Introduction to Film Studies PDF

Introduction to Film Studies Section 1 Course Objectives To have a basic understanding of the history of film To have a basic understanding of the historical& social factors that shaped film To have a basic understanding of film as art, entertainment, and business To understand how to ‘read’ a film...

Introduction to Film Studies Section 1 Course Objectives To have a basic understanding of the history of film To have a basic understanding of the historical& social factors that shaped film To have a basic understanding of film as art, entertainment, and business To understand how to ‘read’ a film To become active readers of film To have a basic understanding of the technical elements of filmmaking To use this vocabulary to describe and analyse a film To have a basic understanding of different aesthetic approaches to filmmamking Section 1 Film & the How Film Second Photography & Relates to Other Industrial Early Film Art Forms Revolution Basic Building The Silent Era Blocks of Film: Shot & Scene How Film Relates to Other Artforms Questions to think about: How many artforms can you list? How is film similar and different? To which other art form is film most similar? To which other art form is film most different? How is film unique? Eight Different Art Forms Painting Sculpture Literature Architecture Theater Music Dance Film  A Trompe l'Oeil of Newspapers, Letters and Writing Implements on a Wooden Board by Art as Mimesis Edward Collier (1699) The idea of art as mimesis is that art is a representation of reality. This representation can be done through a number of different mediums such as pictorial (painting, drawing) and literary (novel, theater, poetry). For example, the painting on the right is highly mimetic-it tries to realistically represent the reality of the objects  Art as Mimesis If we tried to write a description , or for example a poem about the same objects, we would then be using a different medium( literary) to represent reality. This medium would seem to be less mimetic and more abstract than the painting on the left. The less mimetic work of art is , the more abstract it becomes. A Spectrum of the Arts: Mimesis to Abstraction Mimesis Many of the earliest films focused on reproducing/recording reality rather than narrative. The spectacle of the technology was enough. Workers Leaving The Lumiere Factory by Louis Lumiere(1895) First ever public screening of a film at Salon Indien du Grand Café in Paris,1895 Abstract Film Composition in Blue by Oskar Fischinger (1935). An abstract film in which every motion of coloured shapes is synchronized with music Categorisation of Art Forms The performance arts, which happen in real time. The representational arts, which depend on the established codes and conventions of language (both pictorial and literary) to convey information about the subject to the observer. The recording arts, which provide a more direct path between subject and observer: media not without their own codes but qualitatively more direct than the media of the representational arts. Film & Photography are recording arts, but don’t mistake them for reality. Film & Photography have always been able to distort and manipulate reality. Monaco, James. How To Read a Film: Movies, Media, and Beyond (p. 30). A Recording is Not Reality Advertisement for Google Pixel 6 (2021) A Recording is Not Reality The same subject. The photo on the left uses a telephoto lens. The photo on the right uses a wide -angle lens. Both lenses were invented in 19th Century. Never Mistake Representation for Reality Right: Rene Magritte’s The Treachery of Images (1929) This is not a pipe. Why is it not a pipe? The Rule of Thirds Dividing an image into 9 different equal parts and placing the subjects where lines intersect. Fishing Boats on the Beach at Les Saintes Maries de la Mer(188) by Vincent van Gough Film Composition: How a scene is arranged within a camera frame The Rule of Thirds Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear View (1954) Here both subjects are placed on intersecting lines. The exact blocking (position of actors) is crucial here. Film and Renaissance Painting: School of Athens by Raphael Sanzio. Uses one – point-perspective with a centred vanishing point to The same technique used in Stanley Kubrick’s Eye’s create depth Wide Shut( 1998) Painting & Film In Barry Lyndon (1975) , director, Stanley Kubrick attempted to recreate many of William Hogarth’s paintings from the 18th Century  Left: Frame from Lars van Trier’s The House that Jack Built (2018) Painting & Film Right: Eugene Delacroix’s The Barque of Dante (1822) Painting & Film Top: Vincent van Gogh’s self portraits Bottom: Frames from Julian Schnabel’s biopic At Eternity’s Gate (2018) https://youtu.be/t4AJx2GGYaY Interview with the film’s cinematographer on how the he was influenced by portrait painting. Film& Painting The earliest photographic process-the Daguerreotype. Invented by Louis Daguerre ( bottom right) and introduced to public in 1839. Top right: Daguerreotype of Abraham Lincoln (1846) Throughout the 19th Century, photography began to replace painting’s function of portrait and landscape representation. Painting & Film Lord Byron by Richard Westall (1813) Top: Lord Byron by Richard Westall (1813) The portrait and landscape painting that dominated western painting began to decline. Bottom: Photographic portrait of W. B. Yeats (1887) Painting & Film The theory of painting moved away from mimesis- the imitation of reality, towards something more expressive. Photography and film freed painters from their duty to imitate reality and allowed them to become more experimental. The aesthetics of Modernism-Cubism, Surrealism, etc, in the early 20th Century were a radical break from the tradition of mimesis in Western Painting Top: Les Demoiselles D'Avignon by Pablo Picasso(1907) Bottom: Giorgio De Chirico’s The Disquieting Muses (1916) Painting & Film Top : Frame from Ingmar Bergman’s film Persona (1966) Bottom: Pablo Picasso’s Marie Therese-front and profile (1931) Painting & Film https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMeBfzS6 sag Persona. Directed by Ingmar Bergman (1966) Painting & Film Top Left to Right: Modern GIF of Eadweard Muybridge: Woman Walking Downstairs – 1887 Étienne-Jules Marey, Cheval blanc monté, 1886 Étienne-Jules Marey: Man Walking, 1890-91 Bottom: NudeDescending a Staircase, No. 2 by Marcel Duchamp, 1912 Architecture & Film A still from Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927). Metropolis’s set design includes a variety of modernist architecture such as Bauhaus, Art Deco & Expressionism. Architecture & Film Cityscape scene from Metropolis( 1927) Directed By Fritz Lang Film & Theater : The Stage Film & The Proscenium Stage Film and the Proscenium Stage During the 19th Century in Europe and North America the Proscenium stage was dominant. It allowed auditorium where audience was seated to be darkened. Creates illusion that the audience is spying on characters. With the characters on stage, we can imagine, there’s a ‘fourth wall’ This strengthens the idea that what we’re seeing is real-not that actors are performing for us. The proscenium theater was closely connected to 19th Century realism. Film as a Business All art is ultimately an economic activity, but this is strongly true for film. The average major studio film costs $66 million to produce. The average independent film, $2 million The $200,000 micro-budget-shoot Questions to think about How do you think mass media (film, television, the Internet ) has shaped your consciousness; your experience of reality? Does mass media- a medium like film, change the way we view ‘reality’? Can we distinguish images from reality? Is this positive or negative? Film & the Second Industrial Revolution The Second Industrial Revolution was a period of advancements in manufacturing, technology, and industrial production methods, from around 1870 to 1914. Film & The Second Industrial Revolution Mechanisation of industrial production ( the growth of factories and mass production) Growth of Corporations/Monopolies New discoveries in electricity and chemistry Transportation and communication technologies Increased urbanisation (Growth of cities) The beginning of a mass media and global culture The beginning of consumer culture ( the growth of entertainment industry)  The light bulb – 1879 Important The telephone – 1876 inventions of The internal combustion engine – 1886 Second The automobile – 1886 Industrial The airplane – 1903 The radio – 1895 Revolution Plastics – 1907 The camera – 1888 The phonograph – 1877 Photography & Film Camera Obscura (Dark Room) captures what can be a natural occurring phenomenon. The camera obscuras can be created by having a dark room with a small hole or aperture in the wall. An image of the outside world will be projected on the opposite wall upside-down. Contains all the basic elements of a camera except the medium to record the image-film Photography & Film The first photographic process. The daguerreotype invented by Louis Daguerre in the 1830’s. The image was recorded on glass plate using a complex chemical process. The Progress of Film& Photography Top: The Daguerreotype system. Created one image on a plate. Bottom: Talbottype system developed by William Henry Fox Talbot. The negative plate could be used to reproduce any number of positive prints. The paper negative was later replaced by film negative which also improved quality of image. Film was also flexible, which suggested it could be used to for motion pictures. The Progress of Film& Photography Edward Muybridge pioneered the use of sequence photography. The zoopraxiscope was in invented in 1879 by Eadweard Muybridge. It could project up to 200 images at one time. Top: Galloping Horse (1878) Bottom: Cat trotting, changing to a gallop https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Categ ory:Eadweard_Muybridge_animations The Progress of Film & Photography The Zoopraxis disc needed for projection required a lot of work-as this video explains (from 1:20). The Progress of Photography and Film The Kinetoscope was invented by Thomas Edison and William Dixon in 1891. To record motion, you need a machine that will stop-go-stop go film. This camera was developed by the Edison company (Kinetograph). The Kinetoscope was designed for films to be viewed by one individual at a time through a peephole viewer window at the top of the device. Kinetoscope parlor , San Francisco 1894 The Progress of Photography & Film Kinetoscope Films 1894-96 The Progress of Photography & Film The Lumière brothers were photographers and manufacturers of photographic equipment. In 1894, they witnessed a demonstration of the Kinetoscope in Paris The first film projector-the Cinematograph developed by the Lumiere brothers. The first films to be projected in public in Paris , 1895. The Lumiere brothers called them ’actualities’ Nickelodeon In 1905-the first nickelodeon opened in Pennsylvania. First fixed cinema or movie theater. They spread rapidly across American cities. Key Events in Film History 1893 1895 1905 First public demonstration of The Lumiere Brothers projected Opening of Nickelodeons- fixed kinetoscope. the first films for a public cinemas/movie theaters that had audience in Paris. a couple of hundred seats. Kinetoscope parlors open in From 1896, Lumiere operators American cities. The kinetoscope travelled around the world with the used a peep hole-not projected on cinematograph showing films in screen that everyone could see. theaters. 1894 1896 Silent Film Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (The Lumière Brothers, 1896)