Ideology, Genre, Auteur

Article by:Robin Wood

Presentation by:

Jed Shoemaker

Outline Outline (30 sec)Introduction (1 min.)Terms To Help You Write Your Paper ( 3 min. )Capitalist Ideology in American Cinema ( 12 min.)Genre and Auteur (2 min.)Mix Gingerly (2 min.) Questions and/or clips ( 25 min. -

actual time above)

Introduction

“The Truth Lies not in one dream, but in many” -

Pasolini, Arabian Nights

“Each Theory… has its own validity” -(Wood 208)

Terms To Help You Write Your Papers

Editing is the key “creative act” and thus more important than any other

aspect.

Montage Theory-

Terms To Help You Write Your Papers

An attempt to balance the scales of production of film. “[Downgrades] montage and artifice.” (Wood 203)

Realist Theory-

Terms To Help You Write Your Papers

Rejects/”deconstructs” realist art which leads to “open text.” ( open to interpretation)

Semiotic Theory-

Terms To Help You Write Your Papers

Manner of referring to the artistic aspects of the film that is similar to discussing literature. The mise-en-scene for example, is part of a film’s overall “filmic text.”

Filmic Text-

American Capitalist Ideology In Film

2) Work Ethic

1) Capitalist right to

ownership

Honest toil =

GOOD 2) Idleness =

EVIL

American Capitalist Ideology In Film

3) Marriage &

Family

American Capitalist Ideology In Film

4) Nature - Two contradictory

views :

Nature as wild, untamed, rugged

Nature as paradise tamed by man

American Capitalist Ideology In Film

5) The City, Progress, and

Technology

Conflict between yielding to progress and maintaining tradition.

American Capitalist Ideology In Film

5) Success Vs. Wealth

* Wealth is both celebrated and chastised by Hollywood ideology depending on the means of acquisition and the particular film.

Scale of happiness based on class and wealthRich- selfish, insincere, must protect their assets -or-

educated and just.Middle class- represented as majority, have no

reasonable unmet needs. Poor- down to earth, happy but struggling -or- miserable

and struggling. Middle class- Down to earth, but not struggling.

Poor -> Rich / “New Money” Money without corruption, i.e.Molly.

UNHAPP

Y

HAPPY

(Rosebud Syndrome)->

8) America is the land of ultimate possibilities- both

positive and negative.

American Capitalist Ideology In Film

9) Standard Happy Endings- The ultimate impossibility:

American Capitalist Ideology In Film

Typical Hollywood studio productions give the main character(s) implausible but suspenseful conditions for

victory and yet most are successful.The hero or heroine overcomes impossible odds and ends

victorious, showing that he can surmount a Kantian paradox.

This “emergency exit”- (Sirk) reaffirms the ISA’s

that may otherwise be questioned due to the

otherwise illogical ideology.

American Capitalist Ideology In Film

9 & 10)

Ideal Female

Ideal Male

11) Aberrant Male is weak and docile. Similar to ideal

female.

12) Aberrant Female is too masculine or a

temptress.

* Genres are ideologically pure if they deal only with one side of a given ideological contradiction.

Genre and Auteur

* There is little ideological conflict in a simpler Genre

film. * However, when Genres are less clear, less

traditional, the conflict is visible.

•In It’s a Wonderful Life, the Baileys and Potter stand for the two different interpretations of capitalism:

Work ethic and reward Vs. Disgusting avarice

Genre and Auteur •Auteur Is a method of defining a work of film by the “finger print” of the director as an artist.

•It is flawed in that it denies the creative work of the rest of a film’s cast and crew because the director has ultimate veto. It does not take into account the fact that film is a collective process.•Auteur is valuable because it acknowledges that a director’s will is important in the overall form of the film, sometimes disproportionately so.

example: Hitchcock films.

Mix Gingerly

•Genre - Disaster Film/Romance

•Auteur- James Cameron, Director of: * Terminator 2 * Terminator 2-3D * Terminator 3 * True Lies * True Lies 2

•Ideology- conflict between the happiness and the misery caused by capitalism and polarization of wealth.

(obviously there are more conflicts)