For Next Week, Wed . April 21. Before Class Work on Project #3. In Class Draft of Project #3 due. Critiques. Review PPT, Fundamentals of Visual Design , segment on what the visual element does for a primarily written document. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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For Next Week, Wed. April 21 Before Class Work on Project #3. In Class Draft of Project #3 due. Critiques. Review PPT, Fundamentals of Visual Design, segment on what the visual element does for a primarily written document. Intensive introduction to Project #4 . Visual language as evolving art. Work on project proposals. Instructions for the proposal are on the Project 4 assignment page. Conference sign-up. Presentation sign-up. Tips for presentations.
Transcript
For Next Week, Wed. April 21
Before Class
Work on Project #3.
In Class
Draft of Project #3 due. Critiques. Review PPT, Fundamentals of Visual Design, segment on what the visual
element does for a primarily written document. Intensive introduction to Project #4. Visual language as evolving art. Work on project proposals. Instructions for the proposal are on the
• What do you need help with? Comment on any facet of this course. (2-3 sentences)
• How is the reading in PL going for you? (1-3 sentences)
• What are your general thoughts about Miss Congeniality? (1-3 sentenc
READING
FILM
As an intro to Project #3…
watch The Player.How many distinct views of/attitudes toward
art and the movies are represented in this film?
How would each character answer these questions:
What is art?
What’s it for? Whom is it for?
Griffin and other film execs: Art is ___________________________________________,
David Kahane and writers of Habeas Corpus:
Art is __________________________________________.
June Gooddogswater:
Art is _______________________________________.
Robert Altman:
Art is ______________________________________.
a commodity. Making tons of money for corporation is the primary aim. The product entirely for the AUDIENCE. Artist’s vision is subordinate.
a serious, meaningful look at reality. A mirror on reality. Aim is to illuminate truth, challenge viewer, provoke thinking and feelings in ways that aren’t always pleasant. Artist’s vision is paramount, although Truth trumps all.
pure self expression. Aim=satisfaction/engagement of artist. Not a product, but an unending process entirely for artist. Art for art’s sake. Audience & external purposes are irrelevant.
a critique of reality. A way to criticize and poke fun at reality. Aim is to humble the artist and audience? “Serious entertainment” through satire?
A craft, a learnable skill. A tradition; a way to returning to our deepest roots as creatures
on the planet. Affirmation of the oldest realities. A subversion of tradition; a way of reinventing the world.
Formulates new meaning. Refreshes and recharges reality. A vacation from reality. A narcotic. A diversion.
Remember Scott McCloud’s Triangle?
Another way of thinking about art, visual media, and, of course,
MOVIES
McCloud’s ApproachThe “Triangle” Method of Understanding Film
What kind of film occupies this “realm” of visual art?
What kind of film occupies this one?
Draw on your reading about Gladiator , film genres, and the film industry.
Films made in the “classical Hollywood “ style. Illusion of reality. Immersive. The movie’s formal techniques and construction don’t call attention to themselves; they become “transparent.” Almost always strongly NARRATIVE. Continuity editing.
Snyder’s Hollywood formulas apply here.
• Dude with a Problem• Fish Out of Water• Monster in the House• Genie Out of the Bottle• Buddy Story• Institutionalized• Rites of Passage•Etc.
Classic Hollywood Cinema
Films of this sort “stop” us. Avant guarde and art cinema. We have to re-adjust; look at the film as a made thing, and as its own thing, something new and, to different degrees, unconstrained by classical Hollywood conventions. We have to “watch the movie” in a new way. Our usual viewing practices and assumptions may not apply. Often NON-NARRATIVE. Defamiliarizing. Asks us to SEE in a new way.
Formal experiment: jump cuts, long takes, long tracking shots, strange mise-en-scene, etc.
“Art Cinema”
Where on the triangle would you put the films we’ve seen so far? Explain.
Network True Stories Twelve Monkeys Miss Congeniality The Player
True Stories?
Miss Congeniality?
Network?
Extra credit: watch La Jetée
—the film which
inspired Twelve Monkeys!
The Player?
Narrative disruptions Oddly long “takes.” Unclear genre. Somewhat strange mise-en-scene: extra vivid colors, juxtapositions of empty space and human-made structures or human bodies, etc.
Realistic and narrative, though cinematography does call attention to itself. Lacks “feel-good” elements, but does to Hollywood formula somewhat.
True Stories on the McCloud Triangle:“Light” narrative (not plot-heavy and, compared to big-budget films, little-to-no
sensational action).
Editing, direction, mise-en-scene call attention to themselves. That is, they are nontransparent:
Examples:
we see him go through the “curtain” of the town—we are shown, quite explicitly, that the “set” is a construct; this disrupts the illusion of “reality”;
central character often talks directly to the camera; the contents of the sets are exaggerated, ironic, and oddly colored; editing is nonstandard: jump cuts
• Learning about the business side of film-making: who produces, markets, and profits, and how this business side shapes our viewing practices
• Learning to analyze film through a variety of lenses: the FORMALIST and the CULTURALIST.
Formalist ApproachExamining a Film’s
Techniques and ElementsCINEMATOGRAPHY
EDITINGMISE-EN-SCENE
PLOTCHARACTERIZATION
IMAGESYMBOL
in The Player and other films
“writing for the cinema” (Greek: κίνημα - kinema "movement").
Cinema = moving pictures.
So cinematography = writing for moving pictures, or, more precisely, writing with moving pictures!
Common definition = art or technique of film photography. Refers both to the shooting of images as well as post-filming development of images. All of the choices related to use of the camera.
Representations of space. Depth, proximity, size and proportions of the places and objects as manipulated through camera placement and lenses, lighting, and décor.
What does mise-en-scene do? What’s it for?
Establishes mood Shows relationships between elements in the
world created within the film Enhances theme
Plot
What is the sequence of events? (How would you summarize the plot?)
What is the pattern of events?
What plot devices are used?
Image and SymbolImage: a visual or aural entity that evokes a particular sensation in the viewer.
Can be an object, a color, a sound, an action, a landscape.
Toto sneaking out of the mean old lady’s basket. The ruby-red slippers. The yellow brick road. The scarecrow on fire. The sleepy snow. The Wizard’s great balloon. Dorothy’s family and friends gathered around her when she wakes.
Symbol: something that represents something else. Objects, colors, sounds, actions, and landscapes (images) are often symbolic in film.
The ruby-red slippers. The yellow-brick road. The sleepy snow.
Theme
The dynamic, prevailing idea or ideas which “infuse” a work.
Themes are sometimes archetypal or mythic: the journey to self-hood; the good witch-mother vs. the bad witch-mother; the encounter with an evil trickster.
Themes often involve a tension between competing forces: flesh vs. spirit; the natural vs. the human; the desire for freedom vs. the desire for home & wholeness.
All of the major elements of a work contribute to its theme.
The Player Re-watch the following, this time with
an eye to cinematography, mise-en scene, plot, characterization, image, symbol, and theme:
Opening shot and credits. Any early series of scenes: watch
these just to identify SHOTS. Call out CUT! every time there’s a new edit.
Griffin talking to June on phone. Any scene which include office
décor. The sequence of scenes in which
Griffin and June drive into desert resort, dance and dine, have sex, and then “come to” in mud bath.
The final shots of Griffin entering his driveway and greeting a pregnant June.
Now let’s turn to…
Culturalist ApproachExamining a Film’s “Cultural Work”
The culturalist viewer asks these questions about a movie:
1) What “cultural work” does the film do? That is, what ideologies are promoted, supported, revealed in a positive light by the film, and what ones are challenged, interrogated, revealed in a negative light?
2) Who made this film? What is their implicit or explicit agenda?
3) Whose interests does such a film serve?
4) What was going on historically/culturally at the time the film was made? Other art works like it? Political events related to themes or motifs in the film?
5) What does the film seem to say generally about the culture it emerged from? How has culture influenced the film?
Miss Congeniality from Culturalist Perspective
Genre or Formula:
The makeover?
Pretty LadyMy Fair LadyPygmalion The Taming of the ShrewCindarellaGenesis
Fish Out of Water?
Rites of Passage?
What else was going on in America, 2000?
Statistics for women in traditionally male occupations?
Popularity or nonpopularity of beauty pageants?
Status of feminism as a movement at the time? Third wave feminism?
Who made the film and why? Also, what demographics were targeted by this film? Whom was it made FOR?
Corporate manufacture suggests the film was made first and foremost for profit --not for serious “art” or exploration of gender issues. Nonetheless, gender issues are a substantial part of the film’s subject matter and themes, used to titillate audience or please all audiences?
Classic Hollywood or art cinema? Neither or both?
Who was running the country? World events of note?
Traditional narrative + continuity editing & transparency = = Hollywood?
GROUPS
What cultural work is this film doing?
1. What ideologies are promoted and supported by the film, and what ones are challenged, interrogated, revealed in a negative light?
2. Whose interests does such a film serve?3. What does the film seem to say generally about
the culture it emerged from? How has culture influenced the film?
Is this film pro- or anti-feminist?
Evidence in film of pro-feminist ideology:• Femininity revealed as a construct• Beauty pageant behavior ridiculed and queens represented as either ditzy or homicidal
Evidence in film of anti-feminist ideology:
• Notions of “complete woman” (related to the acceptance of beauty pageant values) are promoted• The pre-transformed Hart is ridiculed as gross, ugly, awkward, smart but a screw-up.
This film reassures
EVERYONE?
Doesn’t seriously
CHALLENGE anyone?
How do commercial films encourage us to buy their product?
They make us feel good.
How do they make us feel good?
One way is to reassure and flatter us by confirming values we already hold.
Network from a Culturalist Perspective
• What “cultural work” is the film doing? I.e., what ideologies does it support? What ones does it critque or challenge?
• How might the film deconstruct itself? That is, does the film in any way contradict its own apparent values? How might it inadvertently promote the OPPOSITE of its apparent ideology?
• Again, what two approaches to reading film have we been taking?
• Why might it MATTER that any of us becomes more “film literate”?
• Why might it matter that any of us becomes more visually literate in general? I.e., how does THIS CLASS matter?
R e v i e w
Visual language saturates our environment.
Most of us haven’t received, up to this point, much formal education in reading visual language—whether in terms of grammar, form, aesthetics, politics, health, or culture.
This despite the fact that every major theorist on the planet says our dominant mode of communication is now visual! People who are critical of this trend (Gitlin) and people who embrace it (McLuhan)—all say the same thing. It’s here. It’s big. It matters.
