Discussing Film

Give a brief description of each of these terms in relation to the language of

filmmaking.

1. Shot 16. One shot

2. Cut 17. Two shot

3. Master shot 18. Insert shot

4. Long shot 19. Cutaway shot

5. Medium shot 20. Lap dissolve

6. Close up 21. Jump cut

7. Extreme close up 22. Crane/dolly shot

8. High angle 23. Tracking shot

9. Low angle 24. Panning

10. Dutch angle 25. Tilting

11. Establishing shot 26. Long take

12. Eye level shot 27. Mise-en-scène

13. Shot/reverse shot 28. Diegetic universe

14. 180 degree rule 29. Non-diegetic universe

15. Point of View shot

Hitchcock films (among others) featuring hotels

Secret Agent (1936)

The Lady Vanishes (1939)
Rebecca (1940)
Spellbound (1945)
To Catch a Thief (1955)
Vertigo (1958)
Psycho (1960)
Marnie (1964)
Torn Curtain (1966)

Consider this speech from Shadow of a Doubt:

And what do the wives do, these useless women? You see them in the hotels, the
best hotels, every day by the thousands, drinking the money, eating the money,
losing the money at bridge, playing all day and all night, smelling of money, proud of
their jewellery but nothing else. Horrible, fat, faded greedy women.

And this from Grand Hotel (1932)

Dr. Otternschlag (who seems to be drunk at 5 0’clock): “And what do you do in the
Grand Hotel? Eat. Sleep. Loaf around. Flirt a little. Dance a little. A hundred doors
leading to one hall. No one knows anything about the person next to them. And
when you leave, someone occupies your room, lies in your bed… That’s the end
(swipe fade)

Marc Augé – Non-Places: An Introduction to Supermodernity

Place is completed through the word, through the allusive exchange of a few
passwords between speakers who are conniving in private complicity.

If a place can be defined as relational, historical and concerned with identity, then a
space which cannot be defined as relational, or historical, or concerned with identity
will be a non-place.

A world thus surrendered to solitary individuality, to the fleeting, the temporary and
ephemeral.

Place and non-place are rather like opposed polarities: the first is never completely
erased, the second never totally completed; they are like palimpsests on which the
scrambled game of identity and relations is ceaselessly rewritten.

Clearly the word “non-place” designates two complementary but distinct realities:
spaces formed in relation to certain ends (transport, transit, commerce, leisure) and
the relations that individuals have with these spaces.

Alone, but one of many, the user of a non-place is in contractual relations with it (or
the powers that govern it). He is reminded when necessary that the contract exists.
One element in this is the way the non-place is to be used: the ticket he has bought,
the card he will have to show at the tollbooth, even the trolley he trundles round the
supermarket, are all more or less clear signs of it. The contract always relates to the
individual identity of the contracting party.
There is no room there for history unless it has been transformed into an element of
spectacle, usually in allusive texts. What reigns there is actuality, the urgency of the
present moment.

Since non-places are there to be moved through, they are measured in units of time.

A paradox of non-place: a foreigner lost in a country he does not know, can feel at
home there only in the anonymity of motorway service stations, big stores or hotel
chains.

The use of “basic English” by communications and marketing technologies is

revealing in this respect: it is less a question of the triumph of one language over
another than of the invasion of all languages by a universal vocabulary. What is
significant is the need for this generalised vocabulary, not the fact that it uses English
words.

But the space of supermodernity is inhabited by this contradiction: it deals only with
individuals (customers, passengers, users, listeners) but they are identified (name,
occupation, place of birth, address) only on entering and leaving.

The non-place is the opposite of Utopia: it exists, and it does not contain any organic
society. but the idealistion of our own societal expectations.

The community of human destinies is experienced in the anonymity of non-place,

and in solitude.

So there will soon be a need for something that may seem a contradiction in terms:
an ethnology of solitude.
 Girl Chewing Gum (1976) John Smith
1) What is an appropriate place to view this film?

 In a cinema * In a gallery *On TV

 On a computer * In a classroom * Elsewhere (where?)

2) How does the location of viewing affect our interpretation of a film?

3) What genre names can be applied to the film?

4) How does the film undermine/comply with narrative expectations?

5) How does the film undermine/comply with cinematic conventions?

6) Is John Smith an artist, an auteur or something else and what is the

difference?

7) How can the film be classified in terms of a national cinema?

8) If a film like this were made today, what differences would there be?

9) Discuss elements in the film of the Lacanian Symbolic (that which uses

symbols and rules), the Imaginary (that which can be felt), and the Real (that

which cannot be expressed through language).

10) Marc Augé “These place (villages) have at least three characteristics in

common. They want to be – people want them to be – places of identity, of

relations and of history.” Discuss the three points in relation to the film.
 North by Northwest

1. Comment on how public spaces are depicted in the film.

2. What role do governments play in the film?
3. What scenes are or can be considered hotel scenes in the film and what is their
purpose?
4. To what extent can these public spaces and hotels be considered non-places?
5. What hypotheses do you formulate as you watch the film?
6. What transformations of individuals take place in the film?
7. What does the film say about mid-20th century life in America?
8. What is the significance of the colour green when the film starts?
9. What is the significance of the title?
10. Does Hitchcock’s appearance comment on the action of the film?
11. What is the MacGuffin in the film?
12. Why did Mr Townsend close the curtains?
13. What role does Thornhill’s mother play?
14. Do the dark glasses have any special significance?
15. How and when is voyeurism depicted?
16. What is the meaning of the O in R.O.T?
17. Why is Thornhill the only person in the desert?
18. How are surprise and suspense presented in the film?
19. What is the film about?
20. What is the significance of not hearing what Thornhill and the Professor are
saying at the airport?

21. Why does Thornhill compare Eve to a piece of art at the auction?
22. What is the significance of the last scene?
23. Does Thornhill progressively become Kaplan?