Ch. 6: Film
I. What Film Can Do (in contrast to theatre).
A. No limitations on space: diversity of location.
B. No limitations on time: passage of time, simultaneous time, past/future time.
C. Controlled focus/point of view: close up of face, emphasis of the particular within the context of the whole. The use of multiple cameras: what can be achieved?
D. Can be shot again and again to create a concrete final product.
E. Plasticity: can be edited and shaped.
F. Special effects/computer technology can incarnate images of fantasy and imagination.
II. Why Film Works: Persistence of Vision.
A. Sprockets do not merely guide the film through the projector; they freeze each frame for a fraction of a second so that they register on the human eye: this creates the illusion of movement. Compare to the “flipbook.”
III. Film's Primary Illusion.
A. Virtual Experience: we are presented with a compilation/succession of images and human experiences, compressed within particular spatial and temporal contexts (see below). As in all other artforms, we ritually play the game of “as if.”
B. Virtual Time: similar to the manipulation of time in music, film creates its own time (passage, flashback, etc.)
C. Virtual Space: regardless of whether the film is actually shot on location, it can transport us anywhere.
IV. Types of Film.
A. Narrative: a linear story (e.g., mainstream feature film).
B. Documentary: the chronicling of an event (e.g., newsreels, archival film).
C. Absolute: film for film's sake; movement/sound, etc. as art in its own right (e.g., music video, esp. before MTV).
V. Technical Devices and Their Effects Upon Perception.
A. The jump cut-- simple transition from one scene or location (or time) to another.
1. The "bridge shot:" virtually every sitcom on television has used this device for transition in and/or compression of time.
B. The form cut-- transition through the superimposing of similar shapes (or sounds) on top of one another.
1. The General Died at Dawn (1936): doorknob and billiard ball.
2. The Graduate (1967): from pool to home to hotel and back again.
C. Cutting within the frame-- transition of focus within a single frame without an actual cut or transition to another scene.
1. The Twilight Zone-- “The Hitchhiker" (1959): pan from car driving away to face of hitchhiker.
D. Montage-- a compilation of diverse yet related images for a specific effect.
1. Superimposing and split screen-- Pillow Talk (1963); couple out on the town/the bathtub telephone conversation.
2. Rapid succession of images: the all-time classic is The Battleship Potemkin (1925); soldiers are firing upon a crowd of protesters in 1905 pre-revolution Russia.
3. Rapid succession of images, combined with form cutting: the modern classic is Psycho (1960); Janet Leigh in the shower; what is the controlling image throughout the scene?
E. Crosscutting-- simultaneous but separate sequences of action.
1. Bullitt (1968): the chase scene through San Francisco became the standard by which all subsequent movie chase scenes were developed and judged.
2. The Untouchables (1988): the slow-motion gun battle at the train station.
F. Controlled focus/point of view: the camera determines/influences what the eye can see.
1. Harold and Maude (1971): self-immolation.
2. The Graduate (1967): the "birthday present."
3. Of Mice and Men (1939): apple pie.
VI. Film and Socio-Political Commentary.
A. Modern Times (1936): the dehumanization of the working class
B. Dr. Strangelove (1964): a dark satire of nuclear proliferation run amok
C.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975): the dehumanization-- and
liberation-- of the
powerless and the dispossessed
VII. A Brief Chronology of the Horror Genre in Film: in-class Powerpoint presentation.