Film Theory Quiz One PDF

QUIZ ONE: MODULES FROM WEEK 1 TO WEEK 4 Professor’s definition of film theory—focus on how he defines it for the purposes of our class. The basic tenets of Formalism The basic of Realism Sergei Eisenstein-views on montage—what makes his montage different from other filmmak...

QUIZ ONE: MODULES FROM WEEK 1 TO WEEK 4 Professor’s definition of film theory—focus on how he defines it for the purposes of our class. The basic tenets of Formalism The basic of Realism Sergei Eisenstein-views on montage—what makes his montage different from other filmmakers, his unique perspective Dziga Vertov- film eye- KINO GLASS—focus on what he means by that Indexicality—came up from the realism module Mummy complex--andre bazin-photographic image, how he uses the term mummy complex (comes froom reading “antology of photographic image”) Andre Bazin/ Siegfried Kracauer—how professor differentiate their versions of realisms, shared ideals but were different. Method acting (important names)—focus on names James Naremore (“Acting in Cinema”)- provides historical overview of acting in cinema, look at James Naremore reading for week 4 module, pay attention to what he has to say about the late 19th century movement Bela Balazs- Close up face—focus specifically about close up of faces, claims that closing up on a face is fundamentally more significant than other body parts or inamiate objects, what makes the close-up of a face so unique for this author. The Passion of Joan of Arc – be familiar of this film, have a basic familiarity with the techniques used in this film. 1. Film theory definition (based on Professor’s definition: "film theory" will refer to any reflections on the cinematic medium overall, rather than the targeted analysis of specific films. In other words, this class (as I teach it, at least) entails an overview of how filmmakers, journalists, critics, scholars, and cinephiles have perceived the medium of film: its strengths/weaknesses, what it can do and what it cannot. For example, how is *cinema* different from painting? Photography? Theatre? Dance? Architecture? Literature? Etc., etc. Note that this is different from "film criticism," where one is concerned with close analysis of a *specific film.* Not that this is irrelevant to film theory, but - by and large - we will use films as indicators of what the cinematic medium *is*, *what it can be*, and *what it may be evolving into.* 2. Basic belief of Formalism: this refers to the notion that a film's form or structure is primary. "Form" is similar to "style." So for formalists, what matters most is *how* one films rather than *what.* In other words, meaningfulness is conveyed through the formal or stylistic choices you make rather than simply what you film. From this perspective, we will use the metaphor of a *canvas* to describe the film screen. Formalists would prefer that we look *at* the screen rather than *through* it. For formalists, reality is (almost completely) irrelevant. What matters are the choices filmmakers make that show up on the screen, almost as if they were painters. We should celebrate film's ability to MANIPULATE and CREATE visions rather than focus on its capacity to simply record. This is the formalist point of view, to emphasize its propensity for manipulation, which led to a special status being conferred on FILM EDITING. Editing for many formalists was what cinema did best and made it most different and distinct from other media. Formalists sought to emphasize cinema's capacity to manipulate, shape, and create what we see on the screen rather than simply document, they wanted to emphasize film techniques and film style (or "form") over and above anything else. For many formalists, it was editing (an instantaneous transition between two shots) that was most unique to cinema and a clear instance of how a film camera's recordings could be manipulated to create new, artistic visions. From this vantage point, the screen is a canvas: it is something an audience looks *at*, not *through.* Not only that, formalists and - more specifically - Soviet montage theorists viewed the screen as a canvas that could *express* ideas to an audience like a painter. This was Sergei Eisenstein's highest form of montage: what he called "intellectual montage." For Eisenstein, the pinnacle of great filmmaking is to communicate thoughts/ideas entirely through the editing of images. In such instances, we don't only look at the screen to appreciate  the artistic work of the director, but the screen itself *speaks* to the audience and shares emotions, feelings, and ideas. It is *expressive.* 3. Basic belief of realism: This emphasis on cinema's special ability to document *reality* is what we will call realism. And these film theorists argued that cinema is *ontologically* (remember that term from last week?) defined by its unique ability to re-present reality, not simply capturing a picture of the world, but events in duration (the way they unfold in time). By re-presenting space *and* time cinema both records reality and also helps us see it differently. Realists see the screen as a *window*, or a frame that presents realities to the audience with as much spatial and temporal integrity as possible. Realists believe we should see *through* the screen like a window, feeling immersed in a reality captured on film. realists prefer the LONG TAKE over the EDIT. A long take is a shot of longer than "normal" duration, often taking the place of editing in a particular scene. A long take, thus, comes closer to capturing the unfolding of events in space and time in front of the camera, cultivating that special relationship between cinema and reality. photogénie, to characterize how filmmaking transforms phenomena in the real world, imbuing them with a special quality such that, by the time we encounter them onscreen, we experience them anew and our fascination swells beyond what we would feel in everyday life.** Deep Focus Cinematography** ***MONTAGE: refers to a style of editing that embraces discontinuity by emphasizing graphic, rhythmic, and conceptual relations between shots.** 4. Sergei Eisenstein- views on montage: Central to Eisenstein's view of montage is the notion of conflict. He was unique in articulating his theory of dialectical montage. In short, "dialectic" refers to the fusion of opposite ideas into a greater whole (thesis + antithesis = synthesis). For Eisenstein, dialectical montage means ideas are best expressed cinematically through conflict, tension, and contradiction. Conflict can involve tensions between images perceived through editing or even within shots themselves. Sergei’s quote “opposed him with my view of montage as a collision, my view that the collision of two factors gives rise to an idea. In my view a series is merely one possible particular case.Remember that physics is aware of an infinite number of combinations arising from the impact (collision) between spheres.  Depending on whether they are elastic, non-elastic or a mixture of the two. Among these combinations is one where the collision is reduced to a uniform movement of both in the same direction.” Another quote “the conflict between the frame of the shot and the object. The position of the cinema represents the nmaterialisation of the conflict between the organising logic of the director and the inert logic of the phenomenon in collision, producing the dialectic of the camera angle.” Sergei Eisenstein's montage theory is a type of Soviet montage theory that emphasizes editing to create meaning and evoke emotions in the audience. Eisenstein's theory differs from other film theories in that it focuses on the psychological response of the audience, rather than the chronological sequence of events. Final quote “The old film-makers, including the theoretically quite outmoded Lev Kuleshov, regarded montage as a means of producing something by describing it, adding individual shots to one another like building blocks. Movement within these shots and the resulting length of the pieces were thus to be regarded as rhythm…But in my view montage is not an idea composed of successive shots stuck together but an idea that DERIVES from the collision between two shots that are independent of one another (the 'dramatic' principle). ('Epic' and 'dramatic' in relation to the methodology of form and not content or plot!!) As in Japanese hieroglyphics in which two independent ideographic characters ('shots') are juxtaposed and explode into a concept.” 5. Dziga Vertov (film eye- KINO GLASS): similarly one of the most influential filmmakers of the silent era, especially his masterpiece, Man with a Movie Camera (1929). He believed in what he called the kino-glas, or "film eye." This term was meant to describe how cinema can perceive the world in ways humans cannot. First quote “All the weaknesses of the human eye are external. We affirm the cinema-eye, that gropes in the chaos of movements for a resultant force for its own movement, we affirm the cinema-eye with its dimension oftime and space, growing in its ouwn strength and its own resources to reach self-affirmation.” Kino-glaz, which translates to "film-eye" or "cine-eye", is a theory and film technique developed by Soviet director Dziga Vertov. The theory states that a camera is a tool that can capture reality in a way that is superior to the human eye. Vertov believed that film should be free of theatrical influence and artificial studio settings. Second quote “ The eye is subordinated to the will of the film-camera and directed by it onto those consecutive moments of action, which in the briefest and clearest way lead the cinema-phrase to the heights or depths of resolution.” Final quote “The mechanical eye-the fillm-camera, refusing to use the human eye as a crib,  repelled and attracted by motions, gropes about in the chaos of visual events for the path for its own motion or oscillation, and experiments bystretching time, breaking up its motions, or vice versa, absorbing time into itself, swallowing up the years, thereby schematizing prolonged processes which are inaccessible to the normal eye.” 6. Indexicality: in photography refers to the inherent quality of a photograph to be a direct trace or imprint of the physical world. It signifies the causal relationship between the photographed object and the resulting image. It is a concept within semiotics that was applied to photography and visual arts. The term “indexicality” was initially introduced by the philosopher and semiotician Charles Sanders Peirce in the late 19th century. Peirce used the term to describe a type of sign that points to its object through an actual connection or correlation. He distinguished indexical signs from iconic signs (which signify through resemblance) and symbolic signs (which signify through convention or agreement). Peirce’s understanding of indexicality formed the foundation for examining the relationship between signs and the objects they represent. characterizes the unique connection between a photograph and its referent. Analog photography, as Bazin wrote, entails a replication of a real object through the camera after the "fashion of a fingerprint." This speaks to the uncanny allure of a photograph as opposed to a painting, sculpture, or other artifacts that are more directly rendered via the human hand. And, as Bazin notes, he is speaking specifically to the mechanical reproduction that occurs through analog photography (which is what he knew as the norm in 1960), whereby a light sensitive, photographic emulsion bears away the mark of reality before the camera. This idea that a photograph or film image of something (not digitally altered, but analog) is closely connected to the thing pictured is one that is worth reflecting on. if the picture offered something of the person to you, like a fingerprint? Perhaps more than if you found a painting or drawing of the same person? That special quality is indexicality, a real representation that is intimately connected to the thing pictured (like a thermometer for the temperature, or a tip of an iceberg). 7. Mummy complex: Bazin suggested that the yearning to reproduce the real world in our art was more important. That, ultimately, what ontologically constitutes us as humans is a desire to preserve or save reality from decay. He argues in his essay below that all "plastic arts [are] rooted in the psychoanalytic complex of the  mummy." That we want to *preserve* or even mummify reality to keep it from fading with time. For Bazin, only photography and later cinematography, can support this deep need that none of us can shake. In film theory, "the mummy complex" refers to a concept developed by André Bazin, describing a deep human desire to stop the passage of time by preserving a moment in an image, essentially "embalming" reality, much like an ancient Egyptian mummy; he saw photography and cinema as the ultimate fulfillment of this desire to capture and hold onto a moment in time, due to their ability to realistically represent the world around us. Bazin's theory is often applied to film analysis, where filmmakers who prioritize realistic representation of time and space, with minimal manipulation, are seen as tapping into this "mummy complex". Bazin believed humans have a fundamental need to halt the constant flow of time by capturing it in a fixed image, like a photograph or film frame. He considered photography as the art form that best represents this "mummy complex" because it directly reproduces reality onto a surface, allowing for a near-perfect preservation of a moment. 8. Andre Basin vs Siegfreid Kracauer, different views for realism in film theory: They agreed on *continuity editing* (classical system of editing that ensures spatial and temporal ties between shots) was acceptable because it aimed to preserve our experience of reality through contiguous depictions of space and the linear unfolding of time. Continuity editing, on some level, respects or defers to reality in a way that montage editing does not. Kracauer’s realism is more *pragmatic*. He believes that film is best at capturing moments of spontaneity (he loved Chaplin and Keaton), special occurrences in nature, good fortune, bad fortune, and everything in between. He articulates what we all know, which is that we enjoy *accidents* in films or slips of the tongue that wind up in the film. These often delight audiences and they prove Kracauer's point: that film is best suited for reproducing reality, not trying to manipulate it. For Bazin, there is an intrinsic desire to reproduce the world around us, to preserve and to save it. Bazin's particular brand of realism I am characterizing as "existential realism" because of his deeper view that cinema extends our experience of the world through its capacity for recording reality. There is something unique and uncanny in his film philosophy that can be hard to convey. Even though both bore their allegiance to reality, Bazin unlike Kracauer, tried to define what he meant by reality. While Kracauer simply equated film and reality, with reality as a raw material, Bazin specified the dependence of film on reality and also its distinctness from it."André Bazin and Siegfried Kracauer both believed that film is a realist medium that records and resembles the  world through images and sounds. They also both wrote about the nature of the photographic image. Bazin believed in the transcendence of film, while Kracauer believed that film returns us to the natural world. ***NATURALISTIC ACTING: AN ACTOR’S EFFORT TO EMBODY THE CHARACTER THAT HE OR SHE IS PLAYING IN ORDER TO COMMUNICATE THE ESSENTIAL SELF OF THE CHARACTER. NATURAL ACTING IS THE STYLE THAT IS MOST OFTEN CULTURALLY CELEBRATED AS THE *CORRECT* APPROACH TO PERFORMANCE (IN WESTERN CULTURE). WE TYPICALLY JUDGE PERFORMANCES ON THEIR "REALISM" AND "NATURALISM" WITHOUT EVEN QUESTIONING THIS. CREDULITY, BELIEVABILITY, IS THE SINGULAR VALUE SPECTATORS ARE IMPLICITLY TOLD TO BRING WITH THEM TO THE MOVIE THEATER. *** ***STYLIZED ACTING: An actor employs highly self-conscious gestures or speaks in pronounced tones with elevated diction; the actor seems fully aware that he or she is acting and addressing an audience. *** ***NATURALIST ACTING= REALISM VS SYLISTIC ACTING = FORMALISM*** 9. Method acting: The apex of naturalistic acting is generally seen as "method acting." As you can see in the link provided, method acting is defined in a manner similar to our "naturalistic acting" definition: "The Method trains actors to use their physical, mental and emotional self in the creation of a character and stresses the way in which personal experience can fire the actors imagination. It eschews clichés and pursues individual authenticity and a reality deeply grounded in the given circumstances of the script." Lee Strasberg was a leading advocate for this approach to acting and, in this commentary, he explains the method's roots in the teachings of Constantine Stanislavsky. In this piece, Strasberg makes the following statement: “"The actor trains his concentration so that he is able to create the impression of being private in public." Constantine Stanislavsky (1863–1938) set himself to fuse all the random thought and experiences into a form that could help the beginner and be of service to the experienced actor. His aim was to find a “grammar of acting,” to achieve that level of inspiration, or of living on stage, which great actors had found accidentally and sporadically. Without minimizing the value of voice, speech and body training, which are the actor’s tools, Stanislavsky tried to find means to stimulate and develop the actor’s essential requirements: his concentration, his belief and his imagination. He did not seek to fabricate  inspiration, but to create the proper foundation for its appearance. The actor, according to Stanislavsky, should come on the stage not to play-act but to perform the activities required of the character, to act. His appearance on the stage is not the beginning, but is a continuation of the given circumstances that have previously taken place. Current acotr mostly associated with method acting is Daniel Day- Lewis (There Will Be Blood). 10. James Naremore “Acting in Cinema (provides historical overview of acting in cinema, look at James Naremore reading for week 4 module, pay attention to what he has to say about the late 19th century movement): This is located in page 3 for the preview, page 116 in the PDF. The quote is “The history of both stage and film acting since the late nineteenth century can be said to involve a movement from a semiotic to a psychological conception of performance” 11. Bela Balazs Close up face—focus specifically about close up of faces, claims that closing up on a face is fundamentally more significant than other body parts or inamiate objects, what makes the close-up of a face so unique for this author. The close-up entails tight framing in which the feature of a person or object is *abstracted* from its spatial surroundings. Robbed of spatial context, this close view of a person or object grants it a special aura or heightened status. The feature fills the screen, becoming larger than life and inviting us to psychologically identify or relate to what we see. A close-up comes close to being fetishistic. Fetishism typically means that we value something for more than its use value, that that something has a special quality that we are unable to put into words. A close-up seems to put us in a fetishistic trance, where we are put in a childlike position of looking through a keyhole and seeing something up close. Balazs was Hungarian and celebrated the film close-up for its "tender human attitude," for the way it changes how we perceive the world by showing us real phenomena intimately and up close in ways that we never could view in real life. The close-up promised to counter our own sense of alienation and disconnection from one another. Instead of looking at someone from a distance, I see their imperfections and their vulnerability. More than this Balazs argued that it allows us to consider "things" that are "hidden" but no less real. “The close-up may sometimes give the impression of a mere naturalist preoccupation with detail. But good close-ups radiate a tender human attitude in the contemplation of hidden things, a delicate solicitude, a gentle bending over the intimacies of life-in-the-miniature, a warm sensibility. Good close- ups are lyrical; it is the heart, not the eye, that has perceived them.” Another quote…“What was more important, however, than the discovery of the physiognomy of things, was the discovery of the human face. Facial expression is the most sub- jective manifestation of man, more subjective even than speech, for vocabulary and grammar are subject to more or less universally valid rules and conventions, while the play of features, as has already been said, is a manifestation not gov- erned by objective canons, even though it is largely a matter of imitation. This most subjective and individual of human manifestations is rendered objective in the close-up.” Final quote… “If the close-up lifts some object or some part of an object out of its surroundings, we nevertheless perceive it as existing in space; we do not for an instant forget that the hand, say, which is shown by the close-up, belongs to some human being. It is precisely this connection which lends meaning to its every movement. But when Griffith's genius and daring first projected gigantic "severed heads" on to the cinema screen, he not only brought the human face closer to us in space, he also transposed it from space into another dimension. We do not mean, of course, the cinema sereen and the patches of light and shadow moving across it, which being visible things, can be conceived only in space; we mean the expression on the face as revealed by the close-up. We have said that the isolated hand would lose its meaning, its expression, if we did not know and imagine its connection with some human being. The facial expression on a face is complcte and  comprehensible in itself and therefore we need not think of it as existing in space and time.” 12. Passion of Joan of Arc: