acts of foresight. The Library of Congress requested copies of all film materials submitted for copyright consideration and thus has records of the very first mov- ies. The Museum of Modern Art, under the leadership of its first curator of film, Iris Barry, made the decision to treat film as a modern art and collected prints and stills beginning in 1935. Most Hollywood films that survive today were stored in vaults by the film studios that produced them; later owners of these companies discovered a new source of revenue in the preservation and re-release of old mov- ies on television, video, or DVD. While digital technologies have vastly increased ordinary viewers’ access to films from other places and periods, this availability is

10.60 The Spirit of TV (1990). Amazon Indians, such as the Waipai, have used video to record their culture and assert their rights. Courtesy of DER from the Video in the Villages Series by Vincent Carelli

10.61 Atanarjuat (2001). Shot on digital video in the Canadian Arctic, this epic is the first feature made in the Inuktitut language by Inuit filmmakers.

v i e W i n g C u e Think about a film you recently watched that depicts another cul- ture. What questions do you have about what you are seeing? How would you put the film in context to answer those questions?

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still dependent on the preservation of the original materials and the marketability of the work.

Orphan Films Orphan films are films that have been abandoned by their owners or copyright holders, or have oth- erwise been neglected. This is a catchall category devised by those interested in film preservation, including everything from amateur films, training films, and documentaries to censored materials, commercials, and newsreels. These films have no commercial interests to pay the costs of their preservation, so often these works enter the public domain. When we consider the reach of the term “orphan," we get a glimpse of how daunting, and costly, the task of saving all the orphans might be.

The preservation movement can emphasize films that have been neglected by canonical film histories and need to be recovered materially as well as critically. Dorothy Arzner’s Working Girls (1931), for example, was an orphan until its restoration through the UCLA Film and Television Archive; and almost all surviving race movies can be considered orphans.

Today it is up to those who discover orphan films to evaluate what they have to tell us about the past: they function like time capsules of cinematic history and of history in general. For example, a 1952 informational film about biological war- fare conveys the anxieties of the government and citizens of the United States dur- ing the Cold War [Figure 10.62]. Newsreels offer glimpses of past events just as the people of that era saw them — fleeting moments in history that only film can record [Figure 10.63]. Looking carefully at the variety of forms, styles, and uses of orphan films helps us understand how central — and how taken for granted — film was to the twentieth century. Although orphans are a worldwide phenomenon, rescuing such films is a particular challenge in the United States because of the volume and commercial concentration of film.

Film Preservation and Archives Some orphans have special needs that raise interesting ques- tions about the goals of preservation. Do we want to keep all of these films? With the vast storage capacities computers have for digital media, it may not seem like we have to make such choices. Indeed, given today’s technology, it can seem absurd that so many orphan films are inaccessible. But it is also important to preserve the materials in their original for- mat. Numerous reasons exist for saving as much as possible:

■ Historians can have access to a wide range of images from particular times, places, and institutions.

■ Filmmakers can ensure that their work survives and even attracts new viewers.

■ Other filmmakers may use orphan films as sources for their work, such as compilation films or documentaries.

■ Audiences can have new educational, eye-opening, and outrageous film experiences.

v i e W i n g C u e View an “ephemeral film” on the Internet Archive at www.archive.org /details/ephemera. What does it tell us about history?

10.62 What You Should Know about Biological Warfare (1952). The U.S. government instructs citizens in Cold War protocol. Courtesy Prelinger Archives

10.63 Fox Movietone News Story 4–171: World’s Youngest Acrobat (1929). Newsreels, like this one from Fox Movietone, captured the small moments in the daily lives of American people as well as major events. Fox Movietone News Story 4–171: World's Youngest Acrobat (November 8, 1929). Outtakes from the Hearst Metrotone/Fox Movietone Newsreel. Courtesy Moving Image Research Collections, University of South Carolina

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The importance of archives and preservation is especially vital to silent film history. Kevin Brownlow and David Gill’s 1981 restoration of Abel Gance’s Napoléon (1927) is a com- plex and particularly sensational example of restoration. Frus- trated with the tattered versions of this silent French classic in circulation, Brownlow pursued the confused history of the film, searching out different versions from private and public archives and eventually patching together an accurate repro- duction of the film. In 1990, Martin Scorsese established the Film Foundation with a group of fellow filmmakers to support restoration efforts for American films. Hundreds of projects have been completed, including a restoration of The Night of the Hunter (1955) — a dark, offbeat tale of a religious con man pursuing his two stepchildren and a hidden stash of money [Figure 10.64]. The World Cinema Foundation expanded this effort, releasing its first restored film, the documentary Trances (1981) by Moroccan filmmaker Ahmed El Mannouni, in 2007.

Undoubtedly, we have made a good deal of progress in considering films not only as documents of history but also as having a history in their own right, one that is worth preserving. Film archives, which are key to the efforts of film preservation, became central institutions beginning in the 1930s. Today more than 120 archives dedicated to the preservation and proper exhibition of films and their study constitute the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF). Among the most prominent are at the Cinémathèque Française, identified with longtime archivist Henri Langlois, and New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Several DVD initiatives such as Kino International’s five-disc collection The Movies Begin: A Treasury of Early Cinema and the Natural Film Preservation Foundation’s ongoing series, Treasures from American Film Archives, have resulted in the dis- tribution of rare movies that viewers previously had not been able to see. Different versions of older films — such as Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) or Orson Welles’s Touch of Evil (1958) — pieced together from materials found in archives and col- lections, are generating debates about which is the authoritative version. A film’s history includes not only the definitive version reconstructed by archivists but also the vicissitudes of its exhibition and audience reception over time.

10.64 The Night of the Hunter (1955). This dark fable was restored with the support of Martin Scorsese and the Film Foundation.

We have learned to watch movies for their formal composition and their organizational structure. Placing movies in historical context enriches our understanding of how these elements create meaningful experiences for viewers. Far From Heaven imitates the stylization of All That Heaven Allows to provide insight into the construction of gender roles and racial stratifica- tion in the 1950s and to reveal how those legacies can still be felt in the 2000s. With a historical perspective on 1970s America, we understand Taxi Driver as a challenge to studio filmmaking and storytelling motivated by the disruptions of the Vietnam War and related social upheaval.

By looking, however cursorily, at global histories, we have attempted to move beyond a single progression to multiple sites on the map and beyond stylistic periods to a more dynamic sense of the interaction of national his- tory and film. Finally, learning about films like Within Our Gates or Atanar­ juat (The Fast Runner) changes conceptions about the films one has seen about race in America or Inuit culture and prompts new explorations.

C O n C e P T s A T W O R K

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■ Consider how World War II impacted films of the 1940s in two different national contexts.

■ How does Taxi Driver draw upon and challenge Hollywood film traditions? ■ In what ways is a film like The White Balloon indebted to the Italian neo-

realism of Bicycle Thieves? How are the aesthetic choices in these films related to cultural and historical contexts, such as Iranian censorship and the occupation of Rome during World War II?

■ What is lost when women filmmakers are excluded from the traditional Hollywood-centered histories? What is gained when those films are ex- amined and reshown?

■ What is the importance of archiving and preserving the film past?

Activities ■ Compare and contrast two films from different traditions that “remake”

similar material. For example, the Hollywood Carmen Jones (1954) and U­Carmen eKhayelitsha (2005) from South Africa, Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood (1957) and Roman Polanski’s Macbeth (1971), or Sita Sings the Blues (2008) and Ramayana: The Epic (2010). How do different cinematic histories influence these films?

■ Research a “lost and found” tradition in American cinema that is not covered here. Examples include Latino film, Asian American film, docu- mentary, and exploitation films. In what ways does this particular tradi- tion challenge mainstream film history?

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11 c h a p t e r

Buster Keaton’s 1925 film Sherlock, Jr. opens with a warning never to do two things at once. Its protagonist is a motion-picture projectionist who plays detec- tive in order to prove his romantic rival is a thief. Soon he becomes literally split in two, as he falls asleep in the projection booth and his dreaming self enters the fictional film on screen. Of course his surrogate solves the crime and gets the girl, but not before the film explores characteristics of the cinematic illusion that go beyond narrative and its components of identification, genre, and closure. As Keaton begins to sit on a bench, the film breaks verisimilitude, cutting to a street scene where the actor completes his action, only to fall down in traffic. Several additional cuts match his pratfalls while changing backgrounds: a mountaintop, a lion-infested jungle, a desert where he narrowly avoids being struck by a freight train. Such bodily vulnerability to the speed and machinery of the early twentieth century is explored in many of Keaton’s films, while viewers remain safe in our seats. The film touches on many preoccupations of film theory — the specific characteristics of the medium, the place of realism, the syntax of storytelling, and the way the movie viewer is always doing two things at once: believing in an illusion, and appreciating its craft.

Reading about Film Critical Theories and Methods

Courtesy Everett Collection 397

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Audiovisual technologies are now more prevalent and more integrated with our experience than ever before. When television was introduced in the mid- twentieth century, and later when home video and computer games became popu- lar, predictions abounded that moviegoing would be eclipsed by the new leisure forms. However, these pronouncements on the death of cinema were premature. What is it about the film experience that resonates so meaningfully with modern life? This question, which emerged with the first projected moving images, contin- ues to drive our thinking about mediated experiences today. Such reflection on the nature and uses of the medium is the province of film theory. The books and essays that constitute this field undertake a sustained interrogation of propositions about the nature of the medium, the features of individual films or categories of films, and the interaction between viewers and films. In this chapter, we will make explicit the issues that inform the theoretical study of film by framing these issues in terms of specific histories and positions.

K E Y O B J E C T I V E S ■ Explain the concept of cinematic specificity. Specify and introduce the method of formal analysis.

■ Describe the interdisciplinary nature of film and media studies. ■ Outline the major positions in classical film theory, from Soviet montage

theory to realism. ■ Demonstrate knowledge about the key schools of thought within contemporary

film theory, including semiotics and structuralism; psychoanalysis and apparatus theory; feminist, queer, and critical race theory; cultural studies; philosophical approaches; and postmodernism.

Precisely because cinema is so accessible and familiar, the very idea of theo- rizing it makes some viewers skeptical. Yet the knowledge that comes with avid moviegoing can itself be the foundation of a theoretical position. Every time we go to the movies, we evaluate elements about the film beforehand: when we choose drama or comedy, we invoke genre; if we buy a ticket for the new Spielberg film, we draw on auteur theory; and if we elect, while acknowledging the dismissive quality of the term, a “chick flick,” we invoke some understanding of reception theory, which focuses on how different kinds of audiences relate to different kinds of films. When we speak of the fictional world of The Godfather (1972) [Figure 11.1] as if it were real, we invoke the concept of verisimilitude, or “having the quality of truth.” Even when we select a seat at the movie theater, implicit in our choice is an ideal vantage point from which the film illusion will be most complete.

As these examples suggest, every theoretical approach to cinema foregrounds some elements and relegates others to the background. Besides looking at differ- ent aspects of the experience, film theories vary in their level of analysis, selecting

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different features to address. Some theories regard the cinema as a mass phenomenon that needs to be approached on the insti- tutional level, from the industry to the broad-based reception of films, while others are concerned with formal principles alone. It may be helpful to think of each theory in this chapter as part of the tool kit of the cultural critic. The toolbox metaphor implies that different theories are needed to address different questions; it also reminds us that theoretical inquiry is not only about taking something apart, but also about building models and connections. An over- view such as this one cannot fully survey this diverse field. We encourage you to read these thinkers’ own words; only then will the stakes of the debates be driven home.

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11.1 The Godfather (1972). Audiences’ evaluation of the verisimilitude of the world of the Corleone crime family deploys a theoretical concept in an experiential way.

The Evolution of Film Theory Before we present an overview of the history and debates of film theory, let us draw out two issues that are at the heart of the discipline and yet seemingly at odds with each other. There are elements that make the medium of film distinct as an aesthetic form or mode of communication that demands its own analytical approach. At the same time, film represents a combination of other art forms as well as commercial, artistic, and social interests and thus must also be considered from an interdisciplinary perspective, drawing on art history, literary theory, philosophy, and other disciplines. The excitement of studying film theory lies in the challenge of illuminating these two seemingly contradictory dimensions. Sustained critical inter- rogations — such as the writings by filmmakers, philosophers, and academics exam- ined here — help us see the specificities of cinema as an aesthetic form and a social institution, as well as its commonalities with other arts and cultural experiences.

Theories of an artistic medium often begin by trying to define their object, its nature or ontology. How does cinema differ from painting or photography, for example? All use pictorial imagery, but film differs from painting because it is composed of photographic images captured with a camera, and it differs from photography in that its images are displayed to give the illusion of motion.

As a storytelling medium, cinema borrows from the novel; yet the way it associates images with emotions resembles poetry. Like music, film is a time-based performance. Each of these comparisons can and has been extended. Theorists

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hope that from ever more precise statements of the properties of cinema, they can share terms of analysis and point to concrete ele- ments as the basis for interpretations.

Questions of cinema’s medium speci- ficity and its interdisciplinary field are especially pertinent today as recent tech- nological developments — from computer- generated imagery (CGI) to new forms of distribution and display — raise profound ontological questions about cinema. The digital image is no longer a trace of the physical contact between light and an object or referent chemically recorded on film stock; instead, the properties of the image are digitally coded and thus mutable. A computer-generated image does not have a real-world referent; in a sense the image is

the thing [Figure 11.2]. Interestingly, past work in the fields of film theory and his- tory puts us in an excellent position to make sense of what the unique properties of this new, digital medium might be. And new approaches like cognitive science, computer science, and game theory also play a key role in the study of contempo- rary film and media.

There are no clear boundaries — either chronological or intellectual — to the field of film theory. A historical overview allows us to contextualize important thinkers and to understand how key principles and terms have been defined and debated over time. Film theory, and the emerging theories that address new and related audiovisual media, will undoubtedly take on new questions in the future. Yet these concerns will be shaped by an intellectual history of considerable longev- ity and complexity.

11.2 Beowulf (2007). Is the nature of the film image — its ontological status — challenged by the use of performance capture and computer-generated imagery (CGI) instead of photo- graphic imagery?

V I E w I n g C u E Compare a scene from a film you have viewed either in class or on your own with a passage from the book from which it was adapted. What elements are specific to the film?

Early and Classical Film Theory In this section, we begin with the earliest reflections on film that occurred not long after the first public exhibitions by Thomas Edison and the Lumière brothers. We then consider the body of work designated as classical film theory, which emerged with the maturity of the medium in the 1920s and finds a convenient endpoint with the publication of Siegfried Kracauer’s major work Theory of Film in 1960.

Early Film Theory “Last night I was in the Kingdom of Shadows. If you only knew how strange it is to be there,” wrote the Russian novelist Maxim Gorky after attending a film screening in 1896. When movies were new, observers searched for metaphors to describe the experience of seeing them. Struck by movies’ magical properties, viewers attempted to pinpoint what was distinctive about the medium. Some early critics considered moviegoing a social phenomenon, a new form of urban entertainment characteris- tic of the dawning twentieth century. Others viewed the cinema in aesthetic terms, heralding it as the “seventh art.”

While today film theory is considered part of an academic discipline, earlier writers on the topic came from many contexts and traditions, making any overview of the history of film theory a disjunctive one. A few early theorists wrote books, yet equally important theoretical contributions have been made in journals, essays,

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and other forms. Early writers on film might have been critics of other art forms or scholars in other disciplines. Or they might have been filmmakers who shared their ideas and excitement about the developing medium with each other in specialized publications. Some of the questions film theorists have examined since the incep- tion of the medium include:

■ Is cinema an art form? How does it relate to photography, painting, theater, music, and other art forms?

■ Does film resemble language or have a language of its own? ■ Is film’s primary responsibility to tell a story? ■ Is film by nature a “realist” medium? ■ What is the place of film in the modern world that fostered its development?

Two noteworthy books on movies appeared in the United States as early as the 1910s. Poet Vachel Lindsay’s The Art of the Moving Picture (1915) responded enthusiastically to the novelty and the democratizing potential of the medium. “I am the one poet who has a right to claim for his muses Blanche Sweet, Mary Pickford, and Mae Marsh,” he gushed, invoking the popular movie stars of the day. In his idiosyncratic but suggestive book, Lindsay likened film language to hiero- glyphics. This metaphor of picture-writing indicated cinema’s promise of universality, which excited many early observers.

A more systematic elaboration of ideas about cinema was contributed by Harvard psychologist Hugo Münsterberg in The Photoplay: A Psychological Study (1916). For Münsterberg, viewing films was linked to the subjective process of thinking. The properties of cinema that distinguished it from the physical real- ity to which its images referred were what made it of interest aesthetically and psychologically. Unlike watching a play, watching movies requires specific mental activities to make sense of cues of movement and depth. “The photoplay tells us the human story by overcoming the forms of the outer world, namely, space, time, and causality, and by adjusting the events to the forms of the inner world, namely, attention, memory, imagination, and emotion,” wrote Münsterberg. His ideas thus emphasized the viewer’s interaction with the medium. Decades later, theories of spectatorship would do the same. While Lindsay’s work praised specific films, Münsterberg referred to the idea of the photoplay in general. In a sense, their works mark the division between criticism, which reflects on a given aesthetic object, and theory, which is broader and sometimes more abstract.

Outside the United States, much early writing about cinema came from film- makers themselves. Although movies immediately became commercialized, they emerged, and flourished, in the context of modernist experimentation in the arts — music, writing, theater, painting, architecture, and photography. Because film was based on new technology, many considered it an exemplary art for the machine age. Film influenced new approaches to established media, such as cub- ism in painting and the “automatic writing” of the surrealists. In turn, filmmakers adopted avant-garde practices, and painters like Hans Richter took up filmmaking, exploring graphic and rhythmic possibilities [Figure 11.3]. Modernist intellectuals debated cinema’s aesthetic status and its relationship to the other arts.

In the 1910s and 1920s in France, the first avant-garde film movement, im- pressionism, was fostered by groups known as ciné-clubs and by journals dedi- cated to the new medium. In Cinéma, Louis Delluc coined the term photogénie to refer to a particular quality that distinguishes the filmed object from its everyday reality. Jean Epstein elaborated on this elusive concept in such poetic writings as “Bonjour Cinéma” and in his film adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s story The Fall of the House of Usher (1928) [Figure 11.4]. Germaine Dulac compared film to music in her extensive writings and lectures. Film theory and practice began to flourish during this time and would continue to develop in tandem in the period between the world wars.

11.3 Rhythmus 21 (1921). Frames of prominent German artist Hans Richter’s early abstract film. Courtesy of Anthology Film Archives, All Rights Reserved

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Classical Film Theories: Formalism and Realism The intellectual interest in the medium of film and its relation to contemporary times only intensified as its technological and industrial organization, social role, and dominant styles solidified in the 1920s. Art historians joined filmmakers to produce the first full-length books on film theory. While many film theorists sought to define the specific formal ele- ments of film and their effects, both for practical reasons and to enter into debate with traditional the- ories of aesthetics, others held the medium’s appeal to realism to be fundamental. Traditionally, these positions are opposed to each other as formalist and realist and linked to the reception of the very earliest films.

Stories of the presentation of the Lumière broth- ers’ first films at the Grand Café in Paris invariably tell how audiences shrank from the arriving train or

feared they would be splashed by the waves of the sea [Figure 11.5]. Whether or not these stories are true, they characterize cinema as realist and lacking the aesthetic distance of the other arts.

As we shall see, for theorists such as André Bazin and Siegfried Kracauer, film, like photography, was distinct because of its referential quality — its ability to refer to the world through images that resemble and record the presence of objects and sources of sounds. For formalists like Sergei Eisenstein and Béla Balázs, cinema is an art. Editing and close-ups are the basis of film’s meanings and effects; realism is only a style that uses form in a particular way. Walter Benjamin went so far as to claim that the form of film affects the sensory perception of the viewer. Although the debates between these positions became quite polemical, neither prevailed; it is the tension between the formal and realist properties of the medium that remains at the heart of film theory.

Formalist Theories Although some theorists might postulate that cinema is defined by some ineffable essence, most would characterize it by its form. In classical film theory, formalists looked to unique properties of cinema such as camera movement and distance, shot dura- tion and rhythm to find meaning in the work itself. Some of them correlated aspects of film like editing to the fragmented experiences of modern life. For- malism continues to be a dominant approach in film studies. Much of this work is indebted to influential theorist-filmmakers like Sergei Eisenstein.

Soviet Montage Theory. As we saw in our discussion of editing in Chapter 4, the montage theory of Eisen- stein and other Soviet filmmakers of the 1920s has had enormous impact on both film practice and film theory. The 1917 Russian Revolution catalyzed a group of artist-intellectuals to develop formal means

11.4 The Fall of the House of Usher (1928). Jean Epstein’s interest in the poetic quality of an object when filmed shares affinities with the writing of Edgar Allan Poe, whose short story he adapted in this impressionist film.

11.5 Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (1896). Whether a truthful account or a myth, audiences were said to be so frightened by the image of a life-sized train coming directly at them that they screamed and ran from their seats. The Kobal Collection/Art Resource, NY

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to express a new social order. Stylistic innovations in graphic and set design, painting, and sculpture were synthesized in the new medium, which, with its technological base and populist reach, was cel- ebrated as a perfect expression of modernism. Lev Kuleshov’s teaching at the state film school, where Vsevolod Pudovkin and Sergei Eisenstein were his students, put the theory of montage at the center of Soviet filmmaking (pp. 170-71). In Mother (1926) [Figure 11.6] and other films, Pudovkin used mon- tage as a way of breaking down a scene to direct the spectator’s look and understanding. In contrast, Eisenstein’s theory of montage, outlined in one of the most significant bodies of writing in film theory, emphasized the effects of collision between shots. Soviet filmmaker Dziga Vertov also contributed to film theory in the form of manifestos signed by the Kinoki, or “cinema-eye” group. Vertov’s avant-garde writings emphasized the new way of seeing made pos- sible by the movie camera’s ability to overcome the limitations of the human eye. He rejected the fiction film in favor of “life caught unaware” and experi- mented with the possibilities of sound.

Film Aesthetics. Like the Soviet montage theorists, Béla Balázs and Rudolf Arnheim championed formalist theories of film. Balázs, best known for his Theory of the Film (1952), was a Hungarian screenwriter and film critic who also worked in the Soviet Union and published his first book of film theory in 1924. Balázs argued that film was a new “form-language” that broke with the theater and the other arts by allow- ing for viewer identification. In watching a movie, he writes, “we look up to Juliet’s balcony with Romeo’s eyes and look down on Romeo with Juliet’s.” In particular, Balázs wrote eloquently on the power of the close-up, an element of film art impos- sible to approximate on stage: “by means of the close-up the camera in the days of the silent film revealed also the hidden main-springs of a life which we had thought we already knew so well” [Figure 11.7].

German art historian Rudolf Arnheim argued even more strongly for a formalist position in his 1933 study Film, which was later revised for English publication as Film as Art (1957). For Arnheim, the quest for film realism was a betrayal of the unique aesthetic properties of the medium that allowed it to transcend the imitation of nature. He set out to “refute the assertion that film is nothing but the feeble mechanical reproduction of real life.” For example, in his view the two-dimensionality of the screen image was not a limitation but an aesthetic parameter to be exploited by filmmakers and empha- sized by theorists. Like Münsterberg, Arnheim was inter- ested in the psychology of perception and did not value the perception of resemblance above other responses.

Film and Modernity. The theorist Walter Benjamin was particularly interested in how cinema participated in the transformation of our perception in the modern world. Benjamin wrote about cinema as well as photography

11.6 Mother (1926). Like other Soviet filmmakers, Vsevolod Pudovkin emphasized the power of montage. But while Eisenstein favored dissonant effects, Pudovkin pioneered the orchestration of emotion through cutting, as in this powerful adaptation of Maxim Gorky’s novel.

11.7 Asta Nielsen as Hamlet (1921). Theorist Béla Balázs believed the close-up could reveal the soul onscreen and wrote eloquently about Dan- ish silent film star Asta Nielsen’s face in close-up.

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in his famous, and complex, essay, “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technologi- cal Reproducibility.” For Benjamin, the comparison of photography and film with painting did not hinge on their relative artistic value. Rather, they differed because these new art forms did not produce unique objects with the “aura” of an original artwork. Instead, film captured, in multiple widely circulating copies, the sense of accelerated time and effortlessly traversed space typical of contemporary urban life. Benjamin regarded the distracted state of the film viewer as both a response to its formal properties and characteristic of the historical moment.

Realism If formalist positions dominated in the 1920s, the question of realism emerged soon after as the central debate of classical film theory. The momentous technical development of synchronized sound was accompanied by new speculation on the nature of the medium: does sound allow film to fulfill a mission to reproduce the world as it is, or does sound hinder cinema’s visual expression? Realism, generally speaking, relates to mimesis, or imitation of reality, in the arts. The mimetic quality has been valued in the Western artistic tradition since ancient Greece. If the formal- ists saw the film screen as akin to a picture frame, the realists saw it as a window.

During and after World War II, a reconsideration of realism was prompted by political events as well as by technical innovations and new filmmaking move- ments. One of the most prominent film critics and theorists of the 1950s and 1960s, André Bazin, saw film as quintessentially realist, a medium “in which the image is evaluated not according to what it adds to reality but what it reveals of it.” Bazin responded directly to the formalists who preceded him, and he serves as an impor- tant predecessor of contemporary film studies in turn (Bazin’s influence through Cahiers du cinéma is discussed later in this chapter).

In his essay “The Evolution of the Language of Cinema,” Bazin expressed the view that cinema’s ability to capture a space and event in real time is its essence.

Montage interfered with this vocation, he argued, by altering spa- tial and temporal relationships. He advocated instead for the use of composition in depth, made possible by deep-focus cinematog- raphy. Since all planes of the image could be kept in view, cutting between shots taken from different distances was less necessary. For Bazin, a filmmaker like Jean Renoir, who staged scenes in depth using long takes, conveyed “respect for the continuity of dramatic space and, of course, of its duration.” Bazin saw the image as a reference not only to reality but also to the viewer's presence — and ultimately as a means of transcending time.

Another formidable thinker on film, Siegfried Kracauer, is, like Bazin, best known for his strong advocacy of realism, though Kracauer’s position evolved over time. In the 1920s, he began writing newspaper essays in Weimar Germany amid modernist experimentation with film form. In “The Mass Ornament,” Kracauer explored the aesthetics of mass culture and the new rhythms of life it inspired [Figure 11.8], and he published his well-known From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film in 1947. In 1960, he elaborated his views on film’s capacity for realism in his major work, Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality. Kracauer argued that the cinematic medium “is uniquely equipped to record and reveal physical reality.” It was not just that film provided a window on the phenomenal world. More important, for Kracauer film was able to preserve what would otherwise meet with destruction: the momentary, the everyday, the random.

V I E w I n g C u E

V I E w I n g C u E

In the last film you viewed for class, explore the effects of a specific element of form such as the close-up, theorized by Béla Balázs, or the two-dimensionality of the screen, emphasized by Rudolf Arnheim.

From a realist position, analyze a recent film you viewed. Can you identify a scene that might support André Bazin’s ideas about the long take or Siegfried Kracauer’s ideas about photography’s power to capture the everyday?

11.8 Footlight Parade (1933). In his writings of the 1920s and early 1930s, Siegfried Kracauer cited the almost abstract patterns of chorus girls in performance as examples of what he called “mass ornament.”

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postwar Film Culture and Criticism Film theorists’ interest in cinematic realism was shaped by the devastating events of World War II and its aftermath. Kracauer’s experience as a German Jewish refugee influenced his views on cinema as a kind of his- torical evidence. Bazin, an activist Catholic and member of the French Resistance, invested film with similar redemptive properties. For example, Bazin valued the postwar Italian neorealist movement, exemplified in films like Germany Year Zero (1948) with its location shooting and amateur actors [Figure 11.9], because it demonstrated what Bazin called “faith in reality.”

In the period of recovery from the trauma and destruction of the war, neorealism led a vigorous international film culture. Art cinema was supported by film festivals and journals. Film theory could not have taken hold had it not been for the flurry of film- making and lively debates of this period.

Film Journals Postwar film culture was fostered in an international array of film journals. One of the most famous of these, Cahiers du cinéma, was co-founded by Bazin in 1951 [Figure 11.10]. Under Bazin’s mentorship, the magazine published the criticism of the young cineastes — François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard [Figure 11.11], Eric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette, and Claude Chabrol — who would shape the French New Wave (see Chapter 10, pp. 364-65). These writers were getting much of their film education at the Cinémathèque Française, where Henri Langlois screened an eclectic menu of world film — including the hundreds of American studio films that could not be released in France during the Vichy period. The writ- ings of the Cahiers critics, and the films that they went on to make, energized world film culture and lay the groundwork for the emergence of the discipline of film studies in universities.

Rival journals in France, Positif and Cinéthique, also flourished, and the polemics among them catalyzed film enthusiasts. Publications like Movie in England and the English-language Cahiers du cinéma, edited by Andrew Sarris in New York, disseminated French criti- cism and ideas like auteur theory. In the United States, Film Culture was at the heart of the avant-garde New American cinema movement in the 1950s and 1960s, and the University of California’s Film Quarterly, pub- lished under that title since 1958, introduced many key ideas of film theory.

After the cultural upheaval provoked by general strikes in France in May 1968, Cahiers du cinéma became both more political and more theoretical. In

11.9 Germany Year Zero (1948). For André Bazin, Roberto Rossellini’s film, set on location in postwar Berlin, puts its “faith in reality.”

11.10 Cahiers du cinéma. The journal, with its iconic yellow cover, introduced auteur theory in the 1950s. The Granger Collection, NY

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its pages, films from Hiroshima, mon amour (1959) to Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) were analyzed in depth. In the 1970s, writers for the British journal Screen introduced the Marxist, semiotic, and psychoanalytic language and ideas from France that would permeate Anglo-American cinema studies for more than a decade. Film publish- ing was not limited to periodicals. Monographs and series on individual directors, specific decades of film production, national cinemas, and genres proliferated. Many of these “little books” — low-cost, portable texts — combined the popular and the scholarly and encouraged the development of academic publishing in the field.

Auteur Theory The ideas that emerged from this intense cultivation of film culture informed both criticism and theory. Auteur theory, which asserts that a film bears the creative imprint of one individual (typically the direc- tor), emerged in the 1950s when specific directors were vocally championed by the French critics. The retention of the French term “auteur” in English marks this origin. Cahiers du cinéma promoted what its writers called “la politique des auteurs,” a “policy” or doctrine of singling out for praise certain filmmakers, such as Orson Welles, Fritz Lang, Samuel Fuller, and Robert Bresson, whose distinct styles made their films immediately identifiable. European art cinema was in its ascendance, with such figures as Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni fitting the definition of an auteur as an autonomous writer-director. Yet Cahiers du cinéma’s concept of authorship was also applied to a group of filmmakers for whom the idea of such conscious and consistent creative artistry seemed less appropriate: directors working in the heyday of the Hollywood studio system.

Critics argued that Hollywood auteurs such as Raoul Walsh and Howard Hawks left their signature on their films in the form of characteristic motifs or striking compositions, defying studio constraints on artistic autonomy in favor of market considerations. Debates arose over whether a particular director should be classi- fied a true auteur or a mere metteur en scène — French for “director,” derived from theatrical usage — a label that conveyed technical competence without a strong individual vision. In America, la politique des auteurs was popularized by Andrew Sarris in Film Culture and the Village Voice. In his 1968 collection The American Cinema: Directors and Directions, 1929–1968, Sarris lists his “pantheon,” includ- ing Hawks, Chaplin, Welles, and John Ford. At the same time, he deflates the reputations of Academy Award winners like William Wyler. In Sarris’s hierarchy of Hollywood talent, the judgment of the critic prevails in assigning relative sta- tus to a wide array of directors based on their personal signature. Like that of the French critics, Sarris’s work depends on a deep cinephilia, or love of cinema, and an almost exhaustive knowledge of the films — major and minor — released through- out the previous several decades. Sarris’s rendering of the phrase la politique des auteurs as “auteur theory" in English is somewhat misleading; it is less a fully worked-out theory than a critical method, and the political connotation is lost in translation.

11.11 Jean-Luc Godard. From his feature debut Breathless (1960) to the honorary Academy Award for lifetime achievement that he refused in 2010, Godard is an auteur whose persona is as distinctive as the innovative sounds and images of his many films. Mary Evans/Ronald Grant/Everett Collection (10403111)

V I E w I n g C u E Look at several issues of one of the journals mentioned in this section. Characterize the publication’s perspective on film culture, giving concrete examples.

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However, the auteurist approach tends to minimize the fact that cinema is a collaborative, commercial, and highly technologically mediated form. Making a film is not as personal as authoring a poem, and because so many individuals usu- ally contribute to a film, it can be hard to assign credit to a single authorial vision, especially in studio-produced work. Critic Pauline Kael counters Sarris’s position in one famous instance, asserting that writer Herman Mankiewicz rather than Orson Welles should be credited for coming up with Citizen Kane’s (1941) original structure and that cinematographer Gregg Toland’s work is what distinguishes the film’s look. In commercial cinema, a producer, studio, or franchise may be more important than a director. Today a director credit such as “a J.J. Abrams film” may be a matter of contractual obligations and financial arrangements. Film theorist Timothy Corrigan discusses the contemporary use of the director as brand as “the commerce of auteurism.”

Genre Theory In film, genre criticism, like auteur theory, was invigorated by the film culture of post–World War II France when American films that had not been released during that country’s occupation by Germany were finally exhibited all at once, making commonalities easy to identify. Like auteur criticism, genre criticism also depends on cinephilia — making generalizations based on only a few films would be imprudent. Sometimes genre criticism was considered at odds with auteur- ism: geniuses could not make run-of-the-mill, for- mulaic films — or if they did, it was an exception in their oeuvre. But auteurist approaches essentially developed in tandem with genre perspectives — it can be argued that the mark of the auteur on a genre is what distinguishes his or her work. This is certainly the case with John Ford and the western.

Auteur criticism might also praise the handling of disparate genres by a particularly gifted auteur. Critic Robin Wood looks at the elaboration of Hawksian themes in both Howard Hawks’s male adventure films and his screwball comedies and finds them to be related to the same concerns [Figure 11.12]. Similarly, a contemporary auteur such as Quentin Tarantino is known for his self-conscious use of martial arts, blaxploitation, and crime film genres; and Ridley Scott made an utterly original film in Blade Runner (1982) while respecting science fiction conventions [Figure 11.13]. The positive critical view toward popular cinema, especially Hollywood movies, that auteurism began to bring about in the 1950s was car- ried on through genre criticism more directly.

Different genres work out different cultural questions or problems; hence their emergence and decline in particular periods. Critic Thomas Schatz, in his 1981 book Hollywood Genres, for example, sees musicals as celebrating cultural integration, often symbolized by the couple coming together, whereas westerns require the establishment of a home, one that the wandering hero cannot himself enjoy.

11.12 His Girl Friday (1940). Howard Hawks made classics in disparate genres, including westerns, musicals, adventure films, and comedies such as this one.

11.13 Blade Runner (1982). The convergence of auteurist and genre criticism is apparent in assessments of Ridley Scott’s science fiction film.

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Contemporary Film Theory By the 1970s, film studies had become an established discipline, with strong footholds in English and art history programs as well as its own academic departments, societies, and journals. During this time, the vocabulary of film theory became very specialized. Theorists became interested in a more systematic approach to cinema than was offered by the often subjective and impressionistic legacy of film criticism. More recently, online journals, blogs, and streaming sites have helped democratize film theory, reflecting a greater engagement between the public and the scholarly film community, and reconnecting with the discipline’s origins in a wider film culture.

The following overview of contemporary film theory is organized accord- ing to major critical schools within the discipline. There are important inter- relationships among these schools, and often one set of questions grows out of another. For example, when feminist film theory looks at our unconscious identification with characters onscreen, it overlaps with psychoanalytic theory. When it looks at how some genres are associated with female viewers, it overlaps with cultural studies. However, establishing the evolution of and broad outlines for each area of contemporary film theory is a useful way to raise questions for further study.

Structuralism and Semiotics In a 1968 essay, French literary critic Roland Barthes declared “the death of the author,” arguing that the artist’s conscious intention and biography should be set aside in favor of an analysis of the formal qualities of the work itself. Auteur theory had extended the cultural prestige of the literary author to filmmakers; now literary critics were calling the traditional notion of authorial genius into question. These new perspectives had their roots in structuralism, an approach to linguistics and anthropology that, when extended to literary and filmic narratives, looks for com- mon structures rather than originality.

Structuralism was widely influential in French thought of the 1960s; its origins lie in the structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure in the early part of the twentieth century. Because of this influence, film theorists, like thinkers in other disciplines, compared the medium to language. For Saussure, linguistics was the most exemplary case of a new science of signs he called semiology, which would also include pictures, gestures, and a wide range of other systems of communication. Semiology or semiotics is the study of signs and significa- tion. It posits that meaning is constructed and communicated through the selec- tion, ordering, and interpretation of signs. A sign, for Saussure, is composed of a signifier, the spoken or written word, picture, or gesture, and a signified, the mental concept it evokes. Together, the signifier “c-a-t” and the signified mental image of a domesticated feline form a sign, and the two parts cannot be imag- ined without each other. In a particular instance, the sign “cat” might refer to a specific tabby, which would be its referent. The gap between the referent and the sign, and the distinction between the signifier and the signified, allow for the analyst to isolate general rules or codes that apply to specific instances of communication or messages. The code of language, for example, allows English speakers and listeners to share the meaning of the word “winter” as one of four seasons, its denotation. Cultural codes, however, are responsible for the connota- tions of cold and snow.

For late-nineteenth-century American philosopher C. S. Peirce, who coined the term “semiotics,” there are three varieties of signs. A word is a symbolic sign, with an arbitrary relationship to its referent assigned by language, which originates in

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culture. Photography and film, in contrast, are iconic signs, meaning they signify their referents through a relationship of resemblance. Finally, since photographic images are a product of a process in which light, when reflected from an object, produces an image that is fixed by the chemical emulsion on film, these images are also indexical signs, Peirce’s third type of sign. In other words, a direct causal relationship exists between the sign and the object depicted — a relationship that can be likened to pointing or indicating, implied by the word “index.” An indexi- cal sign like a footprint indicates that a person has walked in a particular path; a weathervane points in the direction the wind blows.

Therefore, pictures, especially photographs and film or video images, are seen to have a stronger identification with their referents than do words, which are connected to what they designate by convention only. In René Magritte’s famous painting The Treachery of Images, the words “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” (“This is not a pipe”) seem absurd because we take them to refer to what is unmistakably a picture of a pipe. But a picture of a pipe is not a real pipe you would hold and use to smoke tobacco, merely its iconic sign. There is no essential nature of an object that is captured in a sign, of whatever kind. Semiotics stresses language as human invention and social convention. The scientific methodology devised by linguistics to describe these conventions has been useful to theorists attempting to approach cinema systematically, rather than relying on subjective evaluations such as beauty and truth. Semiotic methods of formal analysis are based on these attempts. Theo- rists identify how cinematic codes such as camera movement and lighting create meaningful patterns in specific films and across genres.

The legacy of linguistics has also been felt in theories of film narrative. French an- thropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss titled his important 1957 work Structural Anthro- pology, building on Saussure’s structural linguistics. Lévi-Strauss studied thousands of myths and discovered that they share basic structures that profoundly shape cultural life. Russian folklorist Vladimir Propp noticed a similar unity in his study of folktales. There are a limited number of what he called character functions and plot elements and certain kinds of plot events always occur in the same order. From hundreds of tales he discerned basic plots; interestingly, these are echoed in many other narrative forms.

Narratology, the study of narrative forms, is a branch of structuralism that encompasses stories of all kinds, including films. Are there a limited number of basic plots available to filmmakers? Are genres like myths? Because movies are so formulaic and so strikingly similar to myths and folktales even when not explicitly based on them, narratological studies had fruitful results. The characters in the Star Wars series, for example, closely match the heroes, antiheroes, magical helpers, princesses, and witches of the folktales Propp studied [Figure 11.14].

The linguists known as the Russian formalists, contemporaries of Sergei Eisen- stein and Vladimir Propp, have contributed the important distinction between syuzhet (plot) and fabula (story) to the study of narrative. Syuzhet refers to the way events are arranged in the actual tale or film, and fabula refers to the chronologically ordered sequence of events as we rationally reconstruct it. For example, a detective story’s syuzhet follows the detective’s progress through the investigation. Its fabula commences with the circumstances leading up to the committing of the crime.

Structuralist theorists reduce narrative to its most basic form: an opening situ- ation is disrupted, a hero takes action as a result, and a new equilibrium is reached at the end. The novel, the distinctive middle-class cultural form of the nineteenth century, gave that hero psychological depth within a realistic field of action. The novel’s basic narrative form was adopted by motion pictures, whose realist capac- ity is great. Along with certain avant-garde filmmakers, film theorists drawing on structuralism and semiotics, and reaching back to the formalist positions of classi- cal film theory, challenged the idea of classical narrative form as “the norm” and realism as cinema’s primary mode.

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Watch the online clip of The Wizard of Oz (1939) and consider how its plot resembles a fairy tale.

V I E w I n g C u E

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Ideological Critique As tools of contemporary film theory, structuralism and semiotics were brought to bear on both the content and the form of film as an ideological critique of the naturalization of social conventions and the mystification of how things work. For example, a structuralist reading of the musical Singin’ in the Rain (1952) that is critical of its ideological message would show how both the technology and the labor involved in making a Hollywood film are subordinated to the film’s romance plot. This form of ideological critique is derived from Marxist theory. Marxism is most immediately understood as a political and economic discourse, one that looks at history and society in terms of unequal class relations. But French thought, catalyzed by the radical social disruptions, political protests, and intellectual currents of the late 1960s, brought Marxism to bear on cultural forms like film.

Louis Althusser approaches the traditional Marxist question of the nature of ideology — a systematic set of beliefs that is not necessarily conscious — with a new explanation of how people come to accept ideas and conditions contrary to their interests. Althusser defines ideology as “the imaginary representation of the real relations in which we live.” According to him, real relations, such as paid work that contributes to the profits of others, disempower working people in the interests of the ruling class, and our imaginary representations — that this is the way things are supposed to be, according to narratives such as the evening news and Hollywood genre films — make this powerlessness seem inevitable and tolerable.

For the critics at Cahiers du cinéma, film is an important test of Althusser’s theories about ideology because it affects viewers' beliefs on an unconscious level. In their 1969 editorial for the journal, Jean-Luc Comolli and Jean Narboni examine varieties of film practice and classify films in seven categories (a–g) according to their relationship with the “dominant ideology.” Category “a” films were those Comolli and Narboni perceived as most politically and formally con- sistent with the dominant ideology. Category “b” films include those that broke with the dominant ideology, not only on the level of content (for example, films

11.14 Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope (1977). George Lucas acknowledged the influence of mythologist Joseph Campbell in the plot of the first Star Wars movie. Narratologists would recognize the dramatis personae of the hero, the helper, and the princess in the film’s main characters.

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that portrayed decolonization and the con- flict over U.S. involvement in Vietnam), but also on the level of form (for example, experimental films that disturb easy viewing processes).

But Comolli and Narboni’s editorial sets an even more lasting agenda for film theory in their practice of ideological cri- tique. In their list of categories of films to study, they use “e” to designate Hollywood films that seem to uphold the status quo but register, in their formal excesses or internal contradictions, the stresses and strains of trying to make the dominant ideology seem inevitable. Careful viewers can read these codes and see the film as a representation of or argument about the social world rather than as an unchangeable reality. Soon, other critics followed Comolli and Narboni’s lead in reading films in this way. For example, studio-era auteur Douglas Sirk’s 1950s melodramas, including All That Heaven Allows (1955), were considered too color-coordinated, his characters too hysterical, and their environments too crammed with artificial commodities to be taken at face value [Figure 11.15]. These glossy surfaces were seen to be cracking under the brittle hypocrisies characterizing the prosperous, Eisenhower-era America they depicted: anti-Communist hysteria, repression of civil rights movements, and the enforcement of gender roles and sexual codes that had been challenged during the war. Sirk’s films are what these critics called “progressive texts”; the uneasy feeling they leave us with is itself a critique of dominant ideology. This subtle, and sometimes wishful, approach is known as “symptomatic reading,” a fruitful legacy of Althusser’s ideological critique in contemporary film theory.

Poststructuralism As the term implies, poststructuralism is the intellectual development that derived from structuralism and in some sense supplanted it. Poststructuralism questions the rational methodology and fixed definitions that structuralists bring to their various objects of study and includes many distinct areas of thought, from psy- choanalytic to postcolonial and feminist theory. Poststructuralism is a position of critique, asking us to reconsider the truths and hierarchies we take for granted. For example, our implicit standard that a satisfying film ties up all its loose ends is a structuralist position that posits closure as a basic narrative element. Poststructur- alism counters that closure is a relative quality and stresses the open-endedness of stories: what if we daydream about the characters we have been introduced to or pick up on the relationship between a film and topical events?

Poststructuralism is a great deal messier than structuralism as an intellectual movement. Whereas structuralism attempted to be systematic by looking for trans- historical common patterns into which specific data would fit, poststructuralism questions structuralism’s assumption of objectivity and the disregard for cultural and historical context. A shorthand definition might be: structuralism + subjec- tivity = poststructuralism. Most of contemporary film theory is poststructuralist in orientation; we explore aspects of the intersection of subjectivity with film structures. This is done through psychoanalysis, which was elaborated in terms of apparatus theory and theories of spectatorship.

11.15 All That Heaven Allows (1955). Critics regarded Douglas Sirk’s melodramas as “progressive texts” whose formal excesses and improbable situations showed the cracks in Eisenhower-era America’s facade of prosperity and social consensus.

V I E w I n g C u E Does the film you are watching put forth a clear ideological position? Are there ways to see conflicting positions in it?

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The film version of Marjane Satrapi’s graphic memoir Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Parranaud, 2007) features black-and-white cel animation with simple black-outlined forms and decorative patterning against flat gray-shaded backgrounds. The film’s formal style is correlated meaningfully with its themes of coming-of-age, exile, and cultural difference, as well as its fable-like tone of wry humor. Signs including color, voice, clothing, and text communicate dimensions of Marjane’s experience and the narrator’s feminist and diasporan perspective. The film’s seeming simplicity is enriched by a semiotic analysis.

Persepolis is the story of Marjane, who as a child in Tehran witnessed repression under the Shah and later under the Islamic Republic and during the Iran/Iraq war. She left home for schooling in Europe, and although she returned for a time to Iran and attended art school there, the adult Marjane lives and works as a writer and artist in France, far from her family. From a structuralist perspec- tive, hers is a tale of a banished heir conquering a series of obstacles. Yet the ending remains open, and gender, culture, and politics give the story its unique texture.

The film begins with the adult Marjane in an airport, a place that signifies transit and conveys the feeling of being neither here nor there. Significantly, the present- day scenes are the only ones in the film to use color. A Western viewer might expect this to connote the vibrancy of life in democratic Europe compared to the drabness of theocratic Iran. Instead, pale figures appear against monochromatic backgrounds. Marjane’s red coat con- notes that the scene is happening “now.” It signals the character’s interiority or “voice” without a word being spoken.

An animated film is rich with examples of symbolic, iconic, and indexical signs. Animation is an iconic lan- guage of resemblance. We compare Marjane’s image with that of a blond, green-eyed woman in the ladies’ room and recognize similarities and differences in these icons. When Marjane covers her head with a scarf in preparation for a flight to Tehran, the red lips of the other woman purse in distaste. Cultural signs of clothing and

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gesture are easily read here, as well as in the next image of Marjane slumped and somewhat incongruously smok- ing a cigarette, as the headscarf is worn as a symbol of female modesty. Voiceover narration, dialogue, and titles engage the symbolic code of language to amplify or counterpoint what is visible in the image. The child Marji scampers past as the adult Marjane’s voiceover begins [Figure 11.16]. Bruce Lee and Adidas are young Marjane’s favorites, we learn: the signs “Iran” and “popular culture” are juxtaposed quite naturally. Because the film was made in France, there is an added level of symbolic signi- fication involved in translation. The title “Téhéran 1978” comes up, connoting not only that the film is arranged in a flashback — we construct the linear fabula from the order of events presented by the syuzhet — but also that a greater history is about to impinge on Marji’s story. The Islamic Revolution occurs in 1979.

Marji’s parents explain that while at first the Revo- lution promised freedom from British and American influence over the country, these principles were later betrayed by an oppressive regime. The headscarf, cel- ebrated by the Revolution as a symbol of Iranian iden- tity, soon becomes an unwelcome restriction of Marji’s freedom [Figure 11.17]. Persepolis’s often stark but lay- ered images of rebellion, war, and torture are not the

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Signs and meaning in Persepolis (2007) See also: Waking Life (2001), Waltz with Bashir (2008)

FIlm In FOCuS bedfordstmartins.com /filmexperience

To watch a clip from Persepolis, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

11.16 Persepolis (2007). Waiting for a plane back to Tehran, Marjane remembers her childhood there. The animated images become black-and- white as a sign of the transition from present to past.

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indexical, photographic ones of objective history. Instead, the silhouette of a figure in a gas mask is the stuff of childhood nightmares [Figure 11.18]. And the intricately decorated images of Marji’s fantasies and the stories her family tells her are evocative of Persian traditional art. All of the film’s images, in fact, bear the traces of distance — living in exile, dwelling in memory. At the same time, because the movie was made with traditional

rather than digital animation, it points to the artist’s own hand — the images are in this way indexical. One very clear sign of Satrapi’s personal presence in her artwork is the mole she always includes on representations of her adult face. A trace of her work, an iconic represen- tation of her face, the mark is a symbol of her identity, rendered in black and white and all the shades of gray in between.

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11.17 Persepolis (2007). Two female “Guardians of the Revolution” berate Marji for her punk clothing.

11.18 Persepolis (2007). Marjane Satrapi’s graphic style evokes a child’s memory of the Iran/Iraq war.

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Psychoanalysis Psychoanalytic theory comes into play in describing the psychic processes we undergo when experiencing the film illu- sion. When we watch films in a movie theater, we are immobile and surrounded in darkness and become absorbed in a larger- than-life image. Identification, desire, dis- avowal: these are some of the processes that are activated as we watch a film.

Film theory was greatly affected by the ways French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan described human subjectivity, as images were central to his account. In his teach-

ings from the 1950s through his death in 1981, Lacan spoke of three domains of psychic experience: the “imaginary realm” deals in images; the “symbolic realm” is the domain of language, and the “real” is experienced as a trauma that cannot be directly represented. Lacanian film theorists are struck by the fact that the human subject relates to pictures (the imaginary) in a particularly powerful way, rooted in one of the earliest images to leave an impression on us, our own reflection in the mirror. In the mirror stage, the infant comes to recognize himself or herself as a human individual, but this recognition is also a “misrecognition,” because it is routed through an image that is an illusion.

Lacanian film theorists like Jean-Louis Baudry and Christian Metz liken this early sense of self, which is both powerful and illusory, to the experience of viewing a film and “believing” in its world. Moreover, films are peopled with stars and characters with physical powers superior to ours and with whom we identify [Figure 11.19]. While the symbolic and the real also come into play in our encounters with movies, it is the imaginary that accounts for their power. This dimension of the film experience was elaborated by analogy with the viewing process itself.

Apparatus Theory In Plato’s ancient parable of the cave, people chained underground watching shad- ows on the wall could not know that what they saw was not real. Film theorist Jean-Louis Baudry saw the cinema as similar to the cave, an ideological mechanism based in a physical set of technologies, with the power to convince us that an illu- sion is real. He used Althusser’s term “apparatus” to argue that the arrangement of equipment, such as the hidden projector and the illuminated screen, influences our unconscious receptivity to the image and to ideology — as if we too were trapped in Plato’s cave.

Apparatus theory explores the values built into film technology through the particular context of its historical development. The camera’s monocular (single- eyed) perspective is based on the values of human-scaled Renaissance art, in which the viewer stands at the point where perspective lines converge. Apparatus theory asserts that this position is not neutral but embodies Western cultural values like anthropocentrism (human-centeredness), individualism, possessiveness, and the elevation of the visual over other senses. A culture that did not put the possessive individual at the center of representation — a culture that equally valued animals and people, for example, or senses other than sight in the arts — might never have developed the technology of photography.

The film viewer is in the same position as the camera that filmed the image and can thus imagine himself or herself as the originator or possessor of the illusion on the screen. This sense of one’s self is double-edged. According to poststructuralism,

11.19 Casino Royale (2006). Daniel Craig’s character James Bond represents an idealized object of identification, an aspect of spectatorship highlighted in psychoanalytic film theory.

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an individual who stands in front of a Renaissance painting or watches a classical Hollywood movie is “subjected” to the apparatus’s positioning and is granted his or her “subjectivity” or sense of self only in these predetermined conditions.

Theorists argue that subjects are constituted through language or through other acts of signification (meaning-making), such as film. For example, the word “I” has no definite meaning until it is used by someone in a conversation, and its meaning shifts as each speaker in the conversation uses “I” to refer to himself or herself. As viewers cannot “talk back” when they watch a movie (as they can with video games, Web sites, and interactive films), they can be said to be constituted as the object of the film’s address: they are meant to laugh, cry, or put clues together as the film unfolds.

Spectatorship How subjects interact with films and with the cinematic apparatus is addressed through the theory of spectatorship. Spectatorship has been a concern in film theory since Münsterberg, who used psychology to explain the mind’s role in making sense of movies. In the poststructuralist theory of the 1970s, spectatorship stood at the convergence of theories of language and subjectivity, psychoanalysis, and ideological critique.

Christian Metz was one of the most prolific and influential contemporary promoters of spectatorship theory. In his influential book The Imaginary Signifier (1977), he argues that film’s strong perceptual presence — giant images projected in a dark room, immersive sound — makes it an almost hallucinatory experience. Going to the movies gratifies our voyeurism (looking without being seen our- selves) and plays to our unconscious self-image of power. It is as if what’s on the screen is made possible by our presence. The work of Metz and other French theorists appeared in translation in the English journal Screen in the early 1970s, and the psychoanalytic theory of spectatorship is sometimes known as “screen theory.”

Theories of Gender and Sexuality The poststructuralist account of spectatorship and subjectivity remains abstract if given only in general terms. In psychoanalytic theory, subjectivity is constructed as gendered. Theories of gender and sexuality have been integral to film theory’s exploration of how subjectivity is engaged by and constructed in cinema.

Feminist Film Theory As feminism began to have wide social and intellectual currency during the 1970s, commentators noted ways that the female image is treated differently from the male image in film. In advertising, pornography, and painting, the objectification of the fe- male image seems to solicit a possessive, implicitly male gaze [Figure 11.20]. In film, feminist critics note, the spectator is envi- sioned in a similarly gendered way. “Is the gaze male?” asks E. Ann Kaplan in an essay of the same title, noting that vision is often associated with ownership and power — typically seen as male — in our culture.

V I E w I n g C u E Consider your experience as a spectator of the film screened most recently for class. Did you relate to the point of view of a particular character or was your perspective more omnipotent? Were you aware of the apparatus (the camera, the projection)?

11.20 And God Created Woman (1956). Brigitte Bardot’s character exemplifies what Laura Mulvey calls woman’s “to-be-looked-at-ness.”

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British theorist and filmmaker Laura Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” published in Screen in 1975, is one of the most important essays in con- temporary film theory. Arguing that psychoanalysis offers a compelling account of how the difference between the sexes is culturally determined, Mulvey observes that the glamorous and desirable female image in film is also a potentially threat- ening vision of difference, or otherness, for male viewers. Hollywood films repeat a pattern of visual mastery of the woman as “Other” by attributing the onscreen gaze to a male character who can cover for the camera’s voyeurism — its capacity for looking without being seen — and stand in for the male viewer. Film narratives also tend to domesticate or otherwise tame the woman, Mulvey shows, offering analyses of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958) and Rear Window (1954), whose stories are driven by voyeurism and female makeovers. Essentially, Mulvey argues that the standard dichotomy in Hollywood film is: “woman as image/man as bearer of the look.”

In her own films, Mulvey champions “a political use of psychoanalysis” and a style of filmmaking that would “free the look of the camera into its materiality in time and space” so that it cannot be ignored through assimilation to the viewer’s or characters’ perspective. In their film Riddles of the Sphinx (1977), Mulvey and Peter Wollen use 360-degree pans, with the camera positioned at about waist level, to emulate the circularity of a young mother’s rhythms of work and to avoid objec- tifying her body in a centered, still image [Figure 11.21]. The film deliberately sets out to destroy conventional visual pleasure and narrative satisfaction. Like many theorists of this period, Mulvey and Wollen believed in making spectators think about what they were seeing.

Building on Mulvey’s provocative argument, other feminist critics raise the question of female spectatorship. If narrative cinema so successfully positions the viewer to take up a male gaze, why are women historically often the most enthusi- astic film viewers? One way to approach this question is to consider films produced with a female audience in mind. During Hollywood’s heyday, “women’s pictures” featured female stars who had a strong appeal to women, such as Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. At first glance, women’s pleasure in these films seems self- defeating: what these heroines seem to do best is suffer. However, feminists argue that a film like Now, Voyager (1942) enables female spectators to explore their own

dissatisfaction with their lives by fantasiz- ing a more fulfilling version of that exis- tence. The movie shows Davis as a dowdy spinster taking control of her life — through psychoanalytic treatment, romance, and new clothes!

Today’s commercial films aimed at women are not that different from those of the 1940s. Many feminist critics argue that women’s pleasure in these compli- cated, mixed-message movies should be taken seriously. Because film is a mass medium, it will never radically challenge existing power relations, but if it speaks to women’s dilemmas, it is doing more than much official culture does. Sometimes filmmakers succeed in evoking these emo- tions and mass cultural traditions in more reflexive and satisfying ways, such as in Pedro Almodóvar’s revisiting of maternal melodramas in All About My Mother (1999) and Volver (2006) [Figure 11.22].

11.21 Riddles of the Sphinx (1977). Laura Mulvey puts her own theories about images of women into practice in a film made with Peter Wollen.

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Overall, feminism has had more of an impact on the relatively young disci- pline of film theory than on many more established ones. Arguably, gender in film cannot be ignored. As Mulvey’s work suggests, cinema — certainly entertainment film but also the avant-garde — depends on the stylized images of women for its appeal. Moreover, the cinema, because it is part of the fabric of daily life, neces- sarily comments on the everyday, private sphere of gender relations. Feminism’s significant inroads in film theory have laid the groundwork for related, though not always parallel, critiques of cinema’s deployment of sexuality, race, and national identity.

Queer Theory Feminist and psychoanalytic theory stress that unconscious processes such as desire and identification are at play when we go to the movies. Like cinema itself, however, psychoanalysis historically concentrates on heterosexual scenarios (such as the Oedipus complex) and pathologizes gays and lesbians (as cases of “arrested development,” for example). Queer film theory critiques and supplements feminist and psychoanalytic approaches, allowing for more flexible ways of seeing and experiencing visual pleasure than are accounted for by the binary opposites of male versus female, seeing versus seen, and being versus desiring that are the basis of Mulvey’s influential model of spectatorship.

Queer theory challenged Mulvey’s assumption that the position of desire is male, and the desired one, female, essentially equating gender difference with sexual desire. The gender of a member of the audience need not correspond with that of the character he or she finds most absorbing or most alluring. Mulvey cites Marlene Dietrich as an example of a “fetish” or mask for the male spectator’s desire, but Mulvey does not remark on the lesbian connotations of the star’s image. Dietrich cross- dressed for songs in many films and even kissed a woman on the lips in her first American movie, Morocco (1930) [Figure 11.23]. Dietrich’s gender bending is more than theoretical. Her onscreen style borrowed directly from the fashions of the lesbian and gay subculture of Weimar-era Germany, where her career began. Dietrich thus appealed on many different levels to lesbian and gay viewers, as well as to heterosexual women and men. In fact, this multiplicity could be seen more generally as a key to cinema’s mass appeal. The theory of gender performativity — the idea that there is no essential content to gender, only a set of cues and codes that must be repeatedly enacted and can be changed — is well illustrated in Dietrich’s persona.

Although movies tend to conform to the dominant values of a society — in this case, to heterosexuality as the norm — they also make

11.22 Volver (2006). Pedro Almodóvar revisits the Hollywood genre of the maternal melodrama in this family story, empowering his female characters.

11.23 Morocco (1930). Queer theorists interpret Marlene Dietrich — here kissing a woman — in a different way than feminist theorist Laura Mulvey does in her influential essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.”

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unconscious appeals to our fantasies, which may not be as conformist, and the term “queer” captures this anti-normative potential. Moreover, films leave room for viewers’ own interpretations and appropriations, such as when fan writers continue the adventures of particular mainstream characters or celebrities and share them on the Internet. Spectators positioned at the margins, such as gay men and lesbians, often “read against the grain” for cues of performance or mise-en-scène that sug- gest a different story from the one onscreen, one with more relevance to their lives. An interest in stars may extend beyond any particular film they are cast in and ignore those films’ required romantic outcomes. Queer theory allows for interpreta- tions that value style over content, and ambiguity over certainty.

Cultural Studies Cultural studies scrutinizes aspects of cinema embedded in the everyday lives of individuals or groups at particular historical junctures and in particular social con- texts; it does not analyze individual texts in isolation or theorize about spectator- ship in the abstract. The interest in audiences’ experience of cultural forms responds to Marxist approaches like that of Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, whose essay “The Culture Industry” argued that mass culture duped its viewers, churn- ing out movies in the same manner as new cars or brands of toothpaste, with only superficial differences among the products. A useful way of understanding the fresh approach that cultural studies takes lies in a shift in the very definition of “culture.” Instead of defining culture as great works produced by transcendent artists and appreciated by knowledgeable patrons, cultural studies uses an anthropological definition: culture as a way of life, including social structures and habits. In other words, it is how movies are encountered, understood, and “used” in daily experience that interests cultural studies scholars. We will look at a few key approaches within cultural studies: reception theory, star studies, and race and representation.

Reception Theory Reception theory focuses on how a film is received by audiences, rather than on who made a film or on its formal features or thematic content. Proponents of this approach focus on a work’s meaning only as it is achieved in its reception. This implies a theory

of audiences as active rather than passive. One obvious example is participatory viewing practices, including the costumes and call-and-response of fans in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) viewings [Figure 11.24].

Reception theory also recognizes that films from the past may be received by today’s audi- ences in entirely new ways, like rooting for the Native Americans rather than the cowboys or enjoying a supporting character’s subversive wit rather than investing in the romance of a pair of bland leads.

Beyond the idiosyncrasies of personal his- tory and circumstances, aspects of each viewer’s cultural identity — for instance, age, ethnicity, and educational background — can predispose us toward particular kinds of reception. The homoerotic sub- text of Rebel Without a Cause (1955) is likely to be more salient to an audience knowledgeable about the gay subcultural following of actors James Dean

11.24 The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). Participatory audiences and repeat viewers are studied by reception theory. © Allen Eyestone/Palm Beach Post/ Zuma Press

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and Sal Mineo [Figure 11.25]. Such an audience is referred to as an interpretive community because its members share particular knowledge, or cultural com- petence, through which a film is experi- enced and interpreted, and their responses are known as situated responses.

The panoply of West African–derived hairstyles in Daughters of the Dust (1991) is more likely to be enjoyed and rec- ognized by black women than by other audience members; indeed, filmmaker Julie Dash intended this special grati- fication as part of the movie’s address, its vision of its ideal audience. Theorists see these multiple ways of interacting with a text as confirmation that individuals actively make meaning even in response to otherwise homogenous mass media.

The methodologies associated with reception theory include comparing and contrasting reviews drawn from different periodicals, countries, or decades; con- ducting detailed interviews with viewers; tracking commodity tie-ins, the goods that are marketed with the “brand name” of a particular film or characters; and studying fan activity on the Internet. Given the multitude of possible approaches, it’s no surprise that reception studies has a wide scope.

Reception studies differs from theories of spectatorship in that it deals with actual audiences rather than a hypothetical subject constructed by the text. While spectatorship is concerned with the unconscious patterns evoked by a particular text or by the process of film viewing in the abstract, reception studies addresses both actual responses to movies and the behavior of groups. British cultural stud- ies scholar Stuart Hall has argued that groups respond to mass culture from their different positions of social empowerment. They may react from the position the text slots them into — the dominant reading; offer a negotiated reading that accom- modates different realities; or reject the framework in which a dominant message is conveyed through an oppositional reading. Reception studies thus suggests that social identity considerably complicates the picture of subjectivity offered in post- structuralist film theory.

Star Studies An important component of reception is our response to stars, performers who become recognizable through their films or who bring celebrity to their roles. In addition to analyzing how a star’s image is composed from various elements — film appearances, promotion, publicity, and critical commentary — theorists are interested in how audience reception helps define a star’s cultural meaning. Although one of the most pervasive aspects of cinema, stars may seem one of the least likely topics to be considered in a theoretical approach — after all, stars are the province of entertainment news, tabloid journalism, fan Web sites, and online chats. But these familiar and ephemeral sources such as fan magazines have an important place in cultural studies, as do the responses of fans themselves. One understands a film in relationship to what one knows of its stars outside the world of the film’s fiction. From Judy Garland to Lindsay Lohan, stars with troubled offscreen lives are perceived differently in wholesome onscreen roles [Figures 11.26a and 11.26b].

Beyond the range of roles that a star becomes familiar for playing, other discourses about stars — including promotion (studio-arranged exposure such as Web sites and television appearances), publicity (romances, scandals, and political

11.25 Rebel Without a Cause (1955). Subcultural knowledge about actor Sal Mineo’s gay identity reinforces the film’s homoerotic subtext about Plato’s feelings for Jim Stark, played by James Dean.

V I E w I n g C u E Conduct a reception study of the film you just viewed by surveying your classmates about which characters and situations they responded to most favorably. Compare and contrast their opinions with those of film reviewers.

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involvement), and commentary (critical evaluations and awards) — help construct their images. Star images become “texts” to be read in their own right. Sean Penn’s prom- ise as a teen star was associated with his acting rather than his looks. His volatile marriage to Madonna and his arrest for assaulting a photographer; his major film roles (a condemned man in Dead Man Walking, 1995; his Oscar- winning role in Milk, 2008); his work as an independent director (Into the Wild, 2007); and his outspoken politics and humanitarian work around Hurricane Katrina and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti construct him as an individualist, even an “outlaw,” a persona that carries connotations of “authenticity” [Figure 11.27]. Even when a particular star is billed as “just an ordinary guy,” like Tom Hanks, or “the girl next door,” like Emma Stone or 1950s star Doris Day, this image is carefully orchestrated.

We will never have access to the star as a real person. Instead, we experience his or her constructed image in rela- tion to cultural codes (including age, race, class, gender, religion, fashion, and more) and according to filmic codes (genre, acting, and even lighting). For example, the silent film star Lillian Gish was sometimes lit from above as she stood on a white sheet. The reflected light enhanced her pal- lor and the radiance of her blond hair, connoting a virginal whiteness that was an important component of her star image in her films with D. W. Griffith. Stars are often con- sidered the embodiment of types. For example, John Wayne connotes rugged individualism; Sandra Bullock, spunky decency; Morgan Freeman, quiet dignity; Will Ferrell, manic mayhem. Heath Ledger's star image gained new dimensions from his performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight (2008) and his premature death before that film’s release.

We also construct our own identities and communities through stars whom we will never know, and this is not necessarily a negative aspect of the phenomenon. Young girls who patterned themselves after plucky singing star Deanna Durbin in the 1940s, Madonna in the 1980s, or Idina Menzel's characters incorporated the quality of inde- pendence these stars embodied, and identified themselves in solidarity, rather than in competition, with other girls who shared their appreciation. According to critic Richard Dyer, a basic conflict between the ordinary and the extraordinary is at the root of the star phenomenon. Stars are not better people than the rest of us, which facilitates our identifica- tion with them. And yet they remain a breed apart.

Star discourse is a particularly revealing and useful critical approach to cinema because it is based in our everyday experience as fans. We have many immedi- ate and unexamined responses to stars, from crushes to

antipathies. But we also appreciate stars in nuanced ways that yield considerable critical understanding. Cultural studies of stars often begins with viewer testimoni- als, taking them not at face value but using them as a starting point for a more sociological analysis. What ethnic groups are represented in a nation’s most popu- lar stars? Do popular female stars transgress the boundaries of what is considered proper female behavior? Are people of color limited to supporting roles? Stars are

(a)

11.26a and 11.26b Lindsay Lohan’s wholesome character in Mean Girls (2004) contrasts with contemporary viewers’ knowledge of her troubled offscreen life. 11.26b: Jean Baptiste Lacroix/WireImage

(b)

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powerful forces for understanding what is important to a culture at any given moment.

Race and Representation The concept of race — for race is not an objective fact but a socially constructed category based on historical experiences and valuations of perceived difference — intersects with the film experience on many different levels, including questions of specta- torship and reception, and many different theoretical approaches can illuminate these issues. Cultural stud- ies models can address such topics as stereotypes and how they are received by diverse audiences, and how discourses of imperialism, colonialism, and nationalism are embedded in film stories, genres, and star images. It is helpful to distinguish in this area two senses of the term “representation”: (1) the aesthetic sense, whereby we may speak of representations of African Americans in the films of Spike Lee versus those of Gone with the Wind (1939), for example, and (2) the political sense of standing for a group of people, as an elected repre- sentative does. Both senses are at play in the cinematic representation of race. In addition, theories of exile and homeland, cultural hybridity and diaspora, and the global and the intercultural have added to the store of explanatory frames we have for looking at race and representation in cinema.

Identification across race is a fraught and often obligatory process for nonwhite viewers because of the historical lack of racial diversity onscreen. Cinematic history reinforces the assumption of a white, Western spectator-subject. In classical Hollywood films, non- white characters are relegated to the periphery of the action as villainous or comic or sometimes noble, but always secondary, characters. Colonialism, the assumed primacy of Western values, peoples, and power over people from other parts of the globe, pervades such genres as the western and the adventure film. In the musical The King and I (1956), one white Englishwoman proves to be a match for the Siamese king and his entire court [Figure 11.28]. In Unthinking Eurocentrism (1994), theorists Robert Stam and Ella Shohat show how a Western gaze and voice are reproduced in such popular films as the Indiana Jones series (1981–2008), in which non-Western cultures pro- vide colorful backgrounds for the exploits of a Western hero. They also discuss how non-dominant cultures are marginalized by casting, when white actors play other races [Figure 11.29], and even by sound, when everyone speaks English in films set in another country or when jazz scores are used in films in which all the characters are white.

But Stam and Shohat’s examples show that American cinema often reflects a multicultural society in other ways. The importance of the western as a genre, or of the plantation as a motif, gives evidence of a cultural preoccupation with racial difference and conflicts. Although stereotyped in such film representations, people of color stand at the center of the nation’s definition of itself. Recent Hollywood films, from dramas like Crash (2004) to animated films like Rio (2011), often incorpo- rate multiculturalism as part of the very definition of America.

11.27 Sean Penn. Penn’s maverick star image is composed of the ensemble of his film roles over time, critical assessments, publicity, and other public activities; star studies analyze the cultural significance and func- tion of celebrities. Hubert Boesl/dpa/Landov

V I E w I n g C u E Research the star of the film you are about to watch for class. What does your previous knowledge of this star bring to your viewing? Is the role at odds with his or her established image?

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The increasing success of filmmakers of color in the United States has paral- leled theoretical explorations of alterna- tive aesthetics. The trickster figure of West African tradition, which appears in To Sleep with Anger (1990) by Charles Burnett and in Zajota and the Boogie Spirit (1989) by Ayoka Chenzira, is an expression of the identification of these African American filmmakers with the diaspora, a scattered community of peo- ple who share an original homeland.

Finally, aesthetic expressions of politics are a major concern in postcolonial cinemas that have emerged around the world. Third Cinema, discussed in Chapter 10, is one such example. These works often use narrative forms more in keeping with specific cultural traditions or political ideas than the linear cause-and-effect structures of Hollywood films. Humberto Solás’s Lucía (1968), for instance, uses a three-part structure to link the fates of three Cuban women in different historical moments [Figure 11.30].

By arguing that there is room for agency and divergence in our reception experiences, and in increasing the kinds of films and

related cinematic phenomena that are deemed wor- thy of theoretical attention, critics associated with cultural studies take apart the unity and inevitability that characterized poststructuralist film theory in the 1970s. With roots in sociology, cultural studies also takes a broader approach to contemporary media than film studies based in the humanities often do. This wider scope has opened up space to address the distinctiveness of television and new media, as well as the many social and economic transactions that surround cinema today, from the viewing of works on cable, DVD, or the Internet to the incorporation of movie franchises into our daily lives.

Film and Philosophy While cultural studies critics reject the overt formal- ism as well as the abstractions of 1970s film theory, film philosophers critique the same dominant school for its lack of empirical support and theoretical rigor.

To some extent, all film theory is related to philosophy and characterized by a search for underlying principles and a logical argument. However, some film theorists identify more strongly than others with philosophical methods. In Mystify- ing Movies: Fads and Fallacies in Contemporary Film Theory (1991), Noël Carroll carefully and gleefully debunks the analogy of film to dreams; other scholars point out the flawed reasoning in using linguistic models to describe sounds and images. David Bordwell, one of the most prolific and well-respected film scholars, advocates a cognitivist approach to the medium in which our response to film is measured in

11.28 The King and I (1956). Colonialism becomes a charming musical romance told from a white Englishwoman’s perspective.

11.30 Lucía (1968). Humberto Solás’s film uses formal innovation to reflect on Cuban history through the stories of three women.

11.29 Gandhi (1982). White British actor Ben Kingsley plays the Indian populist leader.

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terms of rational evaluation of visual and narrative cues. Based in psychological research, cognitivism advocates verifiable scientific approaches. Rejecting analysis that invokes unconscious fantasy or employs idiosyncratic interpretation, cognitiv- ism claims that we respond to the moving image with the same perceptual processes we use to respond to visual stimuli in the world — adjusting film images for lack of depth, perceiving the identity of objects that are moving and changing in time. Not simply a backlash against the obscure terminology and French-influenced syntax of poststructuralist theory, cognitive film theory argues for a less metaphorical, more scientific, and historically verifiable definition and practice of film studies.

Phenomenology, which stresses that any act of perception involves a mutual- ity of viewer and viewed, has also had a profound effect on film theory. Jacques Lacan and Christian Metz derived their emphasis on the gaze from phenomenolo- gists, but the psychoanalytic concept of the unconscious diverged from the more embodied consciousness that phenomenology described. Vivian Sobchack uses the phenomenology of perception to account for the film experience as a reciprocal relationship between viewer and screen, also distinguishing between the different phenomenologies of film and television viewing.

French philosopher Gilles Deleuze has made a distinctive contribution to recent film theory, building on the semiotics of C. S. Peirce and the work of philosopher Henri Bergson on time and duration. More than the writings of almost any other film theorist, Deleuze’s work must be studied on its own terms because he develops ideas through specific interrelated terminology. But the investment is rewarding. In his two books on cinema, Deleuze distinguishes between two types of cinema that correspond roughly to two historical periods.

The “movement image,” prevalent in the cinema of the early twentieth century, reflects what might be called a cause-and-effect view of the world. The physical comedy of Buster Keaton and the collision at the heart of Sergei Eisenstein’s mon- tage represent action and a linear or dialectical forward movement that provoke a response in the viewer. In contrast, the “time image” is displayed in films by such masters as the neorealist Roberto Rossellini and the more metaphorical Michelan- gelo Antonioni, both working in the wake of the disillusionment and uncertainty of postwar Italy. In such movies, images and sounds do not give clear signals of spatial connection or logical sequence; instead, they represent the open-endedness of time and the potentiality of thought [Figure 11.31].

Deleuze’s philosophy of film goes beyond the specific films and directors he uses as examples to suggest new ways of imagining the relationship between images and the world: referentiality, the idea that filmic images refer to actual objects, events, or phenomena, is no longer a basic tenet of film theory. For Deleuze, the film image is not a representation of the world; it is an experience of movement or time itself. For other thinkers, referentiality is no longer a tenet of film theory because neither film nor the world is what it used to be.

Postmodernism and New Media Obviously, film is no longer the only medium that organizes our audiovisual experience. At least since the 1940s, when television was rapidly adopted into U.S. homes, other moving-image media have challenged cinema’s dominance, and many predict that digital media will soon replace film stock. However, such developments also suggest that this

11.31 L’Avventura (1960). According to philosopher Gilles Deleuze, this classic art film presents “a direct image of time,” in part through its unpredictable editing patterns.

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Theory will be present in all the sites that a culture uses for debate and conversation, including popular films. Al- though the title of the 1995 film Clueless would seem to disclaim any form of knowledge whatsoever, many theo- retical issues are raised by the film. Clueless helps “clue us in” to the concerns of postmodern cinema and is of particular interest to feminist and cultural studies critics.

Clueless takes place in Los Angeles, a city whose freeways, location, cultural diversity, entertainment in- dustry, commercial and artistic gems of pastiche architec- ture, and rampant consumerism have made it exemplary for theorists of postmodernism. The film’s main character, played by Alicia Silverstone, is a high school student, and thus marginal in terms of social power. But as a blond, white, rich girl, she represents the relative power of consumerism. A “remake” or update of Jane Austen’s novel Emma, the film could be considered a nostalgic but inauthentic citation of the culture of another era. The main character’s name, Cher, is another citation, this time of the “inauthentic” culture of the recent past (pop star Cher is known for her costumes and physical trans- formations).

The multiculturalism of post- modern Los Angeles is signaled by Cher’s group of school friends. Yet this is a tongue-in-cheek depiction because Cher’s African American best friend, Dionne, is as fabulously wealthy as she is: the girls are worlds apart in socioeconomic terms from Cher’s Latina housekeeper, for example.

The film opens with a montage of fresh-faced teenagers, and with postmodern irony Cher’s voiceover compares what we have just seen to an acne-product commercial. The

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definition of identity as a matter of surface appearance is underscored in the next set of images: Cher “tries on” dif- ferent outfits using a computer program containing simula- tions of the ample contents of her closet [Figure 11.32]. While Cher does undergo a transformation in character during the course of the film, she nevertheless under- stands social problems in commodity-culture terms: she donates her skis to the homeless. And it is while window- shopping that Cher finally realizes what she truly wants. Bits of the film’s action replay in her mind, a thorough confusion of “real” and cinematic perception that perfectly illustrates what Anne Friedberg calls postmodernism’s “mobilized virtual gaze.”

Admittedly, the description thus far makes the film seem as if it is concerned only with the trivial. But femi- nist theorists point out that women’s consignment to the domestic sphere with its “trivial” concerns of shopping and romance has a direct effect on the public sphere, which was as true in Jane Austen’s day as it is in our

FIlm In FOCuS

157010

157010

Clueless about Contemporary Film Theory? ( 1995 )

See also: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

FIlm In FOCuS bedfordstmartins.com /filmexperience

To watch a clip from Clueless, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

11.32 Clueless (1995). Postmodern style and attitude characterize a film that found a welcome reception among young audiences, especially young women.

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own. Cher’s ostensibly minor concerns have important consequences in her world, and by portraying her sub- jectivity through her voiceover and her optical point of view, the film gives her perspective validity. Clueless was directed by a woman, Amy Heckerling, who has special- ized in youth genre films that pay special attention to young women’s perspectives; Austen, too, was con- signed to a circumscribed genre within which she made enduring works of art.

Viewers might find Clueless’s romantic ending predict- able, even disappointing, in that it undermines what has so far been the film’s most important relationship — the one between Cher and Dionne and the other girls — by conflating plot closure with heterosexual coupling. But in fact, the film winks at the happily-ever-after convention,

ending with a wedding and suggesting for a moment that it is Cher’s. “As if!” her voiceover exclaims: two schoolteachers she helped fix up are getting married. She escapes the strictures of the plot with postmodern irony.

One of the most remarkable aspects of Clueless is its reception. It successfully addressed a teenage interpretive community, both in and outside the United States, which quickly adopted the film’s styles in fashion and slang. Young women’s “use” of the film was gen- erally positive. Clueless validated and enabled (coded) communication among young girls, who, far from being treated yet again as know-nothings, were now the only ones fully “clued in.” Their multiple viewings made for an open-ended text; Clueless sums up the complexity of postmodern simulation in a succinct “as if!”

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book’s title is more apt than ever before: film has so thoroughly transformed our overall experience that it has prepared us for the integration of digital media and other image technologies in our lives. Rather than defining film more narrowly in the digital era, we can think of it more broadly.

This predominance of visual media is characteristic of the culture of postmodernism. As we have mentioned, the term “modernism” refers both to a group of artistic move- ments (from atonal music to cubist painting to montage filmmaking) and to the period in which those movements emerged and to which they responded (generally, the first half of the twentieth century). Postmodernism also has two primary definitions:

1. In architecture, art, music, and film, postmodernism incorporates many other styles through fragments or references in a practice known as pastiche.

2. Historically, postmodernism is the cultural period in which political, cultural, and economic shifts challenged the tenets of modernism, including its belief in the possibility of critiquing the world through art, the division of high and low culture, and the genius and independent identity of the artist.

The most important thinkers on postmodernism have addressed both aspects of this definition. Fredric Jameson defines postmodernism historically as “the cultural logic of late capitalism,” referring to the period in postwar economic history when advertising and consumerism, multinational conglomerates, and globalization of financing and services took over from industrial production and circulation of goods. Stylistically, postmodern cinema represents history as nostalgia, as if the past were nothing more than a movie style.

For Jean Baudrillard, the triumph of the image in our cultural age is so complete that we live in a simulacrum, a copy without an original, of which Disneyland is one of his most illuminating examples. In The Matrix (1999) and its sequels, the characters’ belief that they live in the “real world” is mistaken: the city, food, intimate relationships, and physical struggles are all computer-generated [Figure 11.33]. This lack of referentiality is frightening in that it represents the absence of any overarching certainty to ground postmodern fragmentation. But on the hopeful side, the “real” is now open to change. When The Matrix shows a (fake) book written by Baudrillard, the film is both making an in-joke and illustrating postmodernism’s feeling that there is nothing new in the world.

It is no accident that the postmodern world is most vividly presented in a movie because movies themselves are simulations. Film theorist Anne Friedberg notes that the way we consume film images can be generalized to a society char- acterized by image consumption and mobility. The variety of “looks” one finds by window-shopping or identifying with other characters at the movies has a positive side. The postmodern breakdown of singular identity has as its corollary a recogni- tion of identities formerly relegated to the margins. Postmodernism also recognizes the reality of today’s increasing globalization. New technologies make the flow of images even easier — from Hollywood to the rest of the world of course, but also from formerly peripheral cinemas to U.S. audiences, and between local cultures.

Our survey of the history of contemporary film theory evokes the auspicious institutional climate of the academic discipline of film studies in Anglo-American universities, which has consolidated and developed ideas from France and else- where since the late 1960s. This story of the origins of contemporary film theory can be told fairly smoothly, and that should make us suspicious. Fields of knowl- edge advance by active questioning and dissent. As we have noted, cultural studies and cognitivism have challenged the orthodoxies that began to emerge in film the- ory by the 1970s, and their pluralism and skepticism add a welcome perspective on ideas that might otherwise become rote and ossified, simply “applied” to new cases.

The challenges posed by the digital image to film since the 1990s go beyond technological and economic ones: they are also intellectual. As we discuss earlier in the chapter, the photographic basis of the medium, long considered key to cinematic specificity, is no longer what defines cinema. While in some ways

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new technology can be seen as merely enhancing the film experience as we have known it (for example, the return of 3-D technologies), in other ways it alters both the medium and our experience of it (for example, the puzzles, interactivity, and convergence culture of video games). Scholars continue to draw on the lega- cies of previous inquiries in film theory in order to identify the salient questions our contemporary audiovisual experience raises and to develop tools with which to address those questions.

11.33 The Matrix (1999). “What is the matrix?” the film’s ad campaign asked. Postmodern theorist Jean Baudrillard is quoted in the film.

This chapter has aimed to demystify the field of film theory, which is not to imply that readers will not have to struggle with theory or do some work to understand film on a more abstract plane. Because film theory is a notoriously difficult discourse, any summary gives it much more continuity than it actu- ally warrants. The film journals in which filmmakers like Eisenstein or Louis Delluc debated the new medium are not unlike film blogs that today consider the future of cinema in an age of media convergence. In reading and pick- ing apart theorists’ work, it is important to recall that referring to “theory” in the abstract is misleading. In reviewing Stuart Hall’s approach to reception theory or Fredric Jameson’s definition of postmodernism, we look at concrete responses to intellectual challenges. The term “theory" is a useful, shorthand way to refer to a body of knowledge and a set of questions. We study this corpus to gain historical perspective — on how realist theory grew from the effects of World War II, for example; to acquire tools for decoding our experi- ences of particular films — like the close analysis of formalism; and above all to comprehend the hold that movies have on our imaginations and desires.

■ Consider whether cinematic specificity is affected by watching films across platforms.

■ Think of insights from other academic disciplines or artistic pursuits that seem to be missing from this account of film theory, and consider what we might learn from these new approaches.

■ How might the formalist and realist film theorists debate the return of 3-D technology?

■ Consider how debates about race and representation raised by a film like 12 Years a Slave (2013) could be reframed by drawing on film theory.

Activities ■ Do a shot-by-shot analysis of the opening sequence of a film. What

codes — of lighting, camera movement, framing, or figure movement — are used to create meaning?

■ Compare reviews of a film from a number of different sources (and periods, if relevant). Pay particular attention to the time and place each review appeared. What does the range of reviews tell you about the film’s reception context(s)?

C O n C E p T S A T w O R K

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12 c h a p t e r

In Spike Jonze’s 2002 Adaptation, Charlie Kaufman is a writer in crisis. Faced with the challenge of adapting Susan Orlean’s The Orchid Thief for the screen, he finds himself paralyzed by extreme writer’s block. While his twin brother Donald blithely forges ahead with his own screenplay, Charlie can only stare in dismay at a blank page, unable to even begin to write. After a series of hilarious, strange, and tragic encounters in Hollywood, New York, and the Florida Everglades, Charlie discovers that “change is not a choice” and that a writer must first and foremost follow his passion by writing about what he loves. Writing is often complex and difficult, with many stages and strategies, but Charlie’s lesson for writers of films may also be good advice for writers about film: find a passion and a love to propel your writing.

Writing a Film Essay Observations, Arguments, Research, and Analysis

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Writers can be found everywhere in films and film history. In modern movies alone, famous and not-so-famous writers populate and drive many kinds of stories about many kinds of experiences. Mishima (1985) describes the intense blend of radically conservative politics and restless creativity in the life of Japanese author Yukio Mishima. In Central Station (1998), a middle-aged woman, Dora, sets up a stand in the middle of a crowded railroad station where illit- erate people go to have her write letters to their friends and loved ones. And in Ruby Sparks (2012), a young novelist overcomes writer’s block by creating a woman character who the next day comes to life and begins a romantic relationship with him [Figure 12.1]. As with other arts and cultural activities, movies inspire a com- mon and fundamental human need to explain one’s feelings about and responses to a significant experience. In this chapter, we will see how writing about film devel- ops from these needs and inspirations, and we will show how it can become a rich extension of our fundamental film experiences.

k E y o b j E c t i v E s ■ Describe the difference between reviews and critical essays. ■ Practice taking notes on films and organizing those notes. ■ Choose a topic and develop it into a thesis and argument for a paper. ■ Conduct research and integrate sources. ■ Acquire the skills to turn your work into a polished essay.

Writing about film has been a signifi- cant part of film culture since the begin- ning of movies. Almost simultaneously with the arrival of the cinema, writers debated the function and value of this new art form. In the first few decades of film history, film critics such as Vachel Lindsay in his 1915 book The Art of the Moving Picture and Dorothy Richardson in the 1920s art magazine Close Up wrote pas- sionately about movies. Since then, movie reviews, scholarly essays, and philosophical books — by writers including James Agee, Pauline Kael, Trinh T. Minh-ha, and Um- berto Eco — have debated the achievements of individual films and the cultural impor- tance of movies in general.12.1 Ruby Sparks (2012). The power of writing can even transform your world.

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Writing an Analytical Film Essay Writing extends the complex relationship we have with films by challenging us to articulate our feelings and ideas and to communicate our responses convincingly. In 1915, early reviewers and critics often focused on the dangerous or uplifting effects that movies might have on women or children. In the 1960s, film was fre- quently discussed in terms of its political impact or social meaning. Today’s writers focus on a range of topics — from characters, stars, and stories to new film technol- ogies or historical questions, such as how 1930s censorship influenced film content or how 1950s teenage audiences encouraged the making of certain kinds of films.

Personal Opinion and Objectivity Writing about a film usually involves a play between subject matter and meaning. The subject matter of a film is the material that directly or indirectly comprises the film, whereas the meaning is the interpretation a writer discovers within that mate- rial. In Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom (2012), for instance, the subject matter describes the flight of Sam and Suzy from their New England town, their budding romance on the small island where the two hide, and the search for them by the confused and panicky townspeople. The subject matter’s meaning, however, is more complicated than any simple description; the meaning depends on the film’s luxurious style and clever organization, the historical and cultural significance of those techniques as they capture the 1960s, and the experience and thinking of the viewer responding to the film today. Other films certainly use similar subject matter about discontented youth flee- ing an older generation, but Moonrise Kingdom creates and elicits more specific meanings for those who have seen it. For some writers, this tale of love and escape weaves subtle and often complex points about youth, passion, and fantasy [Figure 12.2]. For other writers, the film transforms its subject matter into a wist- ful piece of nostalgia about a lost era.

Useful and insightful writing always balances personal opinion with critical objectivity. Whereas an opinion is indica- tive of a more personal response, criti- cal objectivity refers to a more detached response, one that offers judgments based on facts and evidence with which others

12.2 Moonrise Kingdom (2012). Discovering the more complex meaning behind a deceptively simple subject matter requires interpretation of style and knowledge of context.

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would, or could, agree. An essay that hides behind too many opinions — constantly stating “I feel” or “In my opinion” — will seem unreliable and too personal to have any value for others. Writing about Moonrise Kingdom, for example, a writer may attempt to hide behind a lack of certainty about the meaning: “In my opinion, Sam and Suzy’s flight is very ambiguous. There doesn’t seem to be much reason or motivation behind it but perhaps love and passion are, I think, never easy to understand” [Figure 12.3]. Conversely, flat descriptive statements fail to interest readers in an essay’s argu- ment and often miss the subtleties of a film: “The reason for Sam and Suzy’s

flight is unclear and confusing.” Balancing opinion and critical objectivity, as in the following passage, results in writing that engages and convinces the reader that your insights could be useful revelations for most viewers of the film:

Sam and Suzy’s flight in Moonrise Kingdom is unexpected, dramatic,

and powerful, a combination that disturbs and confuses me, as it probably

does most viewers. This confusion about their motives is, however, part of the

strange and mysterious beauty of the film because it asks us to recognize a

central theme: the possibility that love and passion can open the world in won-

derfully fantastic ways.

Identifying Your Readers Knowing or anticipating your readers can guide a writer in balancing opinion and objectivity. If we think of writing about film as an extension of conversations or arguments we have with friends about a film, we realize that the terms and tone of these discussions change with different people. A conversation between two knowledgeable fans of World War II films would likely presume that they have both seen many of the same films and know a great deal about special effects. Their discussion might thus get quickly to the finer points about how the famous battle between the Japanese and the Americans was portrayed in Letters from Iwo Jima (2006), told from the perspective of Japanese soldiers [Figure 12.4]. In talking about Of Gods and Men (2010) with an American film buff, an Algerian student

might have to provide some cultural and historical background about the religious beliefs of Islam, the rise of various sects, and the Trappist monks who live in northern Africa.

Possessing an awareness of your readers is like knowing the person you are talking with: it helps determine the amount of basic information you need to provide, the level of complexity of the discussion, and the kind of language you should use. The following four questions are useful guidelines in gearing your essay to certain readers: (1) how familiar

bedfordstmartins.com /filmexperience

Watch the clip of Moonrise Kingdom online. What subjective claims might a writer make about this section of the film? What objective claims might a writer make?

v i E W i n g c u E

12.3 Moonrise Kingdom (2012). Is the interpretation of the flight of Sam and Suzy a matter of opinion or simply part of the complex vision of the film?

12.4 Letters from Iwo Jima (2006). Director Clint Eastwood portrays one of World War II’s fiercest battles from the perspective of the Japanese.

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Writing a Film Essay: Observations, Arguments, Research, and Analysis c h A p t E r 1 2 433

are your readers with the film being dis- cussed? (2) what is your readers’ level of interest in the film? (3) what do your read- ers know about the film’s historical and cultural contexts? and (4) how familiar are your readers with the terminology of film criticism and theory?

For most critical essays, anticipating your readers’ knowledge of the film means assuming they have seen the film at least once and thus do not require an extensive plot summary. Such readers are not pri- marily concerned with whether a movie is good or bad or with other general obser- vations. Rather, they want to be enlight- ened about a specific dimension of the film (such as the opening shot) or about a complicated or puzzling issue in the film. For instance, how the different cityscapes in The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) carry specific thematic points important to the action of the film might be something most viewers have noticed but few would have thought about [Figures 12.5a and 12.5b]. An effective writer works to con- vince readers that their interests can be deepened and enriched by following the writer’s argument about a film.

Knowledge of a film’s historical and critical contexts refers to how much your readers know about the place and time of the film’s appearance. If the film was made in the United States in the 1920s, would information about that period help your readers better understand the film? Finally, determining your readers’ level of familiarity with the terminology of film criticism and theory allows you to choose language that can efficiently and clearly communicate your argument. Can you assume that a term like “continuity editing” will be easily understood, or do you need to define it? In making these decisions, keep in mind that overly simplistic language or dense jargon can equally undermine your analysis.

In most college-level film courses, your audience will be not only your profes- sor but also your peers: intelligent individuals who have seen the film and who share information and knowledge about film criticism, but who are not necessarily experts. For this audience, you can concentrate on a particular theme or sequence that may have been overlooked by a critical viewer. Note that your writing style and choice of words should be more rigorous and academic than in the typical movie review.

Elements of the Analytical Film Essay Two common forms of film writing are film reviews and analytical essays. Aimed at a general audience that has not seen the film, a film review tends to be a short essay that describes the plot of a movie, provides useful background information (about the actors and the director, for example), and pronounces a clear evaluation of the film to guide its readers. In contrast, the analytical essay, distinguished by its intended audience and the level of its critical language, is the most common kind of writing done by film students and scholars. It typically focuses on a par- ticular feature or theme of a film, provides an interpretation of that material, and then gives a careful analysis to prove or demonstrate that interpretation. Unlike the

12.5a and 12.5b The Bourne Ultimatum (2007). The various cityscapes through which Jason Bourne travels might be the basis of an argument about the film.

(a)

(b)

v i E W i n g c u E As you prepare to write an analytical essay about a film you have seen in class, consider your readers. What defines them? What are their inter- ests? What do they need or want to know about the film?

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p A r t 4 Critical Perspectives: History, Methods, Writing434

writer of a movie review for a magazine, the writer of an analytical essay presumes that readers know the film and do not require an extensive plot summary or background information. Although a clear and engag- ing style is the goal of any kind of writing about film, the writer of an analytical essay often chooses words and terms that can effectively communicate complex ideas.

Consider this passage from a hypotheti- cal essay about O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), written for a college film course [Figure 12.6]. Whereas a newspaper review might summarize the plot, offer some back- ground information, and employ more casual language, note how this analytical essay concentrates on a specific and perhaps less obvious argument:

Joel and Ethan Coen’s O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) is much more than a musical comedy loosely structured around

The Odyssey. Woven through the distinctive soundtrack, the plot set in Depression-era

America, and the comic exaggerations of its

characters is a sharp ideological critique of

race and class in modern America. Regularly

mistaken to be African Americans, the three

escaped convicts, Everett, Pete, and Delmar, learn quickly that their lower-class

white status binds them most importantly to the fate of the black men and

women they encounter, and from this predicament the film explores the

economic and political power structures that then and now make poverty

color-blind. Two sequences in particular dramatize this less noticed but more

provocative dimension of the film: the arrival of the prisoners at a church to

see a movie (a direct reference to Preston Sturges’s film Sullivan’s Travels, in which the Coens found the title for their movie) and the Ku Klux Klan rally

where the fugitives rescue their black comrade Tommy.

Here the essay’s focus is relatively refined and sophisticated. It assumes its readers have seen and know the film, and it concentrates not on general infor- mation, but on a specific thesis about race and class [Figure 12.7]. Along with its choice of a polemical thesis, this critical essay employs terms suited to academic writing, such as “ideological critique.”

12.6 O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). Three escaped convicts are the focus for a precise analysis.

12.7 O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). An analytical paper on race and class in this comic film can be shaped around two specific sequences, the first about the arrival of the prisoners in a black church and the second about their witnessing a Ku Klux Klan rally.

preparing to Write about a Film Despite some common ground, an effective film essay does differ from a casual conversation or a debate about a movie. Few writers can dash off a perceptive commentary on a film with little preparation or revision. Instead, most writers gain considerably from anticipating what they will write about and later reviewing

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Writing a Film Essay: Observations, Arguments, Research, and Analysis c h A p t E r 1 2 435

carefully what they have written. Few could watch The Sorrow and the Pity (1972), a powerful docu- mentary about fascism in France during World War II, and then immediately type a brilliant paper on Marcel Ophüls’s use of documentary strategies to expose certain myths about French history or the French Resistance. Like all good writers, you must follow certain steps in preparing to write an essay: ask questions, take notes, and select a topic.

Asking Questions First, try to identify your own interests before you view the film. Ask yourself: How does the film relate to my own background and experiences? What have I heard about the film? Am I drawn to technol- ogy or to questions about gender? To a particular filmmaker or period in movie history? To a certain national cinema? In what direction of inquiry does my interest point? In Howard Hawks’s 1938 Bringing Up Baby, Katharine Hepburn plays an audacious heiress, Susan, whose pet leopard Baby becomes the foil in her zany relationship with a bumbling paleontologist, David, played by Cary Grant [Figure 12.8]. Perhaps you’ve seen other films by Hawks, like His Girl Friday (1940), or other films with Hepburn, like The Philadelphia Story (1940). Might you consider comparing the two Hawks films or Hepburn’s two different roles?

This sort of preparation is not meant to preclude your being drawn to new ideas and in unexpected directions when you view the film. Surprising discoveries are certainly one of the bonuses of approaching films with an open mind. While watching In the Bedroom (2001), one viewer might become puzzled by how the film seems to suddenly change direction: after depicting the excruciating pain of two parents who have lost a son, the movie then becomes a revenge tale in which the father seeks out and murders his son’s killer. For the viewer, what seems at first a slow meditation on inexpressible grief becomes a tense thriller. How do the two parts work together? Does loss always require retribution? Does violence always beget violence? By asking these kinds of questions, you can intellectually interact with a film, sharpening your responses and shaping the direction of your essay.

Taking Notes Note taking, an essential part of writing about film, stimulates critical thinking and generates precise and productive observations. Whereas most students find it natural to take notes on a biology experiment or on their reading of a Shakespeare play, annotating a film is both awkward and unnatural; it is difficult to write while watching a movie in a darkened room, and most films ask that we constantly attend to them so that we do not miss information that passes quickly. Note taking is, however, absolutely necessary to writing about film because a good analytical essay must include concrete evidence to support its argument — and precise notes provide that support. The three general rules for annotating a film are (1) take notes on the unusual — events or formal elements that stand out in the film; (2) take notes on events or techniques that recur with regularity; and (3) take notes on opposi- tions that appear in the film.

For instance, most viewers of Bringing Up Baby would agree that the sequence involving David and Susan at the local jail, with Hepburn pretending to be a hard- ened gangster’s moll, stands out as one of the funniest and most unusual moments

12.8 Bringing Up Baby (1938). Katharine Hepburn’s role as an audacious heiress involved with a blundering paleontologist could start a writer’s critical thinking about the film.

v i E W i n g c u E Before viewing your next film, jot down three or four questions you want to direct at the film. During the film, write down three or four more about specific shots or scenes. Later, attempt to answer all of your questions as precisely as possible.

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p A r t 4 Critical Perspectives: History, Methods, Writing436

in the film. Equally important, however, are those actions or images whose repeti- tions suggest a recurring theme or pattern, such as David’s repeatedly losing his clothes or glasses. Oppositions can be equally illuminating, such as the contrast between the rival women: the goofy Susan and David’s staid fiancée, his scientific assistant.

Each writer develops his or her own shorthand for taking notes on films. The trick is to jot down information about the story or characters that seems significant while also recording visual, audio, or other formal details. Some common abbrevia- tions for visual compositions include the following:

es: establishing shot ha: high angle ct: cut cu: close-up mcu: medium close-up

la: low angle trs: tracking shot ls: long shot ds: diegetic sound ps: pan shot

mls: medium long shot nds: nondiegetic sound vo: voiceover

More specific camera movements and directions can often be re-created with arrows and lines that graph the actions or directions. The following drawings sug- gest the movements of the camera:

low camera angle high camera angle tracking shot

For example, part of the jailhouse sequence in Bringing Up Baby [Figures 12.9 and 12.10] might be annotated as follows to indicate cuts, camera movements, or angles.

Later, these notes would be filled in, perhaps by again reviewing the sequence for more details — for example, pieces of the hilarious monologue of “Swinging Door Susie.” Drawings of shots can supplement such details. Critical comments or observations might also be added — for instance, about how the organization of the shot composition and editing provides the contrast between the officious and tongue-tied sheriff and the zany and loquacious Susan.

v i E W i n g c u E Which events, sounds, or shots in the film you just viewed stand out as unusual? As most important? As examples of a pattern of repetition? Describe clearly and concretely one or two events, sounds, or shots from the film.

12.9 Bringing Up Baby (1938). “Swinging Door Susie” engages the sheriff . . .

12.10 Bringing Up Baby (1938). . . . and baffles her cellmate, David.

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Writing a Film Essay: Observations, Arguments, Research, and Analysis c h A p t E r 1 2 437

Selecting a Topic After taking and reviewing your notes on the film, you need to choose the topic for the paper. Because there are so many dimensions of a film to write about — character, story, music, editing — selecting a manageable topic can prove daunting. Even a lengthy essay will suffer if it attempts to address too many issues. Narrow- ing your topic will allow you to investigate the issues fully and carefully, resulting in better writing. In a five- or six-page essay, a topic such as “fast-talking comedy in Bringing Up Baby” would probably need to rely on generalities and large claims, whereas “gender, order, and disorder in the jailhouse” would be a more focused and manageable topic. Although good critical analysis usually considers different features of a film, we can distinguish two sets of topics for writing about film: formal and contextual. Formal topics concentrate on forms and ideas within a film, including character analysis, narrative analysis, and stylistic analysis. Contextual topics, which relate a film to other films or to surrounding issues, include compara- tive analysis and historical or cultural analysis.

Formal Topics In general, there are three types of formal topics: 1) a character analysis focuses its argument on a single character or on the interactions between two or more characters; 2) a narrative analysis deals with a topic that relates to the story and its construction; and 3) a stylistic analysis concentrates on a variety of topics that involve the formal arrangements of image and sound, such as shot composition, editing, and the use of sound.

Although writing a character analysis may appear easier to do than other kinds of analyses, a good essay about a character requires subtlety and eloquence. Rather than write about a central character, like Susan in Bringing Up Baby or the tormented musician Johnny Cash in Walk the Line (2005) [Figure 12.11], an essay might con- centrate on a minor character, such as Susan’s aristocratic aunt or Cash’s wife Alicia.

Similarly, a narrative analysis should usually be refined so that the paper addresses, for instance, the relationship between the beginning and the end of a film or the way a voiceover comments on and directs the story. In The Shawshank Redemption (1994), the narrative concentrates largely on Andy Dufresne, con- demned to prison for murdering his wife and her lover, but the complexity of his story becomes richer and more nuanced as it is filtered through the voiceover com- mentary of his prison comrade “Red” Redding. The relationship of the two creates in effect a second narrative line that interacts with the prison story.

12.11 Walk the Line (2005). Character analysis of a primary role, the tormented musician Johnny Cash, played by Joaquin Phoenix, risks the obvious.

text continued on page 441 ▶

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438

Minority Report initially attracted audiences through the reputation of one of the most prolific and acclaimed directors in the world, Steven Spielberg, and one of the most popular stars in the world, Tom Cruise. Some viewers may enjoy the film be- cause it recalls and elaborates on themes from other Spielberg films, or because it features a successful and complex performance by Cruise. Others may be intrigued by its variations on the sci-fi thriller genre. Any of these pathways could be developed into a provocative essay about the film, but only if those perspectives and ideas can be substantiated or proven useful, true, and important — that is, only if they can be shown to have objective accuracy. One such viewer decides to write a review of Minority Report for his college newspaper in anticipation of the film’s upcoming ap- pearance at the college art house. Because the film is more than ten years old, the writer presumes that many of his potential readers have not yet seen it and need both information and balanced opinions. He proceeds with a clear sense of what his readers already know, don’t know, and need to know about the film.

Minority Report is probably not one of the best-known or most commonly

discussed films by celebrity director Steven Spielberg. Most of us will likely

associate Spielberg with well-known and wildly popular thrillers like Jaws (1975)

and Jurassic Park (1993) or historical blockbusters such as Saving Private Ryan

(1998) and Lincoln (2012). Although Minority Report features megastar Tom

Cruise, it is a quirkier and edgier movie than most of Spielberg’s other films.

Based on a novel by Philip K. Dick and part of a sci-fi heritage that extends

from Blade Runner (1982) through Inception (2010), this futuristic story, set

in 2054, is perhaps Spielberg’s darkest and most complex effort.

While some of you may dash out to see this 2002 movie for the big-screen

projection of Cruise as John Anderton, the real star of the film is the depiction of

future technology and how it may change our world. Anderton is a police officer

whose unit oversees three human “pre-cogs” linked to advanced computer tech-

nologies that allow the Pre-Crime Division to foresee and stop future murders.

Everyone assumes this technological surveillance system is flawless and foolproof,

as it keeps Washington, D.C., free of all crime for several years. With a rather in-

genious variation on the wrongly accused protagonist, however, Anderton discovers

that he has himself been identified as a future murderer, which is when the plot

suddenly takes off. Pursued by and pursuing the technological forces that define

this future world (including mechanical spiders that invade any space and identify

people by reading their eyes), Anderton weaves his way through a society that

moves at incredible technological speeds and leaves no place to hide from its new

powers to see seemingly into every corner of the world and individual minds.

Film in Focus

157010

157010

Analysis, Audience, and Minority Report ( 2002 )

Film in Focus bedfordstmartins.com /filmexperience

To watch a clip from Minority Report, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

Background information on the director and film help provide context for readers.

Reviews should still have a point of view. Here the writer argues that the film is most engaging through the drama of its futuristic technology.

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439

Like the Jason Bourne movies of this same period, Minority Report is

a fast-paced thriller in which Cruise as Anderton is both criminal and detec-

tive. More, though, than his flight to discover the truth about a crime and to

redeem himself, the film provides a timely reflection on new technologies and

our perhaps misguided trust of them. The danger in this Spielberg world is not

sharks, German soldiers, or stubborn congressmen but the powerful technolo-

gies that can control our lives today.

The same writer later chooses to compose the following critical essay about Minority Report for a film history course. In this case, his readers are his professor and the other students in the class, readers who are familiar with the film and have even read other material about it. Note this student’s inclusion of images from the film. These images do not serve merely as a visual embellishment for the paper but as concrete and precise evidence in support of his argument.

In the critical essays and reviews about Minority Report, viewers regu-

larly praise the ingenious and elaborate plot and stunning cinematography that

captures the blue tints of futuristic film noir. John Anderton, an officer in the

Pre-Crime Division of 2054 Washington, D.C., orchestrates the visions of three

“pre-cogs” through a complex computer system that can foresee murders and so

allow the police to stop them. When this seemingly infallible network accuses

Anderton of a future crime, the system splits open, launching Anderton on a

mission to save himself and to find the truth about lost “minority reports” that

will expose the fallibility of the system. A surveillance film about sight and

seeing with cutting-edge technologies and new media velocities [Figure mr.1],

Minority Report remains nonetheless Spielberg’s typical family melodrama with

its narrative of finding a way back home.

At the heart of the film is an anxious and often excruciating drama

about sight and seeing. The “pre-cogs” threesome foresees the future as a

dramatic indication of how sight can now overcome conventional boundaries

of time, and the surveillance technologies that suffuse the society describe

astonishing ways that boundaries of space dissolve before the new technologies

for seeing. In the midst of his flight, for example, Anderton hides in a decrepit

apartment building, where the pursuing police release mechanical “identification

spiders.” At the start of the sequence, a precisely filmed series of images reveals

the various private spaces in the building, the release of the spiders, and

their eerily rapid invasion of the different apartments. Once inside they open

the most sensitive human interior, methodically lifting eyelids and taking

electronic snapshots of the eyes as

a way to identify the individuals

[Figure mr.2]. Although Anderton

escapes this onslaught by remaining

submerged in a tub of water, he

realizes that he must transplant his

eyes as a way to remain unseen.

Temporarily blind and carrying his

own eyes in his pocket, Anderton

searches for a truth that, despite

the wonders of so much visionary

technology and speed, can only be

Writing a Film Essay: Observations, Arguments, Research, and Analysis c h A p t E r 1 2

Even a short critical essay benefits from demonstrating some familiar- ity with other writings about film, as the first paragraph moves toward a sharp and sometimes polemical thesis.

mr.1 Minority Report (2002). A thesis identifies an argument about sight, new technologies, and lost families.

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discovered, as a drug dealer points out,

in the “world of the blind.” Indeed,

in this film, to see with insight into a

world of visual deception becomes the

critical challenge of survival.

Even as seeing grows more difficult

and layered across so many different

visions and technologies, Minority Report

remains, as in most Spielberg films,

essentially about family — overcoming

bad families and reestablishing good

families. From the start, Anderton is a

traumatized father and husband whose child had been mysteriously abducted

and whose wife has subsequently left him. As a displacement of that trauma,

he passionately immerses himself in the Pre-Crime Division, where he reinvents

his lost family through a new father figure, Director Lamar Burgess. At the

climactic conclusion of the film, however, Anderton — with the help of his pre-

cog companion Agatha — must confront this father figure. He projects a blurry

montage that reveals a lost visual sequence that exposes Burgess’s murder of

Agatha’s mother. Cutting between a dinner honoring Burgess, Agatha’s struggle

to mentally project those images, and the shocking display of those images

on a screen at the banquet, the sequence recovers a lost past and creates an

alternative film within the master surveillance film. In one sense, one cinematic

vision of events replaces another, transforming the good father into the evil fa-

ther who murdered a caring mother. If Anderton’s original devotion to the visual

wonders of Pre-Crime is, in large part, a response to the traumatic loss of his

family, his discovery of new eyes and a new way of seeing through a blinded

futuristic landscape leads directly to the dissolution of his spurious father and

the myth of his Pre-Crime family.

In the coda that concludes the film, the family units lost to technol-

ogy have been restored. A rainy blue-tinted image slowly tracks across John’s

glassy apartment and moves in to show John and his now-pregnant wife re-

united. The image then cuts to the three pre-cogs intensely absorbed in books:

the camera tracks through and out of a

cabin on a bucolic lake where the pre-

cogs now “find relief from their gifts,”

an earlier world where high-tech visu-

als have been replaced with a rustic

simplicity [Figure mr.3]. As with most

Spielberg films, all the social, political,

and technological threats to a tradi-

tional family have, apparently, been

successfully dismissed as that family is

re-projected into the past.

The writer concentrates on one or two scenes that can be analyzed in detail.

The writer’s careful analysis of the details shows how they lead to a complex and subtle inter- pretation that viewers may have missed.

The writer expands his interpreta- tion to show how it resonates through the entire film.

mr.3 Minority Report (2002). In the end, the film reestablishes the image of a peaceful family in a prelapsarian world.

mr.2 Minority Report (2002). Identification spiders eerily describe how futuristic technologies see into the most private spaces.

p A r t 4 Critical Perspectives: History, Methods, Writing440

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Writing a Film Essay: Observations, Arguments, Research, and Analysis c h A p t E r 1 2 441

A paper that deals with a stylistic topic will be more controllable and inci- sive if, for instance, it isolates a particu- lar group of shots or identifies a single sound motif that recurs in the film. One student may find a topic for a paper by examining the role of the various narra- tors in Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line (1998). Another student may choose to look more carefully at repeated editing patterns in Battleship Potemkin (1925) or at the use of framing in Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story (1953). Any one of these topics will grow more interesting and insightful if you continue to ask ques- tions during the writing process: How is the character David in Bringing Up Baby shaped by costuming or shot composition? How do the various narrators in The Thin Red Line reflect different attitudes about war?

Contextual Topics Contextual topics usually focus on comparative analysis or cultural analysis. A comparative analysis evaluates features or elements of two or more different films or perhaps a film and its literary source. A comparative analysis might thus con- trast Susan in Bringing Up Baby with one or more heroines in more recent films, such as Julia Child in Julie & Julia (2009) [Figure 12.12]. A comparative analysis always calls for some common ground in order to link what you are comparing and contrasting.

Conversely, cultural analysis investigates topics that relate a film to its place in history, society, or culture. Such a topic might examine historical contexts or debates that surround the film and help explain it — for example, in Bringing Up Baby, the social status of women or the importance of class in 1938 America. With historical or cultural analysis, the pertinence of the topic to understanding the film is crucial. In our example, the role of women is obviously important; the historical status of leopards probably is not.

Once a topic has been selected (the more specific, the better), the writer should view the film again. This second viewing allows the writer to refine and build on those initial notes, now that he or she has a topic in mind. The writer who comes to Bringing Up Baby with a vague interest in how it portrays the battle of the sexes might, after seeing the film again, find that he or she wishes to refocus the topic on how the leopard becomes a metaphor for that battle.

12.12 Julie & Julia (2009). The endearing and sassy Julia Child, as played by Meryl Streep, becomes a rich subject of a comparative analysis.

Elements of a Film Essay Whether your chosen topic is a formal analysis of a sequence of shots or a comparison of a novel with its filmic adaptation, it will need to include a clear thesis statement, argument, and evidence to support your claims. Although dif- ferent audiences may interpret all or part of a movie somewhat differently, a valid and interesting argument distinguishes itself by how well the analysis of evidence supports the thesis statement. Without good evidence, precise analysis, and logical argument, an essay will appear to be simply one viewer’s impression or opinion.

v i E W i n g c u E Sketch an argument for your essay. What is the logic of its development? What conclusions do you foresee making?

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p A r t 4 Critical Perspectives: History, Methods, Writing442

Thesis Statement Perhaps the most important element in a good analytical essay is the thesis state- ment, a short statement (often a single sentence) that succinctly describes the inter- pretation and argument of the paper and anticipates each stage of the argument. The remainder of the essay should prove and support that thesis with evidence. As a significantly refined version of the topic, the thesis statement articulates clearly the writer’s critical perspective as an insightful argument about the film; it should indi- cate what is at stake in the argument and perhaps how that argument is important to understanding the film. A weak thesis statement introduces the essay vaguely and generally: “The Coen brothers' Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) describes a search for an identity.” A strong thesis anticipates each stage of the argument that will follow in the paper: “The Coen brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis describes a search for an identity lost in 1961 New York City; a cat named Ulysses signals the path of that search as a circular odyssey about getting home to one’s own self.” Usually a thesis statement, which often appears in the first paragraph of the essay, undergoes various revisions during the writing process. Having a working thesis, a rough ver- sion of a thesis, in mind as you begin your first draft, however, will help anchor your argument. In its final form, a precise and assertive thesis statement is likely to engage readers’ interest in the essay.

As with most films, Steven Soder- bergh’s Traffic (2000) and Stephen Frears’s My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) both offer a wide variety of topics that could be developed into specific argu- ments and thesis statements. For Traffic, a film about the drug trade that flows from Mexico into various U.S. communities, one student writer considers analyzing either the cinéma vérité camera move- ments used in the Mexican settings or the transformation of the central character, a U.S. drug czar who sees his daughter destroyed by heroin [Figure 12.13].

For My Beautiful Laundrette, a con- temporary romance between a young Pakistani man and a male friend involved with right-wing British gangs, the writer weighs the advantages of two possible topics: the developing sexual relation- ship of the two main characters or the mise-en-scène of the laundrette where the climactic scenes take place [Figure 12.14]. After reflecting on these topics and seeing the films again, the student opts for the second film and develops a thesis state- ment that demonstrates a clear and spe- cific direction: “My Beautiful Laundrette looks at contemporary British politics from numerous angles: family politics, sexual politics, racial politics, and eco- nomic politics. In the end, these various motifs coalesce and climax in a single space that is both practical and fantastic, the mise-en-scène of the laundrette.” As

12.13 Traffic (2000). A character destroyed by drug abuse presents an abundance of issues for analytical writing.

12.14 My Beautiful Laundrette (1985). The climactic mise-en-scène of the laundrette suggests an argument about politics in the U.K.

v i E W i n g c u E Write a precise thesis statement. Is your thesis specific enough, or does it need refinement? Is it sufficiently interesting to encourage readers to continue reading your essay?

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Writing a Film Essay: Observations, Arguments, Research, and Analysis c h A p t E r 1 2 443

clear and intelligent as it is, this proposed thesis statement will probably be revised for the final draft of the paper as the writing will certainly generate new insights and possibly new issues — perhaps to concentrate on only three of those angles or perhaps to argue that the politics of family, sex, and race in the film are all related to economics.

Outline and Topic Sentences Preparing an outline results in a valuable blueprint of an essay, allowing the writer to see and examine the different parts and overall development of the argument as it proceeds out of a strong thesis. An outline can consist of a simple list of ideas to address or shots and scenes to highlight — such as “weak father figures,” “house squatting as metaphor for identity,” and “description of the laundrette” — or a more complete (and more useful) list that includes subheadings and perhaps full sentences, which can be used as topic sentences in the essay.

Here is an excerpt from the detailed outline prepared by the student working on the essay about My Beautiful Laundrette.

The Politics of Laundry in My Beautiful Laundrette

Working Thesis: My Beautiful Laundrette looks at contemporary British

politics from numerous angles: family politics, sexual politics, racial politics,

and economic politics. In the end, these various motifs coalesce and climax

in a single space that is both practical and fantastic, the mise-en-scène of the

laundrette.

I. Family politics: the most immediate and complicated type

A. Fathers and authority

B. Family traditions and repression

II. Sexual politics: underpins family situations in way that exposes hypocrisy

A. Heterosexual politics: Nasser, his wife, and his mistress Rachel

B. Feminist politics: Tania, Nasser’s daughter

C. Gay politics: Johnny and Omar

III. Racial politics: nearly lost in this drama is the way they permeate all other

relationships

A. Johnny, race, and right-wing politics (National Front)

B. Papa, race, and left-wing politics

IV. Economic politics: where the other confrontations are — presumably and

ironically — resolved

A. Papa as businessman

B. Salim as drug dealer

C. Johnny and Omar as laundry entrepreneurs

V. Political motifs: coalesce and climax in a single space that is both practical

and fantastic — the mise-en-scène of the laundrette

A. Detailed description of mise-en-scène of laundrette

B. Pragmatic meets fantasy

C. Analysis of climactic gathering

As this example illustrates, a detailed outline allows the writer to review the structure of the essay and note any problems with the scope or logic of the argu- ment or with the transitions from one section to another. At this stage, the topic

v i E W i n g c u E Formulate a specific interpretation for the film you are writing about. Why is that interpretation important? What new light does it shed on the film for your readers?

v i E W i n g c u E Create a detailed outline of your essay. Does your outline include subsections that can later be developed with details and evidence from the film?

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p A r t 4 Critical Perspectives: History, Methods, Writing444

should be focused on a specific thesis whose parts develop as logical steps in the body of the paper — with each of the five topic sentences reflecting the working thesis and its development from one point to the next.

Whether or not you work from an outline, a clear organization and structure — most notably, coherent paragraphs introduced and linked by topic sentences — are para- mount for an effective essay. Well-developed paragraphs, which tend to consist of several sentences, demand coherence and evidence. Critical to a good paragraph is the topic sentence, usually the first sentence, which announces the central idea to which all other sentences within the paragraph are related. The remainder of the paragraph develops the idea stated in the topic sentence and provides evidence from the film as support.

In this excerpt from the essay on My Beautiful Laundrette, note how the strong and lucid topic sentence opening the paragraph is then supported by evidence:

In My Beautiful Laundrette, the drama of the characters is invariably

about space, territory, and most important, the idea of home. Although most

of the characters are driven by the idea that, as one character puts it, “people

should make up their minds where they want to live,” places and homes are

never more than shifting locations, foreign territory where one lives uncomfort-

ably. In the first sequence, Salim and a henchman evict Johnny and another

squatter from an abandoned tenement, and for the rest of the film the meta-

phor of squatting describes the characters’ unstable and temporary relations

to the places in which they live and with which they interact. In this sense,

“home” is at best a dream and usually just a temporary convenience. Nasser’s

daughter Tania wants to be anywhere but with her family, and she is willing to

have either Johnny or Omar as a lover, depending on who will take her away

from her home. In the end, Nasser watches from a window as a medium shot

shows Tania being visually swept off the platform by a series of trains that rush

off the screen, on her way to another home that she will define for herself.

Following the topic of home as a key space in the film, the paragraph cogently traces its repetition through the experiences of the different characters, illustrating how it anchors and differentiates their lives and works as a central metaphor in the film.

Revising, Formatting, and Proofreading A completed first draft of an essay is not a completed essay. The final stage in writ- ing about film requires at least one revision of the paper, with special attention to manuscript format and proofreading. Last-minute corrections should be kept to a minimum and should be clear and simple.

A good revision begins by reading the essay with fresh eyes, achieved best by allowing time away from the first draft — at least a few hours and at best a few days — before returning to work on the revision. A revision should examine, clarify, and rewrite word choices, sentence structures, paragraphs, the logic and organization, and the coherence of the ideas; it should improve the presentation and the efficiency of the argument and analysis. In addition, carefully check the manuscript format, including margins, title position, footnotes, and other mechanics. Typically, the format for a film essay should follow guidelines from the Modern Language Association.

Once your final revision is completed, proofreading — checking the revision for grammatical and structural errors, typos, or omissions that can be easily corrected — is

v i E W i n g c u E In your draft, look for consistent errors and trouble spots that you need to pay special attention to during revision.

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Writing a Film Essay: Observations, Arguments, Research, and Analysis c h A p t E r 1 2 445

essential. With any kind of writing, the presentation helps determine how your reader views your work, and an accurate, professional look will promote an accu- rate, professional reading of it. Typographical mistakes and other small goofs do not ruin a good essay, but they do undermine it by creating an impression of carelessness. Keeping a checklist of these mechanics in mind can alleviate much of the anxiety about writing, providing a working framework that leads to stronger and more interesting essays.

Writer’s Checklist As you grow more confident as a writer, you will be able to write about films in a fluid motion: watching the film, taking some notes, sketching an outline, and writing the first draft and final essay. Even the most competent writers, however, pause to reflect on their work by consulting a checklist like this one.

1. Review your notes, filling in details where you can. Ideally, view the film one more time.

2. Try to summarize the most important themes or motifs in the film. 3. Formulate a working thesis and an argument for the essay. 4. Outline the argument. If possible, use full sentences for headings because they

can then become your topic sentences. 5. Develop the central idea of each paragraph using details from the film that

support that paragraph’s topic sentence. 6. Rewrite your thesis statement to reflect any changes or refinements in your

thinking that occurred while you were writing your first draft. 7. If you are writing a research essay, be sure to use the correct documentation

format for in-text citations and the Works Cited list (see pp. 453–55). 8. Revise your essay, checking for such problems as vague or illogical organiza-

tion, and proofread for surface errors in spelling and grammar. 9. Select a title that reflects the main argument of your paper.

10. Print out the essay and correct any remaining typographical errors.

v i E W i n g c u E After writing your first draft, revise your thesis statement to reflect changes in your thinking. Be sure to sharpen your thesis statement to better describe your argument.

researching the movies While in some critical film essays writers aim sim- ply to convey a personal response to a film based on critical distance and careful reflection, in other essays they might want or need to use research in order to sharpen and develop their interpretation of a film. Research enables writers to identify sig- nificant issues surrounding a film and to contribute their opinions and ideas to the ongoing critical dia- logue about it. A student intending to write about Jean Cocteau’s Orpheus (1950), for example, may be intrigued by the film but uncertain about his or her specific argument. With some reading and research about Cocteau, his relation to the surrealist movement, and his work as a poet and painter, the student discovers a more specific argument about the complicated role of poetry in the film and the relevance of the Orpheus myth to Cocteau’s vision of the modern artist [Figure 12.15]. 12.15 Orpheus (1950). Researching this film may also mean researching

the poetry of the surrealist movement.

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p A r t 4 Critical Perspectives: History, Methods, Writing446

Distinguishing Research Materials Whether limited or extensive, research helps determine why your essay is important and what critical questions are at stake in writing it. Research is also a dialogue with other opinions and writings — they help distinguish or support your ideas about a film or group of films. Various kinds of materials qualify as research sources for a film essay, including primary, secondary, and Internet resources.

Primary Research Primary research sources — such as 16mm films, videotapes, DVDs, and film scripts — have a direct relationship with the original film. Some of these materials are readily available in libraries, including the many classic scripts now published as books; others, such as 16mm films, can be far more difficult to locate, except in film archives. A student planning to write a research essay on Don Siegel’s Inva- sion of the Body Snatchers (1956) might first view a 16mm or DVD projection of that film, and then access other primary sources, such as a script, as follow-ups to the first screening [Figure 12.16]. With primary sources, however, keep in mind that they may approximate, but not duplicate exactly, the look of a film when seen in a theater. Videotapes and DVDs may format images differently from the format used in theatrical screenings, while scripts may represent a simple blueprint from which the actual film dialogue deviates.

Secondary Research Secondary research sources — including books, critical articles, Web sites, supple- mentary DVD materials, and newspaper reviews — contain ideas or information from outside sources such as film critics or scholars. The student researching Invasion of the Body Snatchers might include film reviews published at the time of release, scholarly essays on Siegel’s work, and perhaps a book on 1950s American cinema. Even in our electronic age, libraries and their databases remain the most reliable places to find solid secondary materials. Check such databases as the Humanities International Index, LexisNexis, and Comindex for essays and books on your sub- ject, and don’t underestimate the more conventional approach of exploring the library’s shelves. Annual bibliographic indexes and their electronic versions iden- tify journal articles and books that may support and broaden your thinking, includ- ing especially The Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature, the MLA International Bibliography, and the Film Literature Index. Once you have a topic and a work- ing thesis, you can search for sources relevant to your topic and argument. After

checking general categories like “film,” “cinema,” and “movies,” a more precise topic, such as “contemporary Australian cinema” or “sound technology and the movies,” will lead you more quickly to pertinent research materials.

In addition to databases and bib- liographic indexes, specialized encyclo- pedias, which identify important topics and figures in film studies, are useful resources for initiating research on a film. Examples include Ephraim Katz’s The Film Encyclopedia, Pam Cook’s The Cinema Book, Leonard Maltin’s The Whole Film Sourcebook, Ginette Vincen- deau’s Encyclopedia of European Cinema,

12.16 Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). Watching a film closely and following its script allow you to analyze it with precision and depth.

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Writing a Film Essay: Observations, Arguments, Research, and Analysis c h A p t E r 1 2 447

David Thomson’s The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, Leslie Halliwell and John Walker’s Halliwell’s Filmgoer’s and Video Viewer’s Companion, and Amy Unterburger’s The St. James Women Filmmaker’s Encyclopedia. Film guides such as these provide factual information about and short introductions to a subject. The entries typically do not offer the sort of detailed analysis or arguments required for a good research paper, but they can suggest pertinent information and issues that can lead you to more research and a refined argument.

Internet Sources The Internet offers useful discussion groups, access to various library and media catalogs, and numerous other information sites. However, with so many Web sites available, the writer must be careful to consult the three kinds of reputable Internet sources for film studies:

■ Sites and databases that provide basic facts about a film and the individuals involved with that film, including biographical facts about the director, the running time of a film, and its year of release

■ Sites that offer reviews or essays from academic film journals, such as Film Comment, Jump Cut, and Sight and Sound

■ Film-specific sites that provide information ranging from production facts to reviews and interviews. Almost every major film now has its own Web site, as do the studios and distributors

While the Internet is an important source of information of all kinds, film researchers and writers must be cautious about the quality of the material found there. For one thing, it can be difficult to determine the authenticity of some Internet-based information. Unlike material published in academic journals or books, Internet essays and articles may not have been through a review process to determine their value. Virtually anyone can post on a Web site any opinion or “facts,” often without substantial evidence. When using the Internet for research, therefore, writers need to differentiate substantial and useful material from chat and frivolous commentary. Especially with Internet sources, there are three impor- tant rules to follow.

■ Determine the quality of the Internet source. Does it provide reliable informa- tion and a carefully evaluated argument supported by research? Is the source a refereed publication (one whose material is evaluated by experts) or a reputable institution? Is its information supported by references to other research? What are the credentials of the authors?

■ Define your search as precisely as possible. Instead of just the title of a film, focus your search on, for example, “lighting in Double Indemnity” or “politics and Iranian cinema.” Pursue your topic through the advanced search option.

■ Explore links to other sites. Does your research link you to sites on other films by the same director or to such related issues as the film genre or the country in which the film was made?

Here is a short list of Web sites useful for film research:

■ American Film Institute (www.afi.com): recent industry news, events, educa- tional seminars, and reviews.

■ Berkeley Film Studies Resources (www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/filmstudies): a growing collection of online bibliographies and sources for film and media studies.

■ Cinema Sites (www.cinema-sites.com): a comprehensive listing of links to hundreds of sites.

■ The Criterion Collection (www.criterion.com): DVD distributor of well-known masterpieces of international art cinema, Hollywood classics, and often over- looked gems from film history.

v i E W i n g c u E Locate at least five secondary research sources for your essay topic. What are the most recent books on the film or topic? Find at least two relevant scholarly articles on this topic.

text continued on page 452 ▶

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448

After reviewing his notes on Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, a student writer considers some possible topics. He begins by thinking about the film’s unusual narrative struc- ture: Three men, including a priest, seek shelter from a rainstorm under an ancient city gate. They hear the tale of a murder and rape through four different points of view — those of a bandit, the woman, the ghost of the dead man, and a woodcutter. The narrative tension in the film, the writer realizes, develops around the discrepan- cies in these competing points of view; the result is a dark ambiguity about the truth of this violent and tragic event. After seeing the film again and trying to refine his thinking about it, the writer develops the following thesis:

In Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, four different perspectives present four

different versions of the truth about a violent attack. After we have seen and

heard these various perspectives and have been presented with the evidence, the

opening confusion of the three men is even more pervasive, setting the stage

for the only possible response to a world defined by egotism and uncertainty:

compassion.

The student’s next step is to sketch an outline, one in which he uses topic sentences to mark the development of the argument and the places where key evidence will appear.

Rashomon: Beyond Understanding and Evidence

Thesis statement: Rashomon is a drama of evidence and interpretation.

I. Central to this film is the drama of interpretation and evidence.

A. Four accounts of same horrifying event

B. The opening focus on evidence

II. Although more evidence appears through the perspective of the different

witnesses, that evidence does not always agree and seems to befuddle a

clear interpretation.

A. Overlaps and inconsistencies in describing the facts

B. The dagger as key piece of evidence

III. The heart of the fragmented narratives of Rashomon is the egotism that

fashions the various perspectives.

A. The bandit’s violent sexual desire and the crime

B. His story of conquest and surrender

Film in Focus

157010

157010

interpretation, Argument, and Evidence in Rashomon ( 1950 )

See also: Citizen Kane (1941); The Usual Suspects (1995); Inception (2010)

Film in Focus bedfordstmartins.com /thefilmexperience

To watch a clip from Rashomon, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

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449

IV. Both the wife’s and the husband’s perspectives are likewise mostly about

themselves.

A. The wife’s tale of a helpless woman

B. The husband’s tale of honor and self-sacrifice

V. The woodcutter’s narrative is more problematic, but equally locked into its

own needs for self-justification and protection.

A. His revised vision: a base and cowardly world

B. His acknowledging stealing the evidence of the dagger

VI. Each of these perspectives is distorted by the ethical failures of the individuals

telling them, indicating the horrifying indeterminacy of a world determined by

isolated egos, as well as the corruption of these perspectives by human egotism.

A. Natural disaster and moral depravity

B. Editing and shot compositions add to confusion, disorientation, and

failure to see facts and events clearly.

VII. Although the humane conclusion of the film seems unexpected (and some-

what sentimental), its unexpectedness is what makes the film so engaged

with modern times.

After writing his first draft, the writer sets the paper aside for three days before undertaking a careful revision. He proofreads a printed version of the essay and then submits his final copy, which follows.

Fred Stillman

Professor White

Film 101

10 Feb. 2015

Beyond Understanding and Evidence:

The Surprise of Compassion in Rashomon

The setting that opens and closes Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon is the

collapsed Rashomon gate in the ancient city of Kyoto. Amidst a torrential rain-

storm, a woodcutter, a commoner, and a priest huddle together, and the first

recounts a horrifying tale of rape, murder, and possibly suicide told through four

different perspectives that structure the narrative of the film. Seen through the

eyes of a criminal, the female victim, the dead husband, and a woodcutter, each

of these perspectives offers a contrasting version of events and the truth of what

happened, and each introduces pieces of evidence to support that particular

version. Despite having heard these witnesses, however, the priest can only murmur,

“I don’t understand.” At the film’s conclusion, moreover, the uncertainty of the

men is more pervasive than ever, setting the stage for the only possible response

to a world defined by egotism and uncertainty: compassion.

Rashomon is a drama of evidence and interpretation. As the priest and

woodcutter explain to the commoner, the original staging of the different tes-

timonies was a police court trying to gather evidence about a horrible crime in

which a noblewoman and her husband were attacked in the wilderness — she

was raped and he was killed. Appropriately, the first point of view presented is

that of the woodcutter, who follows a trail of evidence through the woods — a

woman’s hat, a man’s hat, a belt, and an amulet case — to the sudden discovery

Writing a Film Essay: Observations, Arguments, Research, and Analysis c h A p t E r 1 2

A brief summary of the film is followed by a concise thesis that maps out the main points of the paper’s argument.

The initial topic sentence intro- duces the first part of the argu- ment.

14_COR_6354_12_428_461.indd 449 8/22/14 2:16 PM

of the dead body of the samurai nobleman, his

stiffened arms and hands stretched grotesquely

toward the horrified woodcutter in a low-angle shot

[Figure r.1]. Shortly thereafter, a man describes how

he captured the bandit Tajomaru, emphasizing the

discovered evidence of the samurai’s horse as well as

“seventeen arrows” and a “Korean sword” found on

the criminal. Yet this seemingly incontestable claim

and evidence become subject to doubt when the

bandit suddenly denounces and denies the man’s

interpretation of certain details.

Although more evidence is given through the

perspective of the other witnesses, that evidence

does not always agree, and it seems to befuddle a

clear interpretation. Most important, the significance

of a pearl-handled dagger, the weapon that suppos-

edly killed the husband, changes dramatically in the different narratives, act-

ing as an evidential marker to distinguish the interpretations of events.

Focused on the shifting place of the dagger, the center of the fragmented

narratives of Rashomon becomes the egotism that informs each perspective. Or

more exactly, each version becomes more about the personal desire and greed of

the person explaining what happened than about the factual events and evidence.

What initiates the horrendous crime is the violent sexual desire of the bandit,

who happens to witness — in a sharp-shot/reverse-shot exchange beginning with

his awakening eyes — the exposed face and feet of the wife. After that, his entire

account emphasizes greed and desire: he deceives and entraps the nobleman by

suggesting he will sell him riches from an old tomb, and his leering gaze at

the young woman turns quickly to a brutal sexual attack. Not surprisingly, in

the bandit’s version, his desires and demands fulfill the woman, and she becomes

the mirror image of his greed and lust when she ecstatically surrenders to his

assault. At this moment, the critical object, the dagger, drops passively from her

hand, according to the bandit, who claims to then kill the husband “honestly.”

Both the wife’s and the husband’s perspectives are likewise mostly about

themselves. From the beginning, she appears discreet and demure, partly hidden

by veils and white makeup and barely moving as she rides her horse through

the forest. In her account, she becomes a “poor helpless woman” whose husband

turns viciously on her after the assault. Unable to bear his hateful stare, she

claims to have fainted — only to later discover her dagger in her husband’s chest.

The husband’s narrative, in contrast, paints a picture of his suffering devotion

and lost honor, weeping from the grave as he recounts killing himself with the

controversial dagger. Light and shadow fill the images of this account, suggest-

ing an ambiguity and lack of certainty even in this testimony by a dead man.

Finally, the woodcutter’s narrative is more problematic, but equally locked

into its own needs for self-justification and protection. After introducing the story

at the beginning of the film, he returns to offer a final version that reveals decep-

tions and lies in his first account. Now he admits to having witnessed the entire

scene. His subsequent description of the part-clownish, part-terrified fighting of

the two men shows a world that is fundamentally base and cowardly, a reflection

p A r t 4 Critical Perspectives: History, Methods, Writing450

Excellent visual detail indicates that the writer’s interpretation is grounded in film form and not just content.

r.1 Rashomon (1950). The woodcutter’s perspective sheds light on the mystery of a horrifying death.

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451

of his own base and cowardly position in

failing to intervene or fully disclose the

truth of what he saw. Most disturbing

perhaps, he tacitly acknowledges stealing

the crucial piece of evidence, the dagger, in

order to sell it for personal gain.

That each of these perspectives is

distorted by different degrees of ethical fail-

ure on the part of the individual indicates

the source of the horrifying indeterminacy

and chaos of this world [Figure r.2]. This is

a world described by the priest in the open-

ing as full of “war, earthquake, wind, fire,

famine, plague . . . each year full of disaster

. . . hundreds of men dying like animals.”

Stylistically, the stunning editing and shot

compositions of Rashomon dramatize this

world of confusion and disorientation, in which seeing and understanding seem

to constantly combat each other. Witnesses are introduced with a wipe that

crosses the screen in one direction or the other, almost violently wiping out the

perspective of the preceding account. Within the different accounts, rapid tracks

and flash pans re-create the desperately unsettled struggle to discover facts

through perspectives that dart across surfaces blocked by branches and leaves.

Within all this moral darkness and despair, however, the conclusion of

Rashomon suggests a possible way out of the terror and blindness that results

from so much visual and narrative ambiguity. In this final sequence, the three-

some who tell and hear that tale of violence discover an abandoned baby in

the ruins of the gate. The commoner urges them to steal the baby’s blankets

and clothing because “you can’t live unless you’re what you call selfish.” At

this point, a dramatic turn occurs: in a head-to-head confrontation in the rain,

the commoner accuses the woodcutter of hiding his theft of that crucial piece

of evidence, the dagger. In dazed silence, the priest and the woodcutter stand

against a wall. As the rain stops, the commoner suddenly insists on taking the

child home with him to his already crowded family. Despite his shame about

his selfishness and despite the missing evidence of the stolen dagger, a glim-

mer of human value returns to the world. Compassion overcomes the evidence

of mistakes, and as they all depart, the sun gleams through the clouds and the

saved child becomes the emblem of a new future. During this sequence, the

priest shouts the fundamental truth so often lost in this violent courtroom: “If

men don’t trust each other, then the world becomes a hell.”

Although this conclusion seems unexpected (and somewhat sentimental),

its unexpectedness is what makes the film so engaged with modern times. Danish

philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard uses the term “leap of faith” to

describe the only possibility for a spiritual faith in modern times. What his term

implies is that both spiritual and human faith — the grounds for ethical behav-

ior — often occur despite the evidence before our eyes and despite the failure of

human reason to understand it. As in Rashomon, truth and morality may need to

leap over the confusion of facts and logic in order simply to do what is right.

Writing a Film Essay: Observations, Arguments, Research, and Analysis c h A p t E r 1 2

The conclusion recalls the main points of the argument and ex- pands it to claim a broader mean- ing for the film.

r.2 Rashomon (1950). The listeners are left trying to make meaning in a chaotic world.

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p A r t 4 Critical Perspectives: History, Methods, Writing452

■ EarlyCinema.com (www.earlycinema.com/resources/index.html): a solid intro- duction to the filmmakers, technologies, and social environments for early cinema, including suggestions for further research.

■ Film Literature Index (webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/fli/index.jsp): an index, with more than two thousand subject heads, of the publications in 150 film and media journals.

■ Film-Philosophy (www.film-philosophy.com/): an international journal that features a wide range of book reviews, theoretical essays, and sophisticated analyses of individual films.

■ FilmSound.org (www.filmsound.org): covers all topics related to film sound — including definitions of terms, links to scholarly articles, and inter- views with sound designers — and is useful for students and practitioners.

■ Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com): complete credits, plot summaries, links to reviews, and background information on individual films.

■ Kino International: The Best in World Cinema (www.kino.com): DVD distribu- tor of many of the most important films from throughout film history and around the world.

■ Library of Congress Motion Picture & Television Reading Room (www.loc .gov/rr/mopic/ndlmps.html): the library’s catalog, the national Film Regis- try preservation list, and the American Memory Collection of online early films.

■ Offscreen (www.offscreen.com): an extremely well-organized online film jour- nal that covers genres, directors, and individual films, along with reviews of festivals and other journals.

■ Oxford Bibliographies Online (www.oxfordbibliographiesonline.com): anno- tated and regularly updated bibliographies on a wide variety of topics in film and media studies.

■ Society for Cinema and Media Studies (www.cmstudies.org/): academic society dedicated to the scholarly study of film, television, and new media.

■ UbuWeb (www.ubu.com/): allows users to download rare and remarkable docu- ments from literary, film, video, and music history, such as a Dadaist magazine from 1917 or a documentary on Andy Warhol.

■ Vectors: Journal of Culture and Technology in a Dynamic Vernacular (www .vectorsjournal.org): a cutting-edge journal that combines scholarship and analysis with new design and delivery technologies.

■ Yale University Library Film Studies Research Guide (http://guides.library.yale .edu/film/): an introductory guide to conducting library and Internet research in film studies.

Using Film Images in Your Paper With computer and Internet technologies, writers can now easily capture film images from a DVD or streaming video and incorporate them in a critical essay to illustrate a part of an argument and analysis. Being able to “quote” from a film to support an interpretation or insight can be quite important since such images can provide the evidence that underpins a strong argument.

Many instructors prefer that students avoid using images because often these images function simply as ornaments and distractions from the real work of the writing. Therefore, if film images are used in an essay, they should be used judi- ciously to support a key point in the argument. As with the example from the paper on Minority Report (pp. 438–40), use a specific image or series of images that illustrates important visual information (about image composition or editing, for example) that your text discusses. If useful, provide a short caption that encap- sulates what you wish your reader to see in the images.

v i E W i n g c u E Search the Internet for informa- tion about your film and topic, and locate at least one useful source. What distinguishes this source from other online information about your topic?

v i E W i n g c u E Locate areas in your essay where an image might improve your argu- ment. Are there technical aspects, such as the use of lighting or types of camera movements, that could be further explained with an illustration?

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Writing a Film Essay: Observations, Arguments, Research, and Analysis c h A p t E r 1 2 453

Using and Documenting Sources Writers gather research material in a variety of ways: some record paragraphs and phrases on handwritten note cards, while others prefer to type that material directly into their computers, allowing them to sort, move, and insert text easily. In either case, the bibliographic information for quotations should be double-checked for accuracy. It should include all of the publication data required for the Works Cited list (and sometimes the Works Consulted section) of your research paper. Just as sloppy technical errors — such as a boom microphone appearing in a frame — can undermine a film’s look and effect, inaccurate or careless source documentation can make a research paper look amateurish.

Integrating research material into the text of your paper requires both logic and rhetoric. Sometimes research can be used to describe how your argument differs from prevailing positions on a film or an issue. In this case, the writer frequently identifies one or more opposing positions as a way of highlighting how the essay will distinguish itself: “While Annette Michelson has claimed that Kuleshov’s films are best understood as part of a debate with Eisenstein, this paper argues that the French films of Jean Epstein are equally important to Kule- shov’s development.” Conversely, research can be used to support and validate a point or a part of the overall argument: “Both Patrice Petro and Judith Mayne have produced complex feminist readings of silent-era German films that support my interpretation of Mädchen in Uniform (1931).” Yet another possibility is to use research sources to back up the validity of facts or critical frameworks necessary for introducing an argument: “In The Zero Hour: Glasnost and Soviet Cinema in Transi- tion, Andrew Horton and Michael Brashinsky convincingly show that Russian cinema after 1985 returned to the center of the world stage, an argument that will provide the background for my claims about the importance of Little Vera (1989) in Europe and America.”

Direct Quotations and Paraphrasing Once research material has been gathered, selected, and integrated into an essay, all of the sources used must be properly documented. There are two kinds of research material that require documentation: (1) direct quotation from a second- ary source, and (2) paraphrase, in which the writer puts the idea or observation from another source into his or her own words. When information is consid- ered common knowledge and is well known to most people, there is no need to document where you found it. If, however, there is any doubt about whether the observation is common knowledge, always document the source so as to avoid any suspicion of plagiarism. For example, a critic’s remark that Ousmane Sem- bène is one of Africa’s premier filmmakers and that his films work in a realist tradition would be considered common knowledge by many seasoned filmgoers. But a writer new to Sembène’s work may feel more comfortable documenting the source of that information and, like all writers, should never risk the charge of plagiarism. Quotations of dialogue from a film usually do not require docu- mentation.

Documentation Format There are various documentation formats for listing authors, titles, and publica- tion data. Here we will describe the format advocated by the Modern Language Association (MLA) and widely used in the humanities. (See the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 7th ed. [2009].) The primary components of the MLA format are in-text citations and the Works Cited list. An in-text citation is required

v i E W i n g c u E How will you collect the research you need to formulate and present your argument? What sources will you use? Keep a detailed list of each for later documentation.

v i E W i n g c u E As you prepare to integrate research into your essay, think about a par- ticular quote or critical position you will argue against. What factual or historical material will support your argument? Note passages you can use to bolster a central part of your essay.

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p A r t 4 Critical Perspectives: History, Methods, Writing454

wherever the writer refers to, or quotes from, a research source within the essay’s text. The in-text citation includes the author’s name and the page number, enclosed in parentheses. Note that “p.” and “pp.” are not used.

Filmmakers such as Stan Brakhage and Jonas Mekas “appropriated home-movie

style as a formal manifestation of a spontaneous, untampered form of filmmaking”

(Zimmerman 146).

When the author’s name appears in the discussion that introduces the quotation, only the page number or numbers are given.

As Patricia Zimmerman has noted, filmmakers such as Stan Brakhage and Jonas

Mekas “appropriated home-movie style as a formal manifestation of a spontaneous,

untampered form of filmmaking” (146).

The same citation formats are used whether the material is quoted directly or paraphrased.

Much of the American avant-garde movement experimented not so much with

the techniques of modern art but with the spontaneous actions associated with

home movies (Zimmerman 146).

When you use two or more sources by the same author in your essay, you must distinguish among them by including an abbreviated version of the title. The title can be part of the introductory text, as in “Zimmerman writes in Reel Families . . .” or in the parenthetical citation: “(Zimmerman, Reel Families 146).” Each source cited in the text must also appear in the Works Cited section with full biblio- graphic detail.

Another type of annotation is the content note or explanatory note, which may or may not include secondary sources. These notes offer background information on the topic being discussed or on related issues, suggest related readings, or offer an aside. They should be placed on a separate page after the text (but before the Works Cited list) or as footnotes at the bottom of the page. Thus a writer discuss- ing horror films and Brian De Palma’s Carrie (1976) might include this text and content note:

Although Carrie focuses on female anxiety and violence, it is difficult to pinpoint

a specific audience for this film.1

1Especially since Psycho, horror films seem fixated on violence against women, but there is good reason to consider how both female and male audiences identify with these films. An important discussion of this issue is Carol Clover’s Men, Women, and Chain Saws (3-21).

Full documentation for every source cited in your essay should be included in the Works Cited section, positioned on a separate page immediately after the last page of the essay text. Sources that have been consulted, but not cited in the text or notes of the essay, can be included in an optional Works Consulted section, which follows on a separate page after the Works Cited list. (Note that for reasons of space, we do not show the Works Cited and Works Consulted sections as separate pages in the essay beginning on p. 456.) Punctuation of the different entries must be absolutely correct. Titles should be typed either in italics or underlined, accord- ing to your instructor’s preference. Finally, the end of each entry should indicate

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Writing a Film Essay: Observations, Arguments, Research, and Analysis c h A p t E r 1 2 455

the medium of the publication as either “Print,” “Web,” or other (such as “DVD” or “Performance”).

Examples of some of the most common types of Works Cited entries follow.

Book by One Author Zimmerman, Patricia. Reel Families: A Social History of Amateur Film. Bloomington:

Indiana UP, 1995. Print.

Book by More Than One Author Bordwell, David, Janet Staiger, and Kristin Thompson. The Classical Hollywood

Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960. New York: Columbia UP,

1985. Print.

Edited Book Cook, Pam, and Mieke Bernink, eds. The Cinema Book. 2nd ed. London: British Film

Institute, 1999. Print.

Article in an Anthology of Film Criticism Gaines, Jane. “Dream/Factory.” Reinventing Film Studies. Ed. Christine Gledhill and

Linda Williams. London: Arnold, 2000. 100-13. Print.

Journal Article Spivak, Gayatri. “In Praise of Sammy and Rosie Get Laid.” Critical Quarterly 31.2

(1989): 80-88. Print.

Article in Daily or Weekly Periodical Corliss, Richard. “Suddenly Shakespeare.” Time 4 Nov. 1996: 88-90. Print.

Interview (Printed) Seberg, Jean. Interview by Mark Rappaport. “I, Jean Seberg.” Film Quarterly 55.1

(2001): 2-13. Print.

Article in an Online Journal (including Access Date) Include the URL (in angle brackets) after the access date only if your instructor requires it or readers would need it to find the Web site.

Firshing, Robert. “Italian Horror in the Seventies.” Images Journal 8 Nov. 2001.

Web. 23 July 2011.

Information from an Online Site (including Access Date) Magnolia: The Official Movie Page. 1999. New Line Productions. 14 Nov. 2003. Web.

12 May 2011.

A Videocassette or DVD Always identify whether you are referencing a videocassette or a DVD. Include the director, main performers, and original release date of the film, followed by the video/DVD distributor and year.

Fearless. Dir. Peter Weir. Perf. Jeff Bridges, Isabella Rossellini, Rosie Perez. 1993.

Warner Home Video, 1999. DVD.

Always remember to keep in mind that plagiarism — using sources without giv- ing the proper credit to them — is one of the most serious offenses in writing and research. For more information on attribution formats for other types of sources, consult the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 7th ed. (2009).

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456

From Caligari to Hitler (1947) and Lotte Eisner’s The Haunted Screen (1973). He also consults two fairly recent scholarly books, Mike Budd’s edited collection “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”: Texts, Contexts, Histories (1990) and Thomas Elsaesser’s Weimar Cinema and After (2000).

Armed with information about how the Weimar era became the prelude to fascism and the rise of Hitler, the writer realizes he needs to refine his topic so that he has a more focused thesis. He reviews the film on DVD and realizes that the violence and horror seem connected to the social context of a prefascist Germany. As his thesis about social violence begins to take shape, he returns to the library, where he finds a good recent study of film violence, Stephen Prince’s edited collection, Screening Violence (2000).

With each step, the writer makes notes, double- checks quotations for accuracy, and makes certain to record accurate bibliographic information on all the sources he consults. As he formulates his thesis state- ment and constructs an outline, he tries to indicate where the different parts of his research would be most effective in directing and supporting his argument. His final essay, reproduced here, clearly demonstrates the important contribution that careful research makes to writing about film.

Film in Focus

157010

157010

From research to Writing about The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari ( 1920 )

See also: Spellbound (1945); Eyes Without a Face (1960); The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Film in Focus bedfordstmartins.com /filmexperience

To watch a clip from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

Background research clearly sets up the writer’s argument.

Responding to the strange look and feel of this silent film from Germany and looking for some basic information, a student writer might start his research by examining the introductory material in David Cook’s History of Narrative Film (2003). In the index, he checks various headings, such as “German cinema” and “Weimar cinema,” as well as the title of the film and the name of its director, Robert Wiene. Next, he searches the Internet by entering the title of the film in a search engine, which results in dozens of different Web sites. Although much of the Internet infor- mation is too general, he keeps a list of his Web sources and their bibliographic details, noting one particular site that provides early reviews of the film. Even this prelimi- nary research starts to shape his thinking about a topic involving the period known as the Weimar era.

Following this preliminary work, the writer then checks the databases at his college library for more substantial critical books and essays on the Weimar period in German history. This initial search leads him to dozens of books and critical articles, but he decides to concentrate on books that deal with films made during the Weimar period; he discov- ers numerous scholarly studies devoted to this particular film culture and even whole books devoted to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. He reads and takes notes on appropriate sections of well-known books, such as Siegfried Kracauer’s

Steven Thompson

Professor Corrigan

Film Criticism 101

10 Dec. 2014

History, Violence, and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

In his detailed study of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Mike Budd

identifies the complex cultural history of the film’s arrival in the United States.

When the film premiered in New York on April 3, 1921, it followed a well-crafted

promotion and distribution campaign that stressed Dr. Caligari ’s novelty, global

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457

appeal, and generic formulas. One 1921 poster identifies the film as “a mystery

story that holds the public in suspense every minute,” while another describes

it as “thrilling, fantastic, bizarre, gripping.” However accurate these descrip-

tions may be, these promotions, as Budd notes, intentionally present the film

“out of context, [with] its origins both cultural and national deliberately

obscured” (56–58). That obfuscation has continued to dog The Cabinet of Dr.

Caligari in the many decades since its initial release, so that American and

other viewers have remained less attuned to the specific historical and social

realities dramatized in the film than to the psychological mysteries played out

in its thrills, fantasies, and horror. Exploring the social drama of Dr. Caligari

reconnects the film more concretely to its original German context and makes

clear that this film is about national unrest and violence, both of which are far

more historically tangible than the usually acknowledged fantasy of the film’s

madmen and monsters.

The film’s story tells of the hypnotist Dr. Caligari, who comes to a town

with a carnival [Figure cDc.1]. In his sideshow act, Caligari presents Cesare, a

somnambulist who can supposedly see the future. At the same time, a series

of murders occurs in the town. Francis, a student who discovers that Caligari

and Cesare are behind the killings, pursues Caligari to an insane asylum. The

final twist occurs when the narrative shifts its perspective and we discover the

truth: Francis has been the narrator of the tale, he is in fact the mad patient

in the asylum, and Caligari is the kind director of the hospital allowing Francis

to tell his delusional tale.1

While watching this film, many (if not most) viewers understandably

fixate on the exaggerated sets and backdrop paintings. These factors, together

with the twisted narrative that turns the story into the vision of a madman,

place this film squarely in the cultural and aesthetic tradition of expressionism,

a movement in which unconscious or unseen forces create a world distorted by

personal fears, desires, and anxieties. According to this position, Cesare acts

Writing a Film Essay: Observations, Arguments, Research, and Analysis c h A p t E r 1 2

The thesis statement announces the argument.

This summary paragraph as- sumes readers know the film, but refreshes their memory of its story and plot.

A content note provides addi- tional information about a point raised in the text.

cDc.1 The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). The malevolence or benevo- lence of Caligari is left to the viewer to determine.

This image shows a main char- acter, followed by a caption that identifies a key question in the film and the student’s argument about that character.

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out the evil unconscious of Caligari, while the violence and chaos associated

with that unconscious spread through the entire community.

Many critics have, in fact, made intelligent connections between the

psychological underpinnings of expressionism and the German society that,

bereft of so many fathers after the devastation of World War I, gravitated toward

malevolent authority figures. Most famously, Siegfried Kracauer’s From Caligari

to Hitler offers the most direct statement of Dr. Caligari as the unconscious of

a social history predicting the imminent arrival of fascism [Figure cDc.2]. He

writes that Caligari becomes “a premonition of Hitler” (72):

Whether intentionally or not, Caligari exposes the soul wavering be-

tween tyranny and chaos, and facing a desperate situation: any escape

from tyranny seems to throw it into a state of utter confusion. Quite logi-

cally, the film spreads an all-pervading atmosphere of horror. Like the

Nazi world, that of Caligari overflows with sinister portents, acts of ter-

ror and outbursts of panic. (74)

Although Dr. Caligari certainly responds to readings like this, which

see the film as part of an expressionist aesthetic or a projection of the un-

conscious of the German masses around 1920, the more concrete social reali-

ties informing the film frequently get overlooked. In The Weimar Republic

Sourcebook, Anton Kaes, Martin Jay, and Edward Dimendberg have assembled

a compendium of documents on this period in German history, and many of

the topics for this cultural history of Germany from 1918 to 1930 could act as

a social blueprint for the thematic history that permeates Dr. Caligari. Three

topics stand out as especially pertinent: the traumatic legacy of war (creat-

ing a fatherless generation), economic upheaval and social instabilities (that

rattled almost every social institution at the time), and the rise of fascism

(through repressive authority figures). With traces of each of these three

motifs throughout the film, Dr. Caligari becomes, from one angle, a study of

social violence within the interpersonal relationships and the cultural institu-

tions of Weimar Germany.

At the heart of Dr. Caligari is a social melodrama concentrated on

conscious sexual activities that quickly turn violent. According to Thomas

Elsaesser, “It is essentially the tale of a suitor who is ignored or turned

down” (184). The threesome at the center of the story — Francis, Alan, and

Jane — suggests both male bonds and a heterosexual romance that moves

toward the conventional outcome of marriage. However, like Jane’s anxious

worry over “her father’s long absence,” each member of this standard social

group seems physically and emotionally handicapped by a missing parental

or patriarchal figure. Essential to the plot is the rivalry that creates a tension

among the three characters, with Alan and Francis competing for the affections

of Jane. That seemingly normal and playful tension, however, turns dark when

Cesare becomes a stand-in for the simmering violence implicit in this group,

murdering Francis’s rival Alan and seducing and abducting Jane. In the midst

of these events, the dazed Jane can only mutter that “we queens may never

choose as our hearts dictate,” and Francis goes mad [Figure cDc.3]. If hetero-

sexual melodramas take many forms through history and in different cultures,

here a common love triangle suddenly and inexplicitly erupts with unusual

p A r t 4 Critical Perspectives: History, Methods, Writing458

This overview of a major scholarly position establishes the writer’s authority and prepares readers for what will distinguish his argument.

A succinct quotation sums up a complex critical viewpoint. Because it is more than four lines in length, the quotation is presented without quotation marks in an indented block format.

Against the backdrop of these other critical positions, the writer reasserts and develops his thesis.

The writer refines and focuses his thesis as three motifs in the film.

A strong topic sentence presents the first motif, supported by a sec- ondary source.

An exact quotation from the film’s dialogue provides supporting evidence for the writer’s claim.

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459

violence, suggesting that the problem may be less about Caligari and Cesare

than about the enormous social stress and strain within this fundamental social

grouping.

The violent stress and strain of this heterosexual drama spreads and

appears through every social institution in Dr. Caligari. If the home is where

the melodrama explodes, the film identifies this violence with three other

social spaces: the city government, the carnival, and the mental hospital.

With the first, an officious town clerk is murdered on a whim for enforcing

restrictions that annoy Dr. Caligari. With the second, entertainment turns

ominously threatening when a sideshow amusement tells Alan, “You die at

dawn.” With the third, a traditional institution for healing becomes a prison to

subjugate or control human beings who have lost all ability to interact socially.

In each case — and most notably in the hospital where the narrative pretends

to return to a normal world — the visual disturbances of the graphically twisted

walls and out-of-kilter windows become a measure of not merely an unbalanced

expressionistic mind but, more importantly, of the social violence that sur-

rounds all individuals as part of the institutions in which they must live.

If violence has always been an ingredient and attraction of films, the

brand of social violence in Dr. Caligari is clearly linked to a specific time and

place, a Weimar Germany from which the Nazi regime would soon spring. In

“Graphic Violence in the Cinema” from Screening Violence, Stephen Prince

correctly argues that “screen violence is deeply embedded in the history and

functioning of cinema” and the “appeal of violence in the cinema — for film-

makers and viewers — is tied to the medium’s inherently visceral properties” (2).

Although Prince claims that “screen violence in earlier periods was gen-

erally more genteel and indirect” (2), there is nothing genteel about the social

violence of Dr. Caligari, even if it lacks the physical excess of contemporary

movies. With the crucial insights of historical hindsight, this violence should

Writing a Film Essay: Observations, Arguments, Research, and Analysis c h A p t E r 1 2

A smooth transition is made from the previous paragraph to the second motif about “social institutions,” analyzed here as three different “social spaces.”

Visual details strengthen the argument.

cDc.3 The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). A romance gone awry becomes a sign of simmering violence.

cDc.2 The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). Is the doctor’s persona a premonition of Hitler?

The third motif builds on a more general secondary source on “screen violence.”

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not be relegated merely to the unconscious and the psychological distortions

of dark fantasies, but should be recognized as the shadow of a historical and

social reality. In its original historical context, the melodramatic violence in

the relationship of Alan, Francis, and Jane maps a frustrating and often desper-

ate problem with heterosexual romance in a fatherless Germany, while the

troubled, anxious, and repressive interactions at town halls, carnivals, and

hospitals refer to a real political and structural crisis in the social arenas of

post-World War I Germany. If the social violence of Dr. Caligari seems tame

(to modern eyes accustomed to Technicolor bloodbaths), there is no doubt

that such violence reverberates with more extensive, if less intensive, implica-

tions for the state of German society in 1920.

Many viewers without a precise sense of German history and Caligari’s

original cultural context can still appreciate its dark tale, striking visual effects,

and unsettling frame tale. The psychological dimension that permeates this murder

mystery is, moreover, an undeniable and critical component to its disturbing

plot and expressionistic mise-en-scène. Yet, in the wake of World War I, the night-

marish violence of the film resonates with particular historical and social meaning

that cannot be explained as fantasy. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari will always be a

specific cultural space whose violence remains historically tangible.

Note

1. In A History of Narrative Film, David Cook notes that it was the great

German director Fritz Lang who urged this frame tale: “Lang correctly thought

that the reality frame would heighten the expressionistic elements of the mise-

en-scène” (110).

Works Cited

Budd, Mike, ed. “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”: Texts, Contexts, Histories. New

Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1990. Print.

Cook, David A. A History of Narrative Film. 4th ed. New York: Norton, 2003. Print.

Elsaesser, Thomas. “Social Mobility and the Fantastic: German Silent Cinema.” Budd

171-90.

Kaes, Anton, Martin Jay, and Edward Dimendberg. The Weimar Republic Sourcebook.

Berkeley: U of California P, 1994. Print.

Kracauer, Siegfried. From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological Study of the German

Film. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1947. Print.

Prince, Stephen. “Graphic Violence in the Cinema: Origins, Aesthetic Design, and

Social Effects.” Screening Violence. Ed. Prince. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP,

2000. 1-46. Print.

Works Consulted

Carroll, Noël. “The Cabinet of Dr. Kracauer.” Millennium Film Journal 1.2 (1978): 77-85.

Print.

Eisner, Lotte. The Haunted Screen: Expressionism in the German Cinema and the

Influence of Max Reinhardt. Berkeley: U of California P, 1973. Print.

Elsaesser, Thomas. Weimar Cinema and After: Germany’s Historical Imaginary. London:

Routledge, 2000. Print.

p A r t 4 Critical Perspectives: History, Methods, Writing460

The assertive conclusion restates the central thesis.

The Works Cited list starts on a new page at the end of the re- search essay.

The Works Consulted list, when included, starts on a new page following Works Cited.

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Writing a Film Essay: Observations, Arguments, Research, and Analysis c h A p t E r 1 2 461

Writing about film is one of the most refined ways for a viewer to see and think about movies. No surprise then that so many movies as different as Ad- aptation, Mishima, and Ruby Sparks are fascinated by writers as the subject of a film. Demonstrated with the different responses to Moonrise Kingdom and the different kinds of readers for an essay on Minority Report, important preliminary steps in this kind of writing include identifying an audience, balancing subjective and objective perspectives, taking notes, and sketching an outline that develops a particular argument and interpretation. As with the paper on My Beautiful Laundrette, the actual writing requires a clear and detailed thesis, strong topic sentences, and concrete evidence from the film, and is always followed by a series of revisions of first drafts that work to clarify the argument, its ideas, and its presentation. Careful proofreading then follows final revision, double-checking mechanics such as spelling and punc- tuation. Finally, look again at the research paper on The Cabinet of Dr. Cali- gari to remind yourself of both why research can be crucial to a strong critical paper and how that research can be pursued and integrated into the writing. Whatever the writing assignment, consistently recall these key guidelines:

■ Identify the presumed readers of your essay, considering, as the writer about Minority Report did, if those readers may or may not be familiar with the film you’re analyzing.

■ Work to make your personal point of view or opinion part of a convinc- ing and more objective analysis.

■ Before you start writing, aim to create a detailed outline as did the writer about My Beautiful Laundrette. Do your intended topic sentences line up with your working thesis? Is that thesis appropriately specific?

■ Do you support the development of the argument with detailed evidence from the film — including perhaps some formal analysis?

■ If the essay requires some research, have you approached this as a kind of intellectual conversation or dialogue with other writers or critics, so that that research is smoothly integrated, as in the essay on The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, into your own argument?

Activities ■ Practice taking detailed and productive notes on a film. Select one key

scene in a film you viewed recently to annotate as precisely as pos- sible. Describe the position of the characters, camera, and frame. Note any sounds, including dialogue. Support your description with a rough sketch.

■ Many filmmakers, such as François Truffaut and Peter Bogdanovich, have also worked as fine film critics and scholars, and much of the work of making a film — research, planning, organizing, and revising — can resemble the work of writing a critical essay. In fact, film can work like a critical essay — as a commentary on, or interpretation of, another film. Try making a short video or film that comments on or interprets a film. Does this method offer new critical or analytical possibilities that writing does not? Does it lack some of the powers of traditional critical writing?

c o n c E p t s A t W o r k

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above-the-line expenses: A film’s initial costs of con- tracting the major personnel, such as directors and stars, as well as administrative and organizational expenses in setting up a film production.

abstract films: Formal experiments that are also nonrep- resentational. These films use color, shape, and line to create patterns and rhythms that are abstracted from real actions and objects.

academy ratio: An aspect ratio of screen width to height of 1.37:1, the standard adopted by the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1931 and used by most films until the introduction of widescreen ratios in the 1950s; similar to the standard television ratio of 1.33:1 or 4:3.

active viewers: An audience that engages with a film in energetic and dynamic ways.

activist video: A confrontational political documentary using low-cost video equipment.

actor: An individual who embodies and performs a film character through gestures and movements.

actualities: Early nonfiction films introduced in the 1890s depicting real people and events through continuous footage; a famous example is Louis and Auguste Lumière’s Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory (1895).

adaptation: The process of turning a novel, short story, play, or other artistic work into a film.

agents: Individuals who represent actors, directors, writers, and other major personnel employed by a film production by contacting and negotiating with writers, casting directors, and producers.

alternative film narrative: Film narratives that deviate from or challenge the linearity of classical film narrative, often undermining the centrality of the main character, the continuity of the plot, or the verisimilitude of the narration.

analytical essay: The most common kind of writing done by film students and scholars, distinguished by its intended audience and the level of its critical language.

anamorphic lens: A camera lens that compresses the hori- zontal axis of an image or a projector lens that “unsqueezes” such an image to produce a widescreen image.

ancillary market: A venue other than theatrical release in which a film can make money, such as foreign sales, airlines, DVD, or on demand.

animated musical: A subgenre of the musical that uses cartoon figures and stories to present songs and music.

animation: A process that traditionally refers to moving images drawn or painted on individual cels or to manipulated three-dimensional objects, which are then photographed onto single frames of film. Animation now encompasses digital imaging techniques.

anime: Japanese animation, first launched following World War II.

antagonists: Characters who oppose the protagonists as negative forces.

anthology films: See compilation films.

A picture: A feature film with a considerable budget and prestigious source material or stars or other personnel that has been historically promoted as a main attraction receiving top billing in a double feature; see B picture.

apparatus theory: A critical school that explores the cin- ema as an ideological phenomenon based on a physical set of technologies, including the camera and the arrangement of projector and screen, that reinforces the values of individual- ism and the transcendence of the material basis of the cin- ematic illusion.

apparent motion: The psychological process that explains our perception of movement when watching films, in which the brain is actively responding to the visual stimuli of a rapid sequence of still images exactly as it would in actual motion perception.

archetype: A spiritual, psychological, or cultural model expressing certain virtues, values, or timeless realities.

art director: The individual responsible for supervising the conception and construction of the physical environment in which the actors appear, including sets, locations, props, and costumes; see production designer and set designer.

art film: A type of film produced primarily for aesthetic rather than for commercial or entertainment purposes, whose intellectual or formal challenges are often attributed to the vision of an auteur.

aspect ratio: The width-to-height ratio of the film frame as it appears on a movie screen or television monitor.

asynchronous sound: Sound that does not have a visible onscreen source; also referred to as offscreen sound.

auteur: The French term for “author”; the individual credited with the creative vision defining a film; implies a director whose unique style is apparent across his or her body of work; see auteur theory.

462

Glossary

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Glossary 463

casting director: The individual responsible for identify- ing and selecting which actors would work best in particular roles.

cels: A transparent sheet of celluloid on which individual images are drawn or painted in traditional animation. These drawings are then photographed onto single frames of film.

character actors: Recognizable actors associated with par- ticular character types, often humorous or sinister, and often cast in minor parts.

character analysis: An argument focusing on a single char- acter or on the interactions between more than one character.

character coherence: A quality created within a fiction of characters displaying behavior, emotions, and thoughts that appear consistent and coherent.

character depth: A quality created within a fiction of characters displaying psychological and social features that distinguish them as rounded and complex in a way that approximates realistic human personalities.

character development: The patterns through which char- acters in a particular film move from one mental, physical, or social state to another.

characters: Individuals who motivate the events and perform the actions of the story.

character types: Conventional characters (e.g., hard-boiled detective or femme fatale) typically portrayed by actors cast because of their physical features, their acting style, or the history of other roles they have played; see stereotype.

chiaroscuro lighting: A term that describes dramatic, high- contrast lighting that emphasizes shadows and the contrast between light and dark; frequently used in German expres- sionist cinema and film noir.

chronology: The order according to which shots or scenes convey the temporal sequence of the story’s events.

chronophotography: A sequence of still photographs such as those depicting human or animal motion produced by Eadweard Muybridge and Étienne-Jules Marey.

cinematographer: The member of the film crew who selects the cameras, film stock, lighting, and lenses to be used as well as the camera setup or position; also known as the director of photography or D.P.

cinematography: Motion-picture photography, literally “writing in movement.”

cinéma vérité: A French term literally meaning “cinema truth”; a style of documentary filmmaking first practiced in the late 1950s and early 1960s that used unobtrusive, lightweight cameras and sound equipment to capture a real-life situation; the parallel U.S. movement is called direct cinema.

cinephilia: A love of cinema.

clapboard: A device marked with the scene and take number that is filmed at the beginning of each take; the sound of its

auteur theory: An approach to cinema first proposed in the French film journal Cahiers du cinéma that emphasized the role of the director as the expressive force behind a film and saw a director’s body of work as united by common themes or formal strategies; also referred to as auteurism.

automated dialogue replacement (ADR): A process during which actors watch the film footage and re-record their lines to be dubbed into the soundtrack; also known as looping.

avant-garde cinema: Aesthetically challenging, noncommer- cial films that experiment with film forms.

axis of action: An imaginary line bisecting a scene corre- sponding to the 180-degree rule in continuity editing.

backlighting: A highlighting technique that illuminates the person or object from behind, tending to silhouette the sub- ject; sometimes called edgelighting.

below-the-line expenses: The technical and material costs—costumes, sets, transportation, and so on—involved in the actual making of a film.

blaxploitation: A genre of low-budget films made in the early 1970s targeting urban, African American audiences with films about streetwise African American protagonists. Several black directors made a creative mark in a genre that was pri- marily intended to make money for its producers.

block booking: A practice in which movie theaters had to exhibit whatever a studio/distributor packaged with its more popular and desirable movies; declared an unfair business practice in 1948.

blockbuster: A big-budget film, intended for wide release, whose large investment in stars, special effects, and advertis- ing attracts large audiences and economic profits.

blocking: The arrangement and movement of actors in rela- tion to each other within the mise-en-scène.

boom: A long pole used to hold a microphone above the actors to capture sound while remaining outside the frame, handled by a boom operator.

B picture: A low-budget, nonprestigious movie that usually played on the bottom half of a double bill. B pictures were often produced by the smaller studios referred to as Hollywood’s Poverty Row; see A picture.

camera lens: A piece of curved glass that focuses light rays in order to form an image on film.

camera movement: See mobile frame.

camera operator: A member of the film crew in charge of physically manipulating the camera, overseen by the cinematographer.

canon: An accepted list of essential great works in a field of study.

canted frame: Framing that is not level, creating an un- balanced appearance.

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introduced in the 1970s, CGI was used to create feature- length films by the mid-1990s and is widely used for visual effects.

connotation: The association connected with a word or sign; see denotation.

continuity editing: Hollywood editing that uses cuts and other transitions to establish verisimilitude, to construct a coherent time and space, and to tell stories clearly and ef- ficiently. Continuity editing follows the basic principle that each shot or scene has a continuous relationship to the next; sometimes called invisible editing.

continuity style: The systematic approach to filmmaking associated with classical Hollywood cinema, utilizing a broad array of technical choices from continuity editing to scoring that support the principle of effacing technique in order to emphasize human agency and narrative clarity.

costume designers: Individuals who plan and prepare how actors will be dressed for parts.

counterpoint: Using sound to indicate a different meaning or association than the image.

crane shot: A shot taken from a camera mounted on a crane that can vary distance, height, and angle.

credits: A list at the end of a film of all the personnel involved in a film production, including cast, crew, and executives.

crime film: A film genre that typically features criminals and individuals dedicated to crime detection and plots that involve criminal acts.

critical objectivity: Writing with a detached response that offers judgments based on facts and evidence with which others would, or could, agree.

crosscutting: An editing technique that cuts back and forth between actions in separate spaces, often implying simultane- ity; also called parallel editing.

cue: A visual or aural signal that indicates the beginning of an action, line of dialogue, or piece of music.

cultural analysis: An interpretation of the relationship of a film to its place in history, society, or culture.

cultural studies: A set of approaches drawn from the hu- manities and social sciences that considers cultural text and phenomena in conjunction with processes of production and consumption.

cut: In the editing process, the join or splice between two pieces of film; in the finished film, an editing transition be- tween two separate shots or scenes achieved without optical effects. Also used to describe a version of the edited film, as in rough cut, final cut, or director’s cut.

cutaway: A shot that interrupts a continuous action, “cutting away” to another image or action, often to abridge time.

dailies: The footage shot on a single day of filming.

being snapped is recorded in order to synchronize sound recordings and camera images.

classical film narrative: A style of narrative filmmaking centered on one or more central characters who propel the plot with a cause-and-effect logic wherein an action generates a reaction. Normally plots are developed with linear chronologies directed at definite goals, and the film employs an omniscient or a restricted third-person narration that suggests some degree of verisimilitude.

classical film theory: Writings on the fundamental ques- tions of cinema produced in roughly the first half of the twentieth century. Important classical film theorists include Sergei Eisenstein, Rudolf Arnheim, André Bazin, and Siegfried Kracauer.

classical Hollywood narrative: The dominant form of classical film narrative associated with the Hollywood studio system from the end of the 1910s to the end of the 1950s.

claymation: A process that uses stop-motion photography with clay figures to create the illusion of movement.

click track: Holes punched in the film corresponding to the beat of a metronome that can help actors, musicians, and the composer keep the rhythm of the action.

close-up: Framing that shows details of a person or an object, such as a character’s face.

code: A term used in linguistics and semiotics for conven- tions governing a communication act. A code must be shared by the sender and the receiver for the message to be un- derstood; for example, traffic signals use a color code. Film analysts isolate the codes of camera movement, framing, lighting, acting, etc., that determine the specific form of a particular shot, scene, film, or genre.

cognition: The aspects of comprehension that make up our rational reactions and thought processes, also contributing to our pleasure in watching movies.

cognitivism: An approach to film that draws on psychology and neuroscience to understand how the mind responds to narrative and aesthetic information.

color balance: Putting emphasis on a particular part of the color spectrum to create realistic or unrealistic palettes.

color filter: A device fitted to the camera lens to change the tones of the filmed image.

comedy: A film genre that celebrates the harmony and resiliency of social life, typically with a narrative that ends happily, and of- ten emphasizes episodes or “gags” over plot continuity.

comparative analysis: An analysis evaluating features or elements of two or more different films, or perhaps a film and its literary source.

compilation films: Films comprised of various segments by different filmmakers; also known as anthology films.

computer-generated imagery (CGI): Still or animated images created through digital computer technology. First

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day-and-date release: A simultaneous release strategy across different media and venues, such as a theatrical release and a DVD release.

deadline structure: A narrative structured around a central event or action that must be accomplished by a certain time.

deep focus: A camera technique using a large depth of field. Multiple planes in the shot are all in focus simultaneously; usually achieved with a wide-angle lens.

denotation: The literal meaning of a word; see connotation.

depth of field: The range or distance before and behind the main focus of a shot within which objects remain relatively sharp and clear.

dialectical montage: Sergei Eisenstein’s term for the cut- ting together of conflicting or unrelated images to generate an idea or emotion in the viewer.

diegesis: A term that refers to the world of the film’s story (its characters, places, and events), including not only what is shown but also what is implied to have taken place. It comes from the Greek word meaning “narration.”

diegetic sound: Sound that has its source in the narrative world of the film, whose characters are presumed to be able to hear it.

digital cinematography: Shooting with a camera that records and stores visual information electronically as digital code.

digital sound: Recording and reproducing sound through technologies that encode and decode it as digital information.

direct cinema: A documentary style originating in the United States in the 1960s that aims to observe an unfold- ing situation as unobtrusively as possible; related to cinéma vérité.

directional lighting: Lighting coming from a single direc- tion.

director: The chief creative presence or the primary manager in film production, responsible for overseeing virtually all the work of making a movie.

direct sound: Sound captured directly from its source.

disjunctive editing: Editing practices that call attention to the cut through spatial tension, temporal jumps, or rhythmic or graphic pattern.

dissolve: An optical effect in which one image fades out as another image fades in.

distanciation: Derived from the work and theories of Bertolt Brecht, an artistic practice intended to create an intellectual distance between the viewer and the performance or artwork in order to reflect on the work’s production or various ideas and issues raised by it.

distribution: The means through which movies are deliv- ered to theaters, video stores, television and Internet networks, and other venues. The entity that performs this function is a distributor.

documentary: A nonfiction film that presents real objects, people, and events.

dolly shot: A shot in which the camera is moved on a wheeled dolly that follows a determined course.

edgelighting: See backlighting.

editing: The process of selecting and joining film footage and shots. The individual responsible for this process is the editor.

ellipsis: An abridgment in time in the narrative implied by editing.

establishing shot: An initial long shot that establishes the location and setting and that orients the viewer in space.

ethnographic documentaries: Films that record the practices, rituals, and people of a culture.

evidence: Concrete details that convince readers of the validity of a writer’s interpretation.

exclusive release: A movie that premieres in restricted locations initially.

executive producer: A producer who finances or facilitates a film deal and who usually has little creative or technical involvement.

exhibition: The part of the film industry that shows films to a paying public, usually in movie theaters. The entity that performs this function is an exhibitor.

expanded cinema: Installation or performance-based ex- perimental film practices.

experimental films: Noncommercial, often non-narrative films that explore film form.

exploitation film: A cheaply made genre film that exploits a sensational or topical subject for profit.

extras: Actors without speaking parts who appear in the background and in crowd scenes.

extreme close-up: A shot that is framed comparatively tighter than a close-up, singling out, for instance, a person’s eyes.

extreme long shot: A shot framed from a comparatively greater distance than a long shot, in which the surrounding space dominates human figures.

eyeline match: A cut that follows a shot of a character looking offscreen with a shot of a subject whose screen position matches the gaze of the character in the first shot.

fade-in: An optical effect in which a black screen gradually brightens to a full picture; often used after a fade-out to cre- ate a transition between scenes.

fade-out: An optical effect in which an image gradually darkens to black, often ending a scene or a film; see fade-in.

family melodrama: A subgenre of the melodrama that focuses on the psychological and gendered forces restricting individuals within the family.

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foley artist: A member of the sound crew who generates live synchronized sound effects while watching the projected film; named after their inventor, Jack Foley.

following shots: A pan, tilt, or tracking shot that follows a moving individual or object.

formalism: A critical approach to cinema that emphasizes formal properties of the text or medium over content or context.

framing: The portion of the filmed subject that appears within the borders of the frame; it correlates with camera distance—e.g., long shot or medium close-up.

French impressionist cinema: A 1920s avant-garde film movement that aimed to destabilize familiar or objective ways of seeing, and to revitalize the dynamics of human perception.

French New Wave: A film movement that came to promi- nence in the late 1950s and 1960s in France in opposition to the conventional studio system. The films were often made with low budgets and young actors, shot on location, used unconventional sound and editing patterns, and addressed the struggle for personal expression.

frontal lighting: Techniques used to illuminate the subject from the front. Related terms are sidelighting, underlighting, and top lighting.

gangster films: Films about the criminal underworld, an early cycle of which were set in the United States during Pro- hibition in the 1930s.

generic reflexivity: The quality of movies displaying unusual self-consciousness about generic identity.

genre: A category or classification of films that share similar subject matter, setting, iconography, and narrative and stylis- tic patterns.

German expressionist cinema: Film movement draw- ing on painting and theatrical developments that emerged in Germany between 1918 and 1929; expressionism used dramatic lighting and set and costume design to represent irrational forces.

graphic match: An edit in which a dominant shape or line in one shot provides a visual transition to a similar shape or line in the next shot.

green-screen technology: A technique for creating visual effects in which actors, objects, or figures are filmed in front of a green screen and later superimposed onto a computer- generated or filmed background.

grip: A crew member who installs lighting and dollies.

handheld camera: A lightweight camera that can be car- ried by the operator rather than mounted on a tripod. Small- gauge handheld formats like 8mm and 16mm, as well as many digital cameras, allow for greater mobility and lower production costs and encourage location shooting.

handheld shot: An often unsteady film image produced by an individual carrying the camera.

fast motion : A special effect that makes the action move at faster-than-normal speeds, achieved by filming more slowly than normal and then projecting it at standard speeds; see slow motion.

feature film: Running typically 90 to 120 minutes in length, a narrative film that is the primary attraction for audiences.

fill lighting: A lighting technique using secondary fill lights to balance the key lighting by removing shadows or to em- phasize other spaces and objects in the scene.

film culture: The practices, institutions, and communities surrounding film production, publicity, and appreciation that shape our expectations, ideas, and understanding of movies.

film gauge: The width of the film stock—e.g., 8mm, 16mm, 35mm, and 70mm.

film noir: A term introduced by French critics (meaning liter- ally “black film”) to describe Hollywood films of the 1940s set in the criminal underworld and typically shot using stylized black and white cinematography in nighttime urban settings. They often featured morally ambiguous protagonists, corrupt institutions, dangerous women, and convoluted plots.

film review: A short essay that describes the plot of a movie, provides useful background information, and pronounces a clear evaluation of the film to guide its readers.

film shoot: The weeks or months of actual shooting, on set or on location.

film speed: The rate at which moving images are recorded and later projected, standardized for 35mm sound film at twenty-four frames per second (fps); also, a measure of film stock’s sensitivity to light.

film stock: Unexposed film consisting of a flexible backing or base and a light-sensitive emulsion.

film studies: A discipline that reflects critically on the na- ture and history of movies and the place of film in culture.

filters: Transparent sheets of glass or gels placed in front of the lens to create various effects.

final cut: The final edited version of a film.

first-person narration: Narration that is identified with a single individual, typically (though not always) a character in the film.

flare: A spot or flash of white light created by directing strong light directly at the lens.

flashback: A sequence that follows images set in the present with images set in the past.

flashforward: A sequence that connects an image set in the present with one or more future images.

focal length: The distance from the center of the lens to the point where light rays meet in sharp focus.

focus: The point or area in the image toward which the viewer’s attention is directed; the point at which light rays refracted through the lens converge.

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hard-boiled detective film: A subgenre of the crime film featuring a flawed or morally ambiguous detective protagonist battling a criminal element to solve a mystery or resolve a crime.

hard lighting: A high-contrast lighting style that creates hard edges, distinctive shadows, and a harsh effect, especially when filming people.

Heimat films: Films set in idyllic countryside locales of Germany and Austria that depict a world of traditional folk values.

high angle: A shot directed at a downward angle on indi- viduals or a scene.

high concept: A short phrase that attempts to sell a movie by identifying its main marketing features, such as its stars, genre, or some other easily identifiable connection.

high-key lighting: Lighting where the main source of light creates little contrast between light and dark.

highlighting: Using lighting to brighten or emphasize spe- cific characters or objects.

historical location: A recognized marker of a historical setting that can carry meanings and connotations important to a narrative.

historiography: The writing of history; the study of the methods and principles through which the past is viewed.

horror film: A film genre with origins in Gothic literature that seeks to frighten the viewer though supernatural or predator characters.

hybrid genres: Mixed forms produced by the interaction of different genres, such as musical horror films.

iconography: Images or image patterns with specific con- notations or meanings.

identification: The complex process through which we em- pathize with or project feeling onto a character or an action.

ideological location: A space or place inscribed with dis- tinctive social values or ideologies in a narrative.

ideology: A systematic set of beliefs, not necessarily con- scious or acknowledged.

IMAX: A large-format film system that is projected horizon- tally rather than vertically to produce an image approximately ten times larger than the standard 35mm frame.

independent films: Films that are produced without initial studio financing, typically with much lower budgets; they include feature-length narratives, documentaries, and shorts.

insert: A brief shot, often a close-up, that points out details significant to the action.

integrated musical: A subgenre of the musical that inte- grates musical numbers into the film’s narrative, rather than setting them off as performances.

intercutting: Interposing shots of two or more actions or locations.

interpretive community: Members of an audience who share particular knowledge, or cultural competence, through which a film is experienced.

intertextuality: A critical approach that holds that a text depends on other, related texts for its full meaning.

intertitle: Printed text inserted between film images, typi- cally used in silent films to indicate dialogue and exposition and in contemporary films to indicate time and place or other transitions.

invisible editing: See continuity editing.

iris: A shot in which the corners of the frame are masked in a black, usually circular, form. An iris-out is a transition that gradually obscures the image by moving in; an iris-in expands to reveal the entire image.

Italian neorealism: A film movement that began in Italy during World War II and lasted until approximately 1952, depicting everyday social realities using location shooting and amateur actors, in opposition to glossy studio formulas.

jidai-geki films: Period films or costume dramas set before 1868, when feudal Japan entered the modern Meiji period.

jump cut: An edit that interrupts a particular action and intentionally or unintentionally creates discontinuities in the spatial or temporal development of shots.

key lighting: The main source of non-natural lighting in a scene; see high-key lighting and low-key lighting.

leading actors: The two or three actors, often stars, who represent the central characters in a narrative.

letterbox: An effect, usually seen on home video or televi- sion, where the top and bottom strips of a frame are blacked out to accommodate a widescreen image.

lighting: Sources of illumination—both natural light and electrical lamps—used to present, shade, and accentuate fig- ures, objects, and spaces in the mise-en-scène. Lighting is primarily the responsibility of the director of photography and the lighting crew; see key lighting, fill lighting, and high- lighting.

limited release: The practice of initially distributing a film only to major cities and expanding distribution according to its success or failure.

linear chronology: Plot events and actions that proceed one after another as a forward movement in time.

line producer: The individual in charge of the daily busi- ness of tracking costs and maintaining the production sched- ule of a film.

location scouting: Determining and securing suitable places besides studio sets to use for shooting particular movie scenes.

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mickey-mousing: Overillustrating the action through the musi- cal score, drawn from the conventions of composing for cartoons.

mimesis: Imitation of reality in the arts.

miniature model: A small-scale model constructed for use during the filming process to stage special effects sequences and complex backgrounds.

mise-en-scène: All the elements of a movie scene that are organized, often by the director, to be filmed and that are later visible onscreen; includes actors, lighting, sets, costumes, make-up, and other features of the image that exist indepen- dently of the camera and the processes of filming and editing.

mix: The combination by the sound mixer of separate sound- tracks into a single master track that will be transferred onto the film print together with the image track to which it is synchronized.

mobile frame: A property of a shot in which the camera it- self moves or the borders of the image are altered by a change in the focal length of the camera lens.

mockumentary: A film that uses a documentary style and structure to present and stage fictional (sometimes ludicrous) subjects.

modernism: An artistic movement in painting, music, design, architecture, and literature beginning in the 1920s that rendered a fragmented vision of human subjectivity through strategies such as the foregrounding of style, experiments with space and time, and open-ended narratives.

modernity: A term designating the period of history stretch- ing from the end of the medieval era to the present, as well as the period’s attitude of confidence in progress and science centered on the human capacity to shape history.

montage: A term for editing most frequently used for a style that emphasizes the dynamic relationship between images, following Soviet silent-era filmmakers’ use of the term; also designates rapid sequences in Hollywood films used for de- scriptive purposes or to show the rapid passage of time.

montage sequence: A series of thematically linked shots, or shots meant to show the passage of time, joined by quick cuts or other devices, such as dissolves, wipes, and superim- positions.

motion capture: A visual effects technology used to incorporate an actor’s movements into those of a computer- generated character.

movement image: An image or film that reflects a cause- and-effect view of the world, focusing on linear action.

movie palaces: Lavish movie theaters built between the 1920s and 1940s with ornate architecture and sumptuous seating for thousands.

multiple narrations: Found in films that use several differ- ent narrative perspectives for a single story or for different stories in a movie that loosely fits these perspectives together.

long shot: A shot that places considerable distance between the camera and the scene or person so that the object or per- son is recognizable but defined by the large space and back- ground; see establishing shot.

long take: A shot of relatively long duration.

looping: An image or sound recorded on a loop of film to be replayed and layered.

low angle: A shot from a position lower than its subject.

low-key lighting: Lighting where the main source of light creates a stark contrast between light and dark.

machinima: A new media form that modifies video game engines to create computer animation.

magic lantern: A device developed in the seventeenth century for projecting an image from a slide; a precursor of motion pictures.

marketing: The process of identifying an audience and bringing a product such as a movie to its attention for consumption.

masks: Attachments to the camera or devices added optically that cut off portions of the frame so that part of the image is black.

match on action: A cut between two shots continuing a visual action.

matte shot: A process shot that joins two pieces of film, one with the central action or object and the other with a painted or digitally produced background that would be difficult to create physically for the shot.

media convergence: The process by which formerly dis- tinct media, such as cinema, television, the Internet, and video games, and viewing platforms such as television, computers, and cell phones become interdependent.

medium close-up: A shot that frames a comparatively larger area than a close-up, such as a person shown from the shoulders up; typically used during conversation sequences.

medium long shot: A shot that increases the distance be- tween the camera and the subject compared with a medium shot; it shows most of an individual’s body.

medium shot: A middle-ground framing in which we see the body of a person from approximately the waist up.

melodrama: Theatrical, literary, and cinematic narrative mode often centered on individual crises within the confines of family or other social institutions, frequently characterized by clearly identifiable moral types, coincidences and reversals of fortune, and the use of music (melos) to underscore the action.

metteur-en-scène: French term for “director” (particularly a theater director); in auteur theory, this term refers to a director who conveys technical competence without pos- sessing a strong streak of individual vision, in contrast to an auteur.

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multiplex: A movie theater complex with many screens. Most are found in suburbs or small towns, and many are con- nected to malls.

musical: A genre popular since the introduction of synchro- nous sound that typically features characters who act out and express their emotions through song and dance.

music supervisor: The individual who selects and secures the rights for songs to be used in films.

narration: The telling of a story or description of a situ- ation; the emotional, physical, or intellectual perspective through which the characters, events, and action of the plot are conveyed. In film, narration is most explicit when pro- vided as asynchronous verbal commentary on the action or images, but it can also designate the storytelling function of the camera, the editing, and verbal and other soundtracks.

narrative: A story told by a narrator or conveyed by a nar- rational point of view; see plot.

narrative analysis: A critical approach that concentrates on the story and its construction.

narrative duration: The length of time used to present an event or action in a plot.

narrative frame: A context or person positioned outside the principal narrative of a film, such as bracketing scenes in which a character in the story’s present begins to relate events of the past and later concludes her or his tale.

narrative frequency: How often certain plot elements are repeated.

narratology: The study of narrative forms; Russian nar- ratology introduced the distinction between the terms fabula (story), all the events included in a tale or imagined by the reader or viewer in the order in which they are assumed to have occurred, and syuzhet (plot), the ordering of narrative events in the particular narrative.

narrator: A character or other person whose voice and perspective describe the action of a film, either in voiceover or through strict limitation of what is shown by a particular point of view.

native aspect ratio: The original size and shape of a frame shot by the filmmaker, usually presented in a film’s first the- atrical release.

natural lighting: Light derived from a natural source in a scene or setting, such as the illumination of the sun or fire- light.

New German cinema: An internationally recognized film movement launched in West Germany in 1962 by a group of young filmmakers known for their confrontation with Germany’s Nazi and postwar past.

new media: An array of technologies, including the Internet, digital technologies, video game consoles, cell phones, and wireless devices, and the applications and imaginative cre- ations they support.

nickelodeons: Early movie theaters, typically converted storefront or arcade spaces, where short films were shown continuously for a five-cent admission price to audiences passing in and out. They were prominent until the rise of the feature film in the 1910s.

nitrate: The highly flammable chemical base of 35mm film stock used until 1951.

nondiegetic insert: An insert that depicts an action, object, or title originating outside of the space and time of the narrative world.

nondiegetic sound: Sound such as a musical score that does not have an identifiable source in the characters’ world; see diegetic sound and semidiegetic sound.

nonfiction films: Films presenting factual descriptions of actual events, persons, or places, rather than their fictional, or invented, re-creation.

non-narrative films: Films organized in a variety of ways besides storytelling.

objective point of view: A point of view that does not associate the perspective of the camera with that of a specific character.

omniscient narration: Narration that presents all elements of the plot, exceeding the perspective of any one character; see also third-person narration.

180-degree rule: A central convention of continuity edit- ing that restricts possible camera setups to the 180-degree area on one side of an imaginary line (the axis of action) drawn between the characters or figures of a scene. If the camera were to cross the line to film from within the 180-degree field on the other side, onscreen figure posi tions would be reversed.

optical effects: Special effects produced with the use of an optical printer, including visual transitions between shots such as dissolves, fade-outs, and wipes, or process shots that combine figures and backgrounds through the use of matte shots.

optical sound recording: A sound recording process that converts sound waves into electrical impulses that then control how a light beam is projected onto film. The process enables a soundtrack to be recorded alongside the image for simultaneous projection.

orphan films: Films that do not have copyright holders. This category can include everything from amateur films, training films, and documentaries to censored materials, commercials, and newsreels.

overhead shot: A shot that depicts the action from above, generally looking directly down on the subject; the camera may be mounted on a crane.

overlapping dialogue: Mixing two or more characters’ speech to imitate the rhythm of speech; the term may also re- fer to dialogue that overlaps two scenes to effect a transition between them.

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photogénie: A term, coined by Louis Delluc, referring to a particular quality that distinguishes the filmed object from its everyday reality.

piracy: The unauthorized duplication and circulation of copyrighted material.

pixilation: A type of animation that employs stop-motion photography to transform the movement of human figures into rapid jerky gestures.

platforming: The distribution strategy of releasing a film in gradually widening markets to build its reputation through reviews and word of mouth.

plot: The narrative ordering of the events of the story as they appear in the actual work, selected and arranged according to particular temporal, spatial, generic, causal, or other patterns; in narratology, also known by the Russian word syuzhet.

plot time: The length of time a movie depicts when telling its story; see narrative duration.

point of view: The position from which a person, an event, or an object is seen or filmed; in narrative form, the perspec- tive through which events are narrated.

point-of-view (POV) shot: A subjective shot that repro- duces a character’s optical point of view, often preceded and/or followed by shots of the character looking.

postclassical narrative: A term used to characterize chal- lenges to the form and content of Hollywood cinema after the decline of the studio system around 1960, including formerly taboo subject matter and narrative films and formal tech- niques influenced by European cinema.

postmodernism: An artistic style in architecture, art, litera- ture, music, and film that incorporates fragments of or refer- ences to other styles; or the cultural period in which political, cultural, and economic shifts engendered challenges to the tenets of modernism, including its belief in the possibility of critiquing the world through art, the division of high and low culture, and the genius and independent identity of the artist.

postproduction: The period in the filmmaking process that occurs after principal photography has been completed; usu- ally consists of editing, sound, and visual effects work.

postproduction sound: Sound recorded and added to a film in the postproduction phase.

poststructuralism: An intellectual development that chal- lenged the methodology and fixed definitions of structuralism by emphasizing the place of subjectivity, the unreliability of language, and the construction of social power.

postsynchronous sound: Sound recorded after the actual filming and then synchronized with onscreen sources.

premiere: A red carpet event celebrating the opening night of a film.

preproduction: The phase when a film project is in devel- opment, involving preparing the script, financing the project, casting, hiring crew, and securing locations.

overlapping editing: An edited sequence that presents two shots of the same action.

over-the-shoulder shots: Frame compositions where the camera is positioned slightly behind and over the shoulder of one character, focusing on another character or object; often used when alternating between speaking characters.

pace: The tempo at which the film seems to move, influ- enced by the duration of individual shots and the style of editing.

package-unit approach: An approach to film production established in the mid-1950s whereby the agent, producer, and casting director assembled a script, stars, and other major personnel as a key first step in a major production.

pan: A left or right rotation of the camera, whose tripod or mount remains in a fixed position; produces a horizontal movement onscreen.

pan-and-scan process: The process used to transfer a widescreen-format film to the standard television aspect ratio. A computer-controlled scanner determines the most important action in the image, and then crops peripheral action and space or presents the original frame as two separate images.

panchromatic: A property of a black-and-white film stock introduced in the 1920s that responds to a full spectrum of colors, rendering them as shades of gray.

parallel editing: An editing technique that alternates be- tween two or more strands of action in separate locations, of- ten presented as occurring simultaneously; see crosscutting.

parallelism: An instance in which the soundtrack reinforces the image, such as synchronized dialogue or sound effects or a voiceover that is consistent with what is displayed on- screen; see counterpoint.

performance: An actor’s use of language, physical expression, and gesture to bring a character to life and to communicate important dimensions of that character to the audience.

performance capture: A technique for generating computer models from data gathered from an actor’s performance.

periodization: A method of organizing film history by groups of years defined by historical events and/or during which movies share thematic and stylistic concerns.

personal or subjective documentaries: Documen- tary formats that emphasize the personal perspective or involvement of the filmmaker, often making the films resem- ble autobiographies or diaries.

perspective: The manner in which the distance and spatial relationships among objects are represented on a two- dimensional surface. In painting, parallel and converging lines give the illusion of distance and depth; in film, perspective can also be manipulated by changes in the focal length of camera lenses.

phenomenology: A theory that stresses that any act of per- ception involves a mutuality of the viewer and what is viewed.

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Glossary 471

primary research sources: Original sources such as the script and the film itself, in formats ranging from archival prints to DVDs; documents from the time of the film’s produc- tion; and new research data.

principal photography: The majority of footage filmed for a project during the shoot.

process shot: A special effect that combines two or more images as a single shot, such as filming an actor in front of a projected background.

producer: The person or persons responsible for steering and monitoring each step of a film project, especially the financial aspects, from development to postproduction and a distribu- tion deal.

production: The industrial stages that contribute to the making of a finished movie, from the financing and scripting of a film to its final edit; more specifically, the actual shoot- ing of a film after preproduction and before postproduction.

production designer: The person in charge of the film’s overall look.

production sound mixer: The sound engineer on the pro- duction set; also called a sound recordist.

production values: An evaluative term about the quality of the film images and sounds that reflects the investment expenses.

promotion: The aspect of the movie industry through which audiences are exposed to and encouraged to see a particular film; promotion includes advertisements, trailers, publicity appearances, and product tie-ins.

prop: An object that functions as a part of the set or as a tool used by the actors.

propaganda films: Political documentaries that visibly support, and intend to sway viewers toward, a particular so- cial or political issue or group.

prosthetics: Artificial facial features or body parts used to alter actors’ appearances.

protagonists: Individuals identified as the positive forces in a film; see antagonists.

psychoanalysis: The therapeutic method innovated by Sigmund Freud based on his attribution of unconscious mo- tives to human actions, desires, and symptoms; theoretical tenets developed by literary and film critics to facilitate the cultural study of texts and the interaction between viewers and texts.

psychological location: An important correlation between a character’s state of mind and the physical place he or she in- habits in a story.

race movies: Early-twentieth-century films that featured all–African American casts and circulated to African Ameri- can audiences in the North and South.

rack focus (or pulled focus): A dramatic change in focus from one object to another.

reaction shot: A shot that depicts a character’s response to something shown in a previous shot.

realism: An artwork’s quality of conveying a truthful picture of a society, person, or some other dimension of everyday life; an artistic movement that aims to achieve verisimilitude.

reception: The process through which individual viewers or groups make sense of a film.

reception theory: A theoretical approach to the ways dif- ferent kinds of audiences regard different kinds of films.

reenactment: Re-creating presumably real events within the context of a documentary.

reestablishing shot: A shot during an edited sequence that returns to an establishing shot to restore a seemingly “objec- tive” view to the spectator.

reflected sound: Recorded sound that is captured as it bounces from the walls and sets. It is usually used to give a sense of space; opposed to direct sound.

reflexive narration: A mode of narration that calls atten- tion to the narrative point of view of the story in order to complicate or subvert its own narrative authority as an objective perspective on the world.

reflexivity: Referencing the film’s own process of story- telling or cinematic technique.

reframing: The process of moving the frame from one posi- tion to another within a single continuous shot.

restricted narration: A narrative in which our knowledge is limited to that of a particular character.

retrospective plot: A plot that tells of past events from the perspective of the present or future.

rhythmic editing: The organization of editing according to different paces or tempos determined by how quickly cuts are made.

road movie: A film genre that depicts characters on a jour- ney, usually following a linear chronology.

romantic comedy: A subgenre of comedy in which humor takes second place to the happy ending, typically focusing on the emotional attraction of a couple in a lighthearted way.

room tone: The aural properties of a location that are re- corded and then mixed in with dialogue and other tracks to achieve a more realistic sound.

rotoscoping: A technique using recorded real figures and action as a basis for painting individual animation frames digitally.

safety film: Acetate-based film stock that replaced the highly flammable nitrate film base in 1952.

saturation booking: The distribution strategy of releasing a film simultaneously in as many locations as possible, widely implemented with the advent of the blockbuster in the 1970s. Also called saturated release.

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Glossary472

shock cut: A cut that juxtaposes two images whose dramatic difference aims to create a jarring visual effect.

shooting ratio: The relationship between the overall amount or length of film shot and the amount used in the finished project.

shot: A continuous point of view (or continuously exposed piece of film) between two edits.

shot/reverse shot: An editing pattern that begins with a shot of one character looking, followed by a shot of the second character, who appears to be looking back. The first shot is taken from an angle at one end of the axis of action, the second from the “reverse” angle at the other end of the line; often used in conversations; also called shot/countershot.

sidelighting: Used to illuminate the subject from the side.

sign: Term used in semiotics for something that signifies something else, whether the connection is causal, conven- tional, or based on resemblance. As defined by Ferdinand de Saussure, a sign is composed of a signifier, the spoken or written word, picture, or gesture, and a signified, the mental concept it evokes.

slapstick comedy: Films known for physical humor and stunts; some of the first films were slapstick comedies.

slasher films: A subgenre of contemporary horror films depicting serial killers, often considered to have originated with Psycho (1960).

slow cinema: Movies, often in contemporary international art films, where shots are sustained for what can seem an inordinate amount of time.

slow motion: A special effect that makes the action move more slowly than normal, achieved by filming the action at a high speed and then projecting it at standard speeds; see fast motion.

social documentaries: Documentaries that examine issues, peoples, and cultures in a social context.

social melodrama: A subgenre of the melodrama that extends its reach to include larger historical, community, and economic issues.

soft lighting: Diffused, low-contrast lighting that reduces or eliminates hard edges and shadows and can be more flattering when filming people.

sound bridge: The term for sound carried over a picture transition, or a sound belonging to the coming scene playing before the image changes.

sound designer: The individual responsible for planning and directing the overall sound of a film through to the final mix.

sound editing: Combining music, dialogue, and effects tracks to interact with the image track; performed by a sound editor.

sound mixing: The process by which all the elements of the soundtrack, including music, effects, and dialogue, are com- bined and adjusted after the image; also called re-recording.

scale: Determined by the distance of the camera from its subject.

scene: One or more shots that depict a continuous space and time.

scenics: Early nonfiction films that offered exotic or remark- able images of nature or foreign lands.

screenplay: The text from which a movie is made, including dialogue and information about action, settings, etc., as well as shots and transitions; developed from a treatment. Also known as a script.

screen time: The actual length of time a movie takes to tell its story.

screenwriter: A writer of a film’s screenplay; the screen- writer may begin with a treatment and develop the plot structure and dialogue over the span of several versions; also called a scriptwriter.

screwball comedy: A comic subgenre of the 1930s and 1940s known for fast talking and unpredictable action.

script doctor: An uncredited individual called in to do re- writes on a screenplay.

segmentation: The process of dividing a film into large narrative units for the purposes of analysis.

selects: The director’s chosen takes to use in editing a scene.

semidiegetic sound: Sound that is neither strictly diegetic nor nondiegetic, such as certain voiceovers that can be con- strued as the thoughts of a character and thus as arising from the story world.

semiotics: The study of signs and signification; posits that meaning is constructed and communicated through the selection, ordering, and interpretation of signs and sign sys- tems, including words, gestures, images, symbols, or virtu- ally anything that can be meaningfully codified. Also called semiology.

sequence: Any number of shots or scenes that are unified as a coherent action or an identifiable motif, regardless of changes in space and time.

sequence shot: A shot in which an entire scene is played out in one continuous take.

set: Strictly speaking, a constructed setting, often on a stu- dio soundstage, but both the setting and the set can combine natural and constructed elements.

set designer: The individual responsible for supervising the conception and construction of movie sets.

set lighting: The distribution of an evenly diffused illumina- tion through a scene as a kind of lighting base.

setting: A fictional or real place where the action and events of the film occur.

shallow focus: A shot in which only a narrow range of the field is in focus.

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Glossary 473

sound montage: The collision or overlapping of disjunctive sounds in a film.

sound perspective: The apparent location and distance of a sound source.

sound recording: The recording of dialogue and other sound that takes place simultaneously with the filming of a scene.

sound reproduction: Sound playback during a film’s ex- hibition.

soundstage: A large soundproofed building designed to construct and move sets and props and effectively capture sound and dialogue during filming.

soundtrack: Audio recorded to synchronize with a mov- ing image, including dialogue, music, and sound effects; the physical portion of the film used for recorded sound.

source music: Diegetic music; music whose source is visible onscreen.

special effects: A variety of illusions created during the production, including pyrotechnics, forced perspective, make-up and prosthetics, and camera effects such as slow motion, color filters, process shots, and matte shots.

spectatorship: The process of film viewing; the conscious and unconscious interaction of viewers and films as a topic of interest to film theorists.

spotting: The process of determining where music and effects will be added to a film.

star system: The practice of a studio system or a national film industry of promoting films and organizing audience expectation through the cultivation of distinctive and well- known performers.

Steadicam: A camera stabilization system introduced in 1976 that allows a camera operator to film a continuous and steady shot.

stereotype: A character type that simplifies and standard- izes perceptions that one group holds about another, often less numerous, powerful, or privileged group.

stinger: Sound that forces the audience to notice the sig- nificance of something onscreen, such as the ominous chord struck when the villain’s presence is made known.

stop-motion photography: A process that records inani- mate objects or actual human figures in different positions in separate frames and then synthesizes them on film to create the illusion of motion and action.

story: The subject matter or raw material of a narrative, or our reconstruction of the events of a narrative based on what is explicitly shown and ordered in the plot.

storyboard: Sequential images used to sketch out each shot of a film or a film sequence.

story time: The sequence of events inferred during the tell- ing of a film story.

structural film: An experimental film movement that emerged in North America in the 1960s, in which films followed a predetermined structure.

structuralism: Derived from linguistics and anthropology, an approach to literary and filmic narratives that looks for common structures rather than originality.

studio system: The industrial practices of the large produc- tion companies responsible for filmmaking in Hollywood or other national industries. During the Hollywood studio era extending from the late 1920s to the 1950s, the five major studios were MGM, Paramount, RKO, Twentieth Century Fox, and Warner Bros.

stylistic analysis: A critical approach focusing on form, such as shot composition, editing, and the use of sound.

subgenre: A more limited version of a genre, such as the spaghetti western or slapstick comedy.

subjective point of view: A point of view that re-creates the perspective of a character.

supporting actors: Actors who play secondary charac- ters in a film, serving as foils or companions to the central characters.

surrealist cinema: An influential avant-garde movement of the 1920s, which manipulated time, space, and material objects according to a dreamlike logic.

symbolic space: Space transformed through spiritual or other abstract means related to the narrative.

synchronous sound: Sound that is recorded during a scene or that is synchronized with the filmed images; sound that has a visible onscreen source; also referred to as onscreen sound.

take: A single filmed version of a scene during production or a single shot onscreen.

talking heads: An on-camera interview that typically shows the speaker from the shoulders up, hence “talking head.”

Technicolor: Color processing that uses three strips of film to transfer colors directly onto a single image; developed between 1926 and 1932.

telephoto lens: A lens with a focal length of at least 75mm, capable of magnifying and flattening distant objects; see also zoom lens.

theatrical musical: A subgenre of the musical that is set in a theatrical milieu.

theatrical release window: The period of time before a film’s availability on home video, video on demand, or tele- vision platforms, during which it plays in movie theaters.

theatrical trailer: A promotional preview of an upcoming release presented before the main feature or as a television commercial.

thesis statement: A short statement (often a single sen- tence) that succinctly describes and anticipates each stage of

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Glossary474

underlighting: Used to illuminate the subject from below.

underscoring: A film’s background music; contrasts with source music.

unit production manager: A member of a film’s produc- tion team responsible for reporting and managing the details of receipts and purchases.

unreliable narration: A type of narration that raises ques- tions about the truth of the story being told; also called ma- nipulative narration.

verisimilitude: The quality of fictional representation that allows readers or viewers to accept a constructed world, its events, its characters, and their actions as plausible; literally “having the appearance of truth.”

video: Electronic medium that captures, records, stores, displays, and transmits moving images.

video art: Artists’ use of the medium of video in instal- lations and gallery exhibitions, beginning in the late 1960s.

video on demand (VOD): The distribution of films through cable or online services that allow consumers to purchase and view movies on computers and home video screens.

viral marketing: A phenomenon in which consumers pass along a marketing message through word of mouth, elec- tronic messaging, or other means.

visible editing: See disjunctive editing.

visual effects: Special effects created in postproduction though digital imaging.

voice-off: A voice that originates from a speaker who can be inferred to be present in the scene but who is not visible onscreen.

voiceover: A voice whose source is neither visible in the frame nor implied to be offscreen; it typically narrates the film’s images, such as in a flashback or the commentary in a documentary film.

walla: A nonsense word spoken by extras in a film to ap- proximate the sound of a crowd during sound dubbing.

western: A film genre set in the American West, typically featuring rugged, independent male characters on a quest or dramatizing frontier life.

wide-angle lens: A lens with a short focal length (typically less than 35mm) that allows cinematographers to explore a depth of field that can simultaneously show foreground and background objects or events in focus.

wide release: The premiere of a movie at many locations simultaneously.

widescreen processes: Any of a number of systems in- troduced in the 1950s that widened the aspect ratio and the dimensions of the movie screen.

widescreen ratio: The wider, rectangular aspect ratio of typically 1.85:1 or 2.35:1; see academy ratio.

an essay’s argument. A working thesis is a rough version of a thesis used to draft an essay.

Third Cinema: A term coined in the late 1960s in Latin America to echo the phrase and concept “Third World,” Third Cinema opposed commercial and auteurist cinemas with a political, populist aesthetic and united films from a number of countries and contexts.

third-person narration: A narration that assumes an ob- jective and detached stance vis-à-vis the plot and characters, describing events from outside the story.

30-degree rule: A cinematography and editing rule that specifies that a shot should only be followed by another shot taken from a position greater than 30 degrees from that of the first.

three-point lighting: A lighting technique common in Hollywood that combines key lighting, fill lighting, and backlighting to blend the distribution of light in a scene.

tie-ins: Ancillary products that advertise and promote a movie, such as T-shirts, CD soundtracks, toys, and other gimmicks made available at stores and restaurants.

tilt: An upward or downward rotation of the camera, whose tripod or mount remains in a fixed position, producing a ver- tical movement onscreen.

“time image”: An image or film that represents the open- endedness of time and the potentiality of thought without giving clear signals of spatial connection or logical sequence.

tone: The shading, intensification, or saturation of colors (such as metallic blues, soft greens, or deep reds) in order to sharpen, mute, or balance them for certain effects.

topicals: Early films that captured or sometimes re-created historical or newsworthy events.

topic sentence: Usually the first sentence of a paragraph that announces the central idea around which all other sen- tences within the paragraph cohere.

top lighting: Used to illuminate the subject from above.

tracking shot: A shot that changes the position of the point of view by moving forward, backward, or around the subject, usually on tracks that have been constructed in advance (see dolly shot); also called a traveling shot.

trailer: A form of promotional advertising that previews edited images and scenes from a film in theaters before the main feature film or on a television commercial or Web site.

treatment: A succinct description of the content of a film written before the screenplay or script.

two-shot: A shot depicting two characters.

underground film: Nonmainstream film, associated partic- ularly with the experimental film culture of 1960s and 1970s New York and San Francisco.

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Glossary 475

wipe: A transition used to join two shots by moving a verti- cal, horizontal, or sometimes diagonal line across one image to replace it with a second image that follows the line across the frame.

women’s picture: A category of films produced in the 1930s–1950s, featuring female stars in romances or melo- dramas and marketed primarily to women.

Works Cited: List of sources cited in an essay, positioned on a separate page immediately after the last page of the essay text.

Works Consulted: Optional list of sources that have been consulted but not cited in the text or notes of an essay; appears on a separate page after the Works Cited list.

zoom-in: The act of changing the lens’s focal length to narrow the field of view of a distant object, magnifying and reframing it, often in close-up, while the camera remains stationary; see zoom-out.

zooming: Changing focal length of a camera to rapidly move the image closer or further away.

zoom lens: A lens with variable focal length.

zoom-out: Reversing the action of a zoom-in, so that objects that appear close initially are distanced and reframed as small figures.

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477

Introduction

Mayne, Judith. Cinema and Spectatorship. New York: Rout- ledge, 1993. This excellent book summarizes and rethinks models of identification at the movies to develop more varied and dynamic descriptions that account for different audience responses.

Plantinga, Carl. Moving Viewers: American Film and the Spec- tator’s Experience. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 2009. A wide-ranging study of the viewing experience focused on mainstream Hollywood film; it examines film viewing from different angles, including cognitive, philosophical, and social perspectives.

Williams, Linda, ed. Viewing Positions: Ways of Seeing Film. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univ. Press, 1995. This varied collection of essays on spectatorship at the movies presents critical discussions addressing a range of viewing experi- ences, from early cinema to postmodern malls.

Chapter 1

Acland, Charles R. Screen Traffic: Movies, Multiplexes, and Global Culture. Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press, 2003. Examining the changes in the movie business since the mid-1980s, this book explores the new global reach of the cinema today and the changing production, distribu- tion, and exhibition structures of business enmeshed in the economics of megaplexes, pay-per-view distribution, and accelerating viewing patterns.

Gomery, Douglas. Shared Pleasures: A History of Movie Pre- sentation in the United States. Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1992. A well-researched and discriminating history of the many changes in film exhibition from 1895 to 1990, this study provides a wealth of detail about the evolution of distribution of U.S. movies.

Lukk, Tiiu. Movie Marketing: Opening the Picture and Giv- ing It Legs. Los Angeles: Silman-St. James, 1997. Less a scholarly work than a series of case studies, this book con- centrates on a variety of contemporary movies—from Four Weddings and a Funeral to Mrs. Doubtfire—and describes a range of different marketing and promotion strategies.

Stokes, Melvyn, and Richard Maltby. American Movie Audi- ences: From the Turn of the Century to the Early Sound Era. London: BFI, 1999. This excellent collection of essays maps the remarkable diversity of moviegoing patterns in the first part of the twentieth century. Arguing the diverse social compositions of early film audiences, the book presents convincing evidence of those audiences often resisting the homogenization and standardization being promoted by a corporate Hollywood.

Vachon, Christine, with Austin Bunn. A Killer Life: How an Independent Producer Survives Deals and Disasters in Hol- lywood and Beyond. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006. A lively account of the production process by a founder

of the New York–based independent film company Killer Films, which produced such innovative films as Boys Don’t Cry and I’m Not There.

Chapter 2

Affron, Charles and Mirella. Sets in Motion: Art Direction and Film Narrative. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univ. Press, 1995. Concentrating on the work of set designers, this study examines a number of films to demonstrate how sets do far more than embellish a film, often becoming the center of its meaning.

Brewster, Ben, and Lea Jacobs. Theatre to Cinema: Stage Pic- torialism and the Early Feature Film. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1997. The book is a careful, scholarly investigation of the transition from stage to screen in early film history.

Dyer, Richard. Stars. Rev. ed. London: BFI, 1998. A landmark study of the many ways that stars organize and focus a reading of film, this work explores both their onscreen pres- ence and their offscreen activities.

Gaines, Jane M., and Charlotte Herzog, eds. Fabrications: Costume and the Female Body. London: Routledge, 1990. This collection of essays addresses the role of costume and costume design in defining film narrative, shaping female star images, and appealing to women audiences.

Gibbs, John. Mise-en-Scène: Film Style and Interpretation. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2002. Devoted exclusively to the importance of mise-en-scène, this book is a histori- cal survey of this critical dimension of film and a detailed examination of its aesthetic powers.

Naremore, James. Acting in the Cinema. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1988. A lucid introduction and survey of forms and styles of film acting that also ventures into theoretical and ideological issues underpinning different acting strategies.

Neumann, Dietrich. Film Architecture: Set Designs from Metropolis to Blade Runner. Munich: Prestel Art Press, 1999. This book that accompanied an art exhibition is a lavishly illustrated study of modernist architecture and urbanism’s influence on set design.

Williams, Christopher. Realism and the Cinema. London: Routledge, 1980. A wide-ranging examination of the argu- ments about film realism, this book also looks at differ- ent filmic practices of realism and the ideological stakes implicit in those movies.

Chapter 3

Belton, John. Widescreen Cinema. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1992. This book examines the technical, eco- nomic, social, and aesthetic forces that have been a part of widescreen cinema since 1896, shaping and reshaping the film image to respond to different cultures and audiences.

The Next Level: Additional Sources

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The Next Level: Additional Sources478

Figgis, Mike. Digital Filmmaking. London: Faber & Faber, 2007. This book is a guide to the dramatic changes and opportunities ushered in by the digital revolution and non- linear editing, written by a filmmaker who took early and creative advantage of that revolution.

Metz, Christian. Language and Cinema. The Hague: Mouton de Gruyter, 1974. Outlining the field of film semiotics in this dense but influential work, Metz presents his framework for analyzing the syntagmatic components of the narrative film (the grand syntagmatique). He sees editing as being crucial to supporting the comparison of film with language via the definition of a grammar of film.

Oldham, Gabriella. First Cut: Conversations with Film Editors. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1992. Editors share secrets of their craft.

Chapter 5

Altman, Richard, ed. Sound Theory, Sound Practice. New York: Routledge, 1992. This anthology addresses the under- theorizing of film sound and includes perspectives on the history of film sound and on non-narrative film sound.

Chion, Michel. Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen. Edited and translated by Claudia Gorbman. Foreword by Walter Murch. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1990. This trans- lated work by a leading theorist of film sound stresses the inseparability of sound and image and introduces original terminology to explore the experience more precisely.

Dickinson, Kay, ed. Movie Music: The Film Reader. London: Routledge, 2003. This collection of essays includes a classic statement by Theodor Adorno and Hans Eisler as well as discussions of animation, the record industry, and formal analysis of music.

Donnelly, Kevin. The Spectre of Sound: Music in Film and Television. London: BFI, 2005. This study examines the use of music in both films and television to elicit emotional reactions; it explores the use of pop music, horror music, orchestral music, and other types of film music.

Eisenstein, Sergei, Vsevolod Pudovkin, and Grifore Alex- androv. “Statement on Sound.” In The Eisenstein Reader, edited by Richard Taylor, pp. 80–81. London: BFI, 1998. Originally published in 1928, this manifesto by Soviet mon- tage theorists anticipates the creative uses of sound in film.

Gorbman, Claudia. Unheard Melodies: Narrative Film Music. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1987. A thorough exam- ination of how music works in narrative cinema. Drawing on narratology and semiology, this book introduces impor- tant theories of film music with extensive examples.

Kozloff, Sarah. Overhearing Film Dialogue. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 2000. A rare comprehensive study of film dialogue, this book examines the critical neglect of dialogue in American movies. The second part of the book analyzes the distinct use of dialogue in four genres: westerns, screw- ball comedies, gangster films, and melodramas.

Lastra, James. Sound Technology and the American Cinema. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2000. Linking practices and rhetoric of film sound in the 1920s and 1930s with nineteenth-century technologies, Lastra demonstrates per- sistent ways of speaking about the aural dimension and tracks social and sensorial changes wrought by modernity.

Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. Harmondsworth, U.K.: Penguin, 1972. Small and well illustrated, Berger’s book offers a remarkably broad perspective on how images of all kinds— from paintings to television advertisements—are informed by powerful historical and cultural values.

Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001. This book presents an influential theory of the philosophy, technology, and impact of digital cinema.

Pierson, Michele. Special Effects: Still in Search of Wonder. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2002. Pierson’s work is an important contribution to theorizing this persistent and ever more dominant dimension of the moving image.

Schaefer, Dennis, and Larry Salvato. Masters of Light: Con- versations with Contemporary Cinematographers. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1984. Fascinating discussions with acclaimed directors of photography give insight into their art and craft.

Smoodin, Eric. Animation Culture: Hollywood Cartoons from the Sound Era. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univ. Press, 1993. This book offers an examination of not only the technical strategies in film animation (from 1930 to 1960), but also the complex political and ideological agendas that often drove those strategies.

Winston, Brian. Technologies of Seeing. London: BFI, 1997. A critical review of the development of the technological image—from 16mm film to HDTV to holography—this study emphasizes the logic behind these changes and how they engage other historical and social shifts.

Chapter 4

Bazin, André. What Is Cinema? Edited and translated by Hugh Gray. 2 vols. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 2005. Originally published in 1967. This translation of Bazin’s own selection of critical essays on the language of cinema, published posthumously, includes his classic theorizations of montage and the long take. This new edition includes forewords by Bazin scholar Dudley Andrew.

Bordwell, David. The Way Hollywood Tells It: Story and Style in Modern Movies. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 2006. An examination of Hollywood films since the 1960s, this study looks at the changes in narrative style to argue, among other issues, that continuity editing has evolved dimensions of what the author calls “intensified continuity.”

Burch, Noel. Theory of Film Practice. Translated by Helen Lane. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1981. In this influ- ential study originally published in 1973, a contemporary French theorist and filmmaker considers the construction of space and time in Hollywood and avant-garde films.

Dancyger, Ken. The Technique of Film and Video Editing: The- ory and Practice. 4th ed. Boston: Focal Press, 1997. Aimed at directors and focusing on the history, theory, and prac- tice of film editing, this highly readable book is designed as an update to Karel Reisz’s 1953 classic, The Technique of Film Editing, and its 1968 revision by Gavin Miller.

Eisenstein, Sergei. The Eisenstein Reader. Edited by Richard Taylor. London: BFI, 1998. A collection of shorter writings by the Soviet filmmaker that illuminate his film practice and his theories of montage, this work covers his entire career from 1923 to 1947.

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most important collections on the aims and distinctions of nonfiction filmmaking, this book features essays by John Grierson, Joris Ivens, and others.

Bruzzi, Stella. New Documentary: A Critical Introduction. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2006. This book is a serious, polemi- cal, and succinct introduction to practical and theoretical issues regarding documentaries, such as the changing roles of gender, spectatorship, and authorship.

Grant, Keith Barry, and Jeannette Sloniowski. Documenting the Documentary: Close Readings of Documentary Film and Video. Detroit: Wayne State Univ. Press, 1998. A collection of individual essays on specific documentary films, ranging from Nanook of the North to Tongues Untied.

Nichols, Bill. Blurred Boundaries: Questions of Meaning in Contemporary Culture. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1994. This demanding and insightful investigation explores the “blurred” middle ground between fiction and nonfiction films; its historical scope moves from Sergei Eisenstein’s Strike, to the infamous Rodney King videotape, to the work of a host of exceptional contemporary filmmakers.

Renov, Michael. The Subject of Documentary. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2004. Renov’s collection of critical essays explores the various fashionings of self through different documentary traditions: from newsreels and autobiographies to domestic ethnographies and new interactive technologies.

Rosenthal, Alan, and John Corner, eds. New Challenges for Documentary. 2nd ed. Manchester, U.K.: Manchester Univ. Press, 2005. Thirty-five essays by different authors address six sets of topics: documentary as genre, documen- tary producers and directors, ethics and aesthetics, docu- mentary and television, representations of history, and docudramas.

Chapter 8

Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” In Illuminations, edited by Hannah Arendt. New York: Schocken, 1969. This seminal essay written in Weimar- era Germany discusses how film and photography have trans- formed the work of art and contemporary ways of seeing.

Gunning, Tom. “The Cinema of Attraction: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde,” Wide Angle 8.3–4 (1986): 63–70. Important theorization of early cinema’s solicitation of the spectator and the implications of such a mode for non-narrative traditions, including the avant-garde.

Hall, Doug, and Sally Jo Fifer, eds. Illuminating Video: An Essential Guide to Video Art. New York: Aperture, in asso- ciation with the Bay Area Video Coalition, 1990. This is an authoritative study of video as an art medium before the advent of digital video.

James, David E. Allegories of Cinema: American Film in the 1960s. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1989. This study contextualizes underground and avant-garde cinema on the political and social movements of the period.

Le Grice, Malcolm. Abstract Film and Beyond. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1977. An important experimental filmmaker himself, Le Grice begins by comparing abstract films to avant-garde paintings and then maps their development from the futur- ist movement through various post–World War II move- ments in the United States.

O’Brien, Charles. Cinema’s Conversion to Sound: Technology and Film Style in France and the U.S. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 2005. This work is an innovative crosscultural analysis of how two different film cultures—those of France and the United States—assimilated the sound revolution in often notably different ways. Unlike traditional studies of sound technology, the book argues less for the common stylistic strategies associated with Hollywood and instead emphasizes the significant role that cultural differences can play in the production of cinematic sound.

Weis, Elisabeth, and John Belton, eds. Film Sound: Theory and Practice. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1985. A comprehensive anthology covering history, technology, aesthetics, and classical and contemporary sound theory, this work includes a section on practice that comprises essays on the work of directors who have used sound inno- vatively, from the early sound period to modern Hollywood cinema.

Chapter 6

Altman, Rick. A Theory of Narrative. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2008. This ambitious study of narrative ranges from the Bible through twentieth-century cinema, debat- ing both theoretical issues about narrative and practical considerations.

Branigan, Edward. Narrative Comprehension and Film. New York: Routledge, 1992. Branigan offers an analytical account of the structures of narrative cinema and of how audiences learn to identify and process them.

Elsaesser, Thomas, and Adam Barker, eds. Early Cinema: Space/Frame/Narrative. London: BFI, 1990. Representing leading British, American, and European scholars, this col- lection of essays explores the first twenty years of the cin- ema, including the exciting multitude of filmic practices and experiments that fashioned early narrative cinema.

Fell, John L. Film and the Narrative Tradition. Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1974. This collection of essays traces the many different historical and cultural backgrounds of narrative cinema.

Gaines, Jane. Classical Hollywood Narrative: The Paradigm Wars. Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press, 1982. A reinvestiga- tion of the classical Hollywood paradigm, this collection of essays by leading film scholars describes how that paradigm has been challenged by television, new gender relations, and other cultural changes.

Turim, Maureen. Flashbacks in Film: Memory and History. New York: Routledge, 1989. This book is a complex theo- retical investigation of how flashbacks have structured nar- ratives from silent films to the present.

Chapter 7

Barnouw, Erik. Documentary: A History of Non-Fiction Film. 2nd rev. ed. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1993. This sur- vey of major twentieth-century documentary films distin- guishes kinds of nonfiction films by the rhetorical stances they initiate (such as those of “the explorer,” “the prosecu- tor,” and “the guerrilla”).

Barsam, Richard M., ed. Nonfiction Film Theory and Criti- cism. New York: Dutton, 1976. One of the first and still

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Grant, Barry, ed. Film Genre Reader III. Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 2003. An indispensable anthology of essays on film genre, this volume covers a range of theoretical issues and analyzes numerous film genres. Contributors represent a range of traditional and contemporary critical methods.

Kitses, Jim. Horizons West: Directing the Western from John Ford to Clint Eastwood. London: BFI, 2004. This new edition of a classic genre study first published in 1969 establishes the western at the center of American film genres and elegantly combines auteurist and genre criticism.

Neale, Steve. Genre. London: BFI, 1980. Neale’s brief but intellectually provocative account of film genre emphasizes the institutional and textual contract between the movie industry and the audiences that genre films crystallize and require in order to create systems of meaning.

Shatz, Thomas. Hollywood Genres: Formulas, Filmmaking, and the Studio System. New York: Random House, 1981. A lucid and carefully organized introduction to how film genre operates as an organizing principle for movies, this work gives special attention to westerns, gangster and hard-boiled detective films, screwball comedies, musicals, and family melodramas.

Chapter 10

Allen, Robert C., and Douglas Gomery. Film History: Theory and Practice. New York: Knopf, 1985. A successful combi- nation of theoretical savvy and pragmatics, this study is a rare look at the different ways film histories can be con- structed and used to illuminate individual films.

Beauchamp, Cari. Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1997. A lively and readable history of the women screenwriters, producers, and stars active in the early years of Hollywood’s influence.

Bordwell, David, Janet Staiger, and Kristin Thompson. The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode to 1960. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1985. An extensively researched and detailed exploration of U.S. film history based on industrial standards that, according to the authors, have altered little in sixty years.

Bruno, Giuliana. Streetwalking on a Ruined Map: Cultural Theory and the City Films of Elvira Notari. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1993. Focusing on the fascinating career of a woman producer of early films in Italy, Bruno makes an argument about gender, cities, and the new expe- riences of space and time offered by the film medium and the institution of cinema in the context of modernity.

Cook, David A. A History of Narrative Film. 4th ed. New York: Norton, 2004. Large and exact, this excellent history of world cinema moves from the original to recent movie cultures. A superb source of information and dates that is punctuated by analysis of film masterpieces.

Cripps, Thomas. Slow Fade to Black: The Negro in American Film, 1900–1942. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1977. A richly detailed social history of the representation of Afri- can Americans in U.S. films until World War II that contin- ues in the author’s Making Movies Black (1993).

Grant, Catherine, and Annette Kuhn. Screening World Cinema. London: Routledge, 2006. This anthology of contemporary

MacDonald, Scott. A Critical Cinema: Interviews with Inde- pendent Filmmakers. 5 vols. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1988–2006. In this vital series, one of the foremost scholars and advocates of experimental cinema interviews hundreds of filmmakers spanning several generations of the U.S. avant-garde.

Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001. Provocative and influential theorization of new media and their relation to old media.

Petrolle, Jean, and Virginia Wright Wexman, eds. Women and Experimental Filmmaking. Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 2005. An anthology of new writings on filmmakers who are sometimes overshadowed in canonical accounts.

Rees, A. L. A History of Experimental Film and Video. London: BFI, 1999. Addressing subjects ranging from Jean Cocteau to Stan Brakhage and contemporary avant-garde video, this is a meticulous, smart, and readable account of twentieth- century experimental film and video.

Renov, Michael, and Erika Suderburg, eds. Resolutions: Con- temporary Video Practices. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minne- sota Press, 1996. A comprehensive anthology of theoretical and historical essays on activist and art video.

Rieser, Martin, and Andrea Zapp. New Screen Media: Cinema/ Art/Narrative. London: BFI, 2002. Features writings by a wide range of critics, theorists, and artists about the impact of new media forms on narrative and aesthetics.

Sitney, P. Adams. Visionary Film: The American Avant-Garde, 1943–2000. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2002. This classic text established the terminology with which the American avant-garde film and its key filmmakers were discussed for decades. Originally published in 1974, it now includes a new chapter surveying recent developments.

Wees, William C. Light Moving in Time: Studies in the Visual Aesthetics of Avant-Garde Film. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1992. Provides accounts of the aesthetics of many of the principal filmmakers of the North American avant-garde.

Chapter 9

Altman, Rick. Film/Genre. London: BFI, 1999. A balanced survey of genre theories since Aristotle, this study addresses the importance of film genres both for the industry and for movie audiences, examining the historical variations of genres and their relationship to social life.

Browne, Nick, ed. Refiguring American Film Genres. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1999. This collection features articles by many top scholars on film genre and gathers pieces on particular films and genres (including the war film and the jury film) that develop new theoretical stands on film genre.

Clover, Carol. Men, Women, and Chain-Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1992. Clover’s bold study of the slasher film argues that the “Final Girl” who survives the carnage is a figure of cross- gender identification for male fans.

Gledhill, Christine, ed. Home Is Where the Heart Is: Studies in Melodrama and the Woman’s Film. London: BFI, 1987. This collection contains essays by some of the field’s finest femi- nist theorists on silent melodrama, women’s films of the 1930s and 1940s, and the family melodramas of the 1950s.

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The Next Level: Additional Sources 481

Hill, John, and Pamela Church Gibson, eds. The Oxford Guide to Film Studies. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1998. Introduction to the field, with strong sections on classical and contemporary film theory as well as film history and culture.

Kaplan, E. Ann. Feminism and Film. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2000. Collection of many significant contributions to feminist film studies, covering authorship, genres, specta- torship, race, sexuality, and more.

Lehman, Peter, ed. Defining Cinema. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univ. Press, 1997. Essays and contemporary com- mentaries on five major theorists, from Sergei Eisenstein to Christian Metz.

Stam, Robert. Film Theory: An Introduction. Malden: Black- well, 2000. A concise, vivid account covering contemporary classical contributions and including fresh examples from global traditions.

Chapter 12

Corrigan, Timothy. A Short Guide to Writing about Film. 8th ed. New York: Pearson/Longman, 2012. A short but com- plete guide to writing about film, replete with a variety of professional and student essays.

Donald, James, Anne Friedberg, and Laura Marcus, eds. Close Up, 1927–1933: Cinema and Modernism. Princeton: Prince ton Univ. Press, 1998. Featuring some of the earliest and best writers about film—such as Dorothy Richardson, Harry Potamkin, and H.D., who still have much to tell con- temporary writers about style and substance—this volume collects relatively early, passionately serious, and important reviews and essays on the art of film as it moved from the silent to the sound era.

Lant, Antonia, ed. Red Velvet Seat: Women’s Writings on the First Fifty Years of Cinema. London: Verso, 2006. While filmgoing was one of the most important cultural activities for women throughout the twentieth century, this collection of writings is the first widely inclusive survey of the many ways women wrote about film. The book features not only the writings of actresses, filmmakers, and writers, such as Virginia Woolf and H.D., but also social activists such as Jane Addams and Barbara Deming.

Lopate, Phillip, ed. American Movie Critics: From the Silents until Now. New York: Library of America, 2006. A wide- ranging anthology of American film criticism, this recent collection spans the history of cinema, from Vachel Lind- say’s prophetic writings in 1915 to Roger Ebert’s modern reviews, and it offers an exceptional range of voices and perspectives, from Manny Farber’s 1930s writings to poet John Ashbery’s contemporary reflections of the cinema.

Rich, B. Ruby. Chick Flicks: Theories and Memories of the Feminist Film Movement. Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press, 1998. Covering a range of topics and films that engage several decades of feminist film criticism, Rich writes as both a journalist and a film scholar, with each essay dem- onstrating a skillful balance of personal experience and intellectual argument.

essays on transnational cinema explores many of the most current theoretical issues (for instance, the relation of modernity to international cinema) and also discusses some of the most important national cinemas to emerge in recent years (such as the Iranian, Chinese, and Latin American cinemas).

Hansen, Miriam. Babel and Babylon. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1991. Looking at the specific contexts of U.S. silent film reception as well as at such examples as the popularity of Rudolph Valentino, this book argues that audiences found a new public experience of the modern world at the movies.

Harpole, Charles, general ed. History of American Cinema. 10  vols. New York: Scribner’s, 1990–2002. With each volume edited by a different scholar, this monumental history provides a decade-by-decade compendium of details and facts that map the industrial, social, and stylistic development of American movies.

Hill, John, and Patricia Church Gibson. World Cinema: Critical Approaches. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2000. A wide-ranging collection of essays by film scholars from around the world, the book features some general essays on topics such as “Concepts of National Cinema” and “Issues in European Cinema,” as well as case studies on individual film cultures, including “East Central European Cinema” and “Taiwanese New Cinema.”

Naficy, Hamid. Accented Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Film- making. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 2001. An influ- ential study of the migratory aesthetics of contemporary films whose stylistics and perspectives bear the marks of crosscultural dialogues within transnational cinema; it considers filmmakers as diverse as Canadian Atom Egoyan, Iranian Abbas Kiarostami, and American Trinh T. Minh-ha.

Nowell-Smith, Geoffrey, ed. The Oxford History of World Cin- ema. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1996. A comprehensive volume featuring contributions from experts on periods, topics, and regions of world cinema.

Sklar, Robert, and Charles Musser, eds. Resisting Images: Essays on Cinema and History. Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press, 1990. A collection of essays by contemporary film scholars and critics that examines the relationship between cinema history and social history through such topics as “Soviet worker clubs of the 1920s” and the “politics of Israeli cinema.”

Chapter 11

Andrew, Dudley. Concepts in Film Theory. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1984. A thoughtful introduction to issues taken up in contemporary film theory.

Corrigan, Timothy, and Patricia White, with Meta Mazaj. Critical Visions in Film Theory: Classic and Contemporary Readings. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011. An extensive collection of the major documents in film theory, featuring introductions to major topics and individual readings, along with reading cues to guide students through the essays.

Elsaesser, Thomas, and Malte Hagener. Film Theory: An Introduction through Senses. New York: Routledge, 2010. A guide to the primary schools of film theory based in the spectator’s different experience of film as, for instance, “window,” “mirror,” and “mind.”

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483

Index

Aboriginal people Aboriginal prediction and, 317 assimilation policies toward,

307–8 abortion, 379 above-the-line expenses, 23 Abraham Lincoln: Vampire

Hunter, 48 absolute cinema, 296 abstract films, 296

Ballet mécanique and, 308 experimentation and, 295–96 montage in, 168 by women, 380

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Academy Awards, Oscars). See Oscars

academy ratio, 107, 108 Acres, Birt, 257, 356 Across the Universe, 330 activist media, 308 actors, 27. See also casting; char-

acters blocking of, 76–77 as character types, 75–76, 420 as extras, 75 leading, 74–75 marketing, promotion, and, 43,

45 performance styles of, 74 star status of, 75–76 star studies and, 419–20,

419–21 types of, 74–75

actualities, 257 Adam’s Rib, 323–24 Adaptation, 47

as narrative film, 219 screenwriter character in, 22,

429 adaptations, 216–17 Adorno, Theodor, 418 Adrian, 25, 67 Adventures of Robin Hood, The,

87 Adventures of Robinson Crusoe,

The, 237 advertising, 43, 44, 45–46

aesthetic images, 403–4 African American cinema. See

also specific individuals and films

blaxploitation and, 384 Dash, Julie, and, 380, 383 as directors, 384–85 gangsta rap and, 335 history of, 40–41, 378, 382–85 “hood” films in, 384 independent films in, 383–84 Killer of Sheep, 40–41 Micheaux, Oscar, and, 383,

386–87 race and representation in,

382–83 race movies and, 383 women directors of, 383

African Americans as directors, 384–85 films by, 422 in music-based films, 197 representations of, 421

African cinema, 374–75 African Queen, The, 87 Agee, James, 430 agents, 24–25 Age of Innocence, The, mise-en-

scène and, 69 Aguirre: The Wrath of God, 372 AIDS, activist video and, 389 Akerman, Chantal. See also

Jeanne Dielman, 83 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bru­ xelles; News from Home

camera angle and, 113 in film history, 380 formalist films of, 295

Akin, Fatih, 372 Alexander Nevsky, sound mon-

tage in, 204 Alexandria . . . Why?, 374 Alexie, Sherman, 385 Algeria, cinema in, 293, 374 Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, 338, 339,

353 Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves

(1905), 216, 217

Alice, 119 Alice in the Cities, 372 Alice in Wonderland, mise-en-

scène in, 65, 66 Alien, 46, 109, 223, 312, 332 alienation effects, 154 All About My Mother, 416 Allegretto, 288, 289 Allen, Dede, 162 Allen, Woody. See also Annie

Hall; Zelig bodily movement in films of,

74 as director, 27

All Is Lost, 75 All Quiet on the Western Front,

88 All’s Well (Tout va bien), sound

montage in, 208 All That Heaven Allows, 353

camera angles in, 111–12 contemporary interpretation of,

411 cultural context of, 339

All That Jazz, 331 Almendros, Néstor, 28, 115 Almodóvar, Pedro

actors and, 27 maternal melodramas by, 416

alternative film narrative, 246–50

alternative films. See also experimen- tal films; independent films

expressive, 304–5 Althusser, Louis, 410, 411 Altman, Robert, 48, 315. See also

McCabe and Mrs. Miller; Nashville; Player, The

overlapping dialogue and, 189–90

ambiguous sequences, temporal, 156–57

America at the Movies (Thorp), 7 American Cinema: Directors and

Directions, The (Sarris), 406 American Dream, 380 American Film Institute (AFI),

online, 447

17_COR_6354_Index_483_519.indd 483 8/21/14 6:54 PM

Index484

Art of the Moving Picture, The (Lindsay), 401, 430

Art of Vision, The, 303 Arugbá, 375 Arzner, Dorothy, 379, 380, 393 Asian cinema. See Chinese

cinema; Japanese cinema; specific groups and locations

Asian-Pacific American cinema, 385

As I Lay Dying, 210 aspect ratio, 102, 106–8

academy ratio, 107 digital, 107 DVDs (digital video disks), 107 widescreen ratio, 107

associative editing, 156 associative organization, of ex-

perimental films, 297–300 Assyrians, 134, 135 “As Time Goes By” (song), 50 asynchronous sound, 182–83, 187,

199 Atanarjuat ( The Fast Runner), 392 atmosphere, mise-en-scène and,

70–71 Atomic Cafe, 275 Atwood, Colleen, 66 Auden, W. H., 265 audience. See readers; viewers audiovisual media, cinema as,

176 Auric, Georges, 288 auteurs/auteur theory, 408. See

also directors; French New Wave

as brand, 368 Cahiers du cinéma on, 364–65,

405–6 defined, 406 directors as, 27 genre theory and, 407 in New Hollywood, 368

authentic sound, 201–2 authorship theory. See auteurs/

auteur theory automated dialogue replacement

(ADR), 188 Automatic Moving Company, 295 Automobile Thieves, The, 66 avant-garde films. See also art

films; experimental films Bridges­Go­Round as, 306 counter cinema and, 307

Antheil, George, 287 Anthology Film Archives (New

York City), 289 anthology films, 243 anthropological documentaries,

275–76 Antichrist, 372 anti-Communism, blacklist and,

362 antitrust action. See Paramount

decision Antonia’s Line, 244 Antonioni, Michaelangelo. See

also L’Avventura as auteur, 365, 406 neorealist roots of, 364 time image and, 423

Aparajito, 247 A pictures, 48–49 Apocalypse Now, French New

Wave influence in, 371 apparatus theory, 411, 414–15 apparent motion, 97 Applause, 205 Apple, The, 378 Apropos of Nice, 267 Apted, Michael, 265 “Apu trilogy,” 373 Arab world, cinema in, 374 Araki, Gregg, 390 archetypes, 226–27, 317 archives

film preservation, 393–94 Library of Congress, 41, 392

Argentine cinema evolution of, 366 experimental films in, 293

Argo, 25 Arnheim, Rudolf, 403 Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat,

audience reaction to, 402 Artaud, Antonin, 127, 304 art department. See settings and

sets art directors, 25, 68 art films, 405, 406. See also

avant-garde films; experi- mental films

editing for, 153–54, 156 as narrative films, 219

art forms, film as seventh art, 302–3

articles, MLA citation style for, 455

art of movies, 7

American Friend, The, 315 American Graffiti, 11, 198 American in Paris, An, 11, 12,

68, 156, 160 American Memory Project, 256,

452 American Psycho, 369 American Revolutionary: The

Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs, 274

“America’s Sweetheart,” 356 Amour, 236 Amreeka, 385 analysis and film. See film

theory analytical essay, 433–34 anamorphic lens, 102, 107 Anchorman 2: The Legend

Continues, 323 ancillary markets, distribution to,

34–36 Anders, Allison, 381 Anders als die Andern (Different

from the Others), 389 Anderson, Wes, 10–11, 85, 109,

431 And God Created Woman, 415 Andrei Rublev, 103 Anger, Kenneth. See also Fireworks;

Invocation of My Demon Brother; Lucifer Rising

avant-garde and, 303 gay identity and, 389

angles. See camera angles animation

anime, 365 claymation, 119 defined, 119 evolution of, 98 feature-length films and, 120 in independent films, 120 montage and, 168 music and, 200, 331 in Persepolis, 412, 413 pixilation and, 119 rotoscoping in, 120 stop-motion and, 119 surrealistic influence on, 304 in Vertigo, 124–25 visual effects and, 119–22

anime, 365 Anna Karenina, 25 Annie Hall, 5

in comedy genre, 321–22 Anoff, Matiki, 80

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Index 485

Berlin: Symphony of a City, city symphony genre and, 287

Bernhardt, Sarah, 67 Bernstein, Elmer, 185 Bernstein, Leonard, 198 Bertolucci, Bernardo, 250, 364 Best Years of Our Lives, The

cuts and transitions in, 142, 143

depth of field in, 113 in film history, 362–63 long takes in, 158 as narrative film, 218

Beyoncé, 197 Bicycle Thieves

mise-en-scène and, 90 as neorealist film, 364

Bier, Susanne, 372 Big Chill, The, 198 Bigelow, Kathryn. See also Hurt

Locker, The; Zero Dark Thirty

Academy Award to, 382 in film industry, 381–82

“Big Five” studios, 358 Big Sleep, The

axis of action in, 148 continuity editing of, 145, 146 as postwar film, 363 shot/reverse-shot pattern in,

147 sound in, 203

“Biograph Girl,” 24, 356 Birds, The

editing of, 141 mise-en-scène and, 89 point-of-view (POV) shots, 151,

152 Birnbaum, Dara, 203 birth control, 379 Birth of a Nation, The

distribution of, 30, 31 film narrative in, 243 mise-en-scène and, 87 music in, 193 narrative in, 244 racism of, 383, 386, 387

Bitzer, Billy, 99 Björk, 284 Blaché, Alice Guy, 379 black-and-white films

contrast in, 114 feelings evoked by, 114 panchromatic stock for, 99

Black Audio Film Collective, 307

Barton Fink mise-en-scène and, 89 sound in, 188

Baseball, 275 Basic Instinct, 388 Bass, Saul, Vertigo titles by, 125, 231 Battle of Algiers, The, 88, 118–19,

278, 366 Battle of Manila Bay, The, 86 Battle over Citizen Kane, The, 57 Battleship Potemkin

archetypes in, 227 character grouping in, 225 diegesis in, 229 editing patterns in, 441 influence of, 360 montage in, 168, 170–71 overlapping editing in, 157

Baudrillard, Jean, 426, 427 Baudry, Jean-Louis, 414 Bayeux tapestry, 134, 135 Bazin, André

Cahiers du cinéma and, 14–15, 405

film criticism by, 405 French New Wave and, 364 on realism, 404 on Stagecoach, 342 on Wyler, 158

Beasts of the Southern Wild, 154, 369

Beatles, musicals and, 330 Beaton, Cecil, 77 Beauty and the Beast, 331 Beijing Film Academy, 375 Being John Malkovich, 47, 92,

294 Being There, 231 Be Kind Rewind, 36 Bellocchio, Marco, 364 Beloved, 384 below-the-line expenses, 23 Bend It Like Beckham, 106 Ben­Hur (1925), 236 Ben­Hur (1959), 245 Benigni, Roberto, 226, 227 Benjamin, Walter, 305, 403–4 Beowulf, 54 Bergman, Ingmar. See also Per­

sona; Seventh Seal, The as auteur, 365, 406

Bergson, Henri, 423 Berkeley, Busby, 331 Berkeley Film Studies Resources,

447

defined, 285 European movements in,

287–88 experimentation and abstraction

in, 295–96 film theorists and, 409 film traditions of, 144 history of, 286–95 Meshes of the Afternoon and,

290–91 sound and vision in, 288 women filmmakers of, 380 women in, 417 of Wong Kar-wai, 376

Avatar, 9 director as brand and, 368 exhibition of, 55 innovations in, 103 marketing of, 44 special effects in, 122 as spectacular, 92 viewer response to, 9

Avengers, The, 59, 78 average shot length (ASL),

157–58 Away from Her, 272 axis of action, 148

Babel, 115, 243, 368 Babette’s Feast, props in, 72 Bachchan, Amitabh, 373 background music, 194 backlighting, 81, 82, 83 backlots, mise-en-scène and, 68 Back to the Future, 79, 227 Bad and the Beautiful, The, 26 Bad Girls, 317 Badlands, 346 Balázs, Béla

cinema as art for, 402 film theory of, 403

Ballet mécanique, 151, 173, 287, 298–99, 308

as formalist film, 298–99 graphic editing of, 151

Ballhaus, Michael, 28 Bamako, 375 Bamboozled, African American

culture in, 382 Band of Outsiders, 205 Barbarosa, 342 Barriga, Cecelia, 169 Barron, Louis and Bebe, 306 Barry Lyndon, 82, 84 Barthes, Roland, 408

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Index486

Bridges of Madison County, The, 12, 76

Bridget Jones’s Diary, 191, 192 Bright Star, settings and sets for, 26 Bringing Up Baby, 27

in comedy genre, 322, 323 dialogue in, 217, 218 as film essay topic, 435, 436,

437, 441 Bring It On, 34, 344 Britain, new wave in, 364 British Film Institute (BFI), 354 British Sounds, 307 Britten, Benjamin, 265 broadcasting, motion picture

competition with, 34 broadcast technology, 103 Brokeback Mountain, 22

gay love story in, 388 mise-en-scène and, 87 producer role in, 22, 23 as social melodrama, 329

Broken Blossoms composition in, 60 iris in, 143 as physical melodrama, 328 sound in, 201 stylized acting in, 74

Brooks, Mel, 193, 313 Broughton, James, 292 Browning, Tod, 334 Brownlow, Kevin, 394 Bryher, 288 Bubble, day-and-date release, 39 Budd, Michael, 484 budget, 23 bullet time, 121 Bully, 49 Buñuel, Luis. See also Adventures of

Robinson Crusoe, The; Land Without Bread; Un chien andalou (An Andalusian Dog)

documentary films and, 279 Burkina Fasso, 375 Burnett, Charles, 40. See also

Killer of Sheep; To Sleep with Anger

in film history, 422 Burns, Ken, 275 Burton, Tim. See also Alice in

Wonderland; Nightmare Before Christmas, The; Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

actors and, 27

Bollywood films, 35, 316, 373 Bonnie and Clyde

character types in, 226 cinematic images in, 130 editing of, 162–63 marketing and promotion of, 45 slow motion in, 163

bookings, saturation, 31 Book of All the Dead, The, 293 books, MLA citation style for, 455 boom, for microphones, 185 Borat, 278–79 Borden, Lizzie, 336, 380 Borderline, 288 Bordwell, David, 422–23 Born in Flames, 380 Born into Brothels, 260 Born to Dance, 201 Bourne films

Bourne Ultimatum, The, 157 character in, 225 identifying thematic points in, 433 omniscient perspectives in,

239–42 boutique films, 41 Bowling Alley, 301 Boyle, Danny, 374 Boys Don’t Cry, 327, 381 Boyz N the Hood, 41, 335, 384 B pictures, 48–49 Brakhage, Stan

experimental films of, 289 homage to, 294

Bram Stoker’s Dracula, 332 Brando, Marlon, 74 Brazil, 86 Brazil, new wave in, 364 Breakfast Club, The, 11, 344 Breaking the Waves, 372 Breathless

editing of, 139, 166 French New Wave and, 364

Breen, Joseph I., 358 Breil, Joseph Carl, 193 Bresson, Robert. See also

L’Argent; Pickpocket as auteur, 406 French New Wave and, 364 offscreen space and, 109 on sound in film, 205

Bride & Prejudice, 373 Bridesmaids, 322 Bridges­Go­Round

form in action in, 302 lyrical style in, 306

Black Girl (La noire de . . .), 293 Black God, White Devil, 366 Black Hawk Down, 46 blacklist, 362 Black Swan, 328, 338 Blade Runner, 46

auteur of, 368 genre established in, 407 mise-en-scène in, 69 multiple releases of, 37–38 music and sound in, 193, 208

Blair Witch Project, The, promo- tion of, 52, 53

Blanchett, Cate, 78 blaxploitation films, 41, 119, 315,

384 Blazing Saddles, 193, 313, 321 Bleak House (Dickens), 216 Blind Side, The, 70 Bling Ring, The, 159, 198, 381 block booking, 31 Blockbuster, 35 blockbuster films

cinematography, exhibition, and, 102–3

mise-en-scène and, 68–69 special effects in, 121

blocking in Do the Right Thing, 81 mise-en-scène and, 76–77 process of, 27–28 social, 76

blogs, video, 301 Blonde Venus, cinematic images

in, 123 Blood of a Poet, The, 288, 289 Blood of Jesus, The, 383 Blue, 182, 297 Blue Angel, The

as expressionist film, 359 performance in, 74

Blue Jasmine, 155 blue movies, 314, 315 Blue Velvet

auteur of, 368 as neo-noir, 337

bodily movement, in perfor- mance, 74

Body and Soul, 383 Body Heat, 336 Boese, Carl, 332 Bogart, Humphrey, image

relationship to character and, 76

Bogdanovich, Peter, 57

17_COR_6354_Index_483_519.indd 486 8/21/14 6:54 PM

Index 487

internal change of, 228 mise-en-scène as measure of,

87 props in mise-en-scène and,

71–72 stars as, 76 types of, 226–27

character actors, 75 character coherence, 224–26 Chatwin, Bruce, 264 Che, 103 Cheang, Shu Lea, 301 Cheat, The, 161 Chelsea Girls, 289, 292 Chen Kaige, 375 Chenzira, Ayoka, 380, 422 Cheung, Maggie, 26 chiaroscuro lighting, 82, 84 Chicago, 331 Chicago World’s Fair (1893), 286 Chicano cinema, 385 Chicken Run, 119 Children of Men, 158 Children’s Hour, The, 388 Chimpanzee, 260 China. See People’s Republic of

China Chinatown, generic conventions

in, 340–41 Chinese-American cinema, 385 Chinese cinema. See also Hong

Kong cinema contemporary, 375–77 Fifth Generation in, 375, 376 Hong Kong cinema and, 376 Sixth Generation in, 376 Taiwan cinema and, 377

Cholodenko, Lisa, 23, 24, 381, 388

Chomet, Sylvain, 331 Choy, Christine, 275, 380 Christopher Strong, 379 Chronicle of a Summer, 259 Chronicle of Narnia, The: The

Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, 226

chronology, 155 flashback, flashforward, and,

232–35 linear, 230–32

chronophotography, 98 Cimino, Michael, 31 Cinderella (1900), 216 Cinecittà, 68, 363 cine-clubs, 303

Car, The, 347 Caravaggio, 389 Cardiff, Jack, 115 Carné, Marcel, 360 Carrie, 332 Carrie Nation Smashing a Saloon,

314 Cars 2, rating of, 49 Carter, Ruth, 78, 80 Casablanca

Bogart image and character in, 76

mise-en-scène and, 76 music in, 196 viewer interest in, 50

Casino Royale, 414 cast. See also actors cast (actors), 27 Cast Away, 227, 237 casting, 22

casting directors and, 24 marginalization of cultures by,

421 catering staff, 28 Cave of Forgotten Dreams, 267 CDs, media convergence and, 48 Celebration, The, 103, 118 Celluloid Closet, The, 389 censors, Production Code and,

218 Central Station, 89, 430 Chabrol, Claude, and French New

Wave, 364, 365, 405 Chadha, Gurinder, 373 Chahine, Youssef, 374 Chan, Jackie, 376 Chan Is Missing, 385 Chaplin, Charlie. See also Gold

Rush, The; Kid, The Ballet mécanique homage to,

299 “Little Tramp” costume and, 67 Sarris on, 406 silent films and, 180

character(s) actors as types of, 75 analysis, for film essay, 437 coherence of, 224–26 defined, 220 depth of, 224–26 development of, 227–29 diegetic world of, 231 external change of, 228 functions of, 222–23 grouping of, 224–26

Buscemi, Steve, underground film movement and, 292

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 324, 325

Butler, The, 78, 244, 385 buzz about film, 52

Cabaret, performance in, 74 Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The, 287

as expressionistic cinema, 333, 359

film essay on, 456–61 mise-en-scène and, 88 reflexive narration in, 242

“Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”: Texts, Contexts, Histories, The (Budd), 456

Cabiria, 67, 92, 363 cable television, 34, 367 Cahiers du cinéma (journal), 7,

405–6 on auteurs, 406 on film and ideology, 410 founding of, 405 French New Wave and, 14–15, 364

Caine, Rick, 278 camera. See also camera angles;

cinematic images; lens depth of field and, 100, 113–14 distance, and shots, 109–12 handheld, 15, 101 height of, 111, 112 movement of, 99, 102

camera angles in Piano, The, 112 types of, 112–13 in Vertigo, 124–25

camera operator, 28 Cameron, James. See also Avatar;

Terminator, The; Titanic director as brand and, 368

Camille, costumes for, 25 Campbell, Joseph, 410 Campion, Jane, 26. See also

Bright Star; Piano, The Cannes Film Festival, 10, 58, 369 Canyon Cinema, 289 Caouette, Jonathan, 24 Cape Fear, 226 Cape No. 7, 377 Capitalism: A Love Story, 266 Capra, Frank. See also It Hap­

pened One Night; It’s a Wonderful Life

documentary films by, 267

17_COR_6354_Index_483_519.indd 487 8/21/14 6:54 PM

Index488

postmodern theory and, 424–25 in teen film genre, 344

Cobweb, The, 197–98 Cocteau, Jean, 288

Orpheus, 445 codes, of language, 408 Cody, Diablo, 381 Coen, Ethan and Joel. See Barton

Fink; Inside Llewyn Davis; No Country for Old Men; O Brother, Where Art Thou?; True Grit

cognition film variety and, 13 of viewers, 11–12

cognitivist film theory, 423 Cohen, Sacha Baron, 278–79 coherence, and characters,

224–26 Cohl, Émile, 89, 295 color, digital alteration of, 116 color film production. See also

Technicolor color balances in, 114 composition and, 114–15 contrast and, 114–15, 116 in silent films, 100

color filters, 120 Columbia Pictures, 315, 358 comedies, 314, 321–24

romantic, 323–24 screwball, 323 slapstick, 322 western, 321

commedia dell’arte, 321 Communism. See also Soviet

cinema anti-Communist films and, 362 Hollywood blacklist era and,

362 Comolli, Jean-Luc, 410, 411 comparative analysis, in film

essay, 441 compilation films, 243 composition

in Broken Blossoms, 60 color in, 114–15 presence and, 126

Computer Chess, 114, 115 computer-generated imagery

(CGI), 25, 29, 95, 400. See also digital entries

in animation, 119 cinematography and, 121

computer graphics, 69, 119

aspect ratio in, 106–7 deep-focus cinematography in,

101 exhibition of, 56–57 flashbacks in, 155 on greatest films list, 354 Hearst reaction to, 16, 56 Kael, Pauline, on, 407 lighting in, 79 reframing in, 115–17 settings and sets for, 69 sound in, 180 tracking shots in, 117 viewer responses to, 16

City of God, 133, 173 City of Sadness, A, 377 city symphony films, 287 Civil War, The, 275 Clair, René

in film history, 182, 205, 304 poetic realism of, 360 sound use and, 182, 205 surrealist films of, 304

Claire’s Knee, 235 clapboard, 184 Clarke, Shirley, 302, 306, 380 classical editing style, 136 classical film narrative, 222–23,

245–46 classical film theory, 400, 402–4 classical Hollywood cinema. See

Hollywood classics classical music, in films, 194 classical tradition, in film genres,

339–48 claymation, 119 Cleo from 5 to 7

narrative of, 219 time in, 230

Clerks, 23 Client 9, 13 Clock, The, 300 Clockwork Orange, A, 370 Close Up ( journal), 288, 430 Close Up! ( TV series), 259–60 close-ups, 109, 110, 326

extreme, 109 medium, 111

Cloud Atlas marketing of, 44 time patterns in, 230

Clueless, 381 contemporary film theory and,

424–25 continuity editing of, 153

cine de sacerdotes, 319 Cinéma (journal), 401 Cinema 16 (New York City), 289 Cinema Book, The (Cook), 446 cinema novo, 366 CinemaScope, 102, 107 Cinema Sites, 447 Cinématèque Française, 393–94,

405 cinematic images, 122–30. See

also cinematography; edit- ing

aesthetic, 403 history of, 97–104 interpretive contexts for,

123–26 in M, 128–30 phenomenological, 126 as presence, 126–27 as presentation, 122–23 psychological, 126–27 as representation, 123 textuality of, 127–30

cinematic mise-en-scène, 86 cinematic realism. See realism Cinématographe, 98 cinematographer, 28 cinematography, 95–130. See also

cinematic images; digital entries; shot(s)

animation in, 119–22 color, wide-angle, and small-

gauge, 100–101 computer techniques and, 121 deep-focus, 101, 106, 113, 218 digital, 103 elements of, 104–22 emergence of, 98–99 exhibition in blockbuster films,

102–3 history of cinematic images,

97–104 hyper-realistic, 371 mise-en-scène and, 86 points of view in, 104–5 shot attributes in, 106–19 visual effects in, 119–22

cinéma vérité, 258–59, 276–77 cinephilia, 406 cineplex, 54 Cinéthique (journal), 405 Circle, The, 377 Cissé, Souleymane, 375 citations, documenting, 453–55 Citizen Kane, 56–57

17_COR_6354_Index_483_519.indd 488 8/21/14 6:54 PM

Index 489

film noir and, 336–38 gangster films as, 335–36 hard-boiled detective films as,

336 Criterion Collection, The, 35,

447 critical objectivity, 431–32 criticism

film, 8 genre, 407 postwar, 405–7

critics, promotion and, 43 Crooklyn, editing of, 141 crosscutting, 136 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,

22, 150, 319 Cruise, Tom, 23, 25, 45 Cruising, 388 Cruz, Penelope, 27 Cuarón, Alfonso, 27, 158 Cuba, cinema in, 68, 293, 294 Cuban, Mark, 39 Cuban Institute of Cinematographic

Art and Industry, 366 cue, music as, 194 cueing, narrative, 196–98 Cukor, George, 25. See also Camille;

My Fair Lady; Philadelphia Story, The; Star Is Born, A

as “women’s director,” 389 cultural analysis, in film essay,

441 cultural promotion, 45 cultural props, 72 Cultural Revolution (China), 375 cultural studies, 418–22

race and representation in, 421–22

reception theory in, 418–19 star studies in, 419–21

culture. See also specific locations

cinematic mise-en-scène in, 86 ethnographic documentary and,

391–92 of exhibition, 54–55 film, 6 of film genres, 312 mass, 404 spectators and film cultures,

9–15 “Culture Industry, The” (Adorno

and Horkheimer), 418 cumulative organization, of

documentaries, 263–65

reaction shots, 152–53 of reestablishing shots, 145 shot/reverse, 153

continuity practices. See also time sound and, 202–3

continuity style, 144 contrapuntal sound, 183 contrast, color and, 114–15, 116 contrastive organization, of

documentaries, 265 conventions, of film genre, 317 converging editing styles, 169–72 Conversation, The, sound montage

in, 206–7, 208 Coogler, Ryan, Fruitvale Station,

2 Cook, David, 456 Cook, Pam, 446 Cooper, Merian C., 391 coordinators, of production, 28 Coppola, Francis Ford. See also

Apocalypse Now; Conversa­ tion, The; Godfather, The

editing styles and, 139 music and, 198 sound in The Conversation and,

206–7 Coppola, Sofia, 159. See also Bling

Ring; Lost in Translation; Marie Antoinette

editing and, 159 in film history, 381

Coraline, 119 Cornell, Joseph, 288 Corrigan, Timothy, 407 costumes and make-up, 25, 77–79

designers for, 25–26 functions of, 67, 165 for “Little Tramp,” 67

counter cinema, 307–8 counterculture, underground film

and, 289–92 Cove, The, 263 Covered Wagon, The, 325 crane shots, 112 Crash, 225, 243, 421 Crawford, Joan, 67, 192 Creative Artists Association

(CAA), 25 Creature from the Black Lagoon, 54 credits, as narrative element,

229–30, 231 crew, hiring, 22 crime films, 317, 320, 334–35

features of, 334–35

computers digital video and, 294 editing with, 140 machinima and, 295 movies on, 51, 54 sound-effects editors and, 185

Conformist, The, 250 confrontational films, 305–8

activist media and, 308 counter cinema as, 307–8

Congo, 375 Conjuring, The, 333, 334 Conner, Bruce, 169 connotation, 408

mise-en-scène and, 70 Conrad, Joseph, 241 Conrad, Tony, 295 constructive mise-en-scène,

89–92 consumer video technology, 103 contemporary film cultures,

366–78 in Africa, 374–75 in China, 375–77 in Europe, 369–73 in Hollywood, 367–68 in Hong Kong, 376 of independent cinema, 368–69 in India, 373–74 in Iran, 377–78 in Taiwan, 377

contemporary film theory, 408–27

Contempt narrative history in, 214, 215 tracking shots in, 117

content notes, 454 context

for cinematic image, 123–26 of film exhibition, 51–54 of film experience, 2 of films, 433 for mise-en-scène, 87–92

contextual topics, for film essay, 437, 441

continuity editing, 138, 144–54 30-degree rule, 147 180-degree rule, 147 eyeline match, 148 Hollywood tradition of, 138 inserts in, 145 invisible editing, 196 match on action, 148–50 point-of-view (POV) shots,

151–52

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Index490

Der Sturm group, 288 descriptive approach, to film

genre, 338–39 descriptive sequences, 156–57 Desert Hearts, 144 De Sica, Vittorio. See also Bicycle

Thieves as neorealist, 364

design. See designers; production design and designer; space and design

designers. See also production de- sign and designer

costume, 25–26 sound, 184

Desperately Seeking Susan, 224, 381

Despicable Me 2, distribution of, 37

Destino, 304 Détective, 336 detective films, hard-boiled, 336 Detour, 346 détournement, 307 Devdas, 316 developmental organization, of

documentaries, 265–66 Devil Wears Prada, The

character type in, 226, 228 costumes and make-up in, 79

dialectical montage, 168 dialogue, 175, 217

automated dialogue replacement and, 188

in film, 189–90, 199 overlapping, 189–90 in sound montage, 204 visual shifts and, 190

Diary of a Mad Black Woman, 385

Diary of Chuji’s Travels, A, 344 DiCaprio, Leonardo, 27, 77, 95 Dickens, Charles, 216 Dickson, W. L. K., 178 diegesis, 183–84, 191, 229 diegetic sound, 183–84, 203

internal, 184 in narrative films, 194 silence and, 205

Die Hard, character type in, 226 Die Hard: With a Vengeance, 235 Dielman, Jeanne, 157 Dietrich, Marlene, 180, 359

sexual ambiguity of, 417 stylized acting of, 74

Davis, Bette, 24, 78 Davis, Peter, 266 day-and-date release, 39 Day for Night, mise-en-scène in,

89–90 Day-Lewis, Daniel, 27 Days of Heaven, 28, 115 Day the Earth Stood Still, The,

320, 342 Dead Birds, 276 deadline narrative structure, 234 Dead Man Walking, 420 Deadwood, 324 Dean, James, 418–19 Death in Venice, 117, 118 Debord, Guy, 307 D.E.B.S., 381 Decasia, 297 Decline of Western Civilization,

The, 381 decorator, set, 25 deep-focus cinematography, 101,

106, 113, 218 Deer Hunter, The, 227 “Defence of Poetry, A,” 286 De Hirsch, Storm, 296 de Hooch, Pieter, 313 Deleuze, Gilles, 423 Delluc, Louis, 303, 401 de Loutherbourg, J. P., 67 DeLuxe color, 116 DeMille, Cecil B. See Ten Com­

mandments, The Demy, Jacques, sound innova-

tions of, 181, 182 De Niro, Robert, 27. See also Taxi

Driver image, relationship to charac-

ter, 227 denotation, 408 De Palma, Brian. See also Carrie;

Untouchables, The Departed, The, 28, 335 Depp, Johnny, 27, 76 depth of field, 100, 106, 113–14

deep focus, 404 deep-focus cinematography

and, 101, 106, 113, 218 rack/pulled focus, 113 spatial depth and, 118

Derby, The, 356 Deren, Maya. See also Meshes of

the Afternoon as avant-garde filmmakers, 380 in film history, 288, 289

Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The, 78

current events, in marketing, 44 Curtiz, Michael. See Mildred Pierce cutaway, 157 cuts and transitions, 141–44. See

also editing average shot length in, 157–58 in Battleship Potemkin, 170 dated, 109 for duration, 157 fade-ins/fade-outs, 143 iris-in/iris-out, 108 jump cuts, 139 shock cuts, 143 wipes and, 143–44

cutting. See also editing on action, 150 for emotion, 403 on the line, 147

Czechoslovakia, new wave in, 364

Dabis, Cherien, 385 Dada, 287, 305 Daguerre, Louis-Jacques-Mandé,

98 Dahl, Roald, 11, 85 dailies, 28 Dalí, Salvador. See also Un chien

andalou (An Andalusian Dog)

collaboration with Disney, 304 Dance, Girl, Dance, 379 Dancer in the Dark

editing technique in, 172 as integrated musical, 331

Dances with Wolves, 325 Daniels, Lee, 78, 385. See also

Butler, The; Precious Danish cinema, contemporary

trends in, 372 Danish Film Institute, 372 Darjeeling Limited, The, 109, 110 Dark Knight, The, 420 Dark Victory, 328 Dash, Julie. See also Daughters of

the Dust; Illusions in film history, 380, 383

databases, research in, 446 Date Movie, 33 Daughters of the Dust

as alternative narrative, 248–49 in film history, 380, 383 reception theory applied to, 419

da Vinci, Leonardo, 97

17_COR_6354_Index_483_519.indd 490 8/21/14 6:54 PM

Index 491

personal, 260, 269, 272, 277–78 persuasive positions in, 267–68 political content of, 258,

271–74 prehistory of, 256–57 as propaganda films, 258 realities in, 270 reenactments in, 277–79 reflexive position in, 268–69 rhetorical positions in, 266–69 significance of, 269–79 social content in, 271–75 Soviet, 258 Stories We Tell, 272–73 technologies and, 258–59 television and, 259 temporality in, 159 travel films as, 266–67 women filmmakers of, 380

documentation of sources, 453–55

Dogme 95 film movement, 118, 372

Dogtown and Z­Boys, 276 Dolby sound, 180, 203 Donen, Stanley, 186 Don Juan, 179 Donovan’s Brain, 87 Don’t Look Back, 277 Don’t Look Now, 156, 333 Doros, Dennis, 41 Do the Right Thing

character grouping in, 225 mise-en-scène in, 80–81