University of Hertfordshire AN INTRODUCTION TO
Film Criticism
TUTOR: BEN WHEELER ROOM 342 | EMAIL: b.wheeler2@herts.ac.uk 2015-2016| DE HAVILLAND CAMPUS
1Introduction to Film Criticism Module Overview
Module Code: 4HUM1078 Credit Points: 15 ECTS Points: 1 Level: 4 Module Leader: Mr. Ben Wheeler
This module introduces students to the analysis of film texts. Students will engage critically with how ‘meaning’ is communicated through film. Students will be introduced to some of the key moments in cinema history, via a discussion of various elements of film language ranging from: colour, editing, sound, lighting, mise-en-scene, framing, narrative, the use of place, space and location and performance in films from both inside and outside of the Hollywood system. From Hitchcock’s thrillers (Strangers on a Train) to classic Horror film (Dawn of the Dead), the tear jerking and overtly symbolic Melodrama (Imitation of Life) through to the gritty and violent New Hollywood of the 1970's (Carrie) alongside contemporary film and TV (Drive and The Big Lebowski) that continues to push the boundaries of film vocabulary and symbolism. The module will equip students with an understanding historical awareness of film and the various stylistic and technological issues involved in the study of film alongside some of the ways in which film texts interact with wider cultural, historical and political contexts.
Module Aims: The aims of this module are to enable students to...
• Be introduced to the close textual analysis of moving image texts. • Begin to critically examine how meaning and symbolism is communicated through the moving image. • Begin to develop a broad knowledge of the key moments and technical innovations in moving image history. • Begin to have a broad knowledge and understanding of some of the ways in which moving image texts interact with wider cultural, historical and political contexts.
Learning Outcomes: Knowledge and Understanding:
Skills and Attributes:
Successful students will be able to:
Successful students will be able to:
• Be able to demonstrate a broad knowledge and
• Be able to demonstrate a broad critical
understanding of key aesthetic and cultural
engagement with selected moving image texts on
moments in the study of the moving image.
an aesthetic, formal and symbolic level.
• Be able to articulate some of the historical and
• Be able to demonstrate a broad critical
theoretical issues involved in the study of the
engagement with some of the basic technical
moving image.
vocabulary of moving image analysis.
• Be able to broadly outline some of the ways in
• Be able to communicate effectively some of the
which moving image texts interact with wider
key developments in moving image history and
cultural, historical and political contexts.
theory.
• Be able to articulate some of the ways in which the technology of the moving image contributes to meaning.
• Be able to demonstrate an ability to support their interpretative and evaluative analysis of the moving image with basic theories and key concepts in the study of the moving image
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‘Analysis need not murder our love of the movies. We can experience beauty, joy, and mystery intellectually as well as intuitively’ (Boggs and Petrie, 2004: 6)
Learning Outcomes and Assessment The learning outcomes are achieved through the required attendance levels and the completion of two set pieces of written work. The first is a close textual analysis exercise of approx 2,000 words - this accounts for 30% of the course mark. The other 70% is contributed by an essay of 2,000-2,500 words (set questions will be distributed in class and can be found on Studynet)
Assignment One: In Class Textual Analysis (30%) This assessment will take place under timed conditions in class/seminars. It calls for a close, critical and sustained interpretation of a particular film moment that will be screened at the beginning of the session from one of the films you will have watched previously on the module. The purpose of the task is to show understanding of the principles of film style, interpretation and evaluation (as considered throughout the first half of the module) and to find words to express this via close textual analysis. This is done to appreciate the themes, concerns, achievements and failings of the film, through a consideration of its stylistic relationships and arrangements. N.B. Textual analysis requires students to express the visual, thematic and formal content of the filmed moment in their own words – and doesn’t require (at this stage) the use of supporting reading or references. Details of the exercise: A short sequence from one of the films considered in the first part of the module (up to and including week 5) will be screened TWICE at the beginning of the seminar. The sequence may only consist of a few shots, or it may be a scene, or it may cross two scenes; it may be one minute or three minutes, 10 seconds. Students may then choose to write about many stylistic elements in the piece or concentrate on one or two. For example, you may discuss the arrangements of the shots, position and gesture of the performers, camera movement, setting, decor, costume, sound, music, or lighting. Do not merely point something out: writing that 'the film cuts' or 'the camera moves left' is not adequate. You must explain the significance of these features and the way they relate to each other. For example: the gesture of the performer will be shot from a certain perspective and distance, it may follow an important edit or something on the soundtrack; a different perspective or a different soundtrack will mean that the gesture expresses a different meaning. You may mention other areas of the film - indeed this may be necessary for understanding the sequence - but do not dwell on these other areas. The techniques and skills needed for this study will be those developed in the seminars, so by the time this assessment takes place, you should have suitable experience. N.B. For a more detailed outline on this and other Assessments please consult the module’s Studynet pages.
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Writing about Film - formatting and presentation: Ask yourself the following questions... • Have you written out the question or title correctly at the start of your essay? • Have you proofread your essay to check that your argument makes sense and that the presentation is appropriate? • Have you correctly used capital letters for proper names, beginnings of sentences and in titles? • Remember to include in brackets after the first mention of a character’s name, the actor’s name playing them. Have you got the correct film titles/actor names/character names, and have you spelled them correctly? Have you taken particular care with foreign names, including the use of diacritics and accents? • Have you used punctuation correctly? Is there a full stop or a comma where there should be? • Have you checked that all your sentences make sense, and have you avoided using overlong run-on sentences (i.e., those which join together two or more statements which should be in separate sentences)? • Have you used double line spacing for the body of your text and 1.5 for indented quotes? • Have you used a font size of 12? • Have you kept to the assigned word count? • Remember, on first mentioning a film it must always be presented in italics with (Director and Date) following in brackets. Have you ALWAYS put film titles in italics? • Have you provided appropriately formatted references for all quotations and for all examples of ideas which have been drawn from your reading? • Have you used the correct style of referencing, as detailed in the relevant style guide? • Have you included a bibliography? • Is your bibliography correctly alphabetised by author surname and by year of publication where there are multiple texts by the same author? • Have you used the correct formatting: inverted commas for article titles and italics for book, film and play titles? • Have you included a filmography? • Is your filmography correctly alphabetised by film title?
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2.1 SESSION OUTLINES
Narrative, Style and Story
‘The highest aim, purpose and justification for any university training in the arts is the eternal debate about questions of value – the value we attribute to the works of art and entertainment, including films, that reflect our sense of value in our own lives and within the culture in which we live’ Robin Wood, Personal Views: Explorations in Film (Revised Edition) (2006), p.4.
Screening: Mulholland Drive(David Lynch, US 1999)
This introductory session will be dedicated to laying the groundwork for the module, focusing on the four key areas in our approach to studying film: Mise en Scène criticism, Textual Analysis, Style, Interpretation and Evaluation and finally Narrative and Narration. Over the course of the module we will be working to reap the rewards of studying films closely and working to find the right words to match our experience of a film and of moments of film. We will also be connecting films, philosophies ideas and theories in unexpected and provocative ways, whilst thinking critically about films, the way in which we experiences them, and their impact on society and culture. In this session we will considering how we identify points of style and film-making aesthetics while considering assumptions that film audiences make about narrative and storytelling. David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive is our central film text that oozes with Lynch’s directorial style and with surrealist imagery while offering a commentary on the Hollywood moviemaking industry and demonstrating an abstract broken, non-linear, narrative.
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Consider Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson’s characteristics of Classical Hollywood Style narrative (above) in relation to Mulholland Drive, do any of them still fit, or are they completely ? Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,subverted ligula
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When watching Mulholland Drive consider the following points. Style interpretation and evaluation: How does the film handle its points of style? What is film style? What is the difference between film style and film form? In paying attention to the film’s points of style, we can begin to describe and interpret their meaning in relation to the film’s concerns. In turn we can begin to make value judgements about the film: comparing it to other films, testing its value against criteria such as complexity, subtlety and intricacy. Narrative: We have to also consider the film’s narrative structure – being able to distinguish the difference between narration and narrative – the film’s strategies of showing (mimesis) and telling (diegesis).
‘The basic distinction is between telling and showing’...’Diegetic theories conceive of narration as consisting either literally or analogically of verbal activity: a telling. This telling may be either oral or written…Mimetic theories conceive of narration as the presentation of spectacle: a showing’
Bordwell in Narration in the Fiction Film (London: Routledge, 1985) p.1
Think about Mulholland Drive’s strategies of style, narrative and narration – and how this film in particular conflicts with established ‘norms’ of narrative film, compare it with a more traditional narratives you may have seen? What makes this different?
Set Reading: Joseph M. Boggs and Dennis W. Petrie, The Art of Watching Films: Sixth Edition (New York: McGrawHill, 2004), Chapter 1 - The Art of Watching Films, pp. 1-19 (PDF on Studynet); Marilyn Fabe, Closely Watched Films: An Introduction to the Art of Narrative Film Technique (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2004), Introduction (p. xv - xviii) (in Library) On Mulholland Drive: David Andrews, ‘An Oneiric Fugue: The Various Logics of Mulholland Drive’ in Journal of Film and Video 56.1 Spring 2004, pp. 25-40. George Toles, 'Auditioning Betty in Mulholland Drive', Film Quarterly, vol. 58, issue 1, pp. 2-13, 2004, University of California Press (PDF on Studynet). Further Recommended Reading: Thomas Elsaesser and Warren Buckland, Studying Contemporary American Film: A Guide to Movie Analysis (London: Hodder, 2002), Chapter 1 - Film Theory, Methods, Analysis, pp. 1-25 (PDF on Studynet); Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson, The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960 (Routledge, 1988), pp. 1-85. 7
2.2
“Well, there’s a literal connection, Dude” – The Big Lebowski
Close Reading and Stylistic Interpretation Screening: The Big Lebowski (Coen Brothers US 1997) This session will consider what occurs when we perform a close analysis upon a film text, whether as a filmic ‘whole’ or on a moment from a film as a part of the whole. We will see how close analysis can help us interpret film style and its affects upon us as spectators. There are often questions lodged at film studies scholars, chief among them is the obvious - ‘why do we study film’? When we study film there’s a tendency for some people to counter: but surely overly analysing a film, ruins the enjoyment, why cant we just watch film for film’s sake, aren’t you just reading too much? A consideration of film moments and sequences can hopefully answer this and open up some useful ways of thinking and talking about film. When we study film, obviously we have to bring into consideration how we study it. When we first watch a film, a good film, or a one that it successful in binding you into its world – its diegesis – it’s often hard to work out the techniques, style, themes and how you as a spectator have been manipulated and influenced by it. Afterwards in discussion, with yourself and others, we formulate criticisms and responses to the film text, re-watching the film or specific film moment in sometimes in macro or micro format (moments, stills, simply visuals, audio, colour – all the aspects that will be covered and more on this course) then we can start to delve deeper and prove or disprove our interpretation and evaluation of the film’s meaning. This session aims to develop the initial analysis session from week one, to approach methods of Close Textual Analysis in parallel with the development of those skills in stylistic interpretation, before introducing students to the concept of mise-en-scène as an integral element of textual analysis. Textual analysis pays close consideration of the film as text (relation to literature analysis), paying careful attention to the elements of mise-en-scène and their inter-relationships. Textual analysis is, in short, an approach that attempts to understand and describe the various methods aimed at comprehending the ways in which texts produce meaning. This is achieved via the application of linguistic theories to the creation of meaning in a text, via semiotics or critical discourse analysis, the deconstruction of narrative form, and via the analysis of the textual conventions and characteristics of generic forms
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forms (as in the genre analysis of Steven Neale (1980)). Textual analysis is a vital tool through which to draw out information from a text via interpretation across a sample. Textual analysis is a key research method by which the researcher should be able to view the body of work and make note of similar characteristics (film style, recurring motifs, characters, themes) that arise from the text. Essentially the practice should allow for moving from the description of a text, to an interpretation and, finally, to a commentary on it. Like Mulholland Drive last week, The Big Lebowski homages a complex, highly subjective narrative structure – both films borrowing from film noir – but careful textual analysis reveals a host of other ironic references. While watching the film try to analyse the use of mise-en-scene and iconography and their possible meanings.
Peeping Tom (Powell, GB 1960) Consider the use of mise-en-scène in the opening sequence to Peeping Tom - textually analyse the clip closely, making notes on what you find. How would you describe the framing of this shot? What effect does it have on the viewer in terms of where it is placed?
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Peeping Tom: Framing, Mise en Scène and Style
How would you describe the framing of this shot? What effect does it have on the viewer in terms of where it is placed?
Set Reading: James Mottram, ‘The Big Lebowski’ in The Coen Brothers: The Life of the Mind, Susan E Hamen, How to apply archetypal film criticism to The Big Lebowski; David Martin-Jones, No literal connection: images of mass commodification, US militaryism and the oil industry, in The Big Lebowski; Andrew Klevan, 'Notes on teaching film style', in John Gibbs and Douglas Pye (eds.), Style and Meaning: Studies in the Detailed Analysis of Film (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2005), pp. 215-227.
2.3 Mise-en-Scène, Framing, Symbolism
“He was some kind of man. But what does it matter what you say about people.” – Touch of Evil
Screening: Touch of Evil (Orson Welles US 1958) Mise-en-scène is a French term roughly translated as referring to ‘what is put into the scene’ or in this case, frame. All the elements which the film’s director decides to put into the scene (or leave out) all go to create and support meaning in the way in which the viewer reads and decodes a film or scene. For example, period clothes and props, size of furniture, pictures hanging on a wall, books a character may be reading. The study of mise-en-scène marks a return to a study of ‘film as film’ (VF Perkins 1993) – that should not state that one can simply view a film in a vacuum outside of it conception in a socio-political context. Mise-en-scène analysis focuses centrally on what can be seen in the picture and was first used in relation to film (though the terms comes from the theatre) in the 1950’s by the critics who wrote for Cahiers du Cinéma chief among these is André Bazin. Though the strict definition of what mise-en-scène consists of is still debated among film critics and academics, there is a consensus that it involves the textual and symbolic interpretation of elements such as setting, lighting, costume, performance (including gesture, movement and expression) of actors, choice of film stock (black and white, Technicolor, 16mm grainy footage or a harder edged bleak digital format), framing (including depth of field, aspect ratio, height and angle) and camera movement and the many stylistic permutations of the above. Mise-en-scène suggest physical limitations in its reference to ‘the frame’ suggesting the filmmakers’ (viewed collectively or individually) complete control over the elements that are contained within the frame – but its study also implies an unconscious level to the inclusion of certain images and sounds. As film students we can make assumptions as to what we think were deliberately inscripted by the filmmakers and those which are not – either way – they are imbued with meaning for us as spectators. When we look at the screen the limitations of the camera’s viewfinder indicates boundaries of the camera’s point of view that we are expected to identify with. This draws up two aliquam maecenas taciti. areas of space, both on-screen Maecenas and off-screen from the four edgesligula of thenostra, cinema accumsan screen and into a3 dimensional space. 11
When analysing and interpreting the elements that encompass the film’s mise-en-scène there is an assumption made that the director and crew intends the objects, setting, lighting, costume etc. to be there as they envisioned it – this implies that there is an element of composition to the structuring of mise-enscène that demands both textual and symbolic interpretation. Therefore mise-en-scène
Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960) Parlor Scene Frame Grab
Lighting
Set Dressing
Low Angle Medium Close Up Set Dressing 2
Camera/Actor positioning
is not only a physical creation it also implies an emotional concept and a certain degree of encoding and decoding of meaning for the artist/spectator.
Consider the following elements from the mise-en-scène in Hitchcock’s Psycho using this frame grab.
Set Reading: John Gibbs. ‘The elements of mise-en-scène’, in John Gibbs, Mise-en-scène: Film Style and Interpretation (Wallflower, 2002), pp.5-26; Eric M Krueger, “Touch of Evil”: Style Expressing Content. Further Recommended Reading: Bordwell, David & Kristin Thompson. ‘The shot: Mise-en-Scene’, in David Bordwell & Kristin Thompson, Film Art: An Introduction (8th edition, McGraw-Hill, 2008), pp. 112-161
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2.4 Editing and PostProduction
‘not just any two fragments and not in random proportions. But precisely and solely those which, when combined, will evoke the image, concept or idea that I shall determine in advance and that I wish to make‘ (Eisenstein, Selected Works Vol 1. p. 267)
Screening: Carrie (Brian De Palma USA 1976)
Editing draws on the technique of how shots are placed together in order to create a moving image text - usually these cohere around set sequences or scenes within traditional narrative filmmaking, but within art-cinema and experimental forms there can be more of an avant-garde approach which is driven by the collision of shots that may be more oblique, The placing of shots to formulate meaning is often referred to as ‘montage’. Firstly continuity editing places shots together according to chronological order. Chronological editing presents events as ‘naturally’ proceeding each other - here space and time are represented logically and do not offer any problem to the spectator in terms of comprehension. WIthin much traditional filmmaking technique (bear in mind this is known as Classical Hollywood Cinema- fixed in place during the 1930s-1940s) there is an emphasis on continuity editing, Often the linear editing style is broken with reference to flashback (via dissolve or fade in/out transitions) to represent a change in time/place, or via parallel editing and cross-cutting. felis sodales, dolor sociis mauris, vel eu
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Parallel editing concerns the paralleling of two connected events or actions that are occuring at different times, whereas cross-cutting refers to a connection between two sets of action that run concurrently and are dependent on each other within the larger film narrrative. Both are similar styles of editing and are used to speed up time taken in exposition, to explain the narrative and action - they also work to build up suspense often working on the assumption that the two events or actions will eventually coincide. Other types of editing include, deep-focus editing - coined by André Bazin to refer to cinematography and framing that allows the viewer to move their eyes across the screen to focus on different events, dialogue and characters happening in the same sequence or shot. This is supported by the use of widescreen technologies such as Cinemascope and deep focus where the entire shot is kept in tight focus between referring to elements occurring within the depth of the shot, along implied three dimensional planes, foreground mid-ground background. More complexly the concept of ‘Montage editing’ develops from Soviet art cinema in the 1920s. Most ‘Images are combined in order to disrupt habitual patterns of though in the viewer and yield a higher level of theoretical reflection‘ (Andrew Dix, Film Studies for Beginners 2008 pp. 61)
notably it initiates with the experimental works of Lev Kuleshov. Sergei Eisenstein films of the 1920s utilised the Kuleshov Effect to posit Soviet Montage Theory which operated around the idea that ‘colliding‘ images together via juxtaposition causes meaning to be created. This is thought to offer a more egalitarian and objective
view of cinema as it is only at the point of collision that signification, and meaning, is created. Unlike classical narrative cinema - Soviet montage theory works to denaturalise cinematic imagery somewhat. It does this often by ‘drawing attention‘ to itself as constructed - so often more complex editing styles ask to be deconstructed, analysed and evaluated. Soviet montage theory becomes more complex as it delineates between metric montage, tonal montage, rhythmic montage and associational or intellectual montage. Though such techniques are born out of the art-film and avant garde world complex editing strategies have become assimilated into the mainstream somewhat - the final shot of Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, a train entering a tunnel which directly proceeds a shot of Cary Grant wrestling with Eva Marie=Saint on the top bunk of sleeper train car. contains a piece of associational montage that is clearly tongue-in-cheek.
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Editing analysis: Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, USA 1967)
Consider the use of visual and sound editing in this clip from a New Hollywood film that, at the time, was breaking new ground in terms of its visual editing style. What do you notice?
Set Reading: Sergei Eisenstein, Chapter 1 of Towards a Theory of Montage, Volume 2, edited by Michael Genny and Richard Taylor (London: BFI, 1992) Bordwell and Thompson, ‘Chapter 8: The Relation of Shot-to-Shot: Editing’ in Film Art: An Introduction (McGraw-Hill, 2004), p.294 (Library); Shelley Stamp Lindsay, ‘Horror, Femininity and Carrie’s Monstrous Puberty’ in The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film by Ken Gelder (ed) (University of Texas Press, 1996), Further Recommended Readings: Carol Clover, ‘Carrie and the Boys’ in Men Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film (Princeton University Press, 1992); Leigh A. Ehlers, ‘Carrie, Book and Film’ in Literature/Film Quarterly Vol. 9 No. 11981; Darren Elliott-Smith ‘Queering Carrie: Appropriations of a Horror Icon’, SCOPE: Online Journal of Film and TV Studies, (Issue 15, January 2010 University of Nottingham); pp. 93-110;
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2.5 Sound and Music Screening: Letter From an Unknown Woman (Max Ophüls, USA 1948)
“music having a form of its own, has ways of doing its appointed task in films with distinction, judged purely as music, and with subtlety, judged as part of the whole film. It must be accepted not as decoration or a filler of gaps in the plaster, but a part of the architecture…” (Muir Mathieson, The Technique of Film Music DATE, PAGE
This session focuses upon the significance of the use of sound in film and the moving image from the birth of sound on film, to the coming of synchronized sound and the coming of ‘talkies’ through to the use of the composed (pre-and post) musical score, the development of sound effects (SFX), popular music soundtracks, to voice over narration and the use of sound editing to increase the effectiveness of a given film moment or sequence. This session investigates sound via four main elements:, Music, Sound FX, Speech and Silence. Speech (including Voice Over and Narration). During the birth of silent cinema, it can be said that film was never truly ‘silent’, screenings of trick films and actuality footage were always either accompanied by a learned lecturer, narrator and almost always with live (usually piano) music performance. As film form develops and technology expands cinematic horizons, films were distributed with accompanying pre-recorded soundtracks either on wax disc or phonogram (for example Vitaphone technique invented by Edison which made use of the wax disc or cylinder recording techniques). This often lead to mis-matched sound upon projection, of voice and score. Before long technological advances allowed for musical scores to be printed on the film stock itself. The coming of sound had a dramatic impact on cinematic technique, particularly with character dialogue which had, until then, drawn from theatre and 16
When considering the use of music on film we will consider both diegetic and nondiegetic (and intra-diegetic) sources, differences between the ‘composed’ score and the generalised score, the use of musical score and soundtrack to underscore emotion and drive both narrative and editing structures. The use of music to develop character via recurring leitmotif, to offer ironic comment, or in place of interior monologue. Developing from our understanding of music and sound as a key element of film editing, we will consider the tonal and rhythmic qualities of both film score and music with the world of the film (diegetic music) and its connotations which often impact unconsciously upon its audiences. We will also consider the manipulation of sound and music sound editing and sound effects work, including the work of the Foley Artist and Sound Mixer, how sound distortions and amplifications can work to astounding effect. We will also consider the use of silence on film - also known as invisible sound or‘ dead track’ - often in the use of the thriller, horror or suspense genres, or even the dipping of sound at key points in drama and action films often adds poignancy and intimacy to the scene, despite being distanced via the obvious use of silence. Finally we will consider the use of speech and voice-over narration, including shifts in scriptwriting that allow for overlapping dialogue, ad libbing, and the use of the off-screen voice over (that may or may not be reliable) which often works to bind the spectator to the ‘speaker’, identifying with the subjective point of view of the narrator. Set Reading: Steve Neale, 'Narration, point of view and patterns in the soundtrack of Letter from an Unknown Woman', in John Gibbs and Douglas Pye (eds.), Style and Meaning: Studies in the Detailed Analysis of Film (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2005), pp. 98-107; V. F. Perkins, 'Letter from an Unknown Woman', Movie, Vol. 29. 30. pp. 61-72; Further Recommended Readings: P. Reay, Music in Films: Soundtracks and Synergy (London: Wallflower Press, 2004), Pansy Duncan, ‘Tears, melodrama and “heterosensibility’ in Letter from an Unknown Woman’ in Screen Volume 52-2 Summer 2011, pp. 173-192 George Wilson, 'Max Ophüls' Letter from an Unknown Woman', in Narration in Light: Studies in Cinematic Point of View (Johns Hopkins, Harvard UP, 1986), pp. 103-125; Robin Wood, 'Letter from an Unknown Woman: The Double Narrative', CineAction! Vol. 31, pp. 4-17;
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2.6 Colour, Lighting and Film
‘Though central to the plastics of cinema, colour often goes unacknowledged...Perhaps we are now so familiar with seeing colour in movies (and movies in colour)...we forget to pay it attention‘ Steven Peacock, Colour (MUP, 2011): p. 2
Screening: Suspiria (Argento, IT 1977) The study of colour in cinema is to recognize the ubiquitous nature of colour in our lives and across many art forms (marketing, media, photography, psychoanalysis, semiotics, painting, fashion to name but a few). Because of the omnipresent nature of colour in (most) of our lives – there is an assumption as to the fact that colour is simply just ‘there – film gives rise to an analysis of the use of colour as representative of our world as ‘real’ and an exaggeration of our world as ‘illusory’ or ‘fantastical’ in the subjective and often excessively skewed use of colour in film. The director’s use of colour as well as framing, camera movements and mise en scène can generate a spectacular setting for a location or star, it guarantees compositional prominence for an object or actor and accentuates the ebullience of the narrative moment. Indeed the study of colour is often hindered by academic debate around its subjective/ objective nature and its culturally specific context. Colour is also a psychological as well as a physical entity. The connotations that we have of colour alter from culture to colour, over time, and from person to person. There are also problems when considering the many hues of a particular colour, shocking pink, fuchsia may have connotations of lurid, pop-art inspired bubble-gum aesthetics but pastel pink or baby pink has connotations of innocence, femininity and childishness. From culture to culture and across time these may differ wildly. Complex but also immediate in its meaning Riley states that ‘the sheer multiplicity of colour codes attests to the profound subjectivity of the colour sense and its resistance to categorical thought’ (Riley 1995: 1) 18
While colour interpretation is still an emerging concern in contemporary film academia, the study of its technological emergence is well documented. This week’s session will also include an overview of the technological advances in the coming of colour to film throughout the ages from tinted slides and hand-painted film frames in early silent film, to the development of 2-strip and 3-strip colour processes (such as Eastman Colour and Technicolor) to modern day experiments in colour film form. The interplay of colour in a film’s mise-en-scène can be seen at its most masterful in Hitchcock’s Vertigo, a film that clearly plays with the illusion of reality and fantasy, revealing psychological trauma in a multiplicity of visual and audial methods – colour and lighting being but two of them. From its opening moments, Vertigo’s abstract title sequence sets the chromatic scheme that is echoed and developed throughout the film – demanding interpretation of its various hues and shades of ghostly greens (symbolising a both death and life), its silvery greys (as transitional and liminal) and its excessively lit glowing reds (sensuous and deadly in equal measures). In this session we will also confront techniques around lighting in cinema, as a further visual element of manipulation that can often direct or divert the viewer attention, mask their awareness of something, or exaggerate meaning as a rhetorical stylistic feature in order to depict meaning. Soft lighting and focus work together to romanticise an image of a Hollywood female star lending an air of glamour and sensuality (as in Sternberg’s lighting of his muse Marlene Dietrich) or the stark use of key lighting may increase the harshness and extend the appearance of shadows across the frame as in many German Expressionist films (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, GE 1919) suggesting the characters’ inner psychological torment physically onto the film world. Colour and lighting together using lighting gels, post-production tints, colour corrections and digital gradations of colour can also affect and enhance the mood of a particular film or scene.
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Consider these stills, how do they use colour in both a textual and symbolic way?
The autumnal colours of Julianne Moore’s dress in Far from Heaven (Todd Haynes, 2002) underscore her age and the flash of lavender in her scarf has ‘queer’ connotations.
Set Reading: Steven Peacock, 'Introduction', Colour: Cinema Aesthetics (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010). A. Dalle Vacche and B. Price (eds), 'Introduction', Color: the Film Reader (London: Routledge, 2006). Giulio L. Giusti, ‘Expressionist use of colour palette and set design in Dario Argento’s Suspiria (1977)’ in Cinergie: il cinema e le altre arti Issue 4: November 2013 [found online: http:// www.cinergie.it/?p=3288 last accessed 28/08/2014]. Further Reading: Maitland McDonagh, "Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento." in Film Quarterly 41.2 (Winter 1987-88): 2-13. Steven Neale, Cinema and Technology: Image, Sound, Colour (London: BFI, 1985). 20
2.7 Film and Performance Style Screening: Imitation of Life (Douglas Sirk, USA 1968)
‘The most effective actors and actresses in cinema are those who can achieve such a degree of external and internal relaxation while being filmed that the camera records their nature without defining it…”Actor” is not even a term appropriate to the cinema. The barrier of the screen certainly gives the impression of acting, but what we are seeing in cinema are people’ (Thomson, (1967): 123)
This session will involve the study of the concept of performance on film and the interplay between the appearance of actor and character on screen. Via the analysis of particular clips and recognisable stars and film ‘moments’ will demonstrate the intricacies and differences between an actor’s performance style and its affect upon the spectator. This session will take in the sheer wealth of performance styles in cinema from heightened and exaggerated forms of expression, movement and gesture to subtle moments or barely recognisable elements of an actor’s performance. We will also consider naturalistic acting styles and improvisation which aim for a more realistic, naturalistic performance, while outlining various techniques including the immersive ‘Method’ approach perfected by Stanlislavski and practiced by iconic US film stars James Dean and Montgomery Clift and contemporary actors Daniel Day Lewis and Ryan Gosling. Further to our discussion of ‘stars’ students will be introduced to the concept of Star Studies in which audiences interpret the simultaneous presents of both actor and star on screen, when watching a Tom Cruise film, we are aware of Cruise and his star status, personal baggage, but also aware that he is acting in a role, but also acting ‘Tom Cruise’ - giving rise to recognisable Cruise-isms.
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We will focus closely on the relevance of film performances that are self-reflexive and selfreferential that is a performance that clearly presents itself as just that, whether as in Seth Rogen’s performance of himself in apocalyptic comedy This is the End (2013) or in film melodrama where actors perform roles, and their characters also ‘act’ in the narrative for each other explicitly or implicitly. Students will be asked to consider the complex dynamics of looks, performances and therefore processes of identification that occur in Cinema, 1) the performance of ‘STAR’ for the audience 2) the performance of ‘CHARACTER’ for the audience 3) the performance of ‘CHARACTER/STAR’ on screen for other players. Performance is also tied into the concept of the camera’s ‘look’. Through the camera’s gaze – we also look at the screen, the camera looks at the actors, the actors look at each other, and the actors ‘look out’ at the audience (whether breaking the fourth wall also called ‘direct address’ or not). This session utilises Douglas Sirk’s 60’s soapy melodrama Imitation of Life as a case study of a film that contains both obvious and subtle performance, and contains a narrative that is all about the authenticity of performance, imitation, performance of our life ‘roles’ - as daughter, son, mother, wife, lover and a film in which, self-reflexively, actresses play actresses. Set Reading: Intro to Andrew Klevan, Film Performance: From Achievement to Appreciation (Wallflower Press, 2005) (Library). Richard Henke, ‘Imitation of Life: Imitation world of vaudeville’ in Jump Cut, no. 39, June 1994, pp. 31-39 found online here: http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC39folder/ imitationLife.html [Last accessed 30/8/2013]. Excerpts from Lucy Fischer, Imitation of Life: Douglas Sirk - Director (Rutgers University Press, 1991) (PDF and page numbers found on Studynet) Further Recommended Readings: Judith Butler, ‘Lana’s Imitation: Melodramatic Repetition and the Gender Performative’, Genders 9, Fall 1990. John Mercer, Melodrama: Genre, Style and Sensibility (Short Cuts, London: Wallflower 2004) 22
2.8 Location, Space and Place
‘Mise-en-scene contains a host of purely spatial and temporal factors to guide our expectations and hence space our viewing of the image…‘ (Bordwell and Thomson, Film Art, pp. 65
Screening: Wake in Fright (Ted Kotcheff, AUS 1971)
The contemplation of cinematic space is very closely related to the work that students will already have touched on in the study of mise-enscène. Referring to the film’s setting we may be considering either a constructed set on a sound stage or at a location, or the utilisation of a real-life on-location setting, the approach to our study of the physical and symbolic qualities of ‘place’ will be the same. Whether foregrounding artificiality of the constructed, obvious stage of German Expressionist Cubist influenced and twisted 2D sets, or the pockmarked and bullet ridden rubbled streets of Rome in Italian Neo-Realist cinema the setting has an immediate impact on characters within the film and their performance within the space, and an emotional impact upon the viewer who identifies with the character, and attaches cultural values. This session will focus on the use of space and the significance of place within the moving image – not only in terms of landscape, studio spaces and the physical appearance of these on film – but also their metaphorical value, the cultural connotations of place andt also the use of space within the frame itself and how the performers move and are confined within it.
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Our study will range from the application of mise-en-scène analysis to the dressing of the set or location with a focus on characters or significant features of décor or objects in the frame and how they interplay with the focus on narrative importance in order to drive action and plot. Specific rules of shooting within cinematic space that are often ‘unnoticeable’ but are needed in order to maintain a coherent sense of space-time logic. These and more ‘rules of cinematic space’ – create a world within Classical Hollywood system that is a ‘closed’ space, which effectively is subordinate to the narrative. We will also be considering the use of space and objects within it as a symbolic externalisation of character traits and emotions - particularly in the more expressive genres such as melodrama, the western and the horror. Alongside temporal space and narrative space and we ‘mise-en-scène creates a composition of screen space…in most films the composition… represents a three-dimensional space in which the action occurs. Since the image projected on screen is flat – the mise-en-scène must give the audience the impression of three dimensional space…’ (Bordwell and Thomson, Film Art, pp. 176-7)
will play close attention to the use of screen space within the frame, as a method of balance, driving and focusing audience attention supported by the use of colour, movement (across and in and out of the implied 3D screen space via depth cues), shallow and deep space compositions within the screen space and gesture and performance in symbiosis with, and in opposition to, the screen space.
We will be drawing upon the textual analysis skills that have been developed thus far in order to analyse the use of space, place and location as another ‘character‘ within the film text - deciphering meaning from its, conscious or unconscious, depiction. From this we can derive a symbolic reading of the use of colour, lighting, set dressing, camera placement within the set/location, the movement of characters and how sound it used to imply connotations about specific locales. More recently the resurgence of 3D within cinema underscores the importance of space via the illusion of depth within the appeal of cinema. Contemporary 3D offers a more immersive experience allowing audiences to ‘fall into’ the screen world, than ever before, in opposition to its past ‘shock value’ of the screen world bursting out from the 2D image into our world. 24
Location, Space and Place: Consider the below stills and their use of cinematic space.
Candyman’s (Rose, 1992) use of the city of Chicago’s skyline from various perspectives in the opening sequence both sets the scene and offers symbolic interpretations.
Set Reading: Jonathan Rayner, ‘Gothic Definitions: “The New Australian Cinema of Horrors”’ in Antipodes. Columbia: Jun 2011. Vol. 25, Iss. 1; pg. 91-98; Julian Savage, ‘The Lost Cult of Wake in Fright’ in Intensities, Dec 2012 found online [http://intensitiescultmedia.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/savagelost-cult-of-wake-in-fright.pdf] Last accessed 28/08/2014. Further Recommended Readings: Jonathan Rayner, selected extracts from Contemporary Australian Cinema: An Introduction (Manchester University Press: 2001).
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2.9 Interiority and Subjectivity Screening: Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock,
‘The monstrous “Other” represents that which bourgeois ideology cannot recognize or accept but must deal with in one of two ways: either by rejecting and, if possible, annihilating it, or by rendering it safe and assimilating it, converting it as far as possible into a replica of itself‘ (Robin Wood (1975): 199).
US 1958) The concept of subjectivity within film studies - from a technical and textual standpoint - often refers to subjective points of view. These are usually framed within particular shots (POV) or via the unfurling of a narrative from the perspective of a character or characters. Other techniques discussing in previous sessions, such as flashback or narrative voice-over, shot/reverse shots also provide methods via which the spectator is encouraged to side with, to identify with, a particular character as ‘authentic’. While the study of cinematic technique alone provides great insight into a text’s attempt to establish character subjectivity and how it speaks through and to the audience, connecting up the findings from textual analysis with cultural and critical approaches such as structuralism and post-structuralism opens up the world of film for wider analysis. Structuralists such as Karl Marx and Louis Althusser suggest that the subject is merely a construct of the culture in which h/she lives - and that that culture is itself stuctured around materiality - language, cultural codes and conventions, institutions such as the family, education, law, religion and the media all play their part in defining the ‘subjects’ that we are within society. Althusser argues that we are interpellated as a subject by these ideological structures (ISAs). Structuralists argued that as film, being preconceived and influenced by the culture in which it is constructed, merely interpellates 26
Post-structuralists argue that while media texts and film do, to some extent, reflect and define our subjectivity, they are not necessarily one way structures. They are also influenced by the human subject as a creator of art - they are both effect and agent of the text. When considering subjectivity in film we will not only be considering how media representations can interpellate subjects into cultural assimilation, (to ‘fit in’ we must all be capitalist, monogamous, bourgeois, heterosexual, workers) but also how it can be used to question the cultural values that attempt to ‘fix us’ into our identities. Often we see this in the form of a ‘slippage’, a gap or a tension between the subjective representation of a character, and the visualising of their interiority, via inner monologue, fantasy, dream sequences, flashback and skewed visions of the world via their perspective. The films we will be looking at within this session take account of various aspects of identity including gender (masculinity and femininity), race, sexuality and class. In order to analyse a film’s representation of subjectivity and interiority we need to bring together the techniques and methods that have been discussed over the previous weeks in order to textually evaluate how meaning is created editing, narrative, sound, colour etc. We Need to Talk About Kevin gives us an interesting view of both cultural expectations placed upon women and mothers, alongside a troubled interior split with ‘what is expected’ and how one actually feels. It also extends to an understanding of the representation of troubled masculinity in its portrayal of a sociopathic young teenage boy. Set Reading: Chris Weedon, ‘Chapter 1: Subjectivity and Identity’ in Identity and Culture: Narratives of Difference and Belonging (McGraw-Hill, 2004), pp. 5-21; Tania Modleski, ‘Femininity by Design – Vertigo’ in The Women Who Knew Too Much: Hitchcock and Feminist Theory’ (Routledge, 1989), pp. 57-73; Neill Potts, 'Character interiority: space, point of view and performance in Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958)', in John Gibbs and Douglas Pye (eds.), Style and Meaning: Studies in the Detailed Analysis of Film (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2005), pp. 85-97; Further Recommended Readings: Kristin Thompson, ‘Categorical Coherence: A Closer Look At Character Subjectivity’ found here http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2008/10/24/categoricalcoherence-a-closer-look-at-character-subjectivity/ [Last Accessed 30/8/2013).
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2.10 Contemporary Film and the Avant-Garde Screening: Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, UK/ US 2014)
‘The cinema cannot show the truth, or reveal it, because the truth is not out there in the real world...What the cinema can do is produce meanings and meanings can only be plotted, not in relation to some abstract yardstick or criterion of truth, but in relation to other meanings’ Peter Wollen, “Godard and Counter Cinema’ Afterimage 4 (Autumn 1972): 6-17
The vast majority of the film and television texts discussed over the course of this module can be said to adhere to the classical narrative cinema form. This session confronts cinematic techniques that attempt to offer a counter cinema, that is - a cinema that challenges traditional meaning making systems, is more oblique, suggestive, surreal and often difficult to analyse. We will approach the works of filmmakers and texts that can be considered under an umbrella of experimental or avant-garde cinema via the following elements: Abstraction and Symbolism, Narrative Complexity, Avant-Garde Techniques and the ‘Indie’ Aesthetic. In his outline of a counter cinema (which he attributes to filmmakers such as Jean LucGodard) Peter Wollen presents elements of traditional filmmaking and those counter elements that he attributes to avant-garde technique. These include narrative intransitivity and complexity as opposed to the linear, narrative straight-fowardness of mainstream cinema; estrangement and distanciation from characters as opposed to the identification techniques employed to connect character to audience in traditional narratives; the foregrounding of counter cinematic technique (via editing, direct address in performance) draws attention to the film as a construct as opposed to the suspension of disbelief in the film world that classical narrative cinema relies on and finally the emphasis on aperture 28
(open ended meaning) as opposed to the closure that is expected in traditional narrative.
This session will consider examples of experimental and avant-garde cinema such as Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel’s Un Chien Andalou, Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) and Chris Marker’s La Jetee (1962) before looking across from experimental film form to its inscription into contemporary, indie-filmmaking. Contemporary film and television is largely produced and created by filmmakers who are more than aware of film theory and have a wide appreciation of a history of film, both mainstream and avant-garde. It is understandable then, that recent films borrow experimental style and form. From John Waters’ deliberate eschewing of polished film as a trash-film connoisseur, to Quentin Tarantino’s adoption of post-modern montage which both ‘quotes’ international film genre and dressed up in self-referential film style. Our consideration of avant-garde techniques as they are assimilated into contemporary film-fare will be focused on via a careful study of Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin. Itself an adaptation of Michel Faber’s eponymous, supposedly ‘unfilmable’, Science Fiction novel the film frequently employs oblique, impressionistic visuals and sound-scapes with which to tell its minimalist narrative. Coupled with avant-garde imagery, sound and lighting, an oblique performance by Scarlet Johansson (clearly riffing on her ‘star status’) and a tendency towards both a brutally realistic and documentary like yet symbolic style over obvious narrative conjecture. We will be drawing upon all our previous sessions on textual analysis in order to deconstruct this contemporary filmmaker. Set Reading: David Bordwell, ‘The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice’ in The European Cinema Reader, C Fowler (ed) (London: Routledge 2002), pp. 94-102; Pam Cook and Mieke Bernink on Avant Garde and Counter Cinema, in The Cinema Book Second Edition (London: BFI, 1999), pp. 114-119. On Under the Skin: Wheeler Winston Dixon, ‘“A Lioness on the Prowl” Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin’ in Film International, Tuesday April 22nd 2014. Further Reading: Peter Wollen, “Godard and Counter Cinema’ Afterimage 4 (Autumn 1972): 6-17 29
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Moving between Criticism and Theory Screening: Only God Forgives (Winding-Refn, US/DK/SW/TH/FR, 2013) This session builds on the realisation that film has more to say for itself than simply existing as a form of entertainment. We have acknowledged that film
‘Film theorists challenge and go beyond the common-sense ideological understanding of film as a mere form of entertainment, and instead maintain that it is an intrinsically significant medium integral to twentieth-century modern and postmodern society... Analysts study film as an abstract and idealized object, extracted from its context of production and reception.’ Thomas Elsaesser and Warren Buckland, Studying Contemporary American Film: A Guide to Movie Analysis (Hodder Arnold, 2002), p. 2
contains meaning beyond the mere understanding of story, imagery and sound – and that it comments on society, culture, politics, individual subjectivities, interiority. It does so using the various methods that we have already studied during this module. Bearing this in mind – this session links to the following module, and students are encouraged to bring with them, those analytical and critical methods and vocabulary as we start to apply the knowledge we’ve already gained and now start to develop our understanding of a HISTORY of not only of FILM but a HISTORY of theoretical and academic approaches to film that aid us in our understanding of the meaning of
Set Reading: Introduction, in Alex Clayton and Andrew Klevan (eds.), The Language and Style of Film Criticism (London: Routledge, 2011) pp. 1-26; Siegfreid Kracauer, ‘Basic Concepts’ from The Theory of Film, in Braudy and Cohen (eds) Film Theory and Criticism (Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 9-21; Jean-Luc Comolli and Jean Narboni, ‘Cinema/Ideology/Criticism’ in Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen (eds.) Film Theory and Criticism - 6th Edition (OUP, 2004), pp. 812-819.
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Module Overview In this last section we will be looking back and taking stock of the film techniques and vocabulary that you have been furnished with and applying it to various film examples that may challenge you. Those students who are reading this module guide via a tablet or iPad - find some example questions below.
Review 2.1 Answer the following questions as a recap of the various modules and terminology.
Question 1 of 15 A chain of events in a cause-effect relationship occurring in time and space is what?
A. Exposition B. Plot C. Narrative D. Discourse
Check Answer
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3
Film Screenings: At a Glance Key: SP (Screening Provided)
BOB (Film available to watch
online via Box of Broadcasts)
N.B. Please note it is your responsibility to ensure that you have seen the requisite film or television programme BEFORE you attend the seminar sessions, otherwise you will be asked to leave and return to another class to participate once you have.
Week One: Narrative Style and Story - Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, US 1999) (SP) Week Two: Close Reading and Stylistic Interpretation - The Big Lebowski (Coen Brothers US 1997) Week Three: Mise-en-Scène, Framing, Symbolism - Touch of Evil (Orson Welles US 1958) Week Four: Editing and Post Production - Carrie (Brian De Palma, US 1976) (BOB) Week Five: Sound and Music - Letter from an Unknown Woman (Max Ophüls, US 1943) (BOB) Week Six: Colour and Lighting - Suspiria (Dario Argento, IT/GE 1977) (BOB) Week Seven:Performance Style - Imitation of Life (Douglas Sirk, US 1968) (BOB) Week Eight: Location, Place and Space - Wake in Fright (Ted Kotcheff, AUS 1971) (SP) Week Nine: Interiority and Subjectivity - Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, US 1958) (BOB) Week Ten: Contemporary Film Style/Avant Garde - Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, GB 2014) (SP) Week Eleven: From Criticism to Theory - Only God Forgives (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2013) (SP) Week Twelve: Module Overview - Film TBC
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