FILM AS AN ART FORM

Assignment by: Submission to:

Bijay kumar Shrestha Saroj Sir
 Table of content

1) Beginning of cinema invention

2) Nature of art
3) Introduction to film making
4) Short Introduction to Film history
5) Major Movements in Film
6) Basic component of film Language
7) Pre-Conditions of Cinema
8) The language of film: Sign and syntax
9) Some Major Film Theories
 Beginnings of Cinema Invention
The beginnings of Cinema can be traced back
to the works of Lumiere Brothers short films
in Paris on 28th Dec, 1895 A.D. The
commercial, public screening of 10 of their
short films can be regarded as the
breakthrough of projected cinematographic
motion picture.

FIG:-Cinematographe.
There had been earlier cinematographic results
and screenings but these lacked either the quality
or the momentum that propelled the
cinématographe Lumière into a worldwide
success.
Before the invention of the Cinematographe,
inventions like camera obscura, Kinetoscope,
Zoetrope, etc. were invented. Early photographic
sequences, known as chronophotography, can be
regarded as early motion picture recordings that
could not yet be presented as moving pictures.
Since 1878, Edward Muybridge made hundreds of
chronophotographic studies of the motion of
animals and humans in real-time, soon followed
by other chronophotographers like Étienne-Jules
Mary, Georges Demenÿ and Ottomar Anschütz.
Usually chronophotography was regarded as a
serious, even scientific, method to study motion
and almost exclusively involved humans or
animals performing a simple movement in front of
the camera. Soon after Muybridge published his
first results as The Horse in Motion cabinet cards,
people put the silhouette-like photographic
zoetrope’s to watch them in motion. Most
sequences could later be animated into very short
films with fluent motion (relatively often the
footage can be presented as a loop that repeats
the motion seamlessly).images in zoetropes to
watch them in motion. Most sequences could
later be animated into very short films with fluent
motion (relatively often the footage can be
presented as a loop that repeats the motion
seamlessly).

Fig- Camera obscura Fig-Kinetoscope Fig:-Zoetorpe

Slowly people from all around the world began to

experiment with motion picture which ultimately
gave way for the birth of the Silent Era (The
period in film where films could be longer than a
minute usually in black and white without sound,
there was little to no cinematic technique).The
novelty of realistic moving pictures was enough
for motion pictures to blossom before the end of
the century. Movie theaters became popular
entertainment venues and social hubs in the early
20th century.
Georges Méliès (1861-1938) was a French
illusionist and film director who led many
technical and narrative developments in the
earliest days of cinema he built one of the first
film studios in May 1897. It had a glass roof and
three glass walls constructed after the model of
large studios for still photography, and it was
fitted with thin cotton cloths that could be
stretched below the roof to diffuse the direct rays
of the sun on sunny days. Beginning in 1896,
Méliès would go on to produce, direct, and
distribute over 500 short films. The majority of
these films were short, one-shot films completed
in one take, he was one of the first filmmakers to
use storyboards. His popular works include a trip
to the moon (1902) and the impossible voyage
(1904).

Fig:-A scene from a trip to the

Moon by George Méliès Méliès
drew many comparisons between film and the
stage, which was apparent in his work. He realized
that film afforded him the ability (via his use of
time lapse photography) to "produce visual
spectacles not achievable in the theater. Similarly,
lots of people became influenced by the works of
George, one of them was Edwin S. Porter (1870-
1941).
Edwin porter was an American film pioneer, most
famous as a producer, director, studio manager
and cinematographer with the Edison
Manufacturing Company. It was probably Porter’s
experience as a projectionist at the Eden Muse
that ultimately led him in the early 1900s to the
practice of continuity editing (The process of
combining more-or less related shots into a
sequence to direct the viewer’s attention to a pre-
existing consistency of story across both time and
space), Of Over 250 films, his important include
the great train robbery (1903) and Life of an
American Fireman (1903).The great train robbery
is credited with establishment of the first
permanent film theatres, or Nickelodeons across
the country of America. In 1907 Porter gave
future film maker D.W Griffith his first film acting
role, in Rescued from an Eagle’s Nest.
Thus, The Beginnings of Invention of Cinema
contributed in the future development of Cinema.
 Nature of Art
Art is a diverse range of human activities in
creating visual which expresses the author’s
imaginative, conceptual ideas, Technical skill,
intended to be appreciated for their beauty or
emotional power. The three classical branches of
art are: - painting, sculpture and architecture.
Music, theatre, film, dance, other performing arts
etc. are included in a broader definition of arts. If
poetry is what you can’t translate, as Robert Frost
once suggested, then “art” is what you can’t
define. Art covers such a wide range of human
endeavor that it is almost more an attitude than
an activity. Art is timeless and is understood
differently by different people with different
personalities and philosophies. Art is an essential
part of human beings.
Fig: - The persistence of memory by Salvador Dali.

Introduction to film-Making and

basic techniques
Filmmaking is the process of making a film,
generally in the sense of films intended for
theatrical exhibition. Filmmaking involves a
number of discrete stages including an initial
story, idea, or commission, through screenwriting,
casting, shooting, sound recording and pre-
production, editing, and screening the finished
product before an audience that may result in a
film release and exhibition. Filmmaking takes
place in many places around the world in a range
of economic, social, and political contexts, and
using a variety of technologies and cinematic
techniques.
Stages of production
Film production consists of five major stages in
short:

a)Development: The first stage in which the

ideas for the film are created, rights to
books/plays are bought etc., and the
screenplay is written. Financing for the
project has to be sought and obtained.
b) Pre-production: Arrangements and
preparations are made for the shoot, such as
hiring cast and film crew, selecting locations
and constructing sets.
 c)Production: The raw footage and other
elements for the film are recorded during
the film shoot.
d) Post-production: The images, sound, and
visual effects of the recorded film are edited
and combined into a finished product.
e) Distribution: The completed film is
distributed, marketed, and screened in cinemas
and/or released to home video.
3.1) Basic grammar of film language
The term film grammar is best
understood as a creative metaphor, since the
elements of film grammar do not stand in any
strict relation of analogy to the components of
grammar as understood by physiology or modern
linguistics.
D. W. Griffith has been called the father of film
grammar. Griffith was a key figure in establishing
the set of codes that have become the universal
backbone of film language. He was particularly
influential in popularizing "cross-cutting"—using
film editing to alternate between different events
occurring at the same time—in order to build
suspense. He still used many elements from the
"primitive" style of movie-making that predated
classical Hollywood's continuity system, such as
frontal staging, exaggerated gestures, minimal
camera movement, and an absence of point of
view shots. Some claim, too, that he "invented"
the close-up shot for filming. Below are some of
the basic grammars for film:-

a) Sequence:-
Forms a distinct narrative unit. (Unity of
action/unity of purpose)
b) Scene: - Describes an action that takes place
me a single location and continuous time (Screen
time-diegetic time)
c) Shot: - A single continuous recording made
by the camera until it is stopped.
d) Frame: - A single image shot from a camera.
Types of Shots
According to:-
1) Shot scale(Camera distance)
 Off

As s

Fig from: - Good, Bad, Ugly

Two-shot
One subject In medium close up in foreground.
One subject in Medium Shot in background.
 Insert/Cut-in
Covers action already in the master shot but emphasizes a
different aspect of that action.
2) Depth of field, camera angle and camera
movement.
Depth of field
The distance between the nearest and the furthest
objects giving a focused image.

Camera Angles
The camera angle marks the specific location at which
the movie camera or video camera is placed to take a
shot, it Guides the audience’s judgement about the
objects and characters in a shot.
 Camera Movement
Camera movement is one of the most expressive tools
available to a filmmaker. It alters the relationship
between the subject and the camera frame, shaping
the viewer's perspective of space and time and
controlling the delivery of narrative information. It
gives specialty to images.
Dolly shots/Tracking shots
Camera moves forward-tracking in
Camera moves backward-tracking out
Camera moves sideways-dolly shot
 Panning/pan shot
Scans a scene horizontally
When scans a scene vertically is called “Tilt”
Hand-held Shot
Since 1970’s :smooth thanks to the Steadicam which
denote a certain kind of realism to the audience which
makes them feels as though they are in the scene itself.
3) EDITING
Editing is the art of combining shots into a coherent
whole using the means of editing tools and software’s.
The editing process often begins with the author's idea
for the work itself, continuing as a collaboration
between the author and the editor as the work is
created. Editing can involve creative skills, human
relations and a precise set of methods. Few of the
editing methods are mentioned below:-
 a) Long take/single shot/sequence shot

b) Cut
Abrupt change of shot from one viewpoint or location
to another. (Often done in the editing part) It changes
scene, compresses time and varies the point of view in
the narrative. Two commonly used cuts are:-
a) Match cut: - Match cut is a cut from one shot to
another where the two shots are matched by the
action or subject and subject matter. For example,
in a duel a shot can go from a long shot on both
contestants via a cut to a medium close-up shot of
 one of the duelists. The cut matches the two shots
and is consistent with the logic of the action. This
is a standard practice in film-making, to produce a
seamless reality-effect. It also establishes logical
relationship between shots.
b) Jump Cut:-
A jump cut is a cut in film editing in which two
sequential shots of the same subject are taken
from camera positions that vary only slightly if at
all. This type of edit gives the effect of jumping
forwards in time. It helps to move the narrative
transition of the story.
c) Fade and dissolve
Fade (in/out)-Gradual transition made between shots
(in editing).
Dissolve-One shot merging into another (in editing)
d) Match on action
Match on action refers to film editing and video editing
techniques where the editor cuts from one shot to
another view that matches the first shot's action.
e) Eye-Line Match
An Eye-line match is a film editing technique associated
with the continuity editing system. It is based on the
 premise that an audience will want to see what the
character on-screen is seeing. An eye-line match begins
with a character looking at something off-screen,
followed by a cut of another object or person: for
example, a shot showing a man looking off-screen is
followed by a shot of a television.
f) Shot Reverse Shot
Shot reverse shot is a film technique where one
character is shown looking at another character (often
off-screen), and then the other character is shown
looking back at the first character. Since the characters
are shown facing in opposite directions, the viewer
assumes that they are looking at each other. De-
emphasizes transitions between shots, very commonly
used in dialogues.
Fig: - Shot reverse shot used in the American silent film
“Greed (1924)”directed by Erich Von Stroheim.

g) Cross-Cutting
Cross-cutting is an editing technique most often used in
films to establish action occurring at the same time,
and usually in the same place. In a cross-cut, the
camera will cut away from one action to another
action, which can suggest the simultaneity of these two
actions but this is not always the case. Cross-cutting
can also be used for characters in a film with the same
goals but different ways of achieving them Describes
actions occurring at the same time in two different
locations. It expresses simultaneity, creates suspense,
suggests parallels, etc.
Rule of Third

The rule of thirds is a "rule of thumb" or guideline

which applies to the process of composing visual
images such as designs, films, paintings, and
photographs. The guideline proposes that an image
should be imagined as divided into nine equal parts by
two equally spaced horizontal lines and two equally
spaced vertical lines, and that important compositional
elements should be placed along these lines or their
intersections.
The 180 Rule

The 180-degree rule is a basic guideline regarding the

on-screen spatial relationship between a character and
another character or object within a scene. By keeping
the camera on one side of an imaginary axis between
two characters, the first character is always frame right
of the second character. Moving the camera over the
axis is called jumping the line or crossing the line;
breaking the 180-degree rule by shooting on all sides is
known as shooting in the round.
 Fig: - The 180D Rule
Over the shoulder Shot

Over the shoulder shot is taken from over the shoulder

of one of the characters and shows the audience the
other one. The head and the shoulder of the person on
the foreground are out of focus when another person
is in focus. Over-the-shoulder shot is one of the most
important techniques in filmmaking as it reveals the
connection of the characters between each other, the
viewer can see their interaction.
Point of view shot
This is the film angle when the viewers see what’s
going on in the video through the character’s eyes. The
audience sees the same as the actor himself. It helps
the viewers feel like they are part of the story.
Types of relationship between shots and
their basic functions in short:
1) Time relationship: Ensures continuity
2) Spatial relationship: Organizes separate units
into disclosure
3) Thematic relationship: Creates rhythm
 Short introduction to film history
Film history is one of the three major branches of film
studied (the other two being theory and criticism).No
one person invented cinema. Below are some short
description of some of the historical events in film:
a)Early period of Cinema
In 1891 the Edison Company in the USA successfully
demonstrated a prototype of the Kinetoscope, which
enabled one person at a time to view moving pictures.
The first to present projected moving pictures to a
paying audience (i.e. cinema) were the Lumière
brothers in December 1895 in Paris. At first, films were
very short, sometimes only a few minutes or less. They
were shown at fairgrounds and music halls or
anywhere a screen could be set up and a room
darkened. Subjects included local scenes and activities,
views of foreign lands, short comedies and events
considered newsworthy.
The films were accompanied by lecturers, music and a
lot of audience participation—although they did not
have synchronized dialogue, they were not ‘silent’ as
they are sometimes described.
 b) THE RISE OF THE FILM INDUSTRY
By 1914, several national film industries were
established. Europe, Russia and Scandinavia were as
important as America. Films became longer, and
storytelling, or narrative, became the dominant form.
As more people paid to see movies, the industry which
grew around them was prepared to invest more money
in their production, distribution and exhibition, so large
studios were established and special cinemas built. The
First World War greatly limited the film industry in
Europe, and the American industry grew in relative
importance.
The first 30 years of cinema were characterized by the
growth and consolidation of an industrial base, the
establishment of the narrative form, and refinement of
technology.
c)ADDING COLOUR
Color was first added to black-and-white movies
through tinting, toning and stenciling. By 1906, the
principles of color separation were used to produce so-
called ‘natural color’ moving images with the British
Kinemacolor process, first presented to the public in
1909.
The early Technicolor processes from 1915 onwards
were cumbersome and expensive, and color was not
used more widely until the introduction of its three-
color process in 1932.
d) ADDING SOUND
The first attempts to add synchronized sound to
projected pictures used phonographic cylinders or
discs. The first feature-length movie incorporating
synchronized dialogue, The Jazz Singer (USA, 1927),
used the Warner Brothers’ Vitaphone system, which
employed a separate record disc with each reel of film
for the sound. This system proved unreliable and was
soon replaced by an optical, variable density
soundtrack recorded photographically along the edge
of the film.
e)CINEMA’S GOLDEN AGE
By the early 1930s, nearly all feature-length movies
were presented with synchronized sound and, by the
mid-1930s, some were in full color too. The advent of
sound secured the dominant role of the American
industry and gave rise to the ‘Golden Age of
Hollywood’.
During the 1930s and 1940s, cinema was the principal
form of popular entertainment, with people often
attending cinemas twice weekly. In Britain the highest
attendances occurred in 1946, with over 31 million
visits to the cinema each week.

f) THE ASPECT RATIO

Thomas Edison had used perforated 35mm film in the
Kinetoscope, and in 1909 this was adopted as the
industry standard. The picture had a height-to-width
relationship—known as the aspect ratio—of 3:4 or
1:1.33.With the advent of optical sound, the aspect
ratio was adjusted to 1.37:1. Although there were
many experiments with other formats, there were no
major changes in screen ratios until the 1950s.
g)COMPETING WITH TELEVISION
The introduction of television in America prompted a
number of technical experiments designed to maintain
public interest in cinema.
In 1952, the Cinerama process, using three projectors
and a wide, deeply curved screen together with multi-
track surround sound, was premiered. It gave
audiences a sense of greater involvement and proved
extremely popular. However, it was technically
cumbersome, and widescreen cinema did not begin to
be extensively used until the introduction of
Cinemascope in 1953 and Todd-AO in 1955, both of
which used single projectors.
Cinemascope had optically squeezed images on 35mm
film which were expanded laterally by the projector
lens to fit the width of the screen; Todd-AO used film
70mm wide. By the end of the 1950s, the shape of the
cinema screen had effectively changed, with aspect
ratios of either 1:2.35 or 1:1.66 becoming standard.
Specialist large-screen systems using 70mm film have
also been developed. The most successful of these has
been IMAX, which today has more than 1,000 screens
worldwide. For many years IMAX cinemas have
showed films specially made in its unique 2D or 3D
formats, but they are increasingly showing versions of
popular feature films which have been digitally
remastered in the IMAX format, often with additional
scenes or 3D effects.
Stereo sound, which had been experimented with in
the 1940s, also became part of the new widescreen
experience.
h) CINEMA MAKES A COMEBACK
While cinemas had some success in fighting the
competition of television, they never regained the
position and influence they once held, and over the
next 30 years audiences dwindled. By 1984 cinema
attendances in Britain had sunk to one million a week.
Since then, however, that figure has nearly trebled
with the growth of out-of-town multiplex cinemas
following the building of the first British multiplex at
Milton Keynes in 1985. Although America still appears
to be the most influential film industry, the reality is
more complex. Many films are produced
internationally—either made in various countries or
financed by multinational companies that have
interests across range of media.

Today, most people see films on television (whether

terrestrial or satellite or on video of some kind) and we
are also moving towards a web-based means of
delivery.

Important questions:
a)Why study old films?
Ans: Movies bear the traces of the societies that
made and consumed them. Old movies force us to
acknowledge that films can be radically different
from what we are used to. Old films helps us to
understand what cinema is, has been and can be.
 b) What do film historians do?
Film Historians are experts on the rich history of
moving pictures. They’ve spent years of their lives
watching films; reading books, essays, and articles
about them; and composing works of their own. Much
more than mere Critics, they understand a film’s
unique place in history, its social context, and the
circumstances surrounding its development and
creation. Most Film Historians work in academia, and
spend much of their time doing research and writing
scholarly pieces.
Film historical evidence
Arguments about film history rely on evidence, film
prints are central piece of evidence. Around 80% of all
silent films is considered lost, quality of the surviving
prints are often damaged. According to research by
Library of Congress only 14 percent of the 10,919 silent
feature films released by major American studios
between 1912 and 1929 is located and preserved in
original formats and another 11 percent is known from
full-length foreign versions or on formats of lesser
image quality. Although larger trends and
developments may have been properly perceived and
documented, many details only came to be of interest
much later and can be hard to trace. Implicit in a linear
search of ‘firsts’ is the question ‘first of what’,
Indication of many specific "firsts" and other details
may not have seemed important at the time and thus
evidence can only be found in the 10 to 20 percent of
films that have survived.

Movements in film
A film movement is a wave of films usually
following a particular trend in cinema of the
time. Most trending movements in cinema are
regional but influence world cinema. These films
have cultural origins usually influenced by
national tragedy, popular culture, or social
issues. Below are some major movements in
film:

a)German expressionism (1919-1931)

In 1916, after their terrible loss in the war, the
German government decided to ban all foreign
films. With a sudden demand for more domestic
titles, there was an understandably dramatic
increase in the number of films produced in
Germany each year. However, German
audiences had become less preferential towards
romance and action flicks since the beginning of
WWI, and themes of violence, cruelty and
betrayal become more relevant topics for
discussion. This unfortunate set of
circumstances, along with the constant fear of
hyperinflation, provided a platform for daring,
innovative filmmakers such as Fritz Lang
(Metropolis) and F.W. Murnau (Nosferatu) to
make German Expressionism one of the most
important and influential movements in
cinematic history. Prior to films, Edward
Munch's The Scream, arguably the most famous
Expressionist painting of all time; you can clearly
see how the concept allows moods to be
expressed by creative distortion. It shows an
impression of a scene, as opposed to its physical
reality.
 German expressionist filmmakers used visual
distortion, dark social contexts, geometrical sets, bio-
mechanical acting and hyper-expressive performance
to show inner turmoil, fears and desires of that war
torn era. German Expressionism reflects the inner
conflicts of its 1920s German audience by giving their
woes an inescapably external presence. By rejecting
cinematic realism, expressionist films showcase
dramatic, revolutionary interpretations of the human
condition. Films such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and
Metropolis are often studied as perfect examples of
how set design can be used to create a world that is
aesthetically controlled by the film's emotional
instructions.
 Fig:-Cabinet of Dr.Caligari (1920, Robert weine)

Fig-metropolis (1927, Fritz Lang)

German Expressionism Portrays a Subjective,

Emotional World Rather Than An Objective Reality. The
movement radically challenged conventional
filmmaking at the time, and has provided food for
thought for the industry ever since. Today, the
enduring influence of German Expressionism can be
seen throughout the medium, with critically acclaimed
directors such as Ridley Scott and Tim Burton
consistently taking influence from Expressionist work.
On a broader scale, German Expressionism's enduring
impact within the horror genre cannot be overstated,
helping to shape the genre's frameworks upon which
the entire genre still relies on.

b) French Impressionism (1918-1929)

Although it’s still disputed among critics as
to whether French Impressionism really was a
movement in its own right, it’s generally accepted that
there was shared creative goal among French
filmmakers throughout the 1920s. With an emphasis
on emotional representation as opposed to an
objective reality, Impressionist films collectively
developed film theory as a whole. Impressionist
painters such as Renoir, Degas and Monet inspired the
movement.
Fig:-Impression, sunrise (1872) by Claude Monet
French Impressionism is arguably the movement that
initially inspired film criticism in an academic fashion.
The movement explored techniques such as non-linear
editing, innovative lighting, and attempts to portray
dream sequences and fantasies, and other ingenious
methods to tell a story from a protagonist’s point of
view. The movement is widely known for prioritizing
aesthetically beautiful images. Impressionists created
entirely new theories as to how a film can articulate a
wide range of emotions, situations and subjective
realities. Whether directly or indirectly, these new
conventions have influenced practically every moving
image since. Impressionist films include: The Woman
from Nowhere (1922) by Louis Delluc, The Smiling
Madame Beudet (1923) by Germaine Dulac, The Wheel
(1923) by Abel Gance, etc.

Fig: Eldorado (1921) by Marcel L'Herbier

c)Soviet Montage(1924-1933)
Soviet Montage came from the concept that film
theory doesn't necessary have to align with theatrical
frameworks, as the filmmaking process provides an
entirely new set of tools. Montage theory, in its
rudimentary form, asserts that a series of connected
images allows for complex ideas to be extracted from a
sequence and, when strung together, constitute the
entirety of a film's ideological and intellectual power.
In other words, the editing of shots rather than the
content of the shot alone constitutes the force of a
film. Many directors still believe that montage is what
defines cinema against other specific media. several
Soviet filmmakers, such as Lev Kuleshov, Dziga Vertov,
Esfir Shub and Vsevolod Pudovkin put forth
explanations of what constitutes the montage effect,
Eisenstein's view that "montage is an idea that arises
from the collision of independent shots" wherein "each
sequential element is perceived not next to the other,
but on top of the other" has become most widely
accepted.
Director Lev Kulshov first conceptualized montage
theory on the basis that one frame may not be enough
to convey an idea or an emotion. The audience are
able to view two separate images and subconsciously
give them a collective context. To prove his point, the
filmmaker cut together various images, each of which
changed the audience's reading: The same facial
expression, applied to different situations, will be
interpreted entirely differently by the audience
depending on its collective context, this was called the
kuleshov effect. In this way, Kulshov was applying tools
more commonly associated with literature and
language, forming sequences as you would a sentence
rather than composing a scene as if it were a live
theatrical production.

Fig: Kuleshov effect

Kuleshov’s theory asked questions as to how editing
and composition influences a viewer’s interpretation of
a sequence. He inspired filmmakers such as Sergei
Eisenstein (Battleship Potemkin), who was formerly a
student of Kulshov, and Dziga vertov (The Man with a
Movie Camera). Collectively, the directors utilizing
montage theory were able to explore how time and
space can be presented on film, exploring how
audiences may respond to various montage
techniques.

Fig: Mother (1926) by director Vsevolod Pudovkin

Fig: Battleship Potemkin (1925) by director Sergei M.
Eisenstein

Fig: The Death Ray (1925) by director Lev Kuleshov

 d) Italian Neo-Realism (1943-1954)
Italian neorealism (Italian: Neorealism), also known as
the Golden Age, is a national film movement
characterized by stories set amongst the poor and the
working class, filmed on location, frequently using non-
professional actors. Italian neorealism films mostly
contend with the difficult economic and moral
conditions of post-World War II Italy, representing
changes in the Italian psyche and conditions of
everyday life, including poverty, oppression, injustice,
and desperation. Poetic realism influenced Italian neo-
realism. Throughout WWII, Benito Mussolini’s
government had led the nation into political and
economic uncertainty, and Italy's film industry was
consequently in turmoil. In an attempt to disrupt the
production of propaganda, the prestigious Cinecittà
film studios were severely damaged by the allied
forces, making the studio unusable for the foreseeable
future. This ultimately forced Italian directors to seek
alternative filmmaking practices, despite having few
options to choose from.
Simultaneously, a group of critics writing for Cinema
had become gravely disillusioned by ‘Telefoni Bianchi’
flicks – commercial films that imitated American
comedies and had no interest in the struggles of the
working class. Although this frustration towards
conservative, escapist cinema was somewhat
suppressed in print (in fact, Cinema’s editor-in-chief
was the son of Mussolini himself), the popular belief
that the industry was no longer creating films relevant
to the public prevailed. This, along with the destruction
of Cinecittà film studios, led to a sudden shift in Italian
cinematic storytelling, both in terms of filmmaking
techniques and the topics of discussion. These two
defining factors would ultimately lead to the rise of
neorealism.

With a severe lack of resources but an abundance of

real world issues to address, Italian filmmakers(Like:
Luchino Visconti, Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica)
who had previously shot traditional productions at
Cinecittà film studios were now taking to the streets
with minimal equipment, non-professional actors and
an unbreakable belief in their sociopolitical purpose.
The end of WWII and the consequent end of German
occupation then allowed the neorealist movement to
thrive artistically, discussing sociopolitical turmoil and
real world struggles in a way that was never possible
under Mussolini’s rule.
Fig: Bicycle thieves (1948) by Vittorio de sica

Fig:-Rome open City (1945) by Roberto Rossellini

 d) The French New wave(1958-1968)
The French New Wave is perhaps the greatest
avocation for the important of film criticism, giving the
film industry a fine example of how critical analysis
directly leads to the progression of the industry as a
whole; after all, the entire movement was founded by
critics.
In 1948, Alexandre Astruc published The Birth of New
Avant-Garde: The Camera-Stylo, a manifesto outlining
the power of cinema as an artistic tool. He argued that
cinema could rival the creative possibilities of literature
and traditional artwork, and therefore showed disdain
towards the relatively new medium’s
commercialization. These values were passionately
shared by the critics of Cahiers du cinema; Francois
Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivett, etc.
Collectively, the group continued to explore Astruc’s
principles and develop their own vision, which would
become known as auteur theory. Auteur theory puts
an emphasis on the creative direction of a creator,
mirroring the way we traditionally value the vision of a
singular poet or painter; the director is an artist, and as
the film’s ‘author’, their unique vision is key to the
film’s artistic value. Due to this principle, directors such
as Jean Renoir, Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock
were seen as hugely important examples of why
auteurship is artistically superior to commercial
adaptations and other titles that simply pander to box
office expectations. However, the Cahiers writers went
one step further than to simply praise established
auteurs. Instead, they set out to utilize auteur theory
with films of their own.
In 1959, Francois Truffaut released The 400 Blows, and
Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless would follow less than a
year later. Both titles received unexpected
international success and were praised for their
innovative filmmaking techniques. Among others,
these titles gave the French New Wave a worldwide
appeal, allowing the movement to thrive throughout
the ‘60s. Since then, new wave cinema has been a
constant inspiration to young filmmakers worldwide.
Fig:-Breathless (1960) by jean-Luc Godard
 Fig: The 400 blows (1959) by Francois Truffaut

e) Dogme 95

On March 13, 1995, a Parisian conference was held to

celebrate 100 years of film. Appropriately named
“Cinema towards its second century”, the event was
specifically focused on cinema’s second century and
had invited Danish director Lars von Trier to speak.
Prior to his speech, audience members (which included
many of the film industry’s most respected names)
were handed red pamphlets that would formally
announce Dogme 95.
Together with Thomas Vinterberg, Trier had created a
manifesto that deliberately mimicked Truffaut’s
Notebooks on cinema, the Notebooks on cinema
article magazine that kick started the French New
Wave in 1954. Within their manifesto, Trier and
Vinterberg compiled a “Vow of Chastity”, in which they
laid out the strict terms that would determine whether
or not a film could be considered part of the Dogme 95
movement.

1) Shooting must be performed on location, without

providing props or sets that don't logically exist
within that setting

2)Diegetic sound only. Sounds must never be

produced, such as music that does not exist within
the scene

3)All shots must be handheld. Movement,

immobility and stability must be attained by
hand
 4)The film must be in color, with no special
lighting. If there's not enough exposure, a
single lamp may be attached to the camera
Etc.
Not all films would strictly abide by every rule. When
submitting a film for consideration, the director was
required to ‘confess’ the ways in which they have failed
to comply with their vows. Compared to any other
movement in film history, Dogme 95 is perhaps the
easiest to define thanks to the hard lines drawn by this
manifesto. Although these restrictions would certainly
alienate many filmmakers from participating in the
movement, the specificity of Vinterberg and Trier’s
Vows of Chastity clearly outlines how the Dogme 95
manifesto planned to change cinema’s future. First and
foremost, Dogme 95 intended to generate a greater
focus on the values of traditional storytelling,
performance and specific themes. With an emphasis
on these core aspects of filmic storytelling, Dogme 95
was a backlash against the over-reliance on technology
such as special effects and groundbreaking digital
tools. In this way, the movement was in direct
opposition to commercial studio filmmaking at the
time, and was a clear attempt to give greater power to
independent creative team. Three years after the
manifesto’s announcement, the first official Dogme 95
film was released by Vinterberg. Titled The
Celebration , the film was an instant critical success,
winning the Jury Prize at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival.
There are 35 Dogme films in total, with Lars von Trier
remaining the most internationally recognised figure
from the movement. Just like Vinterberg, he would
eventually deviate from the Vows of Chastity’s
constraints, in search of new challenges as cinema
entered the 21st Century.
Fig: The Celebration (1998) by director Thomas
Vinterberg
 Fig: The Idiots (1998) by director Lars von
Trier
 Basic Components of Film
Language
a)Space
Space, or the illusion of space, is incredibly important
in filmmaking. With it, you control not only what the
audience sees, but how you want them to see it.
Positive and Negative Space
The concepts of positive and negative space are really
easy to grasp and yet extremely powerful. Negative
space, also called white space, is the space around your
subject while positive space is the space your object
inhabits on screen. The larger your subject is in frame,
the less negative space there is. There are several
illusions based on positive and negative space, one of
the better known being Rubens Vase where the
negative and positive space are switched depending on
whether you see two faces or a vase. Many of M.C.
Escher’s work is based on manipulating negative and
positive space.
 Fig: Rubens Vase
There are four types of space:
i) Deep space
Depth of field is used extensively in film for close
ups and medium shots. By reducing the depth of
field (using a shallow depth of field) the
background blurs. The opposite of a shallow
depth of field is known as deep space. A film
utilizes deep space, when significant elements of
an image are positioned both near to and
distant from the camera. A deep space film shot
utilizes deep space when the subjects of an
image are positioned both close to and far away
from the camera. In short, Deep space creates a
deep depth of field in the subject’s Height,
breadth and width which goes through many
vanishing points.
 ii) Flat space
Flat space emphasizes on the two dimensional
quality of the screen surface.

In the figure,
The walls are frontal, and there are no longitudinal
planes or converging lines. Actors are staged on the
same horizontal plane, they are the same.
iii) Limited space
The depth cues in the shot include size
change, up/down position and tonal separation.
There are no longitudinal planes, only frontal
surfaces.

Fig:-Limited space

I v) Ambiguous space
 The lights are off in the hall, some stray light
illuminates the stairs, and the two actors are
somewhere in the dark. The picture is ambiguous
because it’s impossible to tell the actual size and
spatial relationship in the shot.
b) Time:

Fig: Time represented by a time clock.

Time is the indefinite continued progress of existence
and events in the past, present, and future regarded as
a whole.
A large part of what is special about film, as a medium,
is the way in which it represents time. Time in film
holds temporal properties and relations among events.
Among other relations, Films also represent intrinsic
temporal features of events: - They represent the
duration of events and sometimes the duration of
events seem to have move along with the characters in
the story. Although novels, poetry, plays, music, dance
and sometimes even still photography, sculptures and
paintings also represent time, none of these media
represent time in quite the way films do.
c) Picture:
Picture is an image or likeness of an object, person,
or scene produced on a flat surface, esp. by painting,
drawing, or photography.
Motion picture, also called film or movie, series of still
photographs on film, projected in rapid succession
onto a screen by means of light. Because of the optical
phenomenon known as persistence of vision, this gives
the illusion of actual, smooth, and continuous
movement. The motion picture is a remarkably
effective medium in conveying drama and especially in
the evocation of emotion. The art of motion pictures is
exceedingly complex, requiring contributions from
nearly all the other arts as well as countless technical
skills (for example, in sound recording, photography,
and optics).
d) Sound:
Sound is the vibrations that travel through the air or
another medium and can be heard when they reach a
person's or animal's ear.

Fig:-Sound
Films are produced using three types of sounds: human
voices, music and sound effects. These three types of
sounds are crucial for a film to feel realistic for the
audience. Sounds and dialogue must perfectly sync
with the actions in a film without delay and must
sound the way they look. If a sound doesn’t quite
match the action on screen, the action itself isn’t
nearly as believable. One way to achieve believable,
high-quality sounds is to use original sound clips rather
than relying solely on sound libraries for sound effects.
Another way to make a film more believable using
sound is it incorporate what are known as
asynchronous sound effects – often in the form of
background sounds. These sounds do not directly
correlate to the action occurring in a scene, but they
can bring a film to life. Including sounds typical of a city
or rural area can help to make the film’s setting more
realistic.

Pre-Conditions of Cinema
The pre-conditions of cinema refers to the essential
basic structures present in Cinema. The idea of the
image and Scientific studies of Images in terms of
humans have been present since the Greek Era some
of them being:-
“Aristotle (384–322 BCE)”, who noted that the image
of the sun remained in his vision after he stopped
looking at it”, Similarly, Around 165 CE Ptolemy
described in his book Optics a rotating potter's wheel
with different colors on it. He noted how the different
colors of sectors mixed together into one color and
how dots appeared as circles when the wheel was
spinning very fast. When lines are drawn across the
axis of the disc they make the whole surface appear to
be of a uniform color.
Fig:-A model of Ptolemy’s book Optics

Later In the 11th century “Ibn al-Haytham (Arab

Mathematician, Astronomer)”, Also sometimes
referred to as "the father of modern optics" made
significant contributions to the principles of optics and
visual perception in particular, He was familiar with
Ptolemy's writings, described how colored lines on a
spinning top could not be discerned as different colors
but appeared as one new color composed of all of the
colors of the lines. He deducted that sight needs some
time to discern a color. Al-Haytam also noted that the
top appeared motionless when spun extremely quickly
"for none of its points remains fixed in the same spot
for any perceptible time".
Fig-Pinhole Camera demonstration by Ibn al Haytham.
The use of a pinhole in a window blind to form an
inverted image of an outside scene on an opposite wall
of a dark room has been known since at least the time
of the Arab scholar Ibn al Haytham.

Similarly, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) An Italian

Polymath of the renaissance period. Wrote in a
notebook: "Everybody that moves rapidly seems to
color its path with the impression of its hue. The truth
of this proposition is seen from experience; thus when
the lightning moves among dark clouds the speed of its
sinuous flight makes its whole course resemble a
luminous snake. So in like manner if you wave a lighted
brand its whole course will seem a ring of flame. This is
because the organ of perception acts more rapidly
than the judgment."
Fig:-The last supper by Leonardo Da Vinci (15th Century)

Lastly, Isaac Newton (1642–1726/27) English

Mathematician, Astronomer etc. purportedly
demonstrated how white light is a combination of
different colors with a rotating disc with color
segments. When spinning fast the colors seem to blend
and appear as white (or rather an off-white light hue).
In his 1704 book “Opticks” he described a machine
with prisms, a lens and a large moving comb with teeth
causing alternating colors to be projected successively.
If this was done quickly enough, the alternating colors
could no longer be perceived separately but were seen
as white.
Fig: - Sir Isaac Newton’s Spectrum of light (Art
representation)

As cinema began to take form, a handful of the pre-

conditions of cinema was recognized differently in
terms of human and technological perceptions. Below
are short descriptions of Human and the Technological
inventions that set the Pre-conditions for Cinema:

i) Persistence of Vision
ii) Phi-Phenomena
iii) Camera Obscura
iv) Magic lantern
v) Photographic inventions
 vi) Muybridge's experiments
vii) Celluloid
viii) Edison and Kinteograph
ix) Lumiere and Cinematographe

i) Persistence of Vision
Persistence of vision refers to the optical illusion that
occurs when visual perception of an object does not
cease for some time after the rays of light proceeding
from it have ceased to enter the eye. This illusion has
also been described as retinal persistence, persistence
of impressions". According to this definition, the
illusion would be the same as, or very similar to
positive afterimages. Some natural phenomena and the
principles of some optical toys have been attributed to
the persistence of vision effect. Some of them are
described in short below:-

Zoetrope
A zoetrope is one of several pre-film animation devices
that produce the illusion of motion by displaying a
sequence of drawings or photographs showing
progressive phases of that motion.
 Fig:-

Color-top / Newton disc

Main article: Newton disc
Colors on spinning tops or
rotating wheels mix together if the motion is too fast
to register the details. A colored dot then appears as a
circle and one line can make the whole surface appear
in one uniform hue. The Newton disc optically mixes
wedges of Isaac Newton's primary colors into one (off-)
white surface when it spins fast.

Thaumatrope
In April 1825 the first Thaumatrope was published by
W. Phillips (in anonymous association with John Ayrton
Paris). The fact that the image of one side of the disc
seems to blend with the image of the other side when
it is looked at while it is twirled very fast, is often used
as an illustration of persistence of vision.

Kaleidoscopic color-top
In April 1858 John Gorham patented his kaleidoscopic
color-top. This is a top on which two small discs are
placed, usually one with colors and a black one with
cut-out patterns. When the discs spin and the top disc
is retarded into regular jerky motions the toy exhibits
"beautiful forms which are similar to those of the
kaleidoscope" with multiplied colors. Gorham
described how the colors appear mixed on the spinning
top "from the duration of successive impressions on
the retina". Gorham founded the principle on "the
well-known experiment of whirling a stick, ignited at
one end" (a.k.a. the sparkler's trail effect).
Fig: Kaleidoscopic color top
By John Gorham

Rubber pencil trick

A pencil or another rigid straight line can appear as
bending and becoming rubbery when it is wiggled fast
enough between fingers, or otherwise undergoing rigid
motion. Persistence of vision has been discarded as
sole cause of the illusion. It is thought that the eye
movements of the observer fail to track the motions of
features of the object. This effect is known as an
entertaining "magic" trick for children.
 Fig: Rubber Pencil Trick

Sparkler's trail effect

The fact that a glowing coal appears as a line of light
when it is moved around quickly has often been used
to illustrate the idea of persistence of vision. It is
known as the "sparkler's trail effect", named after the
trail that appears when a sparkler is moved around
quickly. The effect has been applied in the arts by
writing or drawing with a light source recorded by a
camera with a long exposure time. Fig: Sparkler’s
trail effect
ii) Phi-Phenomena
The term phi phenomenon is used in a narrow
sense for an apparent motion that is observed if
two nearby optical stimuli are presented in
alternation with a relatively high frequency. In
contrast to beta movement, seen at lower
frequencies, the stimuli themselves do not
appear to move. Instead, a diffuse, amorphous
shadowlike something seems to jump in front of
the stimuli and occlude them temporarily. This
shadow seems to have nearly the color of the
background. Max Wertheimer first described
this form of apparent movement in his
habilitation thesis, published in 1912, marking
the birth of Gestalt psychology
Fig: Magni -phi, animated illusion
iii) Camera obscura
Camera obscura is referred to as pinhole image,
It is the natural optical phenomenon that occurs
when an image of a scene at the other side of a
screen (or, for instance, a wall) is projected
through a small hole in that screen as a reversed
and inverted image (left to right and upside
down) on a surface opposite to the opening. The
surroundings of the projected image have to be
relatively dark for the image to be clear, so
many historical camera obscura experiments
were performed in dark rooms.

Fig: - Camera Obscura

iv) Magic lantern
The magic lantern, also known by its Latin name
lanterna magica, is an early type of image
projector that used pictures—paintings, prints,
or photographs—on transparent plates (usually
made of glass), one or more lenses, and a light
source. It was mostly developed in the 17th
century and commonly used for entertainment
purposes. It was increasingly used for education
during the 19th century. Fig: - Magic Lantern

v) Invention of photography
 Photochemistry: 18th and 19th centuries.
While the camera obscura allowed for the viewing of
images in real time, several centuries passed before
inventors stumbled upon a method for permanently
preserving them using chemicals. A major
breakthrough came in 1725, when the German
professor Johann Heinrich Schulze found that silver
salts darkened when exposed to light. Fascinated,
Schulze cut the letters out of a piece of paper and
placed it on top of a silver mixture. “Before long,” he
recounted, “I found that the sun’s rays…wrote the
words and sentences so accurately or distinctly on the
chalk sediment, that many people…were led to
attribute the result to all kinds of artifices.” Others
later built on Schulze’s research, and in 1827, a French
inventor named Joseph Nicéphore Niépce used a
camera obscura and a pewter plate coated with a light-
sensitive material called Bitumen of Judea to capture
and “fix” an image. His eight-hour-long exposure of the
courtyard of his home is now considered the world’s
first photograph.

Daguerreotype: 1837
Photography’s next giant leap came courtesy of Louis
Daguerre, a French artist and inventor who partnered
with Niépce in the late 1820s. In 1837, Daguerre
discovered that exposing iodized silver plates to light
left behind a faint image that could be developed using
mercury fumes. The new technique not only produced
a sharper and more refined picture, but it also cut the
exposure time down from several hours to around 10
or 20 minutes. Daguerre christened his new process
the “Daguerreotype,” and in 1839, he agreed to make
it public in exchange for a pension from the French
government. After some tweaking to shorten the
exposure process to less than a minute, his invention
swept across the world and gave rise to a booming
portrait industry, particularly in the United States.

Calotype: 1841
Around the same time that “Daguerreotypomania” was
taking hold, William Henry Fox Talbot (1800 – 1877)
was an English scientist, inventor and photography
pioneer who invented the salted paper and calotype
processes, precursors to photographic processes of the
later 19th and 20th centuries the British inventor William
Henry Fox Talbot unveiled his own photographic
process called the “Calotype.”. This method traded the
Daguerreotype’s metal plates for sheets of high-quality
photosensitive paper. When exposed to light, the
paper produced a latent image that could be
developed and preserved by rinsing it with
hyposulphite. The results were slightly fuzzier than
Daguerreotypes, but they offered one key advantage:
ease of reproduction. Unlike Daguerreotypes, which
only made one-off images, the Calotype allowed
photographers to produce endless copies of a picture
from a single negative. This process would later
become one of the basic principles of photography.

The Wet-Collodion Process: 1851

Daguerreotypes and Calotypes were both rendered
obsolete in 1851, after a sculptor named Frederick
Scott Archer pioneered a new photographic method
that combined crisp image quality with negatives that
could be easily copied. Archer’s secret was a chemical
called collodion, a medical dressing that also proved
highly effective as a means for coating light-sensitive
solutions onto glass plates. While these “wet plates”
reduced exposure times to only a few seconds, using
them was often quite the chore. The plates had to be
exposed and processed before the collodion mixture
dried and hardened, so photographers were forced to
travel with portable darkroom tents or wagons if they
wanted to take pictures in the field. Despite this
drawback, the wet-collodion process’s unparalleled
quality and cheap cost made it an instant success. One
of its most famous practitioners was Mathew Brady,
who used wet plates to produce thousands of stunning
battlefield photos during the Civil War.

Dry Plates: 1871-1878

For most of the 1800s, the panoply of noxious
solutions and mixtures involved in using a camera
made photography difficult for anyone without a
working knowledge of chemistry. That finally changed
in the 1870s, when Robert L. Maddox and others
perfected a new type of photographic plate that
preserved silver salts in gelatin. Since they retained
their light-sensitivity for long periods of time, these
“dry” plates could be prepackaged and mass-produced,
freeing photographers from the annoying task of
prepping and developing their own wet plates on the
fly. Dry plates also offered much quicker exposures,
allowing cameras to more clearly capture moving
objects. In the 1880s, photographer Edward Muybridge
used dry plate cameras to conduct a series of famous
studies of humans and animals in motion. His
experiments have since been cited as a crucial step in
the development of cinema.

Flexible Roll Film: 1884-1889

Photography didn’t truly become accessible to
amateurs until the mid-1880s, when inventor George
Eastman began producing film on rolls. Film was more
lightweight and resilient than clunky glass plates, and
the use of a roll allowed photographers to take
multiple pictures in quick succession. In 1888, Eastman
used flexible film as the primary selling point of his first
Kodak camera, a small, 100-exposure model that
customers could use and then send back to the
manufacturer to have their photos developed.
Eastman’s camera was remarkably easy to use—he
marketed it to Victorian shutterbugs under the slogan
“You press the button, we do the rest”—but its coated
paper film produced fairly low quality photos. Film
would improve by leaps and bounds with the
introduction of celluloid a year later, and remained the
standard means of photography for nearly a century
until the advent of digital cameras.
Auto chrome: 1907
The yearning for color photography was practically as
old as the medium itself, but a viable method didn’t
arrive until 1907. That was the year the French
brothers Louis and Auguste Lumière—perhaps better
known as early pioneers of cinema—began marketing
an additive color process they dubbed “Auto chrome.”
The Lumieres found the key to their invention in a
most unlikely place: the potato. By adding tiny grains of
dyed potato starch to a panchromatic emulsion, they
were able to produce vivid, painterly images that put
all past attempts at color to shame. Auto chrome
would reign as the world’s most popular color film
technique until 1935, when a more sophisticated color
process arrived in the form of the Eastman Kodak
Company’s legendary Kodachrome film.

vi) Muybridge's experiments

Muybridge’s experiments in photographing
motion began in 1872, when the railroad
magnate Leland Stanford hired him to prove
that during a particular moment in a trotting
horse’s gait, all four legs are off the ground
simultaneously. Fig: - Moving horse by Edward
M.
 vii) Celluloid
Celluloids are a class of compounds created from
nitrocellulose and camphor, with added dyes and other
agents. Generally considered the first thermoplastic, it
was first created as Parkesine in 1856[1] and as
Xylonite in 1869, before being registered as Celluloid in
1870. Celluloid is easily molded and shaped, and it was
first widely used as an ivory replacement. The main use
was in movie and photography film industries, which
used only celluloid film stock prior to the adoption of
acetate safety film in the 1950s. Celluloid is highly
flammable, difficult and expensive to produce and no
longer widely used; it’s most common uses today are in
table tennis balls, musical instruments, and guitar
picks.
Fig: Old Celluloid Film stocks
viii) Edison and Kinetograph
Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor
and businessman who has been described as
America's greatest inventor. He developed many
devices in fields such as electric power
generation, mass communication, sound
recording, and motion pictures.
Edison commissioned Dickson, a young
laboratory assistant, to invent a motion-picture
camera in 1888. Building upon the work of
Muybridge and Marey, Dickson combined the
two final essentials of motion-picture recording
and viewing technology. These were a device,
adapted from the escapement mechanism of a
clock, to ensure the intermittent but regular
motion of the film strip through the camera and
a regularly perforated celluloid film strip to
ensure precise synchronization between the film
strip and the shutter. Dickson’s camera, the
Kinetograph, an innovative motion picture
camera with rapid intermittent, or stop-and-go,
film movement, to photograph movies for in-
house experiments initially imprinted up to 50
feet (15 meters) of celluloid film at the rate of
about 40 frames per second.

Fig: Kintograph

Inventors throughout the world had been trying

for years to devise working motion-picture
machines. In fact, several European inventors,
including the Englishman William Friese-Greene,
applied for patents on various cameras,
projectors, and camera-projector combinations
contemporaneously or even before Edison and
 his associates did. Eventually, “Kinetoscope”,
forerunner of the motion-picture film projector,
invented by Thomas A. Edison and William
Dickson of the United States in 1891. In it, a strip
of film was passed rapidly between a lens and an
electric light bulb while the viewer peered
through a peephole.

Fig:-Kinetoscope

ix) Lumiere Brothers and Cinematograph

The Lumière brothers Auguste Marie Louis
Nicolas (1862 –1954) and Louis Jean (1864 –
1948), were among the first filmmakers in
 history. They patented an improved
cinematograph, which in contrast to Thomas
Edison's "peepshow" kinetoscope allowed
simultaneous viewing by multiple parties.

Fig:-Cinematographe

The Lumières held their first private screening of

projected motion pictures in 1895. This first screening
on 22 March 1895 took place in Paris, at the "Society
for the Development of the National Industry", in front
of an audience of 200 people marking the beginning of
motion Cinema.
 The language of film: Sign and
syntax
Film as a language is Regarded as a “visual esperanto”
transcending the barriers of national language, cinema
is irrefutably a powerful means of communicating
meaning, a language in itself, comparable to
mathematics and music in its universality. Nonetheless,
this language has its own peculiarities and it functions
in a unique way, displaying its own “grammar”. Indeed,
film may be said to have a grammar in the sense that
there are certain conventions of shooting and editing
that are often followed to determine particular
emotional responses or to create the illusion of
continuous action in time and space. Human beings
express themselves and communicate with each other
in a variety of modes (speech, writing, pictures,
actions, etc.). Each of these modes, according to
Hodgkinson, may be called “a language”. It has been
often claimed that film is one of the three universal
languages, together with mathematics and music.
Moreover, all technological media are commonly
referred to as “new languages”, all this in the context
of our multi-media culture that tends to replace the
print-oriented culture whose domination was
indisputable for five hundred years. In other words,
“cinema has hardly been immune to the magnetic
attraction of the linguistic model”. Actually, a close
look at some of the earliest theories of the cinema
reveals that the notion of film language is already
present from the very beginning. The metaphor can be
found in the 1920s writings of Riccioto Canudo in Italy
and Louis Delluc in France, who paradoxically thought
that it was the non-verbal nature of cinema which gave
its language-like character, especially because of its
status as a “visual esperanto” transcending the barriers
of national language. Similarly, Vachel Lindsay spoke of
film as “hieroglyphic language”. One must take into
account, though, that this view of film as language was
explainable at the beginning because of the very
nature of film: there was no sound, but cinema could
still communicate effectively.
The Russian Formalists were the first to systematically
develop the analogy between language and film. It is in
“Poetika Kino”, a collection of five essays published in
1927, that the hypothesis of “cinelanguage” is most
explicitly formulated. In his “Fundamentals of the
Cinema”, Tynianov, for instance, spoke of the cinema’s
ability to present the visible world by means of
semantic signs, which in turn, are the result of
cinematic techniques such as lighting and montage.
Likewise, Eikhenbaum saw film in relation to “image
translations of linguistic tropes”, and stated that
cinema is a “particular system of figurative language”,
the stylistics of which would treat filmic “syntax”, the
linkage of shots into “phrases” and “sentences”.
Furthermore, according to Eikhenbaum, in order to
“read” a film, the viewer needs to resort to the internal
language that characterizes all thought: “Cinematic
perception is a process that goes from the object, from
visible movement to its interpretation, to the
construction of internal language”.
It was only with the advent of structuralism and
semiotics in the 1960s, however, that the film-
language analogy was explored in depth by theorists
like Roland Barthes, Umberto Eco, and Christian Metz.
Barthes considered images to be characterized by
polysemy, sharing, therefore, with other signs -
including linguistic signs: - the property of being open
to multiple significations. The accompanying images or
written material in a film often function, according to
Barthes, as anchorage, i.e., as a device which forces the
observer’s perception into a preferred “reading” of the
image, guiding the viewer among the different possible
significations of a visual representation. Christian Metz
took the linguistic metaphor both seriously and
skeptically, “in order to discern its quantum of
truthfulness”. He looked for the equivalent, in film
theory, of the conceptual role played by langue in the
Saussurean model. The question which oriented his
early work was whether the cinema was langue
(language system) or language, reaching the conclusion
that the former option was not attainable for a number
of reasons. Firstly, he argues, langue is a system of
signs intended for two-way communication, while
cinema allows only for delayed communication.
Secondly, Metz argues, cinema lacks the equivalent of
the arbitrary linguistic sign; in film, the relation
between signifier and signified is not arbitrary, but
motivated. Thirdly, Metz claims that cinema does not
constitute a language widely available as a code: to
speak a language, in other words, “is simply to use it,
while to ‘speak’ cinematic language is always to a
certain extent to invent it”. Cinema is not langue, but it
is language.
By placing the notion of language in a Hjelmslevian
context, Metz argues that any unity defined in terms of
its “matter of expression” (Hjelmslev) or in terms of its
“typical sign” (Barthes) can be called a language.
Whereas literature’s matter of expression is writing,
cinematic language is “the set of messages whose
matter of expression consists of five tracks or channels:
moving photographic image, recorded phonetic sound,
recorded noises, recorded musical sound, and writing”.
Below are Signs and Syntax of Film Language:

i) Signs
a)The Physiology of Film perception:-
Perception is the processes by which stimuli
are selected, Perception is “the process of
assembling sensations into a usable mental
representation of the world”, it is the
interpretation of sensory information
organized and interpreted.
Film (Cinema) perception refers to the
sensory and cognitive processes employed
when viewing scenes, events, and narratives
presented in edited moving-images.
Dynamic visual media such as film and
television have increasingly become an
integral part of our everyday lives.
Understanding how our perceptual system
deals with the differences between these
mediated visual experiences and the real-
world helps understand how perception
works in both situations. There are many
 differences between film and reality but this
entry will focus on three:
1. Film creates the illusion of motion
through the rapid presentation of still
images.
2. Film creates the illusion of continuity
across a cut.
3. Film represents scenes and events across
edited sequences of shots filmed at
different places and times.
b) Denotation and connotation meaning
Connotation
Introduction
Connotation speaks about what the notion of a term, a
photo representation or a thing as entreats within the
spectators. It stresses on what a word indicates more
than what it precisely defines. In connotation theory, a
group of words or vocal expressions convey a
corresponding hinted and straightforward definition. A
human feeling that relates to what is being imparted is
called a connotation. Substantially speaking,
connotation is actually a further helping in the
sequence of what a term or a thing sustains. In the
process of photographs and images, Connotation
signifies how a subject is being captured by a camera
and the photographer.

Origin
Connotation is often believed as a representation of an
ethical and passionate attachment to a thing or words.
In the estimation to its gratifying and provocative
sentimental association, connotation can be noted as
similarly affirmative and dismissive. The academic
research of connotation is commonly acknowledged as
an absolute philosophical hypothesis of signs and
symbols covered in semantic and matter of fact
subjects. When it comes to the dissertations of films,
connotation is considered as a foremost avenue of
academic disquisition.
Exposure to Cinema & Movement
The fact that connotation is not being greatly
noticeable in film studies and is barely felt even after
the exact customary definitions. Ever since the film
industry became a lot restricted on denotation, several
singular films began to concentrate on connotations.
The purpose of the connotation in films mainly targets
on the observation of the intrinsic essence of a certain
film.
Denotation
Denotation represents the explicit or referential
meaning of a sign. Denotation refers to the literal
meaning of a word, the ‘dictionary definition.’
For example, the name ‘Hollywood’ connotes such
things as glitz, glamour, tinsel, celebrity, and dreams of
stardom. In the same time, the name ‘Hollywood’
denotes an area of Los Angeles, worldwide known as
the center of the American movie industry.
ii) Syntax
a) Codes:-
Codes are systems of signs, which create meaning.
Codes can be divided into two categories – technical
and symbolic. Technical codes are all the ways in which
equipment is used to tell the story in a media text, for
example the camera work in a film. Symbolic codes
show what is beneath the surface of what we see. For
example, a character's actions show you how the
character is feeling. Some codes fit both categories –
music for example, is both technical and symbolic.
b) Mise en scene:-
Mise-en-scene (Meaning placing on stage in French) is
an expression used to describe the design aspect of a
theatre or film production, which essentially means
"visual theme" or "telling a story"—both in visually
artful ways through storyboarding, cinematography
and stage design, and in poetically artful ways through
direction. It is also commonly used to refer to single
scenes within the film to represent the film. When
applied to the cinema, mise-en-scene refers to
everything that appears before the camera and its
arrangement—composition, sets, props, actors,
costumes, and lighting.[2] The "mise-en-scene", along
with the cinematography and editing of a film,
influence the verisimilitude or believability of a film in
the eyes of its viewers.[3] The various elements of
design help express a film's vision by generating a
sense of time and space, as well as setting a mood, and
sometimes suggesting a character's state of mind.
Mise-en-scene" also includes the composition, which
consists of the positioning and movement of actors, as
well as objects, in the shot. These are all the areas
overseen by the director. One of the most important
people that collaborates with the director is the
production designer. These two work closely to perfect
all of the aspects of the "mise-en-scène" a considerable
amount of time before the actual photography even
begins. Fig: - Mise-en-scene from Cabinet of Dr.caligari
c) The framed image
In visual arts and particularly cinematography,
framing is the presentation of visual elements in
an image, especially the placement of the
subject in relation to other objects. Framing can
make an image more aesthetically pleasing and
keep the viewer's focus on the framed object(s).
It can also be used as a Repoussoir (an object
along the right or left foreground that directs the
viewer's eye into the composition by bracketing
(framing) the edge), to direct attention back into
the scene. It can add depth to an image, and can
add interest to the picture when the frame is
thematically related to the object being framed.
Fig: - Frame of trees and a church.
 d) The diachronic shot
A shot that changes in its state across time.
Filmmakers use a wealth of terminology in regard to
the shot. The factors that now come into play include
distance, focus, angle movement, and P.O.V.Some of
these elements also operates within the static frame,
but all are more appropriately discussed as dynamic
qualities. Shot distance is the simplest variable. So-
called “normal” shots include the full shot, three-
quarter shot, medium shot, and head and shoulder
shot- all defined in terms of the amount of subject
viewed. Close-ups, long shots and extreme long shot
complete the range of distances. Questions like: - How
to use the focus? The movement of the camera, and/or
the movement of the subject during the shot? Change
in the angle of the camera: panning, tilting or rolling?
Zooming in or out? Also fall under the diachronic
terminology.

e) Sound
Films are produced using three types of sounds:
human voices, music and sound effects. These
three types of sounds are crucial for a film to feel
realistic for the audience. Sounds and dialogue
must perfectly sync with the actions in a film
without delay and must sound the way they
look. If a sound doesn’t quite match the action
on screen, the action itself isn’t nearly as
believable. One way to achieve believable, high-
quality sounds is to use original sound clips
rather than relying solely on sound libraries for
sound effects. Another way to make a film more
believable using sound is it incorporate what are
known as asynchronous sound effects – often in
the form of background sounds. These sounds do
not directly correlate to the action occurring in a
scene, but they can bring a film to life. Including
sounds typical of a city or rural area can help to
make the film’s setting more realistic.
f) Montage(Time)
Literally, it means ‘putting together’. Montage
involves the question of ‘how to present’ what
has been shot. Montage and Editing mean the
same, except the latter apparently means
‘cutting out’ rather than ‘putting together’.
American cinema uses the word ‘editing’ –
traditionally being an organized industry that
relies on set-patterns of ‘cutting’ to tell a story.
European cinema uses ‘montage’ – essentially
‘putting together’ to create something from the
raw footage. This is a philosophical distinction.
As far as the craft is concerned, montage or
editing do the same – modify time for presenting
the story. The word montage came to identify
specifically the rapid, shock cutting that
Eisenstein employed in his films. Its use survives
to this day in the specially created "montage
sequences" inserted into Hollywood films to
suggest, in a blur of double exposures, the rise to
fame of an opera singer or, in brief model shots,
the destruction of an airplane, a city or a planet.
Fig: - Montage From Citizen Kane (1941), by
Orson Welles
 Some major film theories

Film theory is a set of scholarly approaches within the

academic discipline of film or cinema studies that
historically began by questioning the formal essential
attributes of ever-evolving cinematic media and that
now provides conceptual frameworks for
understanding film's relationship to reality, the other
arts, individual viewers, and society at large. Film
theory is not to be confused with general film criticism,
or film history, though these three disciplines
interrelate. Early film theory arose in the silent era and
was mostly concerned with defining the crucial
elements of the medium. It largely evolved from the
works of directors like Germaine Dulac, Louis Delluc,
Jean Epstein, Sergei Eisenstein, Lev Kuleshov, and Dziga
Vertov and film theorists like Rudolf Arnheim, Béla
Balázs and Siegfried Kracauer. These thinkers
emphasized how film differed from reality and how it
might be considered a valid art form. In the years after
World War II, the French film critic and theorist André
Bazin reacted against this approach to the cinema,
arguing that film's essence lay in its ability to
mechanically reproduce reality, not in its difference
from reality.
Fig: Abstract style by Alfred Hitchcook
Below are some of the Major Film theories:
a)Dialectic Materialism Theory:
The word “Dialectical” refers to the process where
ideas are formed and clarified in the course of
intellectual debate. Dialectical Materialism Theory
Emphasizes on a proposition (thesis) which is
advanced and them challenged by a counter
proposition (anti-thesis).Both are appropriate to
be partly true and partly untrue. The normal
outcome of the ensuring discussion is a revised
proposition (synthesis) that combines the valid
elements of each. Dialectical Materialism Theory is
a philosophical approach to reality derived from
the teachings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
For Marx and Engels, materialism meant that the
material world, perceptible to the senses, has
objective reality independent of mind or spirit.
They did not deny the reality of mental or spiritual
processes but affirmed that ideas could arise,
therefore, only as products and reflections of
material conditions. Marx and Engels understood
materialism as the opposite of idealism, by which
they meant any theory that treats matter as
dependent on mind or spirit, or mind or spirit as
capable of existing independently of matter. For
them, the materialist and idealist views were
 irreconcilably opposed throughout the historical
development of philosophy. The concept of
dialectical materialism—which is a theoretical
basis for a method of reasoning—should not be
confused with “historical materialism,” which is
the Marxist interpretation of history in terms of
the class struggle.

b)Cine semiotics and structuralism

Semiotics
Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols and
their meanings and interpretations. If you want to
get a little more complicated, semiotic theory
espouses the idea that there’s no actual
relationship between the signifier and the
signified. This means that the word “dog,” the
signifier, doesn’t actually have anything to do with
your four-legged furry friend, the signified, it’s just
an interpretation we’ve come up with. When you
read that word in quotations above, your mind
interpreted the image of a dog because that is
what you’ve been trained to do by language.

Semiotic theory breaks down signifiers or signs

into three sub-classifications:
 The icon
Something that represents an object by
resembling it, like the nondescript male and
female figures on restroom signs.
The index
Something that has a logical and causal
relationship with what it represents, how smoke
indicates fire because it is a product of fire.
The symbol
Which refers to both the icon and the index by not
resembling or relating to its object in any logical
way. For ex: a heart sign – which doesn’t resemble
an actual heart but is used to signify love.
Structuralism
Structuralism is an intellectual movement which began
in France in the 50’s and is first seen in the work and
literary critics of Roland Barthes (1915-1980A.D) and
the anthropologist Claude levi-Strauss (1908-2009A.D).
Structuralism in psychology is a school of thought that
sought to identify the components of the mind.
Structuralists believed that the way to learn about the
brain and its function was to break the mind down into
its most basic elements. They believed, the whole is
equal to the sum of the points.
Structuralists believed that things cannot be
understood in isolation, they have to be seen in the
context of the larger structures that are part of
elements of culture which must be understood in
terms of their relationship to a larger system or
structure. Structuralism is found in all areas of thought
and study. The structuralist’s mode of reasoning has
been applied in a diverse range of fields, including
anthropology, sociology, psychology, literary criticism
and architecture. It is interdisciplinary.
Hu-bo’s (An Elephant sitting still) is a post structuralist
film.
Structuralist Film Theory
Structuralist film theory accentuates how films convey
meaning through the use of codes and conventions.
Similar to the way language is used to convey meaning.
Structuralists believe in paradigms and that everything
has a set of rules to be followed, this is true in
Structuralist theory of films. Different types of
paradigms includes: - Props, Characters, settings.
In some films, structuralists work out the deep
structures that give meaning to the text, neither the
filmmaker nor the audience would necessarily be
aware of these structures. They believe it is easier for
experienced readers than non-experienced readers to
understand /interpret a text as there must be a
structure in every text. (For eg: Someone who has seen
a lot of horror films can understand them best.
c) Heroism, Idealism, Realism, Poetic realism,
absurdism, Nihilism, Existentialism, Fatalism,
Magic realism, Dark comedy and Stoicism

Heroism
The word heroism comes from the Greek world
Heros, which refers to a demi-god. As someone
who shows great courage and valor is referred to a
hero, their actions are considered to be acts of
heroism. Heroism is the idea where someone puts
others problem first, is selfless, brave, has
humanity and patience. The oldest and first ever
recorded literature which represents heroism is
“Beowulf”. Fig: Beowulf by Unknown
Idealism
Idealism is a term with several meanings. It comes
directly from the Greek word “Idealismos” which
derives from the word “idea”. Plato is considered the
father of the term “idealism”. Platonic idealism refers
to the theory of forms of idea which holds that only
ideas encapsulate the true and essential nature of
things, in a way that the physical form cannot. For
example: - The tree like nature of a tree, for instance,
even though it’s physical form maybe most un-tree
like. The tree like nature of a tree is therefore
independent of its physical form.
Principals of Idealism
 Presence of universal mind.
 Regards man as a spiritual being.
 The world of ideas and values are superior to the
materialistic world.
 The real knowledge is perceived in the mind.

Realism
Realism was an artistic movement that emerged in
France in the 1840s. Realism revolted against the
exotic subject matter. Instead, it portrayed real
and typical contemporary people and situations
with truth and accuracy often not avoiding
unpleasant or sordid aspects of life. Realism as an
art movement was led by Gustave Courbet in
France. The realists depicted everyday subjects
and situations in contemporary settings and
attempted to present individuals of all social
classes in a similar manner. Gloomy Earth toned
pallets were used to ignore beauty and idealization
that was typically found in art. Realism soon
spread across Europe and was influential for the
rest of the century and beyond. It has been used
for a number of later movements and trends in
art, some involving careful illusionistic
representations, such as Photo realism. Some
realist writers were Gustave Flaubert, Emile Zola,
etc. other artists of the time were Honore
Daumier, Jean Francois millet, etc.

Poetic realism
Poetic realism is a film Movement in France which
started in the 30s, Poetic realism films are
“recreated realism”, stylized and studio bound.
The films in this period were of characters living on
the edge, either as unemployed members of the
working class or as criminals. After a life of
disappointment or death. Some of the fore
runners of this movement were Jean Gremlin,
Jaques Feyder.

Nihilism
Nihilism is the belief that nothing in the world has
a real existence. It is the rejection of all religious
and moral principals in the belief that life is
meaningless. The concept of Nihilism was
discussed by the Buddha (563B.CE-483B.C.E).Later,
the term nihilism was first used by Friedrich
Heinrich Jacobi (1743-1819). He used the term to
characterize rationalism. Nihilism is often
associated with the German Philosopher Friedrich
Nietzsche, who provided a detailed diagnosis of
nihilism as a widespread phenomenon in western
culture. It is famous work includes: Death of God,
Eternal return, will power, etc.

Existentialism

Existentialism is a philosophical theory or

approach which emphasizes the existence of the
individual person as a free and responsible agent
determining their own development through acts
of will. Soren Kierkegaard is generally considered
to have been the first existentialist philosopher.
Though he did not use the term directly.
Existentialism became popular in the years
following WWII, thanks to Jean Paul Sartre who
read Martin Heidegger’s “Being and time” which
inspired him to write (Being and nothing). Other
personality was Jean Beufret who later published
the letter on Humanism.

Fatalism
Fatalism is the belief that all events are pre-
determined and therefore inevitable. It is a
philosophical doctrine that leaves all events or
actions to destiny, we are powerless to do
anything against Fate. Every religion has fatalistic
approach. A “Fatalist” is someone who holds
specific beliefs about life, destiny and the future.
Fatalists share a sense of being powerless to
change the world. The classical argument for
fatalism occurs in Aristotle (384 B.C.E-322B.C.E). A
popular Fatalist story is “Oedipus Rex”, An
Athenian tragedy written by Sophocles which was
first performed around 429 B.C.E.

Magic realism
Magic refers to fiction and literature in particular
with magic or the supernatural presented in an
otherwise real world or mundane setting,
commonly seen in movies and dramatic
performances. It is sometimes called Fabulism.
The existence of fantasy elements in the real world
provides the basis for magic realism. Writers do
not invent new worlds but reveal the magical
element in the world they created, as was done by
Garcia Marquez, who wrote the seminal work of
the influencer of the movement. Similarly in
present films, most of the films directed by Terry
Gilliam are strongly influenced by magic realism.
The animated films of Hayao Miyazaki often
utilizes magic realism. Films of Emir Kusturica
contains elements of Magical realism, the most
famous of which is “Time of the Gypsies”.

Dark comedy
The term black humor was coined by the surrealist
theorist Andre Breton in 1935 A.D. While
interpreting the writing of Jonathan Swift in his
book “Anthology of Black Humor”. Dark comedy is
a comic style that makes light of subject matter
that is generally considered taboo, particularly
subjects that are normally considered serious or
painful to discuss. Some popular Dark comedy
films are Fargo (1996), The Truman show (1998),
True Romance (1993), etc.

Stoicism
Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy which
was founded by Zeno of citium, in Athens in the
early 13th B.C.E. According to its teachings, as
social beings in the path to Eudaimonia (Happiness
or blessedness) for humans is found in accepting
the moment as it presents itself, by not allowing
oneself to be controlled by the desire for pleasure
or fear of pain, by using one’s mind to understand
the world and to do one’s mind to understand the
world and to do one’s part in nature’s plan and by
working together and treating others fairly and
justly. The stoics thought that the best indication
of an individual’s philosophy was not what a
person said but how a person behaved.
Many stoics- such as Seneca and Epictetus
emphasized that because “virtue is sufficient for
happiness”. For example: - A sage would be
emotionally resilient to misfortune. In short,
Stoicism is defined as enduring of pleasure or pain
without showing emotions.
 d)Idealism in the theories of Andre Bazin
André Bazin (French, 18 April 1918 – 11 November
1958) was a renowned and influential French film critic
and film theorist.Bazin started to write about film in
1943 and was a co-founder of the renowned film
magazine Cahiers du cinema (notebooks on Cinema) in
1951, along with Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Joseph-
Marie Lo Duca.
He is notable for arguing that realism is the most
important function of cinema. His call for objective
reality, deep focus, and lack of montage are linked to
his belief that the interpretation of a film or scene
should be left to the spectator. This placed him in
opposition to film theory of the 1920s and 1930s,
which emphasized how the cinema could manipulate
reality. Bazin sees cinema as “an idealistic
phenomenon” and only consequently technical. Being
a humanist he believes that the idea precedes the
invention and hence is superior to the technical means
used to achieve it. He categorizes the early pioneers
(Muybridge, Niepce, Leroy, Demeny, Joy, Edison,
Lumiére) as “ingenious industrialists” at best. Later, in
his now famous essay “The Evolution of the Language
of Cinema” he would extrapolate this formula of “idea
necessitating technical means” into complexity of
subject matter necessitating a new form/style. To Bazin
the cinema is inherently realistic because of the
mechanical mediation of the camera. This is not the
same as saying that cinema is “objective” in any sense
other than relative, and that cinema is untouched by
ideological and cultural factors, as many of Bazin’s
critics have said. What Bazin does do with this fact is
place cinema above painting – the camera vs. the
brush- as a medium for duplicating reality. Further,
cinema’s ability to record the event in time, making “an
imprint of the duration of the object” elevates it above
photography. Although the potential for human
intervention is always present, even granting the
mechanical intervention, Bazin believes that the
filmmaker owes it to the complexity of reality to refrain
from false subjective manipulation and overwrought
formalist mediation.

The end of the silent period brought the two “image”

camps to their apex in the form of German
Expressionism and the Soviet Post-Revolution cinema.
The jump from the silent to sound cinema did not give
evidence to any immediate effects on shooting or
editing styles. By the late 30’s sound moved editing
toward realism, switching the operative cutting style
from symbolic/expressive to dramatic/analytic. Editing
style became more or less standardized. Cinema
reached a point of classical perfection where content
fused with form. By now, 1939, cinema had reached
the point where most technical innovations were
established (color, track, dolly, crane, zoom, sound,
panchromatic film stock) and the next evolutionary
advancement, if there was to be one, would not be
propelled by a technical matter but a thematic one: the
subject matter and the effect it imposed on
technical/formal aspects. The result of this was,
according to Bazin, the most important aesthetic
revolution in film history, the arrival of the mise-en-
scéne style. In short, here is Bazin’s evolution of film
language:
1915-1928
1) The Imagists: a group of poets in England and
America between 1909 and 1917 who believed that Art
should employ the language of common speech, create
new rhythms, have complete freedom in subject
matter, and present a clear, concentrated, and precise
image.
a) Plastics (lighting, decor, composition, acting)
b) Montagists (editing)
2) The Realists: (long take, on location shooting,
objective approach)
By 1928 the Imagists peak with
a) Expressionism
b) Soviet cinema.
Early sound films do not show immediate advancement
of either style. By the late 30’s sound technique leads
montage toward realism. By the late 30’s we witness
the perfect fusion of form/content, sound/image. Film
reaches its “equilibrium- profile” (Jezebel, Stagecoach,
Le Jour se léve).By 1939 all major technical
advancements are established; the next step in
evolution of style is spurred by subject matter.
1940
Realists:
a) Pure objective realism (Neo- Realism, Documentary)
b) Spatial Realism (Jean Renoir, Orson Welles, William
Wyler).