FILM 1401: Introduction to Film Studies (For Non-Majors)

WEEK 1: September 5, 2019

● FILM BUFFS
○ Used to be seen as a bad thing by film scholars, but eventually man film buffs
became prominent filmmakers/scholars
○ Film Buffs: ‘The French New Wave’
○ The Movie Brats (Ex. Speilberg)
○ The Post-Moderns (Ex. Quentin Tarantino, Guillermo del Toro)
○ The Critics
● Water-Cooler
○ What was often talked about in the past is different than now.
○ Before, Seinfeld..now, Game of Thrones
● CONTEXT
○ Noun
○ the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in
terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed.
○ (OXFORD DICTIONARY)
● The film is the source.....
○ When analyzing a film, don’t rely on other critics, or even the filmmakers
themselves, because they don’t even have a full grasp of what they’ve made.
● TO ‘WATCH’ OR ‘SEE’
○ To ‘watch’ something is to observe it, as a spectator. To ‘see’ something is to
visually perceive it with one’s eyes.
○ Assumes that we are essentially outside the film or event.
○ also assumes that we have no control over the event - we are not involved or
implicated in its direction or development.
● Watching and seeing
○ Ideas and perspectives are created and controlled by the filmmaker/ author, who is
on the inside.
○ Whereas we, the spectator/observer, are being TOLD or SHOWN– we are the
passive recipient of information, positioned on the outside.
● Relationship between storyteller and audience is as old as the history of mankind.
○ Permeates every kind of storytelling in every medium
● CHANGES IN SPECTATORSHIP
○ Identity politics in the 1960s
○ Shift from focus on majority to minority
○ Changes in social discourses
 ○ 1920s: only representation was of WASP men; people of color only represented as
stereotypes
○ Now, films look for different life experiences
● REFLEXIBILITY
○ A reflexive text is one which makes the reader or viewer aware of the process of
writing or filmmaking
● REFLEXIVE TEXT
○ In reflexive film, the mechanics of production are not masked or hidden – but
openly revealed.
○ Viewers are no longer hidden voyeurs.
○ The actors may also talk directly to the audience, breaking that fourth wall.
● REASONS AND EFFECTS
○ Comic Effect
■ It’s funny when rules are broken, or when certain film conventions,
techniques or stylistic approaches are parodied or satirized
■ EX: “Yo Quiero Taco Bell” chihuahua, Take the Money and Run
(mockumentary), Annie Hall scene
○ Social Critique or Satire
■ Helps us engage with, challenge or critique commonly held ideas, beliefs,
or stereotypes by making us aware of them and thus deflating them
■ EX: “Yo Quiero Taco Bell” chihuahua, black-ish
○ Political Statement/ Ideological Positioning (Political-Ideological)
■ Effective in political or ideological filmmaking which is advancing a
social or political cause
■ Also effective in countering another, opposing ideologies – which are
positioned, comparatively as ‘not- truths’
○ Transparency
■ Shows us the nuts and bolts of filmmaking, makes us aware or
self-consciousness of the illusions and manipulations of ‘invisible’, realist
style of Hollywood classical narrative
■ EX: The Wizard of Oz
○ Deprogramming
■ Reflexivity makes us aware of illusions, and of our conditioned responses
to approaches which present particular thoughts, beliefs, representations
■ EX: Get Out
○ Disruption
■ Reflexivity disrupts our reliance on or dependence on the ‘single
narrative’ and ‘lone author’
 ■ Offers new and different ways of seeing things, different perspectives,
different stories
■ EX: Django: Unchained
○ Counter-Culture (Breaks/Challenges the power of dominant culture and
institutions)
■ Reflexivity breaks or challenges the power of the institutions and
structures of power that dictate culture value sets, and approaches to
representation
■ Challenges dominant discourses
■ Changes the focus and conversation
■ EX: The Handmaid’s Tale; completely covered up, dangers of female
sexuality
○ Changes role of spectator/viewer
■ Viewer/character is no longer a passive observer, but an active participant
■ Viewer is in the know and ‘behind the scenes’
■ Greater access to ‘truth’, of the event or story being recounted,
■ Also greater control or impact over the way in which it is recounted - the
telling of the tale
■ EX: Hidden Figures
○ EXAMPLES:
■ Duck Amuck (Chuck Jones, 1953)
■ Django: Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)
■ Lots of Black films of this decade:
● The Butler
● Moonlight
● 12 Years a Slave
● The Hate U Give
● Selma
● Hidden Figures
● The Birth of a Nation
● Fruitvale Station
■ BLACK PANTHER (Ryan Coogler 2018)
■ Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)
● THINGS TO THINK ABOUT…
○ As you are watching, think about whether you would consider Black Panther to
be a reflexive film?
○ If your answer is ‘yes’, then why? What aspects of reflexivity can you spot in
this film? How does the film succeed in making us think or see differently – about
 the subject matter, its characters and its perspective, in relation to the dominant
culture?
○ If your answer is ‘no’, then why not? Do you think the film conforms to
dominant (white, mainstream) cultural standards and representations of the
subject matter or the types of characters we see (eg. Superheroes, Africans, etc)?
How does it fail to make us see or think differently?
● ANSWER:
○ Yes, Black Panther is a reflexive film.
○ Social critique: Breaks various stereotypes of Black Africans
■ Africans are often stereotyped as poor and hungry, but this movie shows
the fictional nation of Wakanda as richer and more technologically
advanced than other countries.
■ Rather than showing black people in need of assistance from white people/
Americans, the Wakandans take in an American and help him.
■ Women: actually have power
■ They’re the ones worried about taking in refugees.
○ Political statement: Through the character of Erik Killmonger
■ His presence as an anti-villain is used to criticize the treatment of Black
people in the U.S. and other places outside of Africa.
■ Critique of white, European colonialism and imperialism.

TUTORIAL:

Underrated film: sorry to bother you, boots riley

Guilty pleasure: horror

● Eyes Wide Shut, Stanley Kubrick

○ Experiential identification
○ Feels like audience playing a video game
○ See his perspective, but don’t have empathy for him
WEEK 2: September 12, 2019: AFRO-FUTURISM; MODES OF PRODUCTION;
DISTRIBUTION; & EXHIBITION

● REFLEXIVE TEXTS
○ Reflexive texts all have two things in common
○ 1.) they make us conscious of the difference between “watching” and “looking”
○ Watching is passive, whereas looking is active
○ 2.) they remind us of the importance of context
○ Meaning changes with context
○ Context changes our view, our perception and our response to the story, action and
the social issues that film engages with
○ Makes us aware aware of things that we might not have been aware of in another,
previous era
○ Has to do with context- the context of conditions in its production, its setting, and
viewsip
■ Eg. Post-colonial, post-modern hero
● Black Panther
○ Theory or approach to cultural studies engages with the legacies of colonialism,
and the human cost of enslavement, and exploitation of other nations, their
people, their land and resources
● Post-colonialism
○ theory or approach to cultural studies which engages with the legacies of
colonialism, and the human cost of enslavement, and exploitation of other nations,
their people, their land and resources
● Post-Modernism
○ Reaction to modernism
○ Relies on pastiche of style and conventions, bringing lots of different things
together
○ Self-referential and self-reflexive- referring to to other icons, tropes, images,
figures, and media items with which we are all familiar
○ Addresses breakdown of grand historical or cultural narratives about progress and
development
○ Interrogates foundation ideas about the “master identity”, social beliefs about
“science, and technology, about knowledge and fact, and about the Self and the
Other
○ Describes a culture attuned to sensation, and to physical and material pleasures,
and to excess in all its forms
○ Ex: The Simpsons is post-modern, contrary comments on current politics and
social aspects
 ○ Interrogates foundation, ideas about the “master identity”
● Monstrous Africans
○ Black people (especially men) portrayed as violent, hypersexual
○ Ex: King Kong, Mandingo, Voodoo doctors
● Afro-futurism [Afri-futurism]
○ Post-modern phenomenon
○ Movement began nearly a century ago in African American art, culture and media
○ Refers to creation of speculative futures in the media (futuristic) which include,
but are not limited to works of science-fiction and which are based on the black
experience and advanced technology
○ In many Afri-futurist works of the 50s, 60s, black liberation and empowerment is
tied to other Liberation and Empowerment movements, including Civil Rights,
and Feminism
○ Critics and theorists see AfroFuturism as a potential tool for black liberation in a
still predominantly whitist society and culture
○ Also a tool of black liberation in the context of the Black Diaspora- the scattering
of Africans throughout the various continents and countries into which they were
sold as slaves , and their ensuing assimilation into those societies and cultures –
which has weakened or imperilled their ties to their birth countries and identities.
● SYNCHRONIC (Aaron Moorehead and Justin Benson, 2018)
○ Sci-fi which tells the story of an African American paramedic, living in New
Orleans who discovers the existence of a designer drug that gives the user the
ability to time travel
● AFRONAUTS (Nuoatama Frances Bdomo, 2019)
○ Presents the story of Edward Makuka Nkoloso, who independently founded,
without government assistance, the National Academy of Science, Space
Research and Philosophy in Zambia- the country’s first and only space program.
● Indigenous Futurisms
○ Concept of Afri-futurism itself can be expanded in similar discussions of other
diasporic and/ or enslaved and oppressed peoples.
○ This includes aboriginal cultures, including First Nations and Inuit Peoples here in
Canada, but also Native Americans in the U.S., Aboriginals in Australia, Maori in
New Zealand, Samoans in Hawaii, the South seas and Polynesia,
○ These aboriginal, native and diasporic cultures challenge the Euro-centric
perspective and biases of the dominant, mainstream society into which they are
born, assimilated, sold or migrated
○ They challenge dominant/colonial/master cultures in terms of the types of stories
they tell, the characters they include, their customs of storytelling and listening,
 their ways of seeing and looking, of creating, and expressing themselves, their
values and beliefs, experiences, identities, and voices.
○ Also challenge this notion of the lone or single narrative, which reinforces the
view of the dominant society, its accepted histories, forms of knowledge and
social practices
○ These “other cultures” form a multiplicity of views, and voices and selves that
simultaneously look to the future, but also back to the past, seeing them not as
oppositional or contradictory, but part of a continuum, and reconciliation between
two parts of a whole.
● Saputi/ Fishtraps (Zacharias Kunuk, 1993)
○ Kunuk, is a well-known Inuit filmmaker in Canada
○ Also the founder of Isuma Productions, an artist’s collective and Canada’s first
Inuit production company, co-founded in 1990 with Paul Apak Angiilirq and
Norman Cohen, in Igloolik, Nunavut.
○ Directed Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner in 2001, which was the first feature film
ever to be written, directed, and acted entirely in the Inuktitut language.
● Isuma TV
○ Mission of Isuma, Kunuk’s production company:
■ Focuses on bringing people of multiple age ranges, cultural backgrounds,
and belief systems together to support and promote Canada’s indigenous
community through the media, including film, TV, and the internet.
■ Produces independent, community-based media, which aim to preserve to
create jobs and economic development in Igloolik, and enhance Inuit
culture and language, through telling authentic Inuit stories to Inuit and
non-Inuit audiences worldwide.
● Saputi/Fishtraps
○ Example of recreated fiction
○ Story takes place in the 1930s, at the end of Summer, near Igloolik, as three
families build a saputi to trap fish going upriver for the winter.
● ROBERT FLAHERTY
○ Portrayed indigenous stories, but clearly from a white perspective
● PEGGY AHWESH
○ Ahwesh is an American experimental filmmaker and video artist
○ Practices ‘bricolage’ –bringing together different narrative and documentary
styles, improvised performance and scripted dialogue, sync-sound film, found
footage,digital animation, and crude Pixelvision video.
○ Known for reflexive investigations of cultural identity and the role of the subject
in various genres
 ○ Her interests include women, sexuality, feminism,re-enactment, and art and
artist’s books
● SHE-PUPPET (Peggy Ahwesh, 2001)
○ transforms the video game into a reflection on identity and mortality
○ Shirks colonialist and patriarchal mandate underwriting Lara Croft’s mission and
profession
○ Instead focuses on relationship between herself, the female gamer, and the female
fictional character,
○ Brings the female identity from beyond the margins
○ Also relates Craft’s double entrapment – within the masculinist-colonialist
tomb-raiding business, and the masculinist-patriarchal context of gaming - to the
wider, social, and global entrapment of the individual within an increasingly
artificial, virtual world.
● REPRESENTATION/RE-PRESENTATION
○ Re-enactment, or re-presentation makes us conscious of act of art-making itself-
that it is recreating reality.
○ Inherently reflexive- it makes us notice, and think about what we’re watching or
reading or seeing or hearing- not taking it for granted, and instead asking
questions, or seeing it from a whole different perspective.
● Modes of production, distribution and exhibition in the cinema.
○ We have to remember that cinema, whatever its artistic reach or social relevance
or political persuasiveness – is first and foremost a business.
○ An invention which was quickly picked up by entrepreneurs looking to make a
fast buck.
○ At first a kind of fairground entertainment – for which viewers were charged a
few pennies to watch early ‘flickers’ or moving pictures
● Nickelodeon Parlors
○ Showed about 2 minutes of film
○ Became very popular
○ Theaters had to be built to accommodate command
○ Films got longer, audiences got bigger
● Move to “Hollywood”
○ Early moving pictures became an industry
○ Originally just for some money; continues being like this
○ Production companies need to stay ahead of competition, support smaller films
○ Money first, art second
○ Movies regarded as commodities
○ Also need a lot of money, because making movies costs a lot of money
● Studio Backlots and Sound Stages
 ○ Certain filmmakers started being associated with certain types of film
○ Soundstages/ studios to film specific films
○ Hollywood became film capital
○ Lots of film productions looked at Hollywood
● Classical Narrative
○ Classical Hollywood narrative modeled on three act structure: exposition, climax,
denouement
○ Can be imagined as a triangle
● ORDER VS. CHAOS
○ Each genre has its own type of conflict between ‘balance and ‘imbalance’
represented by the protagonist and antagonist
○ Have in common a tension or battle between ‘order’ and chaos’
○ Stories begin in a state of balance or ‘order’, and devolve into a state of chaos or
‘disorder’.
○ The characters in the story are continually trying to restore order. Generally the
protagonist is the embodiment of order, while the antagonist is the embodiment of
chaos, or ‘disorder’.
● Monstrous “Other” mapped onto conflict between Chaos and Other
○ In Westerns: White versus Native Americans or Mexicans
○ Sci-fi: natural vs. unnatural
● STUDIO SYSTEM DECLINE
○ 1) studio heads were victims of their own success
○ 2) intervention of federal government: support of labourism, breaking o vertical
studio structure and monopolistic practices
○ 3) reorganization of studio production management into producer-unit system,
leading to the rise of the unit producer and ultimately the emergence of the
independent producer
○ 4) World War II which disrupted production
○ 5) talent seeking better contracts, control over projects, percentage of profits
○ 6) arrival of television
○ 7) foreign (European, Asian) influences in cinema which changed movie making
methods in North America
○ 8) rise of new generation and ‘youth culture’, with consequent emergence of
counter-culture, new social consciousness, greater social, political activism
● The Wizard of Oz (Mervyn LeRoy, 1939)
○ Think about:
○ Film’s reflection of studio system as a hegemonic enterprise,
○ Formulaic and formalistic narrative system in place
○ 3 act narrative structure
 ○ Central conflict
● Things to think about:
○ What do the characters represent?
■ Witch= Ms Gulch
■ Lion, tin-man, scarecrow= farm workers
■ Lion= fear
■ Tin-man= heart
■ scarecrow= brain
■ Professor Marvel= The Wizard; government
○ Who is the protagonist, the antagonist?
■ Protagonist: Dorothy, Antagonist: the Wicked Witch of the West
○ What is the narrative nature of the conflict, and the symbolic nature between them
■ Dorothy is the good while the witch is this monstrous “other”; she’s
portrayed as green and ugly.
○ How do they represent the opposition of order vs. chaos, or balance vs.
imbalance?
■ There is order until Dorothy arrives and kills the Wicked Witch of the
East, resulting in the ruby slippers transferring to her, and therefore
causing tension between herself and the Wicked Witch of the West.
○ What values might that impart to an American audience?
■ Importance of courage, intelligence, and selflessness/love
○ Consider the context of the film’s production, during the Depression, and on the
eve of World War II in Europe, as German troops roll into Poland, and American
congress debates whether or not to get involved?
■ Shows those values
■ Shows the importance of helping
■ Dorothy has a great dream of what life could be like (after the stock
market crash)
○ Consider also (if you want to do a little digging), the ‘team’ work in this film –
and what the various personnel bring to it including the director, writer, and
performers

WEEK 3: September 19, 2019: FILM FORM AND MEANING

● Classical Narrative System

○ The Wizard of Oz as an example of “classical narrative system”
○ ‘Classical’ refers to ‘the classics’ or going back to that era – the early Greek
myths - in which this kind of structure was first formalized
 ○ first and foremost, Hollywood classical cinema is‘narrative’
○ Narrative is a form of storytelling, which is linear, and chronological, with a
beginning, middle, and end
○ Also strives for realism in its storytelling – if not real, then at least could be real
(versimilitude, credibility)
○ Studios noted that classical realist narratives were the most satisfying for film
audiences
■ Didn’t challenge intellectually
■ Provided formula of problem & resolution
○ Instituted early as he predominant Hollywood film form
○ Films acquired (and required) certain components, known as ‘narrative codes’
■ e.g. psychologically motivated characters with goals and desires
(protagonists) to drive the story and the film forward
■ Chain of cause-and-effect
■ Chronological timeline that provides history of character action
and motivation
■ Characters encounter obstacles, engage in obstacle (protag vs. antag)
■ Story culminates with closure and resolution
● IMPORTANT FUNCTIONS OF CLASSICAL NARRATIVE STRUCTURE AND
GENRE
○ 1) Helped to streamline and regulate filmmaking for the studios, because they
could more efficiently organize their production into ‘groups’ or ‘types of films’
○ 2) Provided key components of classical narrative that translated further into r
recognizable ‘patterns’
○ 3) Provided thematic and visual cues – which are organized into systems and sets
of elements that depend upon each other and affect one another
● ‘FILM FORM’
○ Total system of cues and elements that viewers perceive in a film – are what we
refer to as ‘film form’
○ When these elements are repeated often enough, they become part of a pattern of
conventions, which viewers then come to expect
○ While there is some variation, basically it is the repetition of these elements, and
their familiarity to audiences, which becomes part of the ‘formalization’ process
○ Studios and early film producers created and used these systems to formalize and
streamline the production process, and at the same time, to manage audience
response and expectation
○ Use of these patterns provided a highly efficient, and persuasive way of
communicating information to viewers: they knew the pattern for production, and
audiences knew the patterns for the films
 ○ 5 Principles of Film form which produce the cinematic elements of the film, and
which also make function, the relationships between the various parts of the
system -
● 5 PRINCIPLES OF FILM FORM
○ 1) Function: function of each particular element – e.g. camera movement or
lighting effect, or style of editing. (Why is it there? What does it do?)
○ 2) Similarity/Repetition: e.g. ‘motifs’: distinctive features or dominant ideas in
an artistic or literary composition, which refer to recurrent thematic elements
○ 3) Difference and Variation: e.g. clashes, conflicts, disruptions of the pattern
○ 4) Development: refers to narrative pattern or structure which gives a sense of
where the story is going (e.g. ‘journey’, ‘coming of age’,mystery, etc.)
○ 5) Unity/Disunity- When all relationships between elements are clear and
economically interwoven, we call this unity. If something is out of place, or not
smoothly connected, we call this disunity. Disunity can also be deliberate ( e.g.
linear and non-linear narratives)
● SUBVERSION
○ Occurs when a film works against classical narrative form:
■ doesn’t follow the codes and conventions,
■ doesn’t use the elements in a typical way
■ uses elements in a way to draw critical attention to them
■ uses elements to create different chains of signification for the viewer
■ uses elements to disrupt expectation
■ uses elements to create different perceptions and reactions
○ When you work outside a system, and/or critiquing that system, these are forms of
‘subversion’
○ Subversion is an act which undermines the power and authority of an established
system, or institution
■ It is used as a means of destabilizing, unsettling, overturning or
overthrowing that system
● CLASSICAL NARRATIVE VS. SUBVERSIVE FILM FORM (OR ANTI-FORM)
○ Classical narrative form induces and conditions us to accept the formal elements
and their implied meaning (story, the characters, the underlying themes, or
message) and beyond that accept the social and ideological framework they
advocate
○ A film that subverts the classical narrative system induces the opposite reaction: it
breaks that chain
■ makes the viewer conscious of that narrative form
 ■ Jolts viewer out hypnotic state, and conditioning so as not to passively
accept as ‘truth’ what they are being shown or told, what is being handed
to them on a silver platter
■ makes the viewer work to gain understanding, and ultimately find their
OWN resolution
● CLASSICAL VS. SUBVERSIVE
○ Not all socially critical films subvert the narrative system
○ Some adhere to the system, which helps the viewer get on board with filmmaker’s
message – seems all the more realistic and convincing
○ e.g.‘The Deer Hunter’(Michael Cimino, 1980) – a classical narrative film which
provides a social critique of the Vietnam War, and beyond that, of the American
government
● SUBVERSION
○ Typically subversive cinema challenges on several levels: narrative, cinematic,
and critical (e.g. non- linear, experimental, avant-garde, surrealist)
○ Ex: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
○ Subversive cinema is inherently disruptive in the way that it gets our attention,
and mounts its critique of formalism
○ Ultimately asks why we have to make cinema, and experience in a particular
way?
■ Breaks the chains of narrative conditioning, and expectation on the part of
the viewer
■ Accomplishes this through use of non-representational (non-realistic) and
non-linear narrative
■ Presents the story out of order, mixing up past, present and future
■ Viewer has piece it together and recreate events in a logical sequence
(create their own narrative)
■ Or, viewer must experience it in way that is neither chronological nor
sequential – in which, past, present and future are a circle, rather than a
continuum, and which are experienced simultaneously
● MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON (Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid, 1943)
○ Short experimental, surrealist film
○ Disconnection from recognizable reality and linear narrative
○ Aided by circular form, and and use of cinema techniques (e.g. editing, camera
angle, camera movement, motifs) which depict an altered universe or view of the
world
● LOSSLESS #2 (Rebecca Baron and Doug Goodwin)
○ Refers to Deren’s ‘Meshes of the Afternoon’ in itsassemblage of compressed
images from the film
 ○ Also plays with 1959 soundtrack composed by Teiji Ito
○ Draws attention to the materiality of digital media, which then becomes the
source of the experimentation with film form.
○ Artist provides new renditions of appropriated films
■ Uses techniques of digital disruption ( compression, filesharing, the
removal of essential digital information)
■ Aims to reveal the gain of ‘new media’ - full of material forms that are
ripe for aesthetic experimentation
● RUN, LOLA RUN (Tom Twyker, 1998)
○ A German thriller, about a young woman, Lola, who needs to get 100,000
deutsche marks within 20 minutes in order to save her boyfriend’s life
○ An example of post-modern cinema in the 80s and 90s
○ Subverts classical narrative film form:
■ Disrupts chronology of storyline, as well as logical cause-and effect
sequencing
○ Offers variation of primary conflict within classical narrative (chaos vs order)
■ Debate between ‘free will’ and ‘determinism’, between ‘chance’ and
‘destiny’ or ‘fate’
○ Engages with chaos theory: - e.g. ‘butterfly effect’:
■ Minor, seemingly inconsequential variations in any interaction can
blossom into much wider results than is often recognized
○ Poses existentialist, post-modern question of whether we are free agents, who
decide our own actions, or whether there is something bigger at work which
determines these things for us?
○ How much choice do we have in what happens to us, and how big a role does
chance play, vs. fate?
○ This debate also (subversively) engages with the whole classical narrative system,
within which meaning is pre-determined by the filmmaker, which the viewer,
conditioned to the system, passively accepts and absorbs
● THINGS TO THINK ABOUT…
○ Look for elements of classical narrative system and film form (particularly motifs,
symbols, repeated elements, cause and effect ) and also look for ways in which
these are disrupted and/or subverted –
○ From whence and where does meaning derive, in this
film? What (if any) is the big takeaway message or revelation?
○ How does Lola’s journey compare to or contrast with Dorothy’s journey in The
Wizard of Oz?
TUTORIAL:

The Wizard of Oz

1. Function:
a. Black and white in the beginning, then in color to show how Dorothy feels about
her life
2. Similarity/ Repetition
a. “Yellow Brick Road”
b. Mentioning “home”
c. Characters in the beginning---> then the characters in Oz
3. Difference and Variation
a. When they find out Oz is just a man, not actually a wizard
b. At witch’s castle, first time that Oz is portrayed as dark and gloomy
4. Development
a. Hero’s Journey
b. Can be “coming of age”
5. Unity/ Disunity
a. Pretty much always unity
b. Very linear

WEEK 4: September 26, 2019: NARRATIVE I; Classical Hollywood Cinema: Story and
Plot

● KEY PRINCIPLES OF FILM FORM:

○ 1) Function
○ 2) Similarity/Repetition
○ 3) Difference/Variation•
○ 4) Development
○ 5) Unity/Disunity
● CONFLICT BETWEEN CHAOS AND ORDER
○ Film purposely engages with primary conflict between chaos and order, presented
here as the debate between ‘free will’ and ‘determinism’ – or between ‘chance’
and ‘destiny’ or ‘fate’
○ Opposite to the trajectory of narrative cinema
 ○ All about order – achieved through the narrative elements of ‘closure’ and
structural elements of conflict and resolution
○ Works AGAINST idea of chaos, chance, destiny or the unexpected
○
● STRUCTURALIST THEORY
○ Claude Levi Strauss: proposed that narrative structures in myths, and particularly
structures of conflict and resolution in myth are ultimately ideological
○ Constructed that way to provide satisfactory outcomes in our stories to help us
resolve real life conflicts that are irresolvable – like chaos vs. order.
○ Derives from structure of oppositions in all myth and literature, which originate in
human thought and language.
● OPPOSITE OF CLASSICAL HOLLYWOOD CINEMA
○ What happens in Run, Lola Run, is opposite to the trajectory of Classical
Hollywood Cinema, which is all about order – achieved through the narrative
elements of ‘closure’ and structural elements of conflict and resolution
○ Classical Hollywood Cinema works AGAINST chaos, chance, destiny or the
unexpected – though we may have the illusion that these things are operative, that
things are random, the whole design of the narrative and its structure mitigates
against those things
● LOLA VS. CHC
○ Tykwer plays with that in this film - Lola doesn’t like the endings – each time it
ends unsatisfactorily she says ‘no’ and starts again
○ So there is a sense of control outside the story, which draws our attention to the
fact that this is in fact a fictional story, not reality – and that it can be changed –
all the elements can be reassembled, but in different ways to produce different
outcomes and different meanings
○ But at the same time she is able to exercise free will – by learning from these
interruptions or problems, and changing the outcome of the story
○ There is a sense of control outside the story, which draws our attention to the fact
that this is fiction– and that it can be changed – all the elements can be
reassembled, but in different ways to produce different outcomes and different
meanings
○ She is able to try and try again until she gets it the way she wants it.
○ CHC assumes a realist position through its verisimilitude – it’s SIMILARITY to
realism
○ In real life things don’t always work out that way, where conflicts are neatly
resolved
 ○ When we can alter the narrative pattern, and disrupt it, when the narrative or
structure is subversive, we are making a statement that cinema - that everything in
it is a deliberate construction
○ Disengages us from that hypnotic spell
○ Provokes a response even if it’s discomfort
○ We are no longer passive, but active agents in making meaning
● WHY DOES TYKWER DO THIS?
○ Why does he deliberately undermine the classical narrative pattern and structure
of order, and resolution?
○ Because it gets our attention: that kind of chaotic approach demonstrates that the
‘classical narrative system’ – with its structures of conflict and resolution is
artificial and arbitrary –
● META-CINEMA
○ By breaking that spell and making us aware of what’s going on, the film functions
as reflexive, subversive cinema
○ Also a form of ‘meta- cinema’ : cinema that draws attention to itself as cinema
(i.e. not real, but a (re-)construction of reality)
● When do meta-texts arise?
○ When something is going on in society that artists, writers or filmmakers want to
call attention to
○ They don’t want us to escape it, but rather confront it
○ They don’t want to draw a curtain around it -they want us to pull back the curtain
and reveal what’s going on behind it so that it can be out in the open and
addressed
○ It’s a call to awareness, and perhaps from there to social action
● Detour (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1945)
○ Now considered a classic film noir though originally designated a ‘B’ film
● “B” MOVIES
○ Kind of short, inexpensive movie produced by a 2nd or 3rdtier writer, and director
and featuring a 2nd, or 3rd tier actors
○ Would occupy the bottom half of the film program in a double- feature or ‘twin
bill’
○ The most successful ‘B’ film genres in the Golden Age of Hollywood, and
post-war era, were Crime Films, Social Problem Films, Horror films, Film Noir
and Sci-Fi.
○ Due to their presentation of cynical and violent narratives, as well as a highly
expressionistic aesthetic, which they shared, which was unique for its time, and
which was very evocative of the darker socio-political climate.
○
● BENEFITS OF B-MOVIES
○ 1) ‘B’ films were more rigorously monitored and supervised by the studios, from
production to marketing, and so more formalized and recognizable (familiar) to
audiences
○ 2) enabled studios to develop their own distinct low-budget brand of film
○ 3) enabled the studios to get top value from their facilities and contracted staff
○ 4) gave the studios opportunities to break in new personnel
○ 5) were also popular with the film exhibitors, who could pay
less rent for them,
● EXPRESSIONISM
○ The Expressionistic cinema derived from German Expressionism, a movement
and aesthetic which developed in German cinema in the late teens and early 20s
○ Was brought to America by European emigre filmmakers. And who, based on the
strength of their work in Europe, were offered positions in Hollywood Studios.
○ They brought with them the thematic darkness and pessimism associated with
European cinema between the two world wars
○ As well as the essential aesthetic conventions and cinematic techniques associated
with Expressionism.
● B MOVIES AND FILM NOIR
○ The Expressionist aesthetic was carried over into American war-time and
post-war cinema
○ Manifested first in the ‘B’ movie thrillers produced by the studios which didn’t
earn acclaim until re-discovered in 1950s by critics who could appreciate their
unique style and edge
○ Dubbed them ‘Films Noirs’ –based on their dark aesthetic, themes and characters
● FILM NOIR AND DETECTIVE NOVELS
○ Film Noir also had strong literary influences, including the French ‘roman noir’
or ‘black novel’, 20th Century American thrillers, with catchy titles
○ Featured crime, violence, sex, and hard- boiled characters: private eyes or
detectives, and femme fatales
○ Detective novels also featured a very formulaic, predictable narrative style- of
which conventions were
○ Standardized and even ‘codified’ a a genre as early as 1929 by top pulp fiction
writers of the era (e.g. Raymond Chandler, Dashiel Hammett)
○
● FILM NOIR
○ The detective novels had a huge influence on the writing style of Film Noir –
snappy street lingo and slang, quips, sarcasm, racy dialogue and sexual repartee
between the private eye and female love interest
 ○ Also influenced, Film Noir’s brutal realism through stark descriptions of setting,
character and action.
● CONVENTIONS OF FILM NOIR
○ Seedy modern urban settings, populated by anonymous, uncaring strangers,
indicative of the changing face of America in the post-war era
○ Use of psychology in delineation of characters, all of whom are complex with
underlying motives
○ Protagonist is a kind of everyman
○ Sometimes just a drifter who gets caught up in circumstances
○ Usually a loner, unemotional, cynical, even bitter - with ambiguous moral
boundaries
○ Antagonists are usually criminals, sadistic, and sociopathic
○ Women are femme fatales - or dangerous, females – jaded, mercenary, ambitious,
sexually aggressive
○ Sometimes there is sociological bent – story explores the characters' places in
society and the impact society has on them
○ Theme of harsh justice meted out to criminals
○ Action is frequently very violent, as are the relationships and sex
○ Written and visual language are stark but poetic - full of striking imagery, mood
and
○ Atmosphere
○ Dialogue is racy and fast-paced, with lots of sarcastic quips, snappy comebacks
and double entendres
○ https:// www.youtube.com/ watch? v=QnScnpa640w
● COMBINED FORMALISTIC AND EXPRESSIONIST ELEMENTS
○ Two oppositional approaches – one tightly structured, closed, and the other more
open, unrestrained
○ When combined, creates incredible tension between what is pushed down,
repressed, and what longs to burst forth
○ Works very well in this era and context of conservatism, teetering on the brink of
a major breakdown
○ Mirrors what is going on in the surrounding society, straining at the seams, turned
inside out, desperate for the promised return or normalcy but understanding the
impossibility of this– that nothing can ever be normal again
● EXPRESSIONIST ELEMENTS: MISE EN SCENE
○ From French for ‘putting in the shot’
○ This is everything we need to know about what’s going on is in the shot: - all the
drama, subtextual meaning,
 tensions between characters – is conveyed through camera work, light and
shadow, framing, composition, sets, costumes, makeup, movements of the actors
● LIGHT AND SHADOW
○ Highly suggestive
○ What do the shadows suggest?
■ “Prison bars”
■ Or just some type of “entrapment”; cage??
■ Ominous foreshadowing
● ATMOSPHERE
○ Lots of rain and fog
○ Gloomy
○ Weird angles
● CAMERA ANGLES
○ Low angles
■ Creates obtuse angles
■ Shows oppressive character
○ High angles:
■ Shows vulnerability
■ Looks small
● THE LOOK OR “GAZE”
○ Directs us to whatever/ whoever filmmaker wants us to focus on
○ Identify with camera’s gaze and person in between
○ Subject: Author; active agency
○ Object: passive
○ The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)
● DETOUR (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1945)
● Things to think about:
○ Signs of the classical narrative system, and all its various components –( the story
line, 3 act structure, etc., cause-and effect action and reaction,
○ Tensions between chaos and order, balance and imbalance
○ Psychological motivations of the characters which drive forward or disrupt the
action
○ Broader social ramifications of the characters’ actions and motivations
○ Narrative conventions of film noir
○ Overarching themes
○ Film language – through mise en scene, camera work, use of light and shadow,
composition atmosphere, camera’s gaze
○ What is the high point of tension between formalism (classical narrative) and
expressionism– (film noir)?
 ○ Where does all that constraint reach the boiling point and burst open – both in the
story, and in the construction of the film itself
○ In relation to that tension between formalism and expressionism , and between
order and chaos, or balance
○ and imbalance – think about the significance of the title ‘Detour’ and what that
suggests

TUTORIAL:

CHN:
Verisimilitude:

● scenario is fairly realistic

● makes sense that he’d go to his house bc hasn’t been there in a few weeks

Linearity:

● progresses pretty well

● in beginning, narrated exactly what he’s going to do

Continuity:

● First clip is one long shot before he enters the door

● Seems awkward, but used to set the environment
● Shot of him in front of the door
● Then cut to shot of him inside the house, shows his power

Repetition:

● “im looking for mr. dietrichson”

● constant shadows

Unity/ Disunity:

● scene goes very smoothly

● arriving at the house, having a conversation

More unity/ disunity:

● logical flow of events

Film Language:
Motifs:

● Blinds casting shadows when he walks in and when he’s inside

● Gaze: visual motif
● woman in white

Camera Work:

● angles
● low angle to show femme fatale
● looking down on him
● close up of her: sultry look, femme fatale set up

Composition and Framing:

● When she’s walking down the stairs, never break eye contact
● Don’t see maid anymore

Light and Shadow:

● shadow over the car;

● shadow on him like bars in front of the door and the window inside the house

“The Look”

● between salesman and mrs. dietrichson

● then emphasis on feet and her walking down the stairs

Music:

● monologue reflects what the music is doing during

● strings when thinking of woman
● music changes when he changes his emotional state

Film Noir Conventions:

Atmosphere:

● Sexually charged
● Blinds,, sinister

Archetypes:
 ● morally ambiguous protagonist
● femme fatale

Morality:

● Stop seeing housekeeper, hinting at an affair

● eye contact foreshadows that too
● photo of husband and daughter

Sexuality:

● playful flirty language between the protagonist and ms. dietrichson” wanted to see her
again, she mentions how she was sunbathing

Dialogue:

● very linear, straightforward

● from his point of view mainly
● some humor: “pigeons scene”
● i brought my own keys
● liquor joke

Voice/ Narration:

● first person narration

● narrates basically everything he does

WEEK 5: October 3, 2019: NARRATIVE II

● FILM NOIR: RECAP
○ Dark Themes and Aesthetic (rooted in European Expressionism)
○ Perfect evocation of dark mood and atmosphere in post- war America
○ Narrative style rooted in pulp fiction and detective novels popular in 1920s-1940s
○ Combination of formalistic convention and expressionistic aesthetic elements
which might be deemed oppositional, but are NOT
● FILM NOIR: FORMAL NARRATIVE & EXPRESSIONISTIC ELEMENTS
 ○ Work together not only in terms of producing the elements of the film, but also
determining how we analyze them
○ Formalism adheres to the ‘formal properties’ of a work of art – that is its form and
style, rather than its content
○ Could consider Expressionistic elements of Film Noir as part of its aesthetic form
or style
● FILM NOIR: FORMAL ELEMENTS OF NARRATIVE & STRUCTURE (TEXT)
○ Follows pattern, narrative conventions of Classical Hollywood Cinema:
■ 3 Act structure (exposition, conflict, resolution)
■ Chronological, linear time
■ Logic and causality
■ Character archetypes (detective, drifter, femme fatale)
■ Grim settings
■ Stylized, poetic narration, descriptions
■ Snappy dialogue
■ Dark themes: themes of fatalism, cynicism, social dysfunction, anxiety
and paranoia,
● FILM NOIR: FORMAL ELEMENTS OF NARRATIVE & STRUCTURE (SUBTEXT)
○ Prominent Mise en scene:
■ Stylized camera work with
strong angles
■ Distinctive use of lighting (low light, shadow patterns)
■ Expressive composition and framing (tight, claustrophobic)
■ Grim setting (nighttime, urban locations in seedy, crime-infested
downtown areas
■ Atmosphere: rain and fog
○ Costume, Hair and Makeup:
■ typical of archetypes, (trenchcoat and fedora for detective, shabby suits for
drifters, cheap, clingy clothing and overdone jewelry and makeup, dyed
blonde hair for femme fatale)
● FILM NOIR: COMBINATION OF NARRATIVE & EXPRESSIONISTIC FORMAL
ELEMENTS
○ NARRATIVE ELEMENTS: like the bones or skeleton which give the film its
shape and structure
○ EXPRESSIONISTIC ELEMENTS: like the muscle and soft tissue that
connects, supports, and surround that structure, and which give it animation,
substance and elasticity.
 ○ Produces high degree of tension, between constraints of formal systems and
conventions, and unleashing of emotion, unbidden, repressed ‘taboo’ thoughts and
desires
○ Works well in this context, mirroring tensions in surrounding society
○ Like lifting the lid of a bubbling cauldron to peek at what’s boiling away within
● Detour (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1945)
○ Formal Elements: Narrative conventions
○ Aesthetic conventions
● Cleo from 5 to 7 (Agnes Varda, 1962)
○ French new wave
○ Post WWII
○ Moving away from CHC narrative
○ Documentary realist aesthetic
○ Location shooting
○ Non-professional actors
○ Social issues
● WWII:
○ WorldWarIIchanged everything
○ –the map of Europe,
○ the axes of world power, world politics and the world economy
○ Also changed the way people saw the world, and what they expected from their
leisure time activities, such as the cinema
● POST-WAR AUDIENCES
○ Due in part to the prevalence of documentaries and newsreels in theatres
throughout the war,
○ Audiences developed a taste and desire for factual reporting, realism’ and ‘truth’
● POST-WAR FILMMAKERS
○ Rise of a new generation of filmmakers –who wanted to disassociate themselves
from the traditions and values associated with the older generation, now viewed
as the ‘establishment’
○ Wanted to counteract the lies, myths and propaganda of the previous generation
with new ‘truths’
● POST-WAR AESTHETICS
○ Shift away from ‘entertainment and escapism’ toward more realistic narratives,
and ‘documentary’ aesthetic
○ Post-war shortages had forced innovation, reinvention of film language,
technique’
○ Many new aesthetic, stylistic elements developed from necessity
● POST-WAR CINEMA
 ○ Films looked rough but also real
○ Touched a chord, with audiences in formerly occupied countries forced to watch
war-time propaganda films, and now hungering for authenticity and truth
○ New realism provided filmmakers with a new opportunities to express a different
and liberated view of their societies
● NEW WAVE MOVEMENTS
○ Each of these movements were grounded in post-war social realism:
○ draw attention to the everyday conditions of the working class and the poor
○ focus upon the struggles of the downtrodden inhabitants of large cities or
industrial towns, still beset by the privations of war
○ critique social structures which maintain these conditions. Characters search for
love, and opportunities for a better life
○ Sharply contrasts with their bleak surroundings, sense of bitterness and
desperation that permeates their environment
○ film aesthetics are gritty, aiming for a realistic, authentic look and effect that told
the truth about life on the ground.
● FRENCH NEW WAVE (“LA NOUVELLE VAGUE”)
○ Centred in Paris
○ Formed by French film critics working for the Cahiers du Cinema, a French film
journal, and who later became filmmakers in their own right
○ Associated with filmmakers like Francois Truffaut, Jean- Luc Godard, Eric
Rohmer Claude Chabrol, Jacques Rivette, Agnes Varda and others
○ Like Film Noir, , the French New Wave had both aesthetic and literary sources of
inspiration– one cinematic (Italian Neorealism), and one literary/ philosophical
(Existentialism)
● ITALIAN NEOREALISM
○ National film movement in Italy, which arose under the Nazi Occupation, and
continued throughout the post-war era.
○ The films were notable for their use of a documentary-like realist aesthetic, which
included location shooting, non-professional actors, and authentic, occasionally
improvised dialogue
○ They were also notable for narratives engaging with the difficult economic and
moral conditions of post-war Italy, including poverty, oppression, and social
injustice
● Emergence of Neo Realism
○ Ex: Rome: Open City (Roberto Rossellini, 1945)
○ Ossessione (Luchino Visconti, 1943)
● EXISTENTIALISM
 ○ Founded by two French philosophers, authors and early post-colonial theorists,
Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, writing in the aftermath of Paris’ liberation
from the German occupation.
○ Philosophy that attempted to cope with epic national and global trauma by
examining the problem of ‘existence’.
○ The term comes from the Latin "existere", which means not only ‘to exist’, but
also ‘to stand out.’
○ Holds that Man tragically exists in a state of distance from an indifferent world in
which he remains alone
○ Man is defined only insofar as he acts and therefore, that he and he alone (i.e. not
‘God’ or ‘Fate’) is responsible for his actions.
○ The individual' experiences or a sense of disorientation and confusion in the face
of an apparently meaningless or absurd world: Nothing makes sense
○ Strongly advocates belief in human subjectivity
○ Not merely about the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living
human individual
○ Rejected Depression-era socialism, with emphases upon collectivity and
teamwork
○ Also drastically diminished the importance of systems and regimes that are
absurd, or dysfunctional, and, which, despite their claims, were not working in the
best interests of the people,
○ Existentialism proposed that each individual—not society or religion —is solely
responsible for giving meaning to life and living it passionately and sincerely, or
"authentically”
○ Deep distrust of the Establishment, and of Authority, and Social Structures such
organized religion
○ Resisted de-humanization
○ Resisted enforced conformity to a so-called norm ,
○ Planted seeds for the flowering of the Counter-Culture of the 60s, beginning with
the Civil Rights movement, the emergence of Identity Politics
● INFLUENCE ON POST-WAR CHC
○ Development of a highly realistic film aesthetic = rejection of Hollywood,
bourgeois escapism
○ Rejection of Formalism of Classical Hollywood Narrative System established by
studios = rejection of Establishment, structures of power and authority
○ Existentialism’s resistance to dehumanization and enforced conformity to a
so-called norm is associated with a new emphasis on the individual and
subjectivity that we see in the New Wave Movements
 ○ Subjectivity of formerly marginalized, downtrodden or oppressed groups –
women, people of colour, ethnic and social others, the poor and working class, etc
● RISE OF IDENTITY POLITICS
○ With the rise of Identity Politics, and attention to discourse in the cinema, we also
see more emphasis upon ‘identification’ – which characters we identify with
● IDENTITY POLITICS AND DISCOURSE
○ We are targeted as subjects all the time by film discourse
○ Narrative content and aesthetics combine to suggest meaning, but also to secure
our identification and
allegiance with the on-screen characters, whose perspective we are invited to
share
○ We always have to ask – who does this film think we are?
○ How does it address the topic, and target us as subjects?
○ To which characters to we give our sympathy and allegiance and why?
● IDENTIFICATION
○ Our identification is secured in part through our recognition of the on- screen
character as a human figure, a character similar to a real person – someone we can
relate to
○ We see the character as speaking for some of our hopes and aspirations, but also
our fears, concerns and despair
○ Identification also comes from our alignment with the character, through film
language
○ It may be created by positionality and proximity, which in turn promote
attachment
○ What about film language which gives us their point of view, or influences our
point of view of them through camera work, light and shadow, composition,
framing, mood and atmosphere?
○ All of these things help us to formulate our moral evaluation of the protagonist
and to constitute feelings of sympathy and understanding for the protagonist
○ Identification + Alignment = Allegiance
● CLEO FROM 5-7
○ Directed by New Wave member and pioneer Agnes Varda –
○ Among her great contributions to the movement were her emphasis on a kind of
documentary realist aesthetic
○ Contrasted with the escapist, ‘Establishment’ style of mainstream pre-war studio
filmmaking
● AGNES VARDA: Cleo from 5-7
○ Varda one of the first to use location shooting, and non- professional actors, a
hallmark of New Wave filmmaking
 ○ Introduced a distinctly experimental style – breaking with many of the
conventions of classical narrative cinema
○ Introduced new forms of social commentary, engaging, with feminist issues
○ Focused on the subjectivity of women –groundbreaking in a male dominated,
patriarchal industry and medium
● THINGS TO THINK ABOUT…
○ Would you consider this film a documentary? Why or why not?
○ What are the elements or signposts of documentary realism, that distinguish the
film from Hollywood fiction film (e.g. Detour)?
○ How does the film address feminine subjectivity? (as opposed to male subjectivity
in Detour)?
○ How is the viewer’s targeted or positioned as a subject? Who does the film think
we are?
○ How does the film express existentialist concerns?
○ How are these brought out with film technique?
○ What are the ‘New Wave’ elements or techniques used in the film?
○ Are there any signs of ‘formalism’ or ‘expressionism’ in this film?
○ How does it compare to Classical Hollywood Cinema?

TUTORIAL:

CLEO DE 5 a 7

● fleeting moments
● grotesque elements seen as normal by everyone but Cléo
● her in the café: existentialism

NeoRealism:

● “Bicycle Thieves”
● “Loves of a blonde”
● Economic and moral conditions after WWII
● “beauty of ordinary life”

new wave:

● usually young people

● style/different from mainstream film
● long takes
WEEK 6: October 10, 2019: REPRESENTATION AND SPECTATORSHIP

● New Wave Cinema

○ Important Influences:
○ Cinematic: NeoRealist Movement
○ Literary/Philosophical: Existentialist Movement
● Neorealism
○ Used documentary style realism, in its subject matter and its aesthetic style
○ Took as subject matter the struggles of the poor, downtrodden, working class
citizens
● Cleo: Signs of Classical Narrative?
○ Do we see signs of ‘classical narrative’ or ‘formalism’ in Cleo (as in Detour)?
○ Is the narrative driven by Cleo’s desires and goals?
○ Is there a linear, chronological timeline of events, or a sequence of cause/effect?
○ Is there a central conflict between protagonist and antagonist?
○ Are there tensions between balance and imbalance?
○ Is balance restored with everything resolved at the end?
○ What distinguishes this film from the classical narrative model?
○ Where do we see signs of ‘new wave’ filmmaking?
■ Documentary-style realism
■ Focus on everyday lives of
ordinary people
■ On-location shooting
■ Non-professional actors
■ Natural light
■ Mobile camera
■ Illusion of ‘on-the-spot’ coverage of the action
■ Improvisational dialogue
■ Fluid, rather than obviously
constructed editing style
● Existentialism
○ Arose as philosophical/ literary movement in Paris in aftermath of Nazi
occupation
○ Focus on human subject, problems of human existence in an uncaring and
meaningless world
○ Proposed that there is no higher power: man alone is responsible for his actions
 ○ Strong emphasis on ‘subjectivity’ as related to ‘consciousness’, ‘agency’,
personhood’, ‘reality’ and ‘truth’
● Subjectivity
○ Emphasises not just the thinking subject, but also the living, acting human
individual – with feelings, beliefs and desires –
○ Greater emphasis on human and individual agency, rather than passive acceptance
of fate, or events outside our control
○ In cinematic, translates into a greater emphasis on subjectivity of protagonists
(their thoughts and feelings, not just their actions) but also of formerly objectified
social types
● Cleo as “object
● Cleo as “subject”
● RECAP OF COURSE SO FAR…
○ Classical Narrative Cinema (aka CHC)
○ linear, chronological sequence of events based on causality
○ – cause and effect –
○ Narrative drive by desires ,motivations of protagonist
○ 3 act structure
○ Exposition, Conflict, Resolution
○ Tensions between ‘balance’ and ‘imbalance’
● CLASSICAL NARRATIVE CINEMA/ CHH
○ Classical Narrative Cinema (CHC) foregrounds exteriority, through emphasis on
plot, action, dialogue
○ Prioritizes ‘text’ – “what is seen and heard.’, what is evident, and out in the open,
expressed overtly
○ Story and events come first, and then we see the feelings and thoughts of the
characters in relation to that
● EXPRESSIONISM
○ Allows more space for ‘ subtext ‘, that which exists ‘between the lines’
○ Tensions, feelings, and atmosphere, or the character’s state of mind
○ Unconscious elements which also affect action, but which CANNOT be
expressed through ‘text’ (action and dialogue) alone
○ Suggested through film techniques,
○ Includes ‘intentionality’ : e character’s underlying
intentions, which the audience can only ‘infer’ through subtext
● Subtext
○ Film language main means of foregrounding subtext:
 ○ Mise en Scene – everything in the shot which helps to express mood and
atmosphere, but also mindset of characters: camera work, lighting, composition,
framing, set décor, costumes, hair/ makeup, actors’ movements, sound, music
○ Montage:
■ 1) transitions which move us through the story, between time- frames,
between reality and inner world of characters: fades, cuts, dissolves
■ 2) juxtapositions between shots that create shocks, or make connections
that produce additional meaning, inexpressible through action and
dialogue
● Story
○ Overall narrative in a film– as in ‘the whole story’
○ Includes explicit (clearly seen and heard through action and dialogue) and
implicit elements (implied or suggested by subtext, film language, inferred by
viewer)
○ Includes diegetic and extra diegetic elements:
○ Diegetic: those elements which comprise the world of the
○ action (also called the ‘story world’)– what is seen or heard
○ Extra-Diegetic: those elements which are not part of the world of action or story
world and cannot be perceived by the characters (e.g. such as background music,
sound effects, voiceover commentary)
● Story= Storyline & Line
○ Storyline:
○ Sequence of events in the story which story which give it an outer frame, like a
skeleton
○ Plot:
○ Can be compared to inner soft tissue and muscle which supports the skeleton
(story)
○ Provides rationale for why these events belongs together
○ Shapes storytelling approach: e.g. types of characters, order of events, narrative
form (drama, comedy, etc.)
○ Means by which the story holds the listener or reader or viewer’s interest: eg. sets
up chain of cause and effect , tensions, conflicts, introduction of characters, timely
revelation of information
● Narration
○ Different from narrative, which is about the construction of story
○ Narration is about the ACT of telling the story (not story, but ‘storytelling’)
○ Refers to delivery of the story, and also the ‘mode’ of its delivery
○ Depends on a narrator
 ○ Films/novels use different methods of storytelling – different concepts of
‘narrators’ to shape the viewer’s experience and understanding of the story, and
help with identification
○ In every film, the camera is the primary narrator
○ Viewer sees, experiences everything through the camera’s
gaze, which is also the filmmaker’s gaze
○ Camera determines point of view: main method by which information and
perspective are imparted to the viewer
○ FIRST PERSON NARRATOR:
○ Gives his/her personal account of the events through voice-over commentary
○ The ‘I’ or subject of the story
● 1ST PERSON VOICE OVER NARRATION
○ Can hear the narrator’s voice – typically that of a character in the film
○ Speaks OVER the picture, perhaps to another character, or to audience directly
○ Viewer hears ONE narration from the voiceover, while WATCHING the
cinematic narration provided by the camera
○ Voiceover provides an accompanying commentary or context that fleshes out
what we are seeing and hearing in the narrative
○ More complicated when information provided in voiceover narration contrasts
with or contradicts what viewer is seeing in the action
○ Suggests conflict between the perspective of the narrator, and that of the camera
and the viewer, watching the events unfold in a way that leads them to a different
conclusion or a greater understanding than that of the narrator
○ E.g. narrator is a child, or someone who is emotionally involved. delusional, or a
criminal
○ Can be contained within an off-camera voiceover
○ Narrator, may be a character in the film, and whom we see involved in the
ongoing action, in the present story world of the film
○ (e.g. Scorcese films)
○ 1st person narrator may speak directly to the audience, while events are taking
place
○ Breaks the fourth wall
○ Can be humorous, or not (disturbing or scary)
● 3RD PERSON NARRATION/ NARRATOR
○ Narrator not in the film - outside the action
○ Provides information that the characters don’t have, and which may not be
available to a first-person narrator
○ Provides objective context/ background
 ○ Can be voiceover (voice-of- God) or ‘omniscient’ (relies on camera to do the
work of narration)
● RANGE OF NARRATION
○ UNRESTRICTED:
○ Narrator has total access to information, can tell us
whatever s/he wants us to know
○ Can provide any character’s perceptions
○ Can provide info that none of the characters have access to
○ Spectator knows more than the characters (suspense, irony, epic storytelling)
○ RESTRICTED :
○ Limited information provided to the viewer
○ Spectator doesn’t know any more than the character
○ Creates different kind of suspense: viewer only finds out information when
characters do
○ Facilitates deeper identification with that character based on empathy, rather than
sympathy: we are in their shoes
● DEPTH OF NARRATION
○ Objective narration
○ The viewer observers characters’ external behaviour, as
○ the camera stays ‘outside’ their minds,
○ Subjective narration
○ Viewer privy to what the characters see, hear, think, and
○ feel, as the camera goes inside their minds
● SUBJECTIVE NARRATION
○ Perceptual subjectivity:
○ Provides both optical perspective (we see what the character sees) and sound
perspective (we hear what they hear) : from character’s POV
○ Mental subjectivity:
○ •Viewer gains access to characters’ memories, fantasies, dreams and
hallucinations
● IDENTIFICATION
○ Richard Gollin’s article:
○ 5 types of Identification in the Cinema which facilitate,
measure depth of viewer involvement
■ 1) recognition
■ 2) understanding
■ 3) sympathy
■ 4) empathy
■ 5) hallucinated becoming
● DISCOURSE
○ Also importantly related to subjectivity
○ Relates to particular social concepts addressed within the film – and
which fall out of the narrative
○ Helps us understand what problems or issues the narrative engages with, and
consequently, what kinds of conversations it debates it may provoke as a result
○ In another, equally important sense, discourse helps us understand the way in
which we are positioned as ‘subjects’ by various social structures and institutions
- including the cinema
○ How OUR subjectivities (not just those of on-screen characters) are formed
○ How WE are targeted as subjects, not by the story itself, but the issues addressed
within it, and which exist OUTSIDE it in the real world
○ One of the ways to pin down which discourse are addressed in a text, and how we
are then addressed as both viewers and social subjects is to ask:
○ WHO DOES THIS TEXT THINK WE ARE?
○ HOW IS IT ADDRESSING US? WHAT MODES OF
ADDRESS DOES IT USE?
○ Once we figure this out, we can figure out the discourses at work as well as our
level and depth of identification – or subjectivity – how we are positioned or
targeted by the film and its discourses
● DISCOURSE AND SUBJECTIVITY
○ Shift, from classical narrative cinema:
○ Shift from objective storytelling to a more subjective approach
○ Viewers became increasingly and more frequently addressed as ‘subjects’, rather
than passive observers, or voyeurs sitting in the dark, absorbing whatever
information the film gives us, along with whatever social, political ideological
message is also being imparted
○ Films become increasingly ‘subjective’ in their perspectives
○ Viewers encouraged, accordingly to identify more on a
subjective level
○ Became less passive, and more active in the viewing process and deriving
meaning from that process
● SPECTATORSHIP THEORY
○ Accounts for the process of how a spectator views a film, but also experiences it
○ Engages with:
○ ‘pleasures’ of film watching (scopophilia)
○ voyeurism (watching unseen, implications of power)•‘looking’ (‘looks’ and ‘the
gaze’)
○ Subject/object
 ○ Many different theories of spectatorship, approaches to its analysis
○ Apparatus, historical, cognitive, psychoanalytical, semiotic, social, cultural,
political, ideological
○ E.g. ‘Marxist’ theory of spectatorship:
○ Examines the ways in which viewers connect imaginary
characters or events in film to their real conditions of existence
○ Also studies the way viewers recognize themselves as the subjects of the ideology
or discourse put forth in the films viewed.
● PERSEPOLIS [Marjane Satrapi, 2007]
○ Follows the story of a young girl in Iran, as she ‘comes of age’ during the Iranian
Revolution.
○ Coproduced by companies in France and Iran
○ Premiered at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, co- won the Jury Prize
○ Also nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Feature.
● PERSEPOLIS
○ Importantly engages with another kind of spectatorship that touches upon
post-colonial and third world theory and studies of ‘cinemas of the centre and
periphery
○ CENTRE = dominant culture or filmmaking system
○ PERIPHERY = ‘that which is outside, on the edges, or
outskirts or margins: non-dominant, minority, foreign
● CENTRE VS. PERIPHERY
○ For many centuries of colonialism, the dominant culture was that of the West
○ Conditioned us to understand ‘the West’ as the Centre, and the ‘self’ as a
‘Western’ self,
○ Also conditioned to understand the the non-West (typically East) as the Periphery,
and ‘Other’ - foreign, exotic, ‘outside’
○ Have also been studying Hollywood as THE dominant cinema – the dominant
cinema of the world, and classical narrative, as THE dominant narrative system in
the world
○ This has had tremendous influence not only on filmmaking methods, but also on
‘spectatorship’, and ‘representation’ : how we view films and their subjects, but
also, how the subjects are depicted – how they are seen and see themselves
● PERSEPOLIS
○ Through its style of narrative, narration and film language, and its deployment of
various strategies of spectatorship and identification, points to the complexities of
‘self’ and its representation
○ not just in the context of Western Culture and Cinema, but also Iranian culture and
society
 ○ the protagonist lays claim to several different ‘subjectivities’ and ‘selves’ in the
course of her journey
○ thus the whole concept of the ‘self’ – instituted in Hollywood cinema, or within
the dominant culture, or the West, and the relationship of that ‘self’ to ‘the Other’
- is re-mediated here
● THINGS TO THINK ABOUT:
○ Think about Satrapi’s style of narrative and narration.
○ How is the protagonist and her culture represented ?
○ And how does the film interpellate us as subjects and spectators?
○ Are we passive spectators or voyeurs? Or are we active spectators who are
engaged and recognizes on screen?
○ And finally - who does the film think we are? How?

○ In terms of Narration:
○ What is the style of narration? First person? Third
Person?
○ What is the range and depth of narration? Is it restricted or unrestricted?
Subjective/Objective?
○ What is the basis and degree of our identification with the protagonist?
○ Who does the film think we are? How does it address us or target us as subjects?
By means of which discourses?

○ How does the film also interpellate us as spectators ?

○ Are we passive onlookers or voyeurs? Or are we actively
○ engaged in what’s going on??

○ Who or what is represented as the ‘centre’, and who or what is represented as the
‘periphery’?
○ Who is the ‘self’ represented here?
○ Who is the ‘other’?
○ How does that impact or implicate the viewer as spectator and subject?
 ○ How does the use of animation impact the representation of events, characters,
and perceptions of truth?
○ Are we more or less engaged as a result of the animation?
○ Do we identify more or less as a result of the animation?

WEEK 7: October 24, 2019: SUBJECTIVITY AND DISCOURSE: VOICE, IMAGE, &
POSITION

● Narrative
○ Provides the storyline for the film
○ Explicit & Implicit Elements
○ Diegetic and Extra Diegetic Elements
○ Story and Plot
● Narration
○ Refers to the ACT of telling the story
○ Method by which the story is delivered
○ Relies on a narrator (objective or subjective) who offers commentary and point of
view or perspective
○ Functions as a ‘mediator’
● Mediator
○ Someone who arbitrates or moderates between two parties involved in a dispute,
or who have divergent opinions, in order to bring about a reconciliation or
resolution
● MEDIATION IN FILM
○ When something is mediated’, it means that there is some kind of intervention
from ‘outside’ the action, an intermediate agency
○ This is usually the filmmaker, who mediates through film language, but can also
be the narrator
○ -stand-in for the filmmaker
○ Extra-diegetic: a character who is outside the on-screen
Action
○ May be multiple narrators
● Different ways of analyzing narration
○ Range (restricted or unrestricted)
○ Depth (subjective or objective)
○ Subjective: Perceptual and Mental
● 5 Types of Identification
○ 5 types of identification which facilitate & measure depth of viewer involvement
(Richard Gollin)
 ○ 1) recognition
○ 2) understanding
○ 3) sympathy
○ 4) empathy
○ 5) hallucinated becoming
● IDENTIFICATION AND SUBJECTIVITY
○ Narration and identification are tied to ‘subjectivity’
○ Subjectivity gives us the illusion of being inside someone’s mind
○ Influenced by the personal thoughts and opinions opposite of objective or purely
factual
○ Helps the viewer relate personally to the onscreen characters, and their problems,
but also by extension, the narrator
● SUBJECTIVITY
○ Exploration of ‘subjectivity’ helps us to understand how characters, and we, the
viewer, are acted upon by the various social structures, institutions of authority,
and discourses operating all around us every day, and which form our identity
○ The means by which we understand and express our sense of ‘self’ – who we are
and also who we think we are
○ Influenced by:
■ social structures and institutions (school, religion, family, government, the
media)
■ Social and biological divisions or categories (race, gender, sexuality,
ethnicity, culture, and nationality)
■ circulation of discourses (debates or discussions) that arise from these
categories
○ DISCOURSE & SUBJECTIVITY
■ Discourse also helps us understand what social issues the narrative
engages with, and consequently, what kinds of conversations or debates it
may provoke as a result
○ Discourse also help us, the viewer, understand wow OUR subjectivities (not just
those of on-screen characters) are formed
○ How WE also are positioned as subjects, and targeted by the film as subjects, not
by the story itself, but the issues addressed within it, and which exist OUTSIDE it
in the real world
● PINNING DOWN DISCOURSE AND SUBJECTIVITY
○ To pin down the discourses at work, and how we are positioned as subjects, we
ask the following questions:
○ 1) Who does the film think we are?
 ○ 2) How does the film address us? What modes of address
does it use?
○ 3) With whom do we identify and why?
● SPECTATORSHIP
○ The position from which the viewer watches the film but also ‘experiences’ the
events on screen
○ Not just a passive observer, sitting in the dark, but actively engaged
○ We imagine ourselves on the inside of events, and relate and identify as social
insiders
○ Studies the viewer engagement from a number of different perspectives
○ Examines how we are predisposed to respond in certain ways , and at certain
points to films
○ Accounts for different perspectives and response, owing to different subjectivities
at play
● CENTRE (CORE) VS. PERIPHERY
○ Model which serves as a spatial metaphor to describe and to explain the structural
relationship between the advanced or metropolitan ‘centre’ and a less developed
‘periphery’
○ Can be within a particular country,
○ More commonly applied to relationship and tensions between capitalist and
developing societies.
○ Used in post-colonial theory
● POST-COLONIAL THEORY
○ Engages with the cultural legacies of colonialism, and imperialism
○ Focuses on the human consequences of the control and exploitation of colonized
people and their lands.
○ Examines tensions between the ‘metropole’ (base of colonial power, capitalist
base or centre) and the colonies, located at the periphery
● CENTRE VS. PERIPHERY
○ Periphery subscribes to the values of the centre- Inhabitants are positioned by the
centre’s social structures, and institutions of power and authority
○ Still are outside the centre, as compared to citizens of the metropole, or
high-ranking officials, rulers and representatives, who are on the ‘inside’
○ Implication of status which is further deepened by hierarchies of class, race,
culture and even gender
○ Those who exist at the periphery are regarded as belonging to a different class,
and lower culture, and in the case of colonial natives, a different race
○ Other examples of centre/periphery model:
 ○ PATRIARCHY: men at the centre of power, and women at the periphery,
designated as second- class citizens
○ THEOCRACY: practitioners of dominant religion are at the centre, and seculars
or ‘infidels’ at the periphery
○ Think of ghettos, or refugee camps, which are on the furthermost edge, or literally
‘outside’ the centre
○ Markers of the ‘periphery’ and status in relation to the metropole, can have
tremendous implications for basic human rights and citizenship
○ Citizenship: formalization of belonging
○ Confers upon citizen certain legal rights and social privileges
○ In newly decolonized societies, there are challenges involved in repatriating
colonials and natives to the metropole and according them the appropriate rights
and privileges
● CINEMAS OF THE CENTRE AND PERIPHERY
○ Cinema invariably becomes a tool of Ideological State Apparatuses – Schools,
Churches, institutions
● CINEMAS OF THE CENTRE
○ Those who own and control the means of production and distribution, will support
and reinforce the system, and embed, whether consciously nor not, the ideologies
which sustain that system, and which privilege their class (‘insiders’) - and
marginalize the underclass – (‘outsiders’)
○ Cinemas of the centre, like Hollywood, push certain trends, which audiences buy
and adopt as values
○ They promote certain stars whom audiences admire, and wish to emulate, who
have influence and persuasive powers
○ They pioneer film technology and styles which other film markets are following
and emulating,
○ And they embed ‘American culture’ and social values which reach various
international markets
● CINEMAS OF THE PERIPHERY
○ Are produced outside the centre - outside, the cultural centre, outside the
metropole, outside the so- called developed, or ‘first world’,
○ Also outside the dominant, powerful film markets which control film production
and distribution and impact, and the dominant film culture
○ Cinemas may be considered peripheral:
○ Because of their geography – they are outside the region of the
centre
○ Because of their culture – don’t represent the dominant culture of the centre, nor
its history and identity
 ○ Because they represent emergent ‘Other narratives – and along with that, Other
histories and identities
○ Because they are produced outside the centre of mainstream film culture –
outside the reigning film conventions and systems of production and distribution:
- so for example, avant -garde, experimental, artisanal or independent cinemas
● CINEMA OF THE CENTRE AND SPECTATORSHIP
○ Power of cinema, and cinemas of the centre, lies in spectatorship
○ Film as visual medium offered spectatorship based in eye-witness testimony,
○ Channeled process of ‘watching’ into direct engagement with the dominant
culture
○ Film spectatorship, became a primary means of participating in the ‘nation’, in
times of ‘trauma and also celebration
○ Cinema of the centre, instructed citizen-viewers about national culture and
citizenship
○ Established and reinforced codes about ‘identity’ and ‘belonging, as well as points
of commonality
● ‘THIRD CINEMA’
○ Came out of post- colonialist theory
○ Adopts a Marxist position – in line with the revolutionary politics of Fernando
Solanos and Octavio Gettino
○ Wrote the manifesto on ‘Third Cinema’, a Latin American film movement of the
60s which critiques the capitalist system and Hollywood model of cinema (centre)
● THIRD CINEMA: MANIFESTO
○ Critique of 'the System', or ‘cinema of the centre:
○ It reduces film to a commodity that exists to fill the needs of the film industry that
creates those needs —mainly in the United States or 1st World
○ 1st Cinema: A “spectator cinema” , which perpetuates within the masses, a lack
of awareness of the difference between class interests (those of the rulers) and
national interests (those of the people):
○ Everyone subscribes to the same ideals because they think they’re the same
○ Films do not function to change or move the culture forward; they function to
maintain it.
○ 2nd Cinema: European art film, which rejects Hollywood conventions, but Is
still commercialized, and centred on the individual expression of the auteur
director.
○ Third Cinema: Recognizes political struggle against the system
○ Proposes the decolonization of culture: the liberation of the individual from the
dominant, commercial, capitalist cinema of the centre
● THIRD CINEMA
 ○ Anthony R. Guneratne and Wimal Dissanayake (article):
○ Over time, ‘Third Cinema’ – came to be used as an umbrella term for any
subversive or alternate cinema anywhere in the world
○ Was co-opted, and consequently detached from its original premise and context
● Anthony R. Guneratne and Wimal Dissanayake (article):
○ Middle-ground between ‘centre and periphery:
○ ‘Hybridity’: grey area of duality, of belonging to two cultures, two realities, and
two identities simultaneously
○ The cultural reality of immigrants, and people living in the diaspora – that is
scattered outside their home countries in foreign countries
● HAMID NAFICY
○ Describes his own experiences of hybridity and spectatorship, first as a young boy
in Iran, where he was first exposed to Western culture in film and literature
○ then in UK, then USA
○ Realized elasticity of ‘centre’ and ‘periphery
○ Relativity and context mitigate against that whole essentialist division between
two opposites or extremes
○ For Naficy, hybridity involved identifying with the West: “idealizing it,
fetishizing it, consuming it, becoming subject to it and also consumed by it, then
resisting and subverting it, and finally contributing to its remaking”
● Persepolis
○ Marjane’s subjectivity is hybrid and multiple:
■ An Iranian citizen caught up in a revolution
■ A woman in a patriarchal society,
■ A member of a secular family subject to the power of a new theocratic
regime,
■ The granddaughter and niece of two men murdered for their political
resistance,
○ She is part of the culture, yet perennially on the ‘outside’
○ Unique film for its time and context
○ One of the first to critically engage with the Islamic Revolution and the
consequent crisis in the perspective of someone who is both insider and outsider
○ Perspective of an Iranian citizen who witnessed and experienced it first hand
○ But by virtue of her multiple subjectivities – as a child, then a woman, from a
secular family -- is also, within the context of that new regime, an outsider
○ WHY CHOOSE ANIMATION?
○ Impossibility of shooting a live action movie in Tehran at
that time
○ Cheaper and easier than trying to find another city that looks like Tehran
 ○ -Gives us childlike perspective (Marjane as child)
○ Deeper range of expression through aesthetic techniques
that are easier to create in animation
○ Softer, even safer means of critiquing the Revolution and the drastic changes
implemented by the new regime
● Opened door for other Iranian films
○ Ex: A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Lily Amirpour, 2014)
○ Teheran Taboo (Ali Soozandeh, 2017)
● BACK TO SPECTATORSHIP
○ Connects to ‘subjectivity’ – our position as viewers in relation to what we see on
screen, and how we identify
○ Examines how we actually ‘see’ and what is the actual process of ‘watching’
○ In order to determine the experience of spectatorship, we ask ourselves key
questions (as with discourse)
● SPECTATORSHIP
○ 1) Where do we watch movies?
○ 2) And under what conditions and in what contexts?
○ 3) HOW do we watch movies? What are the physiological, psychological,
emotional processes involved?
○ 4) What are the differences between different kinds of film watching?
○ 5) Why do we watch movies?
○ Different theories about what attracts us to film, what needs it fulfills, what
psychological processes are triggered or unleashed
○ Has been compared by some theorists to a dream-state
■ The film brings to the surface, all those desires, fears, anxieties and taboos
which we repress in our daily lives
■ Provides a cathartic, almost therapeutic experience
● THE “LOOK”
○ Other theorists compare it to an act of voyeurism
○ Connected to ‘scopophilia’ our love or watching
○ Voyeurs like especially to watch secretly from a hidden or privileged vantage
point
○ Watch someone who doesn’t know they’re being watched
○ Power relationship
○ In cinema the most important element is the ‘look’ of the camera
○ -The ‘look’ is the manifestation and reflection of ‘spectatorship’ in all its forms
○ Camera/narrator shows us what’s going on
○ Also trades upon our desire to ‘watch’
○ Directs our gaze
 ○ Based on triangulation of three key looks
○ 1) the look of the camera in the pro-filmic event (that is the event
taking place before the camera)
○ 2) the look of the audience at the screen
○ -both occur in ‘real time and space’ of the real world (off-screen)
○ 3) a virtual look, which exists only in the on-line, diegetic world of the film
■ The look between the characters
■ What draws us from the ‘real world’ off-screen, into the fictional
on-screen world inhabited by them
■ The look is important because it of how it differentiates between subject
and object, and involves the viewer
● THE MALE GAZE
○ “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (Laura Mulvey, 1975)
○ Drawn from psychoanalytic theories of the gaze, in classical Hollywood cinema,
and particularly film noir,
○ Theory developed within the context of the feminist film movement–and which
arose out of the wider social and political context of the broader Feminist
movement of the 1960s,
● IDENTITY POLITICS
○ Arises when people of a particular religion, race, social background, etc., form
exclusive political alliances which focus on their own identity, rather than that of
the dominant culture
○ Distinctive identity of that particular group is then celebrated by that group and
represented by that group through their culture and political activism
● FEMINIST IDENTITY POLITICS
○ Feminists fought for equal pay for equal work, freedom from violence and sexual
assault, certain legal freedoms
○ Also fought against the glass ceiling that was keeping women from attaining
positions of power at work
○ Also protested deplorable images of women in mainstream cinema and media–
○ Female characters were continually punished, denigrated, victimized, terrorized,
assaulted, raped and murdered
● “THE MALE GAZE”
○ Mulvey’s theory:
○ 1) As the majority of the directors were male for the first half of the 20th Century,
and as Hollywood was an inherently patriarchal system and male-dominated
industry, the subject of the gaze typically was male
○ 2) Given also the sexist bias of American culture in the post-war period, the
object of that male gaze – was female.
 ○ By assigning a gender to the gaze, Mulvey was also tapping into the power
relations between men and women at that time, in that socio-cultural context
○ Idea that something so basic as ‘the gaze’ in such a mass medium as the cinema
was reinforcing ‘gender assymetry’ and male misogyny toward women
○ Object of the gaze is object of ‘punishment’
○ Mechanism of the gaze is a form of social discipline meted out to women for their
trangressions: chiefly breaking out of prescribed gender role under patriarchy and
seeking freedom and independence
● IDENTITY POLITICS
○ Discourse addresses the way we are addressed or positioned as subjects by
various social structures and figures of authority,
○ Identity politics focuses upon the particular self- interests of certain groups
whose politics may be shaped by aspects of their identity
○ Discourse addresses how we are positioned through social structures and class
○ Identity Politics addresses how we position ourselves as belonging to a particular
identity – not identified by others - and advocate for ourselves on that basis
○ Comes out of Liberation, Equality, Social Protest Movements of 60s
○ Process by which formerly minoritized, disenfranchised groups or identities,
excluded from the mainstream and the dominant culture, were accorded a voice
and in fact acquired or claimed power based on their minority status
○ Addressed ‘alterity’ and the relative position of ‘the Other’
○ Instead of examining identity from the normative, mainstream dominant
conformist position, it examines identity from the non-normative, minority
perspective of those who have been dominated, or oppressed or silenced by the
majority
○ Alterity attempts to make identity ‘visible’ and ‘difference’ invisible
● “OPPOSITIONAL LOOKING”
○ Feminist author and social activist bell hooks, published her essay collection in
1992, entitled ‘Black Looks, Race and Representation”
○ Writes about a type of ‘oppositional looking’ that represents political rebellion
and resistance against the repression of a black person's right to look
○ A way for black people to attain agency to combat white supremacy,
○ Manifested itself in the independent black cinema that arose in this era
○ Hooks points to the ways in which the normative white spectator gaze objectifies
black women.
● RETURNING THE GAZE/ OPPOSITIONAL LOOKING & TRANSGRESSIVE ART
○ ‘Cinema of Transgression: NYC underground movement of loose-knit group
artists, using shock value and humour in their work
 ○ Inspired ‘Transgressive Art’: aims to outrage or violate basic morals and
sensibilities.
● CINEMA OF TRANSGRESSION
○ Outside the centre
○ Outside the dominant mainstream film culture which inscribes and reinforces
ideas and patterns of belonging and identity Questions
○ Transgresses social and cultural boundaries
○ Transgresses codes and conventions of mainstream
cinema
○ If we follow the trajectory laid out by feminist and racial discourse we can see
they also lead us to interrogations of other imposed restrictions around identity,
which were based on boundaries whose firmness was taken-for- granted as ‘fact’
– such as gender and sexuality
● ALTERITY
○ The Gay Rights Movement that began in the 60s raised questions about sexual
and gender determinacy
○ Queer artists and activists struggled against boundaries around sexuality
○ Opened the door for Transgender artists and activists battling against boundaries
around and ‘gender’
○ Queer artists used imagery of the male body itself, which represented
‘masculinity’ to question all the eboundaries – physical, political, linguistic, - that
this term incorporated
○ Feminist & LGBTQ++ activists rejected ‘master code of identity’
○ Directly challenged white masculine patriarchal authority and its imposed
categories of gender and sexual behaviour
● TRANSGENDER REPRESENTATION
○ Jeremy Miller : Crossdressing Cinema: An Analysis of Transgender
Representation in Film.
■ Examines transgender representation in relation to cross dressing,
■ Analyzes the ways in which mainstream cinema makes transgender or
cross-dressing figures objects of fear, ridicule or sympathy(not empathy)
■ Uses narrative codes and conventions to create distance between character
and viewer
○ The ‘LOOKS’ are orchestrated to PREVENT any identification or connection
between the transgender characters and the audience
○ Transgender characters remain ‘other’ – at the periphery of the mainstream
culture at the centre
○ Jackson McLaren, “Recognize Me”: An Analysis of Transgender Media
Representation.
 ■ Writes about the imposed definitions of gender and sexuality
■ Differentiates between ‘sex’ and ‘gender’
■ Also distinguishes between other gender-bending identities and
behaviours such as cross-dressing or drag a being intersex,( that is having
a combination of both sexual reproductive organs), and non-gender
conformist (not conforming to a specific gender role)
○ McLaren also refers to Butler’s theory of gender performativity
■ People perform their gender according to cultural expectations about what
it means to be male or female.
■ Any sort of gender representation on screen (including transgender
people) will be influenced and policed by what culture believes to be true
about that gender.
■ The production of gender in our society establishes gender as important
and desirable..
● Paris is Burning (Jennie Livingston, 1990)Documentary filmed in mid-to-late 19880s
○ Chronicles the ball culture of New York City and the African- American, Latino,
gay, and transgender communities involved in it.
● THINGS TO THINK ABOUT:
○ How does the film engage with gender and sex as social boundaries or categories,
and as discourses?
○ How does it negotiate ‘otherness’?
○ Where do we see signs of ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’?
○ Is there a narrator or narration?
○ What’s going on with film technique and how that creates identification (or not)?
and subjectivity?
○ How is spectatorship constructed?
○ How do we ‘look’ at the characters?
○ Do we see a form of the ‘male’/patriarchal gaze ? Or do we see that gaze
returned? Do we see ‘oppositional looking’?
○ What does the title refer to?

TUTORIAL:

● Basic Instinct
○ Re-returning the gaze
○ neo-noir
● centre- periphery
○ persepolis: hybrid film
○ who is the audience?
 ○ 16+
○ Western audience
○ festival audience
○ art house audience
○ important to have a target audience
● Paris is Burning
○ LGBTIQ audience
○ AA/ Hispanic
○ Audience from the “outside”
○ Director: outside of the community
● Subjectivity
○ the look; white middle/upper-class people as objects
○ disdain but also desire for that world
● Sexuality/nudity not seen as taboo
○ transgender bodies
○ not supposed to judge them; just there
○ not sexualized, not objectified
● Discourse
○ heteronormativity
○ “queer discourse”
● Persepolis:
○ she’s on outside in both societies
○ periphery; desire; want to be on the inside but can’t

WEEK 8: October 31, 2019: MISE-EN-SCENE

● Genre Theory
○ Related to structuralism: analyzes the structure of films, through various types of
stories and their underlying meanings
○ Related to semiotics: studies signs, and what they represent on a first-and second
level of meaning
● GENRE
○ Helped to formalize Hollywood cinema
○ Made studio production more streamlined and efficient
● GENRES
○ Each has its own set of “conventions”, which includes structural and aesthetic
forms
○ By means of their conventions, genres formalise approaches to filmmaking, but
also particular values and beliefs that a society holds
 ■ Ideas it has about itself with respect to: origins, pattern of development,
type of people it includes and excludes (who belongs and who does not)
and major social issues or problems.
○ Familiarity with these conventions, gives the viewer and pathway into the film
○ Permits the film to communicate information quickly and economically
○ Viewers know from the start of the film what to expect
● GENRE
○ What is central to the genre of the interplay of convention and innovation.
● GENRE VARIATIONS
○ The musical, even though they’re all musicals, style varies by director
○ Film noir; different depending on the director even if many of the conventions are
the same
● GENRES
○ Stylistic variations and innovation bear the individual and highly distinctive
“signature” or stamp of the director whose whose creative vision of the film
expresses
○ Director oversees all facets of production: the planning, organization,
coordination, and presentation of the film’s various narrative and technical
elements.
● AUTEUR THEORY
○ Conceives of filmmaker as “author” of the film
○ Auteur theory developed out of French New Wave Movement, founded in France
in the 1950s, by a group of film critics, working for the French film journal, the
Cahiers du cinema
○ Terrible and traumatic impact of the second World War in Europe
○ Nazi occupation and then dire economic conditions of the post-war period,
produced drastic and calamitous changes in everyday life
● POST-WAR ITALY
○ In Italy, the spring of 1945, after Mussolin’s execution and liberation from
Germans, was also known as the “Italian spring” in both society and the cinema
● NEOREALISM
○ Drastic changes in Italian post-war cinema produced by the practical realities and
dire socio-economic conditions
○ Filmmakers working on shoe-string budgets, little equipment and no studio space
○ Had to improvise and innovate
○ A new approach to filmmaking developed in response to social and cultural
changes taking place in Italy
○ Emphasis on despair of the working class, the poor, the underprivileged, and
oppressed
 ○ Post-war movement in Italian Cinema characterized by new bare-bones filming
style, and new emphasis on the underclass: recognizable by its gritty, authentic
“street” sensibility
○ Films were fiction, but looked and felt like documentaries.
○ Appealed to post-war audiences, who due to wartime experiences and exposure to
newsreels and documentaries, had developed a taste for film realism.
○ The formalization of Italian NeoRealism as a movement came out of an interview
given by screenwriter Cesare Zavattini, to an Italian flm journal
○ The interview, later published in English as ‘Some Ideas on the Cinema’, was
widely regarded as the movement’s manifesto
○ Zavattini outlined 13 points or ideas, which advocated a form of filmmaking that
drew its inspiration from everyday life, pulling together elements from reality and
then seeing what ideals or messages could be concluded from the story that
developed
○ Drastically different process compared to pre-World War II studio cinema – in
Europe and America – which was highly formalized, and in which events were
artificially constructed to fit the ideologies of the dominant culture and social elite
○ The NeoRealists proposed a more inductive method of filmmaking
○ Method that drew or inferred meaning from real events and social conditions,
rather than producing meaning through artificially constructed circumstances
○ Intended to more effectively depict the “beauty” of common things and people
● FRENCH NEW WAVE
○ Like the NeoRealist Movement in Italy, the French New Wave movement arose in
the post-war period, and aftermath of the Nazi Occupation
○ Took its initial form amongst a group of young “cinephiles” and “film buffs” and
film critics
○ In 1948, film critic Alexandre Astruc, wrote a manifesto for this movement,
entitled ‘The Birth of a New Avant-Grade – The Camera Stylo” (or the camera
pen), published in L’Ecran
○ Outlined some of the key ideas of the movement further developed by Francois
Trufaut and other critics writing for the Cahiers du Cinema
○ Astruc’s proposal:
○ At that time, cinema was becoming a new means of artistic expression along the
same lines as art or literature
○ Form through which the writer or filmmaker could express his thoughts, ideas and
obsessions as he would in a novel or essay.
○ Astruc called this new era, the ‘age of the caméra-stylo" or camera-pen: he saw
the camera as a pen, and the film as a ‘written work’ by the filmmaker.
● AUTEUR THEORY
 ○ Atruc’s proposal was genesis for the “auteur” theory
○ Proposed that the director, who oversees all audio and visual elements of the
motion picture, is to be considered the “author” of the movie, even more than the
writer of the screenplay.
○ Fundamental visual elements as placement, blocking, lighting, and scene length,
do more to convey the message of the film than plot line.
○ Supporters of the auteur theory maintained that the most cinematically successful
films bear the unmistakable personal stamp of the director- more than any other
artistic collaborator or member of the film crew.
○ Astruc called for a break from the “tyranny of narrative”
○ Necessary in order to evolve a new form of audiovisual language, and also to
solve the problem of what he believed to be the fundamental problem of cinema:
how to express “thought”, and not just action, on film.
● FRENCH NEW WAVE
○ “Auteur Theory” marked beginning of the French New Wave (or “Nouvelle
Vague”)
○ Movement founded by those critics working with Astruc and Truffaut, and writing
for the Cahiers du cinema.
○ Like the Italian Neorealists, the French New Wave called for the traditional film
conventions then dominating French filmmaking
○ Referred to these as the “cinema du papa”- or “daddy’s cinema”: (style of the
older generation: Renoir, Ophuls, Carne, Vigo, etc.)
○ Also rejected the ‘tradition of quality’ in mainstream French Cinema:
■ Emphasized ‘craft’ over ‘innovation’
■ Privileged established, old-school directors, over young up-and-coming
directors
■ Preferred great literary works of the past, instead of experimentation.
○ In 1954, Trufaut published his own manifesto entitled ‘ A Certain Tendency in
French Cinema’
○ Denounced adaptation of ‘safe literary works’, into unimaginative films.
○ French New Wave critics began to make their own films
○ Became known for their radical experimentation with flm techniques, visual style
and narrative
○ Also known for direct engagement with the social and political upheavals of the
era
○ Like the Italian NeoRealists, the French New Wave strove for greater authenticity.
○ In a similar fashion post- war realities forced them to be innovative, and to be able
to shoot on next- to-nothing budgets, with none of the fancy equipment, or studio
space of the pre-war era.
 ○ Developed a distinctive style that eschewed continuity shooting, and that was
spontaneous, on-the-fly, fragmented and included many long takes.
○ The result was a combination of objective and subjective realism, as well as a
narrative ambiguity that didn’t resolve things at the end as neatly as classical
neatly as classical narrative cinema had.
○ New Wave critics and filmmakers studied the Hollywood classics, and directors
whom they felt added certain stylistic or “auteurist” elements
○ Captured the “essential” cinematic art form that they themselves were after with
their low-budget, but very contemporary and, at times, avant-garde approach.
○ E.g. Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, Orson Welles, Howard Hawks, Fritz Lang, Sam
Fuller, and Don Siegel.
○ They criticized standard Hollywood films constrained by a traditional narrative
flow.
○ But films, by “auteur” filmmakers, especially films noir, were praised and held up
as models.
○ French New Wave filmmakers gave “film noir” its name, due to its dark, brooding
mise-en-scene, misen, and their appreciation of the American detective novels and
serials (Series noires), from which many of the films were adapted.
● FILM NOIR
○ Films now classified as Film noir were not well-received by American critics
when first released
○ Dismissed as low-quality “B” films, and in most cases, “trash”.
■ Moral concerns about the films’ violence and explicit sexuality
■ European sensibilities which did not reflect American culture or values
○ Demonstrated a brooding, individualist philosophy more in keeping with French
Existentialism
○ Used a highly stylized Expressionistic aesthetic, which superseded construction
of narrative and character (the foundational tenets of classical Hollywood
Cinema)
○ Required a corresponding stylistic analysis, which American critics at that time
(still practicing sociological and thematic analysis), found both challenging and
alienating.
● MISE EN SCENE
○ Despite their rejection of the “tradition of quality”, the stylistic approaches of the
filmmakers of that era, were integral to the French New Wave’s aesthetic
preferences
○ For example, Max Ophuls
■ Top French filmmaker from 1930s - 1950s
■ Influenced by French Impressionism and German Expressionism
 ■ Great passion for set décor
■ Mastered of ‘mise-en-scene’
■ Developed key techniques that formed basis for French New Wave’s
preference for mise-en- scene over montage
○ Term or concept that originated in the theatre.
○ Refers to the arrangement of scenery and stage properties in a play.
○ In film, it refers to everything that appears before the camera and its arrangement:
composition, sets, props, actors, costumes and lighting
○ Mise-en-scene influences the film’s sense of verisimilitude or “appearance” of
reality
○ Ophuls’ mise-en-scene techniques:
■ 1) the “long take”
■ 2) continuous camera movement
■ 3) intricate framing
■ 4) composition of the shot
○ MISE EN SCENE VS MONTAGE
■ Astruc (le camera-stylo) and Andre Bazin (founder of Cahiers du cinema)
, both championed the 'long take' as opposed to montage.
■ The long take is a continual shot that lasts a lot longer than the usual in
classical narrative cinema: contrary to the ‘shot-reverse-shot of classical
Hollywood cinema, in the long take, the camera holds on the same shot,
following the action, or even the characters, before cutting or transitioning
to another shot (that is before it’s cut).
○ Montage is a French term for “putting together”, or editing, and generally refers
to the use of cutting to transition between shots, or scenes in a film.
○ The “shot” is the smallest unit of film- and refers to the duration of action in
between transitions.
● “THE SHOT”
○ The shot was discovered by silent-era filmmaker and editor Edwin S. Porter
○ By breaking down the action into smaller segments, Porter could should the film
out of sequence, and then edit the shots together to reconstruct the narrative in a
particular order.
○ Helped make use of certain kinds of shots and angles to convey emotion or
suspense.
○ Also helped in devising complex production schedules
○ The discovery of the shot, paved the way for continuity editing
○ System of shooting and editing scenes together while still maintaining visual
continuity, spatial orientation and eyeline direction throughout, so as not to
disorient or confuse the viewer.
● CONTINUITY EDITING
○ Opened the door to “parallel editing” or “cross cutting”- techniques perfected by
D.W. Griffith
○ Editor could cut back and forth between different scenes or shots of action.
○ Created the illusion of transcending time and space. Viewers watched events
occurring in different places at different places at the same time, or conversely,
events taking place at a different time in the same location.
● CROSS CUTTING/ PARALLEL EDITING
○ Grifth’s technique helped to create a sense of drama and suspense in scenes of
high tension or urgency.
○ Consisted of cutting back and forth between two different scenes at an
increasingly rapid pace, and using shots of increasingly shorter duration.
Grifth used this technique so frequently in the climactic sequences of his films, it
came to be known as the ‘Griffith Last Minute Rescue’.
○ Demonstrated that editing could be used to great effect to enhance emotion and
intensify action in a sequence.
● MONTAGE
○ Griffith’s innovations influenced Sergei Eisenstein, one of the preeminent
filmmakers of silent Soviet Cinema and revolutionary propaganda.
○ Eisenstein and colleagues further developed Griffiths techniques in theory and
practice of “Dialectical Montage”.
● DIALECTICAL MONTAGE
○ Method of intercutting between two different shots which represented conflict, or
clash between ideas (a “dialectic”), when edited together form a third idea or
concept.
○ A more abstract meaning was produced by the juxtaposition of the images, from
which the viewers drew the sequence’s deeper, symbolic significance.
○ Dialectical Montage proved to be tremendously effect tool of political persuasion
in the Soviets’ films supporting the Russian Revolution.
○ Technique of creating ideological clashes through film editing, powerfully
conveyed the social and political clashes between opposing forces in the
surrounding society.
○ E.g. “Odessa Steps Sequence in Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin (1925)
● MISE EN SCENE VS. MONTAGE
○ Bazin and Cahiers du cinema colleagues preferred a more realistic approach
■ Favoured a more subtle, even invisible style of editing, and the use of the
long take.
■ Agreed that Eisenstein’s approach was highly effective, but also saw it as
highly problematic
 ■ Felt he manipulated images, and thus, the “truth” of the event’s
representation
○ Advocates of “long take” believed that montage was too theatrical and contrived
○ Breaks down sequence and analyzes it for the viewer
○ Filmmaker deciding what meaning viewer should take from scenes
○ The viewers not permitted time or opportunity to formulate his/her own opinion,
or draw his/ her own conclusions
○ Opportunity to decide for oneself seen as a basic component film realism.
● MECHANICS OF “LONG TAKE”
○ The long take is a composite of several techniques, including “tracking”, “wide
perspective”, and “composition-in-depth”
○ TRACKING: pushing the camera on a dolly, set up on a small track, which
permits the cameraman to “track” or follow along with the action, and lengthen
the duration of the shot
○ WIDE PERSPECTIVE: technique for showing the viewer the whole scene and
everything going on inside it, rather than cutting to objects of attention
● MECHANICS OF LONG TAKE
○ COMPOSITION-IN-DEPTH: helps to the illusion of verisimilitude by giving
on-screen space a sense of three-dimensionality
○ Permits the viewer to see things happening simultaneously in the foreground,
midground and background of a shot which also bearing on events
● COMPOSITION IN-DEPTH
○ A way of integrating characters into the wider surroundings, or of displaying
physical gaps or distances that convey social or psychological distances.
● MONTAGE VS. MISE-EN-SCENE
○ For Bazin, the director does not “create” mise-en-scene to produce new ideas, as
Eisenstein did with montage.
○ Rather, mise-en-scene, by which means of the long take, is used only to bring out
structures already present in reality.
● PROBLEMS WITH BAZIN’S POSITION:
○ 1) What we see on screen is not “reality” but only the illusion
○ 2) The long take rarely appears in its pure state: there are very few instances of an
entire sequence filmed in one shot. Usually the long take appears in combination
with some form of editing.
● BAZIN’S DEFENCE
○ Bazin and Astruc: With mise-en-scene and the long take, editing plays no decisive
role except to eliminate that which is superfluous.
 ○ Even where editing is used, it serves merely as a link or connective between
widely separated scenes and places, thereby treating them as though they were in
the same frame.
○ Thus any editing use in long-tale sequence is only for the purpose of linking
elements already provided in the mise-en-scene.
○ This is contrary to Eisentsteiniean or dialectical montage, which links completely
different shots so as to convey completely new information and thus produce
new meanings.
● CONCLUSION?
○ Merits to each approach, and that many creative filmmakers use components of
both for particular effect.
○ One of the series of debates about the role of cinema:
■ Is its role to represent an objective representation of reality, with as little
mediation as possible?
■ Or should it strive to represent a subjective reality that reveals underlying
layers of meaning?
■ What techniques or approaches best serve these aims?
○ AUTEUR THEORY
■ Hotly debated in later years.
■ Anti-Auteur critics (e.g. Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris) maintained that
film is collaborative and that there are several creative sources, amongst
crew and cast- as we’ll discuss.
■ Also maintain impossibility of “sole creatorship” in the formalistic,
genre-based Hollywood system which limited the degree of personal,
individual expression
● THINGS TO THINK ABOUT…
○ Look for signs of mise-en-scene
■ Which of the building blocks of mise-en-scene are present?
■ Do we see any “long takes” or “composition-in depth”?
■ How does mise-en-scene create mood and atmosphere?
■ Does mise-en-scene help to create sense of verisimilitude?
■ Is it used in a realistic way to portray objective view? Or an
expressionistic way (more subjective), to bring out underlying emotions
and meanings?

TUTORIAL:
WEEK 9: November 7, 2019: MISE EN SCENE CONT’D: LIGHTING

● RECAP: MISE-EN-SCENE
○ Mise-en scene: refers to everything that appears before the camera and its
arrangement: camerawork, lighting, set decor & props, actors’ movements,
costumes, hair and makeup
○ Includes:
○ Composition: the organization, balance, and distribution of objects and actors
within the shot, which helps to suggest their relationship to one another in that
space
○ Framing: the use of space itself- on-screen (what we see) and off-screen (what
we don’t see, but which is suggested- through the sound of actors’ voices
speaking off-screen, or by actors’ movements in and out of the frame
○ Kinesis: movement within the frame: different from camera movement. Refers
instead to the movement of characters and actions in the shot.
○ The Long Take: a continual shot in which the camera holds on the action, or
characters, or follows them before cutting or transitioning to another shot
○ Composition-in-depth: helps to create the illusion of three-dimensionality, by
showing what’s happening simultaneously on different picture planes in the deep
background, mid-ground, and foreground
○ Deep-focus Cinematography: uses a large depth of field (created through
combination of wide and small lenses) to keep everything in focus at the same
time
○ Method of shooting that gives a broader perspective of what’s going on by
enabling the viewer to see all the action taking place at once: helps us understand
the relationships and dynamics between the characters, as well as their bearing on
the action and meaning of the whole scene
○ Integrates the characters into the wider surroundings, while also displaying
physical gaps or distances that suggest social or psychological distances
● MISE-EN-SCENE cont’d
○ Championed by critics and theorists of the French New Wave, believability as the
preferred cinematic approach, due to its greater capacity for verisimilitude or
believability
○ Argued against montage, and particularly dialectical montage, which they saw as
too manipulative, too theatrical
○ Montage imposed or created meaning through the selection and juxtaposition of
shots, as opposed to mise-en-scene which permits the viewer time to contemplate
 the shots, and the relationships between characters, objects and surroundings
depicted therein,
○ FNW argued that whereas montage provides only one possible reading of a
particular scene or sequence,–mise- en-scene, through the long take, and
composition-in- depth, provides a multitude of possible readings and meanings.
● A Single Man
○ Use of mise-en-scene sets the stage not only for the action, and character
development, but for the entire era – the tastes and culture and social values of
that time
○ Provides insight into what it meant to be a woman or a gay man living in a
patriarchal, heterodominant society, and all that this implies with respect to social
power
○ Mise-en-scene invites us to contemplate what “masculinity” and male power men
(to insiders and outsiders), and how these are conferred and communicated
through social and personal spaces.
○ Title has two possible meanings:
○ 1.) A “single man” is someone who is not married- or even romantically attached
to anyone- he is alone
○ 2.) Also a euphemism for someone who is not married or romantically attached to
a woman- that is who is not in a heterosexual relationship (aka a “confirmed
bachelor”)
○ Interestingly, as a single man and a professor in a heterodominant, patriarchal
society, he still has more social power, in the closet, than a gay man who is “out”
○ Everyone defers to him including and especially women
○ Certainly he has more power and social status then the women, who all play
secondary social roles (as assistants, secretaries, bank tellers, wives and mothers),
in relation to men in charge
○ Several homages and interesting reversals of the “male gaze” traditionally and
typically aimed at women in Hollywood cinema (e.g. The Postman Always Rings
Twice)
○ Scene suggests that the objectification of women under patriarchy, and the
understanding of male power begins at a very young age
● A Single Man (cont’d)
○ Tension continues in the gun shop- which, like the bank, is a masculine space
redolent of male power, but where George is clearly out of his elements
○ Followed by liquor store scene- with James Dean look-alike, and Janet Leigh
poster for Psycho
● Psycho
 ○ Film about a man with a severe Oedipus complex, who – we think - is a gay man
deep in the closet, and threatened by female sexuality
○ Tension and stress of dual identities drives him literally ‘psycho’ – which we see
when he stabs Janet Leigh to death with a knife [PHALLIC SYMBOL]
● A Single Man
○ James Dean, another Hollywood icon
○ Exemplified tortured process of adolescence, coming-of-age
○ Appealed to girls, but also closeted gay young men struggling with their identity
● A Single Man cont’d
○ Also elements of ‘the gaze’, through Janet Leigh’s enormous eyes, , staring in
surprise and horror, presumably at Norman (who will attack and kill her)-
○ But also staring at George and the young man, Carlos - who are objectified,
‘judged’ , and punished in return for their transgressions against patriarchy and
heteronormativity
○ An homage to F.Scott Fitzgerald –and the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleberg in The Great
Gatsby) in the Valley of Ashes is a long stretch of desolate land created by
industrial waste (compared to haze of pollution over San Fernando Valley)
○ Symbolic on the one hand of the materialism and hedonistic pursuit of pleasures
in the 20s (often compared to the 60s), and on the other, to the poor, downtrodden
and oppressed at the mercy of the powerful elite
○ ‘Single’ also refers to the fact of being ‘alone’ – of having
lost his family (lover and dogs) and without any of the privileges or comforts of
the direct mourner or widow
○ Jim’s disapproving family erases the relationship, and by extension, George as
well
○ Trapped by constraints which prevent him from publically mourning and sharing
his grief, he represses it within
● MISE-EN-SCENE: Masculine decor
○ Tensions expressed within the mise-en-scene are evocative of social, and cultural
tensions of the 50s and early 60s
○ E.g. Décor: ‘masculine’ décor of George’s spaces – his house and
office or classroom
■ Dark, sombre colours, suggesting seriousness, heaviness,
■ Materials that evoke male earthiness and power - leather, wood, brick
stainless steel
■ All straight lines and hard angles, suggesting toughness and strength – and
the male physique
● MISE-EN-SCENE: Masculine iconography
 ○ Even the landscape where George and Jim vacation is masculine, rugged
landscape- a rocky surface-
○ - just behind them sharp crags jut up into the sky- like something out of a
Hollywood Western (masculine tough-guy genre)
● MISE-EN-SCENE: Feminine Decor
○ Compare this to Charlie’s house, which is a totally “feminine” space
○ - soft, satiny, plush textures, round or oval furniture, pastel, creamy colours, floral
patterns
● MISE-EN-SCENE: Feminine vs. Masculine
○ Comparison between George’s cheap, manly phone and Charlotte’s feminine
“princess phone”
● MISE-EN-SCENE: Muted vs. vibrant colour
○ His bland house and clothes
○ Her colourful, elaborate house and clothes
● MISE-EN-SCENE: Vibrant colour
○ Scenes in the past and scenes with neighbor are in vibrant colour
○ Differentiates past and present; past and present; appearance and reality
● MISE-EN-SCENE: Austerity vs. indulgence
○ George; getting ready for work; mirrors work clothes of neighbor
○ Charlotte; spending hours on makeup and hair
● MISE-EN-SCENE: Architecture
○ Glass house
○ “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones”
○ Don’t criticize people when you are also guilty; Be careful about what you say
○ Sense of transparancy that George doesn’t really enjoy/practice as a gay man
● MISE-EN-SCENE: Composition & Framing
○ Trees that block the view
○ Furniture that blocks
○ Some windows are opaque
○ He’s often covered or slightly blocked off
○ Similar to the bars in film noir
● MISE-EN-SCENE: Composition
○ Always looks constricted
○ Bars at window
○ Boxed in in many sequences
○ Talking to co-worker: seen through fence
● Stuart Hall
○ Writes about interpersonal zones in North American Culture, which he refers to as
‘proxemes’
 ○ Describes the acceptable distances for each of these zones
○ Also helps us to analyze composition and framing in the mise-en-scene of A
Single Man , and to understand George’s loneliness and isolation
● INTIMATE PROXEME
○ Anywhere from 0 inches to 18 inches
○ 1st level: 0-6 inches
○ an emotionally charged zone reserved for sexual intimacy, comforting and
protecting
○ 2nd Level: 6-18 inches
○ the zone in which family members and close friends interact
○ touch is frequent and permissible in both these zones
● PERSONAL PROXEME
○ 1 1⁄2 to 4 feet is considered the minimum comfortable ‘safe’ distance between
non- touching individuals
○ The close phase: 1.5- 2.5 feet,
○ Distance at which individuals can grasp one
another by extending the arms
○ The far phase (2.5 feet – 4 feet)
○ Anywhere from arm’s length to the distance for being able to touch hands
○ Beyond these lengths, requires the individuals to move closer together to be able
to touch – to shake hands
○ Appropriate distance for informal contact between friends
○ Small, protective space that separates the ‘Self’ from the ‘Other’
● SOCIAL PROXEME
○ Distance of 4-12 feet considered non-involving and non-threatening by most
individuals
○ Close Phase: 4-7 feet
○ typical of impersonal transactions
and casual social gatherings
○ Far Phase - 7 -12 feet
○ for more formal social discourse and transactions.
○ This is the minimum distance at which one could go about one’s business without
seeming rude to others
○ Breaks that comfortable space when he kisses dog in car; woman doesn’t know
how much pain he is in. We do.
● PUBLIC PROXEME
○ Distance of 12 feet and beyond
○ Distance at which one could take evasive or defensive action if physically
threatened
 ○ Also the distance that people keep from public figures or others participating in a
public function
○ At this distance, discourses is highly structured and formalized (as in lectures,
speeches, presentations, etc.)
● PROXEMES
○ George, for the most part is associated with the social proxeme
○ – except for a few intimate moments with Jim, and Charlie the young student, and
Carlos
○ The composition in mise-en-scene is used to underscores his sense of distance
from those around him, as well as his loneliness and isolation
○ For George, sharing intimate space is rare – both in his life and as a character
on-screen
● LIGHTING
○ Lighting is one of the most crucial elements in filmmaking
○ On a film crew, camera, grip, and lighting, departments work very closely
together
○ The cinematographer (or director of photography) works with the director on the
design for shooting and lighting each scene in the film
○ The camera department deals with the mechanics of shooting the scene,
○ The grips set up the camera, cranes, lifts, dolly tracks, and move the camera when
necessary, they also help to set up any scaffolding used for lighting
○ The lighting department, headed by the ‘gaffer’ or lighting director, expedite the
cinematographer’s lighting design, with the placement of lights and all lighting
equipment, including the actual lights, gels, scrims and so on
○ In photography, it is impossible to take a picture, without light
○ The amount and strength of the light that comes through the lens aperture enables
the camera to capture the image
○ Similarly in film, lighting is necessary not only for capturing images on film, but
also for illuminating the scenes in ways that draw the viewer’s attention, or that
create mood and atmosphere
○ Much is conveyed through where and how the light falls on particular objects or
characters, and how and where it casts shadows
○ Can reveal planes, and textures, and tonalities, creating, effectively a landscape of
its own within the image
○ Basic principles and aims of film lighting come from the theatre
○ Stage lights help to illuminate objects and actors on stage, but also complement
and contribute to the overall illusions created by set design
○ With invention of film, proximity of the viewer to the action permitted more
subtlety in lighting
 ○ Thanks to camera movement (and later zoom and telephoto lenses) viewers were
closer to the action, than in the theatre: they could see more
○ As with photography there could be more gradation and subtle variations within
the image
○ In early silent cinema, lighting had to be more dramatic and expressionistic to
compensate for limitations of technology, equipment and budgets
○ Eg. Dr. Caligari: light & shadow effects were painted on the sets, and created
with heavy makeup
○ As filmmaking and equipment became more sophisticated, so too did lighting
techniques
○ In early days of cinema, sets and costumes were purposely designed with strong
contrasts for black and white film
○ and actors wore heavy makeup so that they wouldn’t be washed out by the heavy
duty lights
● LIGHTING cont’d
○ But film lighting devised at that time only took into account white skin – because
most of the actors were ‘white’
○ Black characters and actors were rare
○ In mainstream silent films, black characters tended to be played by white actors in
blackface –which was also heavy duty, and exaggerated
○ Only recently have early silent films surfaced, which featured black characters
played by black actors – and even in some of these we see white actors in
blackface
○ Over time, more black characters and actors began to appear in Hollywood films
○ However, the problem of lighting persisted, as the default position was still to
light for white skin
○ As such, black actors faded into the background, eclipsed by the white actors
○ The technique for lighting black skin in black and white was to use gradations to
use high key lighting to bounce or create hot spots to make the skin shine
○ With advances in lighting, also made use of the ‘grey- scale’ to bring out
subtleties of shape and texture of black skin, and restore black faces from the
background
○ In rarer colour films, makeup and lights helped to pick out the warmer tones and
shades of black skin
○ Still tended toward a ‘matte’ effect
○ Particularly in dimly lit scenes, or when black actors stood next to white actors, or
if the black actor had especially dark skin
○ Blaxploitation films of the 70s, increased the number and visibility of black
characters and actors in lead roles
 ○ Produced corresponding developments in technique of lighting black faces
○ But still the problem of fading in low contrast or indoor lighting situations, or in
juxtaposition with white actors
○ In recent years, however with increasing numbers of films made by black
filmmakers, and with black casts and crews, (including cinematographers and
lighting technicians), the approach to lighting black skin has also changed
○ This is the ‘aesthetics of race’ –which considers how colour is represented in art
and culture, including the cinema, through shifts in technology and techniques,
certainly, but also through shifts in concepts of ‘beauty’
○ The ‘politics of lighting’ in Hollywood cinema, has always echoed, the politics of
race in America, particularly in terms of what or who is ‘privileged’ in society
and onscreen
○ Now black cinematographers and directors are innovating ways to pick up the
texture and tone of black skin through lighting, makeup and other tricks of the
trade
○ Key lighting to sculpt rather than just illuminate, picking up on facial planes, bone
structure and prominent features that reflect light or cast shadow – brow bones,
noses, eyes, lips
○ Back-lighting to even out contrasts and equalize black and white actors
○ Reflective makeup that shines, making features pop, even in low-light conditions
○ Film stocks that capture the rich tonalities of black and brown skin, rather than
bleaching it out
○ Complementary or contrasting colours in background, wardrobe and set decor that
bring out rich tonalities of black skin draw attention to black actors
● THE POLITICS OF LIGHTING
○ ‘Politics of lighting’ : referred to in articles posted on the website, which describe
photographic technologies that replicated and reinforced racial biases toward
white skin
○ Richard Dyer in White: Essays on Race and Culture’ writes that in the history of
photography and film, getting the right image meant getting the one which
conformed to prevalent ideas of humanity.
○ This included ideas of whiteness, of what colour — what range of hue — white
people wanted white people to be.
○ E.g. ‘Shirley Cards’
○ Used by film-makers to calibrate skin tones and light, and which only featured
Caucasian models until the 70s
○ Sensors in light metres were calibrated only for white skin - which meant that all
other skin tones became deviations from the norm.
 ○ -in order to capture black skin, cameramen had to fiddle with the camera apertures
to allow more light
○ Professor Lorna Roth (Media & Communications, Concordia University):
○ “Looking at Shirley, the Ultimate Norm” (2009)
○ Explores the chemistry of inherent, if unconscious, racial bias.
○ Potential to recognize a spectrum of yellow, brown and reddish skin tones was
there, but film companies went with emulsions that catered to the perceived needs
of their target consumers, whose skin was noticeably lighter than those of black
photographers seeking to document their family events
○ Shirley Cards only changed because of complaints from photographers trying to
advertise chocolate or wood furniture, and who wanted to make their products
look better
○ nothing to do with making black skin look better
○ Oprah Winfrey and BET were early adopters of cameras equipped with two
computer chips
○ Enabled them to accurately portray a variety of individual tones simultaneously.
● AESTHETICS OF RACE
○ The politics of lighting is tied to the aesthetics of race
○ Not just about finding ways to light black skin, it’s also about hidden biases
within technologies of representation, which echo and reinforce our aesthetic
predilections – what we consider beautiful or worthy of privileging
○ It’s about representing blackness in a realistic, and complimentary way – not just
as a contrast or antithesis to whiteness
○ We can expand that further, to include the representation of ‘non-whiteness’ or
‘Otherness’ or Alterity, in a similar way – not just as a contrast or antithesis to
‘normal’ or ‘mainstream’
○ Points to an awareness of and resistance to the influences of the social and
political elite - that dictate cultural and artistic tastes
● Moonlight (Barry Jenkins, 2016)
○ Based on a semi- autobiographical play by Tarell Alvin, entitled In Moonlight
Black Boys Look Blue.
○ Coming-of-age film about a young African American living in Miami, against a
backdrop of hardship and abuse.
○ Divided into the three stages of life of the main character – childhood,
adolescence and early adulthood
● MOONLIGHT (At the Oscars)
○ First film with an all- black cast, as well as the first African- American -LGBTQ
film.
○ Won the Oscar that year for best picture
 ○ Also object of an ironic ‘gaffe’ by the Academy
● Moonlight
○ The film was also noted for its realistic and highly aesthetic capturing of black
skin on screen.
○ Director and cinematographer rejected the typical ‘documentary look’ of black
street cinema, opting instead for widescreen Cinemascope, which rendered a
much better skin tone.
○ Also worked with a colourist to create a colour grade that increased the contrast
and saturation of the image while still preserving detail and colour – not washing
it out or leaving it to fade into the background.
○ The three chapters of the film are designed to imitate the look of different film
stocks
○ The film uses the story, and all black cast, and lighting/camera technology to
address both racism and homophobia together
○ Not only the ‘white- washing’ of black characters and actors in Hollywood
cinema, but also the ‘straight-washing’ of gay characters and actors.
● Things to think about…
○ Lighting in the film
○ Aesthetics of representation
○ Different uses of lighting and colour in the three different stages of the main
character’s life
○ what are the differences
○ how do these differences impact the meaning of these stages, and how we ‘see’
the characters, and relate to them?
○ -think about the mise-en-scene in general

WEEK 10: November 14, 2019: CINEMATOGRAPHY II

● CINEMATOGRAPHY
○ A general term for all the manipulations of the film strip by the camera in the
shooting phases and by the laboratory in the developing phase
○ Includes camera movements, camera angles and positioning, camera distance or
proximity and lighting
○ Like photography, depends upon light not only for visibility of the images, but
also their quality
○ Created by the intensity of the lighting, and the types of contrasts between light
and shadow
● TWO TYPES OF LIGHTING
○ 1.) DIRECTIONAL LIGHTING:
 ○ Specifically aimed at a person or object:
○ Beam of light is precise
○ Can cause harsh shadows
○ There is little spill over onto other areas.
○ E.g. The sun, a flashlight, car light, will produce directional light
○ 2.) DIFFUSE
○ Softer than directional lighting
○ Diffuses or blurs the boundaries between light and shadow making the shadows
not as clearly defined, and everything look evenly lit.
○ Used to illuminate large areas, not defined areas. such as a book or face.
○ Examples of diffused light occurs on foggy days when the fog diffuses the
sunlight. Fluorescent lights in department stores and classrooms also use diffused
light.
● CHARACTERISTICS OF LIGHT
○ Light in film also has certain characteristics, or properties which can be
manipulated to give a scene a desired look: a.) intensity b.) Contrast c.) Shadows
● INTENSITY
○ Refers to how much light falls on any one area.
○ Baselight is a term used to refer to the overall light intensity.
○ Intensity of light is measured in foot-candles (ft-c) or lux. (Studio lights are
created in foot candles).
○ If there is insufficient lighting cameras have to increase “the gain”.
■ Digital cameras will do this automatically.
■ Increasing the gain will boost a weak video signal but it will also make the
picture "noisier" - you can see the image losing its crispness.
○ The closer a camera is to a subject the more intense the illumination.
○ Using a dimmer will reduce light intensity.
● CONTRAST:
○ Refers to difference between brightest and darkest spots in a picture.
○ Too much contrast between the dark and lights areas with white areas will make
image look overexposed and shadows in the dark areas will look uniformly black.
● SHADOWS
○ Lighting can create different types of shadows, depending upon its intensity, and
the positioning of the lights themselves
○ Two types:
○ 1.) ATTACHED SHADOWS
○ Attached to the object- appears opposite the light source. No matter where object
is moved, shadow remains attached.
○ Gives objects depth: without shadow, object would appear one-dimensional
 ○ Also give an object texture.
○ Are very important when filming a face.
● SHADOWS
○ 2.) Cast shadows:
○ Can be seen independently of
the object.
○ we see on bright sunny days. E.g. shadows of people, cars, trees,
○ Shadow puppets are also a good example of cast shadows.
○ Cast shadows help us to see where the object is located relative to its surroundings
○ Sometimes they’re an indicator of time: the longer the shadow the earlier or later
in the day it will be.
● LIGHT DIRECTION
○ Tells us what direction the light is coming from
○ Important for discerning time of day
○ Helps us tell where action originates (e.g. when a door or window opens and casts
light)
○ Creates a sense of shape and texture in images: direction of light controls the
width of the shadows
● LIGHT DIRECTION (cont’d)
○ a.) FRONTAL LIGHTING
○ b.) SIDE LIGHTING (or crosslight)
○ c.) BACK LIGHT aka Edge or Rim lighting; silhouette
○ d.) UNDERLIGHTING
○ e.) TOP LIGHTING- outline the upper areas of the figure or separate it more
clearly from the background.
● LIGHT SOURCE
○ What light source is dominant? How is light from different directions? How is
light from different directions mixed?
○ Classical Hollywood Cinema, uses an arrangement of three main sources of light
to model the object while maintaining evenness of illumination
○ KEYLIGHT-The brightest source of lighting in a scene.
○ FILL LIGHT - Illumination used to soften the keylighting in a scene.
○ BACKLIGHT - Illumination cast from behind a character to highlight their
outline in the image.
● LIGHT DIRECTION & INTENSITY
○ There are two ways to figure out the light direction and intensity
○ Look for:
○ a.) HIGHLIGHTS (glare or shine)
○ b.) SHADOWS (opposite the lighting source)
● LIGHTING TECHNIQUES BY LOCATION
○ 1) Studio Lighting (indoor):
○ Three Point (triangle) - Key light (spotlight), fill light (floodlight) and back light
(another spotlight)
○ Key & Fill illuminate the area in front: Key shines bright light and Fill light fills
in the shadows
○ The brighter the key, the stronger the shadows, the brighter the fill, the more even
the lighting
○ Background light will illuminate the area behind the scene.
○ 2.) Field Lighting (Outdoor)
○ Outdoor lighting usually will be
dependent on the available light.
○ Can apply the principles of studio
lighting to outdoor lighting.
○ Bright sunlight will create high
contrast and deep shadows.
○ Reflectors may be needed to fill in
the dark shadow areas.
○ When shooting against a bright background, anything in front will be silhouetted.
● Moonlight: harsh glare of Miami sun and tropical greenery
○ Beauty and nightmarish quality of poor area of Miami
○ Bright glare of Miami sun
○ Trees and grass; playing with film stock to capture blues and greens
● Moonlight: coolness of moonlight and darkness of crime, abuse, violence
○ Capture darkness as well
○ Blue hues
○ Represents American nightmare
○ American dream not accessible to certain parts of society
● Moonlight: America dream vs. American nightmare
○ When Chiron is being taught how to swim vs.
○ Grown Chiron in the mirror
● Not typical gritty cold realism of “street” or “ghetto films:
○ Warmth and familiarity, through warm palette and skin tones
○ Dreamlike; not just good dreams but also bad dreams
○ Compare to Do to Right Thing (1989), Boyz n the Hood (1991)
● 3- Step Lighting plan that brings out tropical climate and warmth of skin tones, but also
shadows that sculpt the face
○ Cinematographer didn’t play it safe
○ Adding blues to the blacks
 ○ Marshala
● Used oil to bring out moist sheen of skin in Miami heat
○ Instead of powder to dull it down
○ Increased light spots
● Camera techniques work with lighting to create a sense of intimacy, bonding with
characters
● Characters often look right into the camera:
○ Is this returning the gaze?
○ Challenging the viewer?
○ Or looking for support?
● And yet, Chiron also frequently turns his back or walks away from the camera:
○ Is he shutting us out?
○ Or accepting his aloneness and isolation?
● Vertigo [Alfred Hitchcock, 1958]
○ Long before Moonlight, used colour to distinguish between past and present, but
also to signal main traumatic events and character’s emotional responses
● Blue= Scotty’s past, trauma, depression
○ Signals depression, fear, anxiety, breakdown, withdrawal, ‘police’
○ Associated with main character John ‘Scotty’ Ferguson, who retired from police
force, due to traumatic incident while on the job
○ Connected to Scotty’s past
● Green= Madeleine’s Past and reincarnation
○ Connects past to future: : Scotty’s romance with Madeleine, and attempt to
remake Judy in her image
○ Judy is ‘reincarnation’ of Madeleine as Madeleine was ‘reincarnation’ of Carlotta
○ Green is associated with the supernatural, magic, jealousy or envy
● Yellow= Midge: stability, friendship, love
○ Yellow is associated with Midge, Scotty’s ex- fiancé,with whom he has a caring
friendship
○ she nursed him through his breakdown
○ Yellow is connected with her blonde hair, flowers, sunshine, light and warmth
which floods through her studio
● Red= Danger & trauma for Scotty & Madeline
○ Red is the colour associated with Madeleine in the present
○ She is a ‘femme fatale’ - not good for Scotty (like Midge)
○ She is in danger, and alo dangerous; triggers his fear of heights, trauma
○ Red is associated with danger, warning, emotions, sex, fire or heat
○
● Framing and Composition
 ○ Just as colour and lighting are used to provide contextual information about
characters and situations – to cue us into to certain emotions, or to relationships
between people, the same can be said for the framing of a shot, as well as the use
of screen-space
○ We’re going to use both Moonlight and Vertigo to discuss ‘framing’ and ‘screen
space’
● Framing & Screen Space
○ Like camera work and lighting, framing and screen space are integral components
of ‘cinematography’, and are connected to composition
● Composition
○ Refers to the arrangement of objects and people in a shot
■ Where are they positioned?
■ Off to the side or in the middle?
■ In the background or foreground?
■ Grouped together, or alone?
■ Do we see them from above, or from below?
● Composition
○ Important component of mise-en-scene
○ Also important for viewer’s orientation to what’s going
on in the scene
○ Makes it easier to follow any changes in the composition, or movement in the
shot, or transitions to another shot
○ Composition helps us remember where everything was before, and also to keep
track of things
● Framing
○ Composition involves the placement or positioning of objects or people in the
scene
○ Framing involves the placement of the camera in relation to those objects or
people
● Composition
○ An artist or photographer places people or objects in the shot to create an
interesting arrangement and flow
○ This is called ‘composing’ the shot, or ‘composition’
● Framing
○ The artist or photographer may use the camera as the ‘framing device’
○ The may choose to shoot or paint the scene off-centre, using more of the
components on the left or right, and leaving some out altogether
○ The overall scene remains the same – but the framing
changes the focus and emphasis
● Framing
● Centered Framing
● Off- Centre or Canted
○ Shows weirdness in scene
● Framing
○ Two important purposes and effects:
○ 1) tells us what we’re meant to look at, or focus on: our eye is always drawn to
the centre of an image – so if the frame moves, our eye moves, accordingly and
finds a new centre
○ 2) also creates a distinction between different kinds of spaces
○ • a) the space that is contained within the frame
○ • b) and the space that exists outside the frame
○ How can framing draw attention to space that is outside the frame, if we don’t see
that space?
○ Because we assume it exists:
○ Due to versimilitude, and our experience in the ‘real’ world off -screen, we
assume it’s there
○ The picture frame functions like a window on the world
○ The wider world exists beyond the edges of the frame
● Framing and Screen Space: Suggest a world off-screen, when in fact there isn’t one
● Cinematic Illusions
○ Illusion of Movement created by the Phi-Phenomenon and Persistence of
Vision
○ When stationary objects are placed side by side and illuminated rapidly one after
the other, our eye fills in the gaps by retaining a positive after-image
○ We don’t see the interruptions
○ We perceive the illusion that the objects in those frames are actually moving
○ Illusion of off-screen space We are convinced there is a world beyond the picture
frame
○ Why is that important?
○ Why should we care what’s beyond the frame,
particularly if we can’t see it?
○ Because it contributes to the effect of verisimilitude, the believability and
authenticity of ‘realist’ cinema
● Centered Framing (‘centripetal’)
○ Andre Bazin:
○ In traditional or centred framing, which emphasizes on-screen space, the force of
the image is ‘centripetal’
 ○ the image is composed so that our eyes are drawn inward toward the centre of the
frame
● Non-Centered Framing [centrifugal]
○ In off-centre or non- centred framing, which suggests off-screen space, the force
of the image is ‘centrifugal’
○ Our gaze is thrown outward to points beyond the picture frame
○ Confirms the existence of a real world just beyond the film screen
● Similar to effect of ‘rotor rides’ in amusement parks, which use centrifugal force to push
energy outward
● Centrifugal vs. Centripetal Framing
● Off-Screen or Non-Essential space
○ Another way to draw attention to off-screen space, is to keep the camera and
frame centred on an empty space, or an insignificant action that doesn’t advance
the narrative
● Off-screen, non-essential or unoccupied space
○ By showing us nothing important in the on-screen space, the filmmaker draws our
attention to surroundings
○ same way that off-centre framing makes us aware of the world beyond the frame
○ The longer the screen remains empty, the more our attention is drawn to the off-
screen space
○ The longer nothing essential happens, the more we take in the ambience
○ Both help to convey a greater sense of realism as well as suspense: i.e.
anticipating glimpse of what’s out there
● YASIJIRO OZU: Off-screen space
● Woody Allen
○ Actors walk in and out;
○ We don’t move but showing that their life continues beyond the screen
● Moonlight: off-screen space
○ Off-screen space shows the life they can’t control
○ The crime, the violence
● Off-Centre framing, off-screen space & historical consciousness
○ Off-centre framing and off-screen space help to create an historical consciousness
that furthers the illusion of realism
○ Especially important in films that seek to restage past eras, events or figures from
the past
○ Film has no past or future - only the mechanics of production which take place in
the ‘now’
○ Sense of past and future exists off-screen, in the real world and experience of real
people
● Historical Consciousness
○ Related to our ability to distinguish between ‘reality’ and ‘fiction’
○ Connects to outside world off-screen,
○ Provides relevance, perspective, and factual sources or origins for particular
events and actions
● Historical Consciousness (cont’d)
○ Draws a line or creates a continuum between present and past, and between
fiction and reality
○ Enables readers or spectators in the present, to relate to the past as represented in
historical accounts –
○ Sidesteps considerations of history’s constructedness or authorship by specific
individuals or institutions
○ Assumes we all share a similar perception of history or similar memories of the
past
○ Just like off-screen space, which assumes the existence of real world outside the
film
● Vertigo [Alfred Hitchcock, 1958]
○ 1958 American film noir psychological thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock
○ about a former policemen who, after a near-death experience, suffers from vertigo
and a fear of heights
○ Considered the ‘ultimate critics’ film’.
● Vertigo
○ Creates suspense through narrative and film techniques, including editing
○ Also application of Freudian theories of the unconscious and dreams
○ Film viewing often compared by scholars to being in a dream-state.
○ Film critic Nick James described Vertigo as a
..... “dream-like film about people who are not sure who they are but who are busy
reconstructing themselves and each other to fit a kind of cinema ideal of the ideal
soul-mate.”
○ Offers a self-reflexive take not only on classical narrative cinema, but also our
sense of historical consciousness, upon which classical narrative cinema and its
sense of ‘verisimilitude’ – heavily depend.
● Trauma & Repression
○ Film also engages with Freud’s theory about how we bury trauma, fear anxiety, or
taboo desires or urges in the our unconscious mind
○ Society expects us to repress these feelings order to conform to standards for
‘normal behaviour’ but also because that is the only way in which we can
function.
 ○ But, according to Freud, if we don’t deal with those issues , they can resurface
later – what he calls the ‘return of the repressed’ – and lead to aberrant behaviour,
or in some extreme cases, a breakdown.
● Vertigo
○ Hitchcock’s use of film language and technique also suggest tensions between
ordered, controlled (healthy, stable) world view, and the surrounding chaotic
(unhealthy, unstable) universe
○ The two are at odds with each other
○ Scotty’s obsession with Madeleine is based on a romantic
ideal (unrealistic): disastrous for him
○ Disjunction between fiction and reality, and between truth and fantasy shakes his
foundations (logic, control, stability)
○ Also shakes foundations and conventions of classical narrative cinema, with its
careful orchestration of realism, logic, chronology, historical consciousness
● Things to Think about:
○ 1) Colour: how does it signal slippage between past and present (historical
consciousness) and also provide emotional cues about characters (identification)?
○ 2) Lighting: where is light directed, and with what intensity?
○ 3) Shadows: where are they and what kind are they?
○ 4) Framing: is it centred (centripetal) or off-centre
(centrifigual)? What is the effect of that?
○ 5) On-screen and off-screen space: What do we see, and what don’t we see?
How does that help to create suspense? And how does it give us insight into the
characters’ emotions and states-of-mind?
○ How do all of these techniques comment on the ‘balance and ‘imbalance’ in
Scotty’s mind and perceptions?
○ How do they also comment on or question our assumptions or illusions about the
connection or disjunction between the world onscreen and the world off -screen –
about fiction and reality, and fantasy and truth?

WEEK 11: November 21, 2019: CINEMATOGRAPHY III; PERSPECTIVE, LONG TAKE,
MOBILE FRAMING

● Composition & Framing

○ Whereas composition is created through arrangement of objects and people in the
picture frame, framing is created by the placement of the camera in relation to
objects and people in the shot.
● Composition
 ○ Rule of thirds: divide frame into grid made up of three vertical sections and three
horizontal sections.
○ Composition roughly has three sections:
○ Top, middle, bottom
○ Left, centre, right
○ Background, middle ground, foreground
○
● Composition cont’d.
○ The distribution or arrangement of objects and people in within the grid sections
creates the sense of balance or imbalance in the composition of the shot
○ Most people are drawn to and feel more comfortable with balanced compositions,
and compositions which are centred, or symmetrical
○ Balanced compositions convey a sense of order, and control
● Compositional balance
○ Centering a person
○ Placing objects with equal weight on either side
○ Use of vertical or horizontal lines.
● Composition
○ Unbalanced composition: can create “compositional stress”
○ -alludes to the stress created by imbalance or asymmetry of the subjects in the
image Some forms of imbalance create expectations –
● [‘Eye Room’] Run Lola Run
○ Room in front of her
○ Shows she’s looking at something or something is coming towards her
● [‘Lead room] Run Lola Run
○ Shows that she’s going towards something
● Negative space
○ Empty space; space not filled by objects and people
○ Asking for something to come in to fill the space
○ Makes characters in space look vulnerable
● 11 Parameters of Framing
1. Frame dimensions: Aspect ratio
2. Frame within a frame
3. Camera distance/implied proximity: XCU <-> XLS
4. Centered <-> Decentered
5. Camera angle: Low <-> High (bird’s-
eye view)
6. Camera horizon line: Level (horizontal) <-> Dutch angle
7. Camera height: distance above ground
 8. Character frontality
9. On-screen space <-> Off-screen space
10. Depth of field (perspective relations)
11. Camera movement
● 1. Aspect ratio- frame dimension
○ ASPECT RATIO - The ratio of the frame's width to its height. Old standard
Academy ratio is 1.33 : 1 (1.375 : 1 in sound era).
○ WIDESCREEN-An aspect ratio wider than 1.33 : 1. New standard ratio is 1.85 :
1 (US); 1.66 : 1 (UK); CinemaScope is 2.35 : 1.
● Standard vs. Widescreen:
○ 3 Ways of filming a showdown
○ Standard: Use of editing to show conflicting parties
● Standard Ratio: 2.) Use of diagonals or other angles
● Widescreen: No need to “cheat”: Can capture all in one shot
● Fitting widescreen to television aspect ratio:
○ 1. Either part of the image is lost or
○ 2.) Letterboxing; the black parts framing it
● Framing: (Types of Frames)
○ Different types of frames create particular shapes through which we view the
objects
○ Some are in the shot itself – such as windows or doorways which ‘frame’ the
action
○ Some are superimposed in the shot, which are called ‘masks’ or ‘mattes’ or
‘irises’ : these create particular shapes that define and concentrate our view of the
action
● Camera Proximity
○ Depending on camera distance or proximity, we will see more or less of the image
and background
○ Distance/ Proximity will also change what is centered in the frame
○ The same can be said for distance/ proximity to the ground
● Camera distance or implied proximity
○ “The apparent distance between the camera (and thus the viewer) and thesubject
of the shot” (LM)
○ aka"camera distance" and "shot scale"
○ EXTREME CLOSE UP (XCU or ECU) – “A very close shot of a particular
detail, such as a person’s eye, a ring on a finger, or a face of a watch” (LM)
○ CLOSE UP (CU) – “A shot that often shows a part of the bodyfilling the frame –
traditionally a face” (LM)
 ○ MEDIUM CLOSE UP (MCU) – “A shot that shows a character from the middle
of the chest to the top of the head” (LM)
○ MEDIUM SHOT (MS) – “A shot framed to show the human body from the
waist up” (LM)
● Camera angles
○ STRAIGHT-ON ANGLE - A shot in which the camera looks straight-on at
character(s) in the mise-en-scène.
○ CANTED OR ‘DUTCH’ – A shot in which the camera is on a slant or crooked
○ LOW ANGLE (LA) – “A shot that is made with the camera below the action”
(LM)
○ aka low shot
○ HIGH ANGLE (HA) – “A shot that is made with the camera above the action”
(LM)
■ aka down shot
○ BIRD’S-EYE VIEW SHOT – “An extreme high angle shot that is typically
taken from a crane, drone, or aircraft” (LM)
■ aka aerial-view shot or overhead shot
● Camera angles
○ Low angle: intimidating
○ High angle: look vulnerable
○ Bird’s eye/ overhead
● Camera horizon line
○ Level (horizontal) vs. Canted (crooked
○ DUTCH ANGLE: “A shot in which the camera is tilted from its normal
horizontal and vertical positions so that it is no longer straight” (LM)
■ Aka oblique-angle shot
■ May signify a world out of balance
● TECHNIQUES OF FRAMING
○ Differents techniques and methods of framing or use of screen space, help to
focus the viewer on what’s important
○ Centered framing- the filmmaker is focusing our attention on what is going on at
the centre of the picture frame – the on-screen content and important characters or
objects
○ Off-centred framing- the filmmaker is drawing our attention to something that is
happening to the margins or even beyond the picture frame – to something else
that we do not yet see, or which we have to turn our eyes to see
● Centripetal (closed) vs. centrifugal (open) framing and screen space
○ Closed- focuses energy
○ Open- throws energy to the sides; shows that there’s action to the sides
● 7. Camera Height
○ HEIGHT OF FRAMING- The distance of the camera above the ground,
regardless of the angle of framing.
○ EYE-LEVELSHOT–“Anangle [and level] in which the camera is positioned at
the eye level of the subject; the standard camera angle used for most shots” (LM)
● CHARACTER FRONTALITY
○ In staging, the positioning of figures so that they face the viewer (frontality).
○ Different degrees of frontality
○ 1) Full-frontal view
○ 2) Three quarter view
○ 3) Side or profile view
● Profile (side) view
○ All depends on what the director is trying to convey
● Also Sitcom Frontality
○ Like in Friends, everything is there in the frame
● Kinesis: movement in the frame
○ Kinesis: the way the camera captures movement of objects and characters and
also moves itself
○ the kinetic quality of films may be affected by genre (fast, slow)
○ figures in films (objects, animals or peope) can move in many ways across the
frame: horizontally, vertically, diagonally, from foreground to background & vice
versa
○ Planning positions and movement = ‘blocking’
○ Eg. ‘Late Summer’
○ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v1bCcIlUEQ
● CAMERA MOVEMENT or “mobile framing”
○ We can also convey movement by the actual physical movement of the camera
itself, which mimicks the movements of the on-screen subjects in terms of
direction
○ With ‘figure movement’, the figures on screen move through the on-screen space
within the frame, which is limited
○ Whereas with ‘camera movement’, the camera moves through the off-screen
space of the set which is unlimited, and which gives to the viewer, the illusion that
they are moving through space as well, and actually accompanying, rather than
watching from a fixed position, the movements of the figures
● Camera movement cont’d
○ ‘Figure movement’ aligned with theatre –where we watch actors move across and
through a fixed on-stage space
○ ‘Camera movement’ is inherently cinematic
 ○ Enhances the illusion of depth, movement and proximity –that in theatre are
limited to effects set design and seating arrangement
○ Enables us to make deeper psychological connections between several things that
are going on in the scene simultaneously
○ This way, the camera acquires a life of its own
○ Acts as a kind of intermediary between on-screen action,
and the viewer
○ Difference between ‘hey look at that’ and ‘hey, let me show you this’
● More camera movement
○ Facilitated by movement of the camera, to follow the action, but also the specific
ways in which various parts of the camera could move:
○ •TILT-A vertical camera movement in which the camera swivels on its axis up or
down.
○ •PAN-A horizontal camera movement in which the camera swivels on its axis
from side to side.
○ • You do NOT "tilt right." You do NOT "pan up" or "pandown"
○ • SWISH PAN - A pan in which the camera moves quickly from side to side,
blurring the image.
● MOBILE FRAMING
○ RACKING SHOT - A smooth horizontal movement of the camera on a moving
support, shot on rails or a dolly, usually moving forward or back, left or right.
○ variations: tracking, trucking, dolly
○ -emulates the movement of walking
toward something or driving alongside it
○ famous tracking shot – in Stagecoach(John Ford, 1939)
○ when the Apaches attack
○ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4jF
3xTxKWM
○ Dollying can also change the framing, as moving the camera closer to the action
made things seem bigger, while dollying backward, made them seem smaller and
further away
● MOBILE FRAMING
○ CRANE SHOT - A camera movement in which the camera appears to move
freely above the ground.
○ e.g. train station sequence in Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939)
○ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSEVyzKm lyU
○ Showdown sequence in High Noon (Fred Zinneman, 1952)
○ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Aqk4I4zm G8
○ Crane shot can also swoop downward as in Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock, 1946)
 ○ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reWOxLvp 5sA
○ Also crane shots which convey the effect of‘omniscience’ (all seeing, all
knowing) , as inTouch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958) opening sequence
○ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg8MqjoF vy4
○ Now drones are often used to get the high aerials shots that used to be captured by
cranes or helicopters – opening of American Beauty(Sam Mendes, 1999)
○ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMqwSTe5 rvo
● MOBILE FRAMING
○ HAND- HELD SHOT
○ -A shot in which the camera operator's body is used as the camera support.
○ • variation:Steadicam
● HAND-HELD CAMERA
○ Enables the cameraman to get in close to the action, and follow it, but also with
freedom of movement –weaving in and out of a crowd for example, or slipping
through narrow spaces and passage ways
○ -footage shot by hand held camera also appears very shaky, jumpy and even
blurry, which can convey a sense of immediacy, spontaneity and urgency– as
though we are literally running ourselves, behind the action or following the
characters - without the time for the elaborate set ups, blocking or choreographed
movements – at the same time though it can be hard to watch
○ E.G. ‘Blair Witch
○ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v =ntgrRUML2ic
● STEADI-CAM
○ -with the advent of the steadi- cam, which works on hydraulics, and is
attachedfirmly to the cameraperson’sbody, hand-held shooting became much
smoother, and easier to watch, but with the same flexibility, and mobility
○ E.g. The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
• https://www.pearlanddean.com /blog/greatest-single-shot-
tracking-scenes-film-history
● LENSES
○ Cameras are equipped with certain kinds of lenses that help to ‘frame’ and also
provide a kind of movement, by bringing the viewer closer to the action
○ -all share certain basic properties, which are 1) ‘aperture’ 2) focal length and 3)
depth of field
○ APERTURE: adjustable iris (like the pupil inside your eye) which limits the
amount of light passing through the lens
○ – the bigger the size of the aperture, the more light it admits through the lens
 ○ -less light usually requires a bigger aperture – in the same way that in a darker
room, your pupils are enlarged – more light requires a smaller aperture – in the
same way that your pupils contract in bright light
○ Focal length:
○ • the distance from the optical centre of the lens to the focal point on the film
stock when the image is in focus (sharp and clear)
○ • Enables us to perceive perspective – the appearance of depth – in a shot, and
influences our perception of the size, scale and movement of the subject being
shot
● 4 TYPES OF LENSES
○ --1) short focal length – or wide angle lens which makes subjects on the screen
appear farther apart than they actually are
○ -elongates the depth of field so that things seem to be further away than the
actually are
○ -characters or objects moving at a normal speed from background to foreground
seem to be moving faster than they actually are
○ Cinema scope or wide-screen photography often uses wide angle techniques
○ -as with centrifugal screen space is pushes the eye out toward the sides of the
frame
○ E.g. Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962)
○ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ud1zpHW3ito
○ 2) long focal length or telephoto
○ -makes far away objects appear closer than they actually are, but at the same time,
flattens out the depth so that everything seems to be on the same picture plane
○ E.g. The Conversation (Coppola, 1971)
○ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlwdpNw1FW8
○ (at the same time, it makes movement from background to foreground seem to
take longer, as though the object is hardly moving at all
○ 3)middle focal length
○ -called the ‘normal lens’ –corresponds to our habitual,
experience of depth and perspective – no distortion
○ 4)zoom lens
○ -also called ‘variable focal length’ lens
○ permits the cinematographer to shrink or increase the focal length in a continuous
motion
○ -simulates the effect of moving the camera - but the camera is only magnifying
the image, not moving through space
○ E.g.TheGodfather(Coppola,1972)
○ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIBpHO1gZgQ
● Dolly-Zoom
○ Example of use of wide angle and telephoto one after the other in Dirty Harry
○ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJjn9Vt7k1Q
○ Dolly-zoom - -a cool technique created by zooming in on something while
simultaneously dollying out – a technique innovated by Hitchcock, and used in
Vertigo, (aka the‘Vertigo effect’)
○ -tower stairs in Vertigo (1958)
○ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=je0NhvAQ6fM
○ - stair sequence in ‘Psycho’ (Hitchcock, 1960)
○ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bieIiX5KLQ
○ -used by Spielberg in Jaws (1975)
○ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB4bikrNzMk
● Depth of Focus
○ DEEP FOCUS;
○ Shot in which foreground and background planes are in
focus at the same time
○ llusion of 3 dimensional space, and depth to the screen
○ SHALLOW FOCUS
○ Shot in which only one plane is in focus at a time (aka
‘selective focus)
○ RACK FOCUS
○ Shallow focus shot in which the focus shifts from one
plane to the other (aka pulling focus)
● Depth Cues for Focus
○ Depth cues:
○ Overlapping objects,
○ illusion of 3 dimensional space, and depth to the screen
○ colour (cool colours recede, warm colours come forward)
○ Shadows cast by objects
○ Movement forward and back through picture planes
○ Size diminution and differentation: objects in foreground are larger than objects in
background
○ Sharpness: objects in foreground (closer) may be sharper than those in
background (further away)
○ Linear perspective: parallel lines seem to converge in distance (vanishing point)
● Deep Focus:
○ Citizen Kane, next to window scene
● Shallow focus:
○ Vertigo: Her bun framed
● Depth-of-Field
○ DEPTH OF FIELD: property of the lens that enables the cinematographer to
decide which picture planes will be in focus
○ -refers to the distances in front of a camera and the lens, in which the subjects
remain in focus
● POINT OF VIEW
○ Different points of view offered by different types of framing, composition and
camera work – camera angles and movement
○ 1) omniscient point of view – in which we have a God-like perspective over the
action –– which is what we get with an aerial or crane shot – or high angle shot –
this seems to be (on the surface) a more objective neutral view point in the sense
that we see all
• E.g. AmericanBeauty
● Points of View
○ Single-character’s point of view
○ More obviously subjective in the sense that it provides the point of view of one
particular character with whom we identify, who drives the action, and whose
motivations are explained and carried out by the narrative
○ In this case the camera will bealigned with that character’sline of vision and
position in the scene so we are seeing what he or she is seeing
○ E.g. American Beauty
○ and there is the group point of view which indicates what a group would see
○ Can also be a way to indicate visual limitations or the mental state of a particular
character
○ E.g. Chiron in Moonlight
● Points of View:
○ Scotty seeing Madeleine; his perspective seeing her
● Points of View
○ Lady in the Lake (Robert Montgomery, 1947)
○ https://www.youtube.com/watch ?v=4fn6JdpmW6Y
○ Hardcore Henry (Ilya Naishuller, 2016)
○ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= 96EChBYVFhU
● POV- shot/ reverse/ shot
○ Point of view (or POV) is also a foundation of continuity editing
○ It can be a short scene or series of shots, or even a single shot, that shows what a
character (the subject) is looking at (represented through the camera) – sometimes
called an ‘object of attention’
 ○ It is usually established by being positioned between a shot of a character looking
at something, and a shot showing the character's reaction , establishing a shot
sequence of ‘shot / reverse/ shot’.
○ E.g. The Postman Always Rings Twice
○ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v =WGFer3-Aguw
● POV (Point of View)
○ A POV shot need not be the strict point-of-view of a single character in a film.
Sometimes the point-of- view shot is taken over the shoulder of another third
character who remains visible on the screen. Sometimes a POV shot is "shared"
("dual" or "triple"), i.e. it represents the joint POV of a group.
● Speed and Length of Shot
○ Another way to convey point of view, as well as movement in a shot or scene, is
through the speed and length of the shot
○ How long the camera remains on the shot (DURATION), and also the speed of
the photography (CAMERA SPEED)
● Shot Duration
○ The duration of a shot is impacted by three things
○ • 1) the script, which, by description, determines the
○ duration of the action and dialogue in a shot
○ • 2) the cinematography – the duration of the filming of that shot (e.g. quick shot
or long take)
○ • 3) and the editing – how long the shot runs before a transition
● Camera Speed (ramping)
○ The camera and speed of the photography, can be controlled through the
technique of ‘speed ramping’
○ • 1) slow motion (deceleration)
○ • 2) fast motion (acceleration)
● Deceleration (slo-mo)
○ a scene can be shot in slow motion, which slows down the movement, and
lengthens the duration of the shot
○ normally film runs at 24 frames per second, which is the speed to capture normal
movement
○ for slow motion, both the speed of the film moving through the camera, and
therefore the action, are ‘decelerated’ to that the action seems to take more time to
unfold on screen (‘reel time’) then it would in reality (‘real time’)
● Deceleration (slo-mo) cont’d.
○ Has certain uses and effects:
○ 1) allows us to contemplate the shot
longer, stretching it out
 ○ 2) emphasizes the power of memory by making images and sounds last longer, as
though resonating in the mind
■ Used to memorialize individuals or to commemorate historical,
newsworthy or nostalgic moments
■ Can also be used to capture moments of extreme emotion –e.g. love, or
horror
■ To heighten awareness of something
e.g. 9/11 or napalming scene inApocalypse Now (Coppola 1979)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C IrvSJwwJUE
● Acceleration (fast-mo)
○ Has the opposite effect of speeding up the action
○ created by slowing the frequency at which film frames are usually captured
(24/second)
○ When played back at normal speed seems to be moving faster
○ Special effects can be created when content in the foreground moves more
quickly than in the background, or vice-versa
● Acceleration (fast-mo)
○ EFFECTS AND USES:
○ -can depict the rapid passing of time and/or a particular process (e.g. movement,
decay)
○ Can suggest an unsettled environment or atmosphere
○ Can convey an altered mental state
○ Can suggest an altered physical state (e.g. superpowers)
● Special Effects in Cinematography
○ Other special effects, which are created in-camera, or mechanically, or in the lab
or on computer, and which also relate tangentially to framing and composition.
○ • 1) reverse motion – sometimes used in comedy - created by optically printing a
strip of film projected backwards from its original orientation
○ 2) the freeze frame - in which a still frame is held on screen
○ e.g. 400 Blows (Truffaut, 1959)
○ • https://www.youtube.com /watch?v=a4jGNoag_1g
● Manipulations of the Photographic Image
○ Also special effects which involve manipulating the image itself
○ Used to create fictitious spatial relations in the shot
○ 1) process shots
○ 2) superimpositions
○ 3) mattes
○ 4) rear projection
○ 5) front projection
● Process Shot
○ Any shot that involves ‘re-photography’
○ Created with a trick camera that incorporates already completed film matter that is
not present in the actual scene photographed
○ Frequently it combines two or more images into one, to create a special effect;
also called a "composite shot."
○ Eg, TWINS in Parent Trap(1961)
○ https://www.youtube.com/watc h?v=pyqzkhBJds4
● Superimposition
○ An effect created by laying one image over another, either in camera (shooting the
same film strip twice or more) or in the lab (laying one strip of film over another).
○ eg. Psycho(Hitchcock,1961)
○ • https://www.youtube.com /watch?v=dYDxxHrlmUg
● Matte Shot
○ - type of process shot in which different areas of the image (usually actors and
setting) are photographed separately in combined laboratory work. -such as when
painted shots or background images are combined with live footage in an attempt
to create a seamless effect.
○ . Practical foregrounds and action are placed atop a painted background
○ E.g. Planet of the Apes (1968): Statue of Liberty
○ Ben Hur (1959) Ancient Rome
● Iris Shot
○ A round, moving mask that can be used as a transitional shot –to close down
(iris-out) or begin (iris-in) a scene
○ to reveal more space around adetail, or narrow the viewer’sfocus to a particular
element (common in silent cinema before zoom and telephoto lenses)
○ -in contemporary film used as a stylistic choice – or to look‘old’fashioned’
○ e.g. James Bond films
○ https://www.youtube.com/watc
h?v=kJkjD5CwASU
● Rear Projection
○ Combines a foreground action with a background action filmed earlier.
○ The foreground is filmed in a studio, against a screen
○ The background imagery is projected from behind the screen.
○ Often used in classic cinema for driving scenes
○ (e.g., Hitchcock’s Notorious(1946)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v =BwRAbtcey4
○ Aand To Catch a Thief (1954)
 ○ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=XcDGAyQnHQ8
● Front Projection
○ Projects pre-filmed material over the performers and onto a highly reflective
background surface
○ projected image is bounced off the screen and into the lens of a camera
○ the advantage to front projection is greater depth- of-field - you can have several
planes seemingly in focus at once
○ E.g. 2001 Space Odyssey(1971)
● Tonality
○ Cinematography also includes effects created by manipulations of the tonality of
the film stock itself
○ These are manipulations which don’t take place on-set, but after the film has been
shot in the processing and post production process
● TONALITY cont’d.
○ Before digital cameras, film stock was the principal material of cinematography –
○ Depended upon negative film strips, with sprocket holes, that were fed through
the camera and upon which, through the admission of light through the lens
aperture, a series of still photographs was registered
○ -film stock had a clear base coat on one side, and on the other side a
light-sensitive emulsion strip of negative film upon which a series of still
photographs is registered -
○ Different kinds of film stock used for different types of light which have different
speeds as well – slow or fast
○ Speeds refer to the measure of the film’s sensitivity to light
○ indicates the relationship between exposure to light, and and output image from
the camera
● Tonality cont’d.
○ SLOW FILM:
○ A relatively insensitive film, with low speed index, requires more exposure to
light to produce the same image density as a more sensitive film
○ commonly termed a slow film. And tends to be used in bright lighting
conditions, like sunlight
○ FAST FILM:
○ Highly sensitive films are correspondingly termed fast films.
○ As they are more sensitive and require less exposure to light so can be used in
dim lighting conditions or at night
● Tonality cont’d.
 ○ The relationship of exposure to sensitivity can either enhance or reduce the image
quality, making it sharper, or more coarse and grainy or ‘noisy’
○ The higher the sensitivity, the grainier the image will be. The lower the
sensitivity, the sharper the image
○ These effects can be recreated in the lab
○ – the image can be balanced (if it’s too over or under exposed), or deliberate
bleached out or darkened
○ -it can also be scratched, tinted or stencilled
○ E.g. Woody Allen’s Zelig (1983)
● Tonality
○ Cinematographers can use ‘gels’ in front of the camera while filming, or the
printer lens during processing, to alter the quality and quantity of light striking the
film
○ in the silent era before the invention of colour photography and the development
of sophisticated film and lighting equipment and techniques, films were ‘tinted’ to
suggest mood and atmosphere
○ Now films are tinted to produce particuk,,lar effects –or, particular types of film
stock are used to produce particular effects –such as the retro or bleached out look
of home movies, or to suggest a particular type of atmosphere
○ Eg. The Matrix (Wachowskis, 1999)
○ Capernaum(Nadine Labaki, 2018)
● Colour
○ With invention of colour photography, the means of expressing mood,
atmosphere, changed dramatically
○ Certain colours carried with them associated symbolic values
○ Colour‘replaced’manyof the elements of texture, shade and tone suggested with
black and white photography
● Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)
○ Alternately billed as a horror film, and a black comedy, mainly due to some of its
satirical themes
○ Interesting rebuttal to classical Hollywood Cinema, particularly with respect to
the dearth of films written, directed, and produced by African Americans, to black
leading actors and protagonists, and to genres that make space for black
characters
● THINGS TO THINK ABOUT
○ Think about social and political subtext
○ The film’s address to ‘Otherness’
○ How it comments on racial and cultural appropriation
 ○ The thin line between comedy and horror: how are they the same, and use similar
strategies to convey their message and meaning?
○ Take note of Peele’s use of film language to convey meaning, to encourage
identification, but also to produce the ‘creep’ factor
○ Think about elements discussed in the course so far, but also elements of
cinematography that help to bring out the conventions of comedy and horror, and
also blend them in unique ways

WEEK 12: November 28, 2019: SOUND

● GET OUT: RECAP

○ Horror film that is also billed as a black comedy
○ Horror can have darkly comical moments , particularly when it offers a social
critique or commentary
○ Peele addressing 2 issues:
○ 1) Mixed relationships in a
racially conflicted society
○ 2) Mixed relationships and characters in Hollywood cinema itself, within which
African Americans historically were marginalized or altogether absent
● Get Out’s “black” humor
○ When is the humour most evident?
○ In scenes with Rod,Chris’ best friend –the funniest character in the film.
○ Why?
○ Because he is the film’s ‘blackest’ character
○ The most evocative and expressive of African American culture in the way he
speaks, and his reactions to events
○ Stands out as an absurd anomaly: what he is he doing here?
○ Also importantly pushes past the pseudo-liberal hypocrisy of the Armitages (and
their generation), as well as the whitewashing of Hollywood Cinema
● GET OUT: black “authenticity”
○ With “authentically” black characters, there are genuine emotional moments
○ Trauma not experienced or expressed by white characters
○ Emotion peeps through facades of zombified black characters when their trances
are accidentally disrupted
○ Extreme emotional displays in Hollywood cinema, typically reserved for female
characters
○ Associated with instability, inability, and hysteria- i.e. “non-masculine” behavior
○ Does this mean that the black characters who freely express emotion (e.g. fear)
are not considered ‘masculine’?
 ○ Or is it that they don’t conform to the master code of ‘white’ identity, particularly
in Hollywood heroes: stiff upper lip, tough, cool, calm and controlled under fire?
○ And if the white characters in the film are constructed as traditional Hollywood
villains - hypocritical, deceitful, and also completely cold and unemotional - then
what does it say about their genuineness or authenticity, or that of the white
master culture and identity at large?
● Chris’s Trauma(s)
○ 1) in his personal past: the death of his mother, and failure to act (watched TV
instead of searching for her)
○ 2) in the historical past of his culture and people: slavery and racism
○ Both triggered by visit toRose’s family
○ 1) Hypnosis which forces himto recall mother’s death
○ 2) Encounters with racism (cop, stereotyping) and references to slavery which
point to trauma on a much bigger scale
○ -plantation style house
○ -auction
○ -kidnapping and confinement
○ -disempowerment
○ -oppression & fetishization of ‘the Other’ , leading to cultural appropriation
● Paralysis and Powerlessness
○ -for Chris the trauma in both cases leads to paralysis- and powerlessness
○ - suggested by symbols: e.g. the deer in the road, or on the wall, and the
television, which induces a trance-like state, and disseminates images of
subjectivited black culture
● ROD: A Welcome Relief
○ Rod represents the genuine article: authentic black culture that in the film is
associated with “realism”
○ Unlike the artificiality, fakery , duplicity and lies associated with white characters
in the film (and traditional Hollywood cinema)
○ Sense of ‘realism’ and authenticity is a welcome relief to the black characters and
viewers who identify with them
● Other Dark Notes…
○ Missing black men- which no one notices or cares about
○ Only a black man puts it together and goes to the police (law, authority,
institution) who are helpful
● “Return of the Repressed”
○ When Chris snaps out of the trance and attacks and slay family, beginning with
the deer (symbol of paralysis)
 ○ Also when other black characters surface briefly from their trances and tell him to
‘run’
○ Also saved by the cotton balls (symbol of slave system) taken from chair
(confinement) which he stuffed in his ears to block hypnotic sounds and prevent
paralysis
● “Return of the Repressed”
○ When Chris goes medieval on the family killing everyone, alludes to the Nat
Turner Revolt led by a black slave preacher
○ Rebels slaughtered several plantation owners
○ Inspired by previous revolts in American south and Caribbean
○ Subject of Nate Parker’s Birth of a Nation, directed in 2016, made at the height of
the Black Lives Matter movement
● Horror Film Tropes and Conventions
○ Being stalked, kidnapped, held prisoner
○ Going to the authorities who don’t help
○ No one believing you’re in danger
○ Feeling of being watched or followed
○ Untrustworthy loved ones
○ Characters venturing into the woods, or opening a closet, or going down to the
basement
○ Themes of conspiracy, zombieism and mind control,
○ Mad doctors and scientists, ghouls, zombies, serial killers, creepy servants
○ Monstrous “Others”
○ “JUMP” scare scenes (unexpected attacks)
● SOUND
○ Sound invented before cinematography and film projection
○ Edison invented the “phonograph” in 1877
■ Phono= sound
■ Graph = to write or record
○ Invented the Kinetograph (first motion picture camera) in 1889, to provide
illustrations for sound recordings
● Sound cont’d
○ Edison’s phonograph first to reproduce, recorded sound
○ Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, added several improvements
in 1880s
○ Initially, gramophones produces sound on ‘disks’
○ Sound vibration waveforms recorded as physical deviations of a spiral groove
○ engraved, etched, incised or impressed onto the surface of a rotating cylinder or
disc,called a ‘record’.
● Replaying Recorded Sound
○ In very early acoustic phonographs, without electricity - , the stylus or needle
vibrated a diaphragm, which produced sound waves, amplified in the open air
through a flaring horn, or, directly into the listener’s ears, through stethoscope-
type earphones.
● Early “Record Players”
○ Monophone
○ Usually could be carried around
○ Then larger, table top ones came
● Early Sound Recording
○ Took decades to achieve adequate amplification - projecting the sound loudly
enough for audiences to hear throughout the theatre - as well as good recording
quality.
○ These innovations only came to fruition in the early 1920s in short films, and then
in 1927 with Warner Brothers’ production ofThe Jazz Singer
○ Was really a silent film, but used sound for Al Jolson’s musical numbers.
○ Watch clip from Singing in the Rain:
○ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v =OTFCctdiS04
○ Some purists bemoaned the coming of sound, maintaining that it detracted from
the aesthetics of motion pictures - diverted attention and emphasis away from the
image.
○ Felt that with invention of sound, cinema ceased to be an art form, and became
purely a medium of mass entertainment. (of course it has always been that from
the start)
○ Others maintained that the coming of sound enhanced the cinematic experience,
and improved films
○ Now we could hear the dialogue, the actor’s voices, aswell as background music
and sound effects which actually (according to Steven Spielberg), enabled us
to‘see’ better.
● Sound in Cinema
○ With continual technological innovation taking place particularly in digital
technology, sound is probably the most intensively creative part of contemporary
move-making, particularly insofar as sound is used as an integral element of
story-telling
○ This is especially the case that animation and 3D movies, which rely heavily on
sound, for the characterization of non-realistic heroes and protagonists, and for
which sound provides virtually every element to make them come alive for
audiences.
● Sound in Cinema cont’d
 ○ Cinema sound, in the form of music and effects, contributes to symbolic and
emotional impact of films
○ Gives action additional energy and dramatic potential
○ Cues us into the feelings of the characters, as well as atmosphere around them
○ Operates on both physical and psychological levels:
○ Informing our expectations, as well as reception of
○ ‘meaning’
○ Helps us analyze and interpret the scenes.
● Sound in Cinema cont’d
○ Sound draws attention to itself, as well as to ‘silence’
○ Absence of sound, creates different kind of focus and energy – as well as intuiting
a different perception of realism.
○ Sound also draws attention to the diegetic and extra- diegetic worlds of the film
– the world inhabited by the characters, but also the world inhabited by the
viewers in the audience watching the film.
○ The characters can’t hear the background music, or orchestral score that we hear,
but nonetheless it enhances the story, adding depth to it and to our emotional
experience of the film as a whole.
● Sound Production
○ While some of the sound we hear in a film is incidental or natural – that is it is
sound produced by actor’s voices, ormusic in the scene, or machinery or in the
surroundings on location – most film sound is constructed.
○ Four key phases of sound production in a film:
○ 1) sound design
○ 2) sound recording
○ 3) sound editing
○ 4) sound mixing
● Sound Design
○ Sound design: the art of creating sound for a film
○ As with cinematography, all sound in a film is part of an overall design
○ Most filmmakers before the 1970s, really only thought of sound after the film was
shot –(except for dialogue)
○ . Films weren’t designed or conceptualized with the whole‘sound-track’ in mind, .
○ Back in the day when film stock was used to record sound, the sound track was
basically a narrow band on one side of the film image
● Sound Design
○ With advent of digital filmmaking, sound recording in cinema became
increasingly complex, keeping pace with technology
 ○ The sound track consisted of a digital codes placed somewhere on the digital
recording medium.
○ Sound has become an integral component of film production all the way through,
carefully conceived and planned during pre-production, and executed in both
production and post-production.
○ Contemporary filmmakers understand that Sound and image are co-expressible
(can express elements at the same time), but at the same time, they can also create
different worlds.
○ What characters on screen ‘hear’ is potentially as important as what they ‘see’
● Sound Design cont’d
○ Sound designers emphasize the necessity for all collaborators on a crew (even
those not on the sound team) to be aware of how their stylistic choices may affect
sound.
○ Viewers should be able to interpret sounds they way they do images, particularly
insofar as the sounds, like the images, convey meaning.
○ A sound designer treats the sound track in the same way that a painter treats a
canvas, or the cinematographer treats the shot
○ 1) For each and every shot the sound designer must identify all the sounds
necessary to the story and plot (like storyboard for director or shot list for
cinematographer)
○ 2) Lays in all the background tones (different tones = different colours) to create
the support necessary for adding specific sounds that help the scene to function.
○ ( ‘Sound Design is the art of getting the right sound in the right place at the right
time”).
● Sound Recording
○ The process of recording sound for movies is similar to the process hearing : the
human ear converts sound into nerve impulses that are identified by the brain:
similarly, the microphone converts sound waves into electrical signals that are
recorded and stored.
○ The responsibilities for recording sound for films fall to a team that includes
the sound recordist, sound mixer, boom operator and gaffers in charge of power
supply, electrical connections and cables.
○ At one time, sound was recorded directly on the film strip, but now that are
various media used to record sound, including audiotape, CDs or Computer
hard drives
○ This enables sound technicians to synchronize sound with image:
○ - control
○ -allows for maximum quality -allows for manipulation of sound during
post-production.
● Sound Editing:
○ The process of editing a picture lasts a lot longer than the shooting itself and
carries on to the post-production phase.
○ Sound editing lasts even longer, because of all the dialogue, sound effects, sound
atmosphere and ambiance, background noise, and music, that all have to be
integrated with the images
○ If spoken dialogue is not clear, sometimes actors will have to redub their lines, in
front of a film screen - either manually –synchronizing their lines with the
movements of their lips– or, with ADR or Automatic Dialogue Replacement that
automatically stretches or fits their dubbed lines over the old ones, to match the
movements of their lips.
○ Unwanted ambient sounds are also edited out
○ Then finished sound track is synchronized with the visual track.
● Sound Mixing
○ The mixing process involves combining and compressing all the tracks of
different sounds – dialogue, music, effects, ambient sound, etc. - onto one
composite sound track that synchronizes with the picture or image.
○ During this process, the sound crew can adjust the volume of the sound, filter out
anything not wanted or needed, and find the right balance of all the various tracks
– dialogue, background sound, music, and effects.
● What is film sound?
○ Made up of various elements:
○ 1) perceptual characteristics (pitch, loudness, quality
and fidelity)
○ 2) sound source (where it comes from)
○ 3) sound type (vocal, musical, ambient, etc.)
● Perpetual Characteristics:
● 1.) PITCH:
○ defined by the frequency or speed with which the sound is
produced (number of sound waves per second).
○ various levels from high to low, which are distinguishable by what kinds of things
produce them, and with which we can draw associations.(e.g. high pitch – bird
twittering, low pitch –lion roaring)
○ Pitchinvoicesalsoconveysfeelingsofemotionalintensity (e.g. high = stress, anxiety,
screaming low = importance, majesty, booming voice, )
○ Pitch also present in sound effects (e.g. high = doorbell, low = door knock)
○ Pitch audible in musical instruments (e.g. high = violin, low = bass fiddle)
● 2.) LOUDNESS:
 ○ Loudness of noise or sound depends on its
amplitude.
○ Sound travels through the air, like ripples make
circles in a pond.
○ The amplitude of sound depends on the degree of
motion of the air within the sound wave: the
greater the amplitude, the louder the sound.
○ Filmmakers will use ‘loudness’ to convey
particular emotions, or to shock and scare the
viewer, as well as to calm them.
● 3.) QUALITY

○ Also known as timbre, texture or ‘colour’ of

sound.
○ Quality of the sound enables us to
distinguish between sounds that may have
the same pitch and loudness.
○ E.g. mother yelling at child in anger or to
cheer him/her on
○ Often quality is cued by image: eg. Mother’s
facial expressions when she is yellling
● 4.) FIDELITY
○ Refers to sound’s faithfulness to its source.
○ when the sound we hear corresponds to the image we see.
○ Dog barking = fidelity
 ○ Dog meowing – NOT fidelity
○ Animators will play with sound fidelity in cartoons, to
convey humour or absurdity
○ In films fidelity manipulated to play with audience
expectations, for humour or social
○ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H FtG9BPmJ9o
● SOURCE

○ Refers to the implied origin of a sound

○ Source of sound in film is either diegetic
or non-diegetic,
○ on-screen or off-screen, or internal or external.
● DIEGETIC & NON-DIEGETIC SOUND
○ DIEGETIC:
■ Comes from a source within the film’s world:–what the character and
viewer both hear
■ refers to spatial and temporal dimensions of the shot from which the sound
emanates
■ -includes any sound that registers in the scene as part of the scene, even if
the character doesn’t respond or react to it
○ NON-DIEGETIC
■ Some from a source outside film’s world –heard only by viewer
■ has no relevance to the on- screen space or time.
■ Includes any sound that does not originate within the film scene
■ usually added after the scene is shot, typically in post- production (e.g.
voice-over narration, background music)
● ON- SCREEN & OFF-SCREEN SOUND
○ ON-SCREEN
■ emanates from a source that we can see,
■ Is always diegetic
○ OFF-SCREEN
■ emanates from a source we can’t see.
■ Can still be diegetic – (e.g. sound F/X, music or vocals that are part of the
world of the story.)
 ■ Non-diegetic, off-screen sound is what we don’t see,and which also is not
part of the world of the story (e.g. the voiceover narrative of someone who
is not a character in the film)
● SIMULTANEOUS & NON-SIMULTANEOUS
○ SIMULTANEOUS
■ Sound that is diegetic, on- screen, and occurs simultaneously with on-
going action at that moment
○ NON-SIMULTANEOUS
■ Sound that occurs within the story, though not as part of the on-screen
action at that moment
■ (e.g. sound, or a voice from the past that the character recalls, and which
played earlier in the film –
● SYNCHRONOUS & NON-SYNCHRONOUS SOUND
○ SYNCHRONOUS
■ synchronized with what we’re seeing on screen
■ A sound that matches what is viewed: a woman screams and we hear the
scream
○ NON-SYNCHRONOUS
■ Not synchronized with what we’re seeing on screen
■ Sound does not match what is viewed, but figures in the action anyway,
either symbolically or through memory, or flashback, or to create
suspense.
■ E.g. Hitchcock’s ‘The Thirty- Nine Steps: a woman screams and we hear a
train whistle
■ https://www.youtube.com/watc h?v=LzAoCsvvFBY
● INTERNAL & EXTERNAL
○ INTERNAL
■ Sounds that we assume are occurring within the mind of the character (e.g.
thinking, remembering, talking to himself inside his head)
■ device lacks verisimilitude or believability, because we would never hear
or know that in reality
○ EXTERNAL
■ External sounds are those that come from a place within the world of the
story, and which we assume are heard by the characters in that world.
● TYPES OF FILM SOUND
○ Dialogue: conversation that takes place between characters
○ Narration: Produced by on-screen or off-screen voices, from a character or
third-person not related to on-screen action).
○ Can be single or multiple, in the case of more than one narrator.
 ○ always added in post-production, unless it’s a case of an on- screen character
narrating what we’re seeing
● TYPES OF SOUND:
○ Environmental: comes from the background or ambience
○ recorded during production or added in post-production
○ can include ‘natural’ sound effects(recorded wild) as well as Foley sounds
(produced artificially in a studio with different instruments –e.g. celery for
breaking knuckles, dropped watermelons for head injuries..)
○ Sometimes sounds recorded wild don’t seem realistic, or don’t sound like what
they actually are –in which case they have to be reproduced artificially by Foley
artists
● TYPES OF FILM SOUND:
○ Music - can be diegetic, and recorded on set during the scene, or non-diegetic and
recorded in a studio, and added in post- production.
○ When diegetic, it can emanate from various on-screen sources, or sources within
the world of the story ( a band, or radio playing, etc.)
○ Silence – what happens when filmmaker deliberate suppresses the vocal,
environmental, or musical sounds that we expect in a movie
○ Can be very effective – creating emotion, or psychological depth, or a sense of
anticipation or fear
● FUNCTIONS OF FILM SOUND:
○ Create audience awareness of something happening
○ Cue audience expectations of what’s about to happen
○ Express a point of view of character
○ Produce a rhythm within the scene that may correlate to editing patterns or
character movements
○ Create continuity from one scene to the next (sound bridge)
○ To create emphasis or punctuation
○ To create ‘leitmotifs’ for characters: each associated
with a different musical theme or sound effect
● In the Mood for Love (2000)
○ Romantic drama film
○ Written, produced, and directed by Wong Kar-Wai, Chinese film maker, whose
work is considered ‘art cinema’,
○ His films are reminiscent, of the romantic and family melodramas of American
filmmaker Douglas Sirk made in the 1950s
○ Particularly in his non- conventional use of film- language, and unique
deployment of many cinematic techniques that we have discussed so far in the
 course, including nonlinear narratives, atmospheric music, a bold use of colour,
and unique framing devices,
● MELODRAMA
○ 1) falls into the category of ‘melodrama’ – which is a category or sub-genre of
dramatic theatre and cinema, that is characterized by its sensational impact –
meaning it creates a feeling of sensation or great excitement and interest -- , its
exaggerated characters, and dramatic or exciting events all of which are intended
to appeal to the emotions
○ Melodramas typically (but not always) feature female protagonists
○ Also frequently revolve around a central dramatic situation –involving a
relationship or conflict between a couple, or members of a family
○ Film language designed to bring out the emotional dynamics of that situation, to
heighten the viewers’ sensations and enable them to identify with the emotions of
the characters onscreen
○ Emphasizes emotion over story, and over construction of the characters who are
usually one- dimensional and stereotyped
○ The typical setting is the home, or domestic space: the private sphere
○ General themes involve family issues, love, marriage, and morality
○ Story involves threat to the sanctity and the stability of the family, marriage or
home, from an outside source –h another woman or man, or immoral person who
‘tempts’ the protagonist, leading him or her into degradation
○ Typically looks back nostalgically at past idealized eras, emphasizing "forbidden
longings”
○ suggested through film techniques, especially the lush colours, and sweeping
musical scores,
○ a big feature of melodramas, whether on stage or screen, is the music, which is
often very emotive and suggestive, supporting the drama unfolding at that
moment
● Melodrama cont’d
○ in the past, melodrama was considered the cheap low- class cousin of drama
○ • considered to lack subtlety, and proper character development
○ • to call something a melodrama, or melodramatic was kind of an insult
○ Also considered a ‘female’ sub-genre, with women as the intended audience – due
to high emotionality, focus on relationships, and domestic settings
○ -why melodrama was often a genre used in ‘women’s films’ ,but also television
soap operas, both of which were aimed at female spectators,
○ also has certain appeal to men, who may enjoy seeing the on- screen tensions
resolved
● Melodrama cont’d
 ○ With directors like Vincent Minnelli and Douglas Sirk, melodrama came into its
own in the 40s and 50s
○ two master filmmakers who really knew how to deploy cinematic technique and
film language to bring out all the emotions and rage or taboo sexual desires, that
were frequently typically repressed, both in American society of the 50s, but also
Hollywood cinema of that era
○ Extracts: from The Bad and the Beautiful (Minnelli, 1952
○ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ml tRSwxkH0c
○ Written on the Wind (Sirk, 1956)
○ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akP2oG9vf8Q
○ http://www.criticalcommons.org/Mem bers/ccManager/clips/writtenonthewin
ddanceofdeath.mp4/view
● Things to Think about in In the Mood for Love
○ Keep an eye out for:
○ The conventions of ‘melodrama’
○ Cinematography: camera angles and movement, framing, space
○ Colour – vivid, symbolic, suggestive
○ Leitmotifs for characters
○ Time - chronological (linear), & erratic (non-linear)
○ And most of all - SOUND – dialogue, ambience, music, sound effects
○ Look for any of the types, features, and usages of sound in film, that we discussed
today
What effects do these techniques have? How do they enhance the emotional
impact of what we are seeing, and how do they contribute to film’s overall
meaning?
What impact does SOUND have in this film?