Film essay

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‘Conventional’ Cinema

  • Form and content are manipulated (enhanced)
  • Classic Story Structure
  • Hollywood Style

HOWEVER

  • Conventional/Classic Story-replicates our perception of ‘real life’

Conventional Cinema Manipulates

  • Even in so called ‘conventional’ film ‘reality’ is distorted
  • Selection of events (plot, Barsam-lec1)
  • Duration of time
  • POV

  • Review:
  • Barsam- Summary and Stretch relationship

The Hollywood Style

  • Continuity Style
  • Maintains continuity of time and place
  • Events are determined by cause and effect
  • Forward, linear motion from beginning to end
  • A conflict is followed by a resolution
  • Its form is ‘invisible’, reducing the perception of ‘artifice’
  • reinforces our perceptions of the ‘real world’

The Flashback

  • Order of Events
  • The Flashback
  • Defies linear progression of time
  • ‘Mindscreen’ (The Big Swallow, 1902, Brighton School)

Cinematic Reality =/= Reality

  • Cinema has the capacity to manipulate events to such an extent that they do not conform to our shared perception of the ‘real world’?
  • A film’s Context can alter our shared perception of the ‘real world’ to the inherent logic of the film itself.
  • Elements can be manipulated to alter the way we ‘read’ a film.
  • As cinema has evolved, so has the capacity of the filmmaker to utilize these formal properties.

Other types of Story Structure

  • Godard, (French New Wave) states:
  • “It is true a film must have a beginning, middle and end but not necessarily in that order”

The Non-Linear Film

  • In a non linear film events occur ‘out of order’.
  • The ‘effect’ may happen before the ‘cause’
  • Emphasis is shifted from content (story) to form (style)

Potential for Cinematic Expression

  • Increases the potential of cinematic expression by utilizing other inherent elements of the cinema
  • Visual elements, Structure (editing)

Emphasis and Meaning in the Non Linear Film

  • Story may be less complicated
  • Meaning is derived ‘intellectually’
  • Meaning is derived through formal elements: visual*, stylistic, or figurative

*This may include visual effects

Linear vs Non Linear

  • A film that is non linear may have the potential to broaden cinematic expression, but this does not necessarily make it a ‘better film’
  • A film that is more ‘artistic’ is not necessarily a more enjoyable film

Point of View

  • POV is a strong narrative device
  • POV influences the way we identify with characters
  • The more time we see a character on screen the more we identify or assume their POV
  • Point of View limits our perspective, it directs our attention.
  • Increase dramatic tension
  • If we are given narrative detail through a character’s perspective it can distort ‘objective’ reality.

The Ambiguous Ending

  • The ‘ambiguous’ ending defies classic story structure, however it may be provocative
  • Contrary Ending.
  • Defiance of established norms-reflect changing social values,
  • media literacy
  • The protagonist may not successfully complete his or her goal, may have few, redeeming qualities, or the antagonist, may in the end, ‘win the day’
  • Ambiguity and defiance of narrative outcomes, if perceived as INTENTIONAL, raises questions, potentially challenging an audience and their reliance on convention