SLM-Eng-FILM STUDIES
SLM-Eng-FILM STUDIES
VI SEMESTER
CORE COURSE
ENG6 B13
B.A. ENGLISH
(2019 Admission onwards)
CBCSS
UNIVERSITY OF CALICUT
School of Distance Education,
Calicut University P.O.,
Malappuram - 673 635, Kerala.
19020
School of Distance Education
UNIVERSITY OF CALICUT
School of Distance Education
Study Material
VI Semester
Core Course (ENG6 B13)
B.A. ENGLISH
FILM STUDIES
Prepared by:
Sabina K Musthafa
Assistant Professor,
School of Distance Education
University of Calicut.
Srutinized by:
Dr. Jahfar Sadiq. P,
Asst. Professor,
Dept. of English,
Amal College of Advanced Studies, Nilambur.
DISCLAIMER
“The author(s) shall be solely responsible for the
content and views expressed in this book”
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CONTENTS
MODULE I 5
A. Introduction to the basic terminology of filmmaking
Mise-en-scene, long takes, shallow focus, deep focus, Shots:
(close-up, medium shot, long shot), Camera Angle: Straight on
Angle Shots, High Angle Shots, Low Angle Shot, Shot-Reverse
Shot.
Editing: chronological editing, continuity editing, cross cutting,
montage, continuity cuts, jump cuts, match cuts, compilation
cuts, 30-degree rule, 180-degree rule.
Sound: Diegetic and Extra- diegetic sound, speech and music.
Colour: Black and white cinema, technicolour, Eastman colour.
B. Introduction to film genres
The Major Genres: Narrative, Avant-garde, Documentary,
feature films, short films.
Other Genres: Triller, melodrama, musical, horror, western,
fantasy, animation, film noir, expressionist, historical,
mythological, science fiction, road movies, digital films, tele-
films, 3-D films.
C. Introduction to major movements and theories
The silent era, classic Hollywood cinema, Italian Neo-Realism,
French New Wave, Asian Cinemas, Third Cinema, and Indian
Cinema
D. Introduction to the basic concept of film theories
Realism, formalism, auteur theory, apparatus theory, suture
theory, culture industry, male gaze, film semiotics
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MODULE I
SECTION A
INTRODUCTION TO THE BASIC
TERMINOLOGY OF FILMMAKING
I. MISE EN SCENE
Mise-en-scène is a French term which means, literally, "put in
the scene" or “placed in a frame”. For film, it has a broader
meaning, and refers to almost everything that goes into the
composition of the shot, including the composition itself:
framing, movement of the camera and characters, lighting, set
design and general visual environment, even sound as it helps
elaborate the composition. Mise-en-scène can be defined as the
articulation of cinematic space, and it is precisely the space that
it is about. Mise-en-scène is an expression used to describe the
design aspects of a theatre or film production, which essentially
means "visual theme" or "telling a story", both in visually artful
ways through storyboarding, cinematography and stage design,
and in poetically artful ways through direction. Mise-en-scène
has been called film criticism's "grand undefined term".
When applied to the cinema, mise-en-scene refers to everything
that appears before the camera and its arrangement—
composition, sets, props, actors, costumes, sounds, and lighting.
The “mise-en-scene”, along with the cinematography and
editing of a film, influence the verisimilitude of a film in the
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Lighting
The intensity, direction, and quality of lighting can influence an
audience’s understanding of characters, actions, themes and
mood. Light (and shade) can emphasize texture, shape, distance,
mood, time of day or night, season and glamour; it affects the
way colours are rendered, both in terms of hue and depth, and
can focus attention on particular elements of the composition.
Highlights, for example, call attention to shapes and textures,
while shadows often conceal things, creating a sense of mystery
or fear. For this reason, lighting must be thoroughly planned in
advance to ensure its desired effect on an audience.
Cinematographers are a large part of this process, as they
coordinate the camera and the lighting.
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Space
The representation of space affects the reading of a film. Depth,
proximity, size and proportions of the places and objects in a
film can be manipulated through camera placement and lenses,
lighting, set design, effectively determining mood or
relationships between elements in the story world.
Composition
It includes the organization of objects, actors and space within
the frame. One of the most important concepts with the regard to
the composition of a film is maintaining a balance of symmetry.
This refers to having an equal distribution of light, colour, and
objects and/or figures in a shot. Unbalanced composition can be
used to emphasize certain elements of a film that the director
wishes to be given particular attention to. This tool works
because audiences are more inclined to pay attention to
something off balance, as it may seem abnormal.
Costume
Costume simply refers to the clothes that characters wear.
Costumes in narrative cinema are used to signify characters or to
make clear distinctions between characters.
Makeup and hair styles
Establish a time period, reveal character traits and signal
changes in character.
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combined with the long take. A number of films today make use
of the long take. Others through the years include Alfred
Hitchcock's Rope (1948), which, through editing, creates the
impression of an entire film taking place during one take, and
Mike Figgis's Timecode (2000), which shot digitally four
ninety-minute takes concurrently.
A long take is an uninterrupted shot in a film which lasts much
longer than the conventional editing pace either of the film itself
or of films in general, usually lasting several minutes. It can be
used for dramatic and narrative effect if done properly, and in
moving shots is often accomplished through the use of a dolly or
Steadicam. Long takes of a sequence filmed in one shot without
any editing are rare in films. The term "long take" is used
because it avoids the ambiguous meanings of "long shot", which
can refer to the framing of a shot, and "long cut", which can
refer to either a whole version of a film or the general editing
pacing of the film. However, these two terms are sometimes
used interchangeably with "long take". When filming Rope
(1948), Alfred Hitchcock intended for the film to have the effect
of one long continuous take, but the cameras available could
hold no more than 1000 feet of 35 mm film. As a result, each
take used up to a whole roll of film and lasted up to 10 minutes.
III. DEEP FOCUS
Deep focus is a technique in which objects very near the camera
as well as those far away are in focus at the same time. It is a
style or technique of cinematography and staging with great
depth of field, using relatively wide-angle lenses and small lens
apertures to render in sharp focus near and distant planes
simultaneously. A deep focus shot includes foreground, middle
ground, and extreme-background objects, all in focus. Deep
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1. extreme close-up
2. close-up
3. medium close-up
4. medium shot
5. medium long shot
6. long shot
7. extreme long shot or distance shot
A close-up tightly frames a person or an object. Close-ups are
one of the standard shots used regularly with medium shots and
long shots. Close-ups display the most detail, but they do not
include the broader scene. Moving into a close-up or away from
a close-up is a common type of zooming.
Close-ups are used in many ways for many reasons. Close-ups
are often used as cutaways from a more distant shot to show
detail, such as characters' emotions, or some intricate activity
with their hands. Close cuts to characters' faces are used far
more often in television than in movies; they are especially
common in soap operas. For a director to deliberately avoid
close-ups may create in the audience an emotional distance from
the subject matter.
Close-ups are used for distinguishing main characters. Major
characters are often given a close-up when they are introduced
as a way of indicating their importance. Leading characters will
have multiple close-ups. There is a long-standing stereotype of
insecure actors desiring a close-up at every opportunity and
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V. CAMERA ANGLE
The camera shot angle is used to specify the location where the
camera is placed to take a shot. The position of the camera in
relation to the subjects can affect the way the viewer perceives
the scene. A scene may be shot simultaneously from multiple
camera angles to amplify the cinematic effect and the emotions.
High angle shot
The camera looks down, making the subject look vulnerable or
insignificant. It can give the audience a motherly feeling toward
the character.
Low angle shot
The camera points upwards, usually making the subject or
setting seem grand or threatening.
Wide angle shot (taken with a wide-angle lens)
This has the effect of seeming to exaggerate perspective. It's
often used to make the viewer feel that they are close to the
action.
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Over-the-Shoulder Shot
A shot in which we see a character or main object over another’s
shoulder, often used in interviews or dialogues.
Shoulder Level Shot
This is when your camera is roughly as high as your subject’s
shoulders. Shoulder level shots are actually much more standard
than an eye level shot, which can make your actor seem shorter
than reality. A shoulder level shot can maximize the feeling of
superiority when paired with a low angle.
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Reaction shot
A shot showing a character’s expression as they react to
something.
VI. EDITING
Film editing is part of the creative post-production process of
filmmaking. The term ‘film editing’ is derived from the
traditional process of working with film, but now it increasingly
involves the use of digital technology. The film editor works
with the raw footage, selecting shots and combining them into
sequences to create a finished motion picture. Film editing is
described as an art or skill, the only art that is unique to cinema,
separating filmmaking from other art forms that preceded it,
although there are close parallels to the editing process in other
art forms like poetry or novel writing. Film editing is often
referred to as the "invisible art" because when it is well-
practiced, the viewer can become so engaged that he or she is
not even aware of the editor's work. On its most fundamental
level, film editing is the art, technique, and practice of
assembling shots into a coherent sequence. The job of an editor
isn’t simply to mechanically put pieces of a film together, cut
off film slates, or edit dialogue scenes. A film editor must
creatively work with the layers of images, story, dialogue,
music, pacing, as well as the actors' performances to effectively
"re-imagine" and even rewrite the film to craft a cohesive whole.
Editors usually play a dynamic role in the making of a film.
With the advent of digital editing, film editors and their
assistants have become responsible for many areas of
filmmaking that used to be the responsibility of others. Film
editing is an art that can be used in diverse ways. It can create
sensually provocative montages; become a laboratory for
experimental cinema; bring out the emotional truth in an actor's
performance; create a point of view on otherwise obtuse events;
guide the telling and pace of a story; create an illusion of danger
where there is none; give emphasis to things that would not have
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Chronological editing
Editing that follows the logic of a chronological narrative, one
event follows subsequently from another, and time and space are
logically and unproblematically represented.
Cross-cutting or parallel editing
The linking-up of two sets of action that run concurrently and
are interdependent within the narrative.
Montage
Montage comes from “Monte” which means ‘to assemble or
edit’. Thus, the word conveys a film’s system or rhythm of
editing. For example, how quickly it is edited with consequent
emotional effect. It is based on the theory that conflict must be
inherent in all visual aspects in film, the principles of which
include a rapid alteration between sets of shots whose
signification occurs at the point of their collision, fast editing
and unusual camera angles; also used for spectacular effect. It is
a technique in film editing in which a series of short shots are
edited into a sequence to condense space, time, and information.
The term has been used in various contexts. It was introduced to
cinema primarily by Eisenstein, and early Russian directors used
it as a synonym for creative editing.
In France, the word "montage" simply denotes cutting. The
montage sequence is usually used to suggest the passage of time,
rather than to create symbolic meaning as it does in Soviet
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Continuity Editing
It is the predominant style of film editing and video editing in
the post-production process of filmmaking of narrative films and
television programs. The purpose of continuity editing is to
smooth over the inherent discontinuity of the editing process
and to establish a logical coherence between shots. In most
films, logical coherence is achieved by cutting to continuity,
which emphasizes smooth transition of time and space.
However, some films incorporate cutting to continuity into a
more complex classical cutting technique, one which also tries
to show psychological continuity of shots. The montage
technique relies on symbolic association of ideas between shots
rather than association of simple physical action for its
continuity.
Continuity editing can be divided into two categories: temporal
continuity and spatial continuity. Within each category, specific
techniques will work against a sense of continuity. In other
words, techniques can cause a passage to be continuous, giving
the viewer a concrete physical narration to follow, or
discontinuous, causing viewer disorientation, pondering, or even
subliminal interpretation or reaction, as in the montage style.
The important ways to preserve temporal continuity are
avoiding the ellipsis, using continuous diegetic sound, and
utilizing the match on action technique.
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Continuity cuts
These cuts take us seamlessly and logically from one sequence
or scene to another. This is an unobtrusive cut that serves to
move the narrative along.
Match cut
A match cut, also called a graphic match (or, in the French term,
raccord), is a cut in film editing between either two different
objects, two different spaces, or two different compositions in
which an object in the two shots graphically match, often
helping to establish a strong continuity of action and linking the
two shots metaphorical
Jump cut
A cut where there is no match between the two spliced shots.
Within a sequence, or more particularly a scene, jump cuts give
the effect of bad editing. The opposite of a match cut, the jump
cut is an abrupt cut between two shots that calls attention to
itself because it does not match the shots seamlessly. It marks a
transition in time and space but is called jump cut because it jars
the sensibilities; it makes the spectator jump and wonder where
the narrative has got to. Jean Luc Godard is undoubtedly one of
the best exponents of this use of the jump cut.
30-degree rule
The 30-degree rule is a basic film editing guideline that states
the camera should move at least 30 degrees between shots of the
same subject occurring in succession. If this rule isn't followed a
jump cut occurs and there is a risk that the audience starts
focusing on the filming technique instead of the story that is
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it, Walt Disney released his first sound picture, the Mickey
Mouse short Steamboat Willie. Yet most American movie
theatres, especially outside of urban areas, were still not
equipped for sound: while the number of sound cinemas grew
from 100 to 800 between 1928 and 1929, they were still vastly
outnumbered by silent theatres. The studios, in parallel, were
still not entirely convinced of the talkies' universal appeal—
through mid-1930, the majority of Hollywood movies were
produced in dual versions, silent as well as talking. Though few
in the industry predicted it, silent film as a viable commercial
medium in the United States would soon be little more than a
memory. Points West, a Hoot Gibson Western released by
Universal Pictures in August 1929, was the last purely silent
mainstream feature put out by a major Hollywood studio.
During 1929, most of the major European filmmaking countries
began joining Hollywood in the changeover to sound. Many of
the trend-setting European talkies were shot abroad as
production companies leased studios while their own were being
converted or as they deliberately targeted markets speaking
different languages. The first successful European dramatic
talkie was the all-British Blackmail. Directed by twenty-nine-
year-old Alfred Hitchcock, the movie had its London debut June
21, 1929. Originally shot as a silent film, Blackmail was
restaged to include dialogue sequences, along with a score and
sound effects, before its premiere.
Sound
Sound is everything that can be heard in a scene. The key
elements that make up sound in a film are:
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● Location sound
● Musical score/soundtrack
● Dialogue
● Sound effects
● Voiceover (if used).
The absence of sound in a scene can also be impactful.
Music
Music is used to heighten the emotion and drama of a scene.
Audiences are experienced in decoding the style of music to
interpret mood or genre, e.g., scary music when a villain
appears.
Music can:
• Determine the mood or genre of a film
• Build up or release tension
• Change the emotional or physical status of a character
• Smooth out transitions in an edit to allow a film to flow/link
the scenes together
• Highlight or code a theme or message.
Dialogue
The words spoken by characters within the scene. Dialogue can
be used to establish character definition and relationships, and to
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Voiceover
This is when an omniscient narrator or a character is heard
talking over the images you are seeing on the screen. Voiceovers
are often used to provide back-story and either a subjective or
objective perspective of the story as it unfolds. They are usually
recorded in a studio.
Diegetic and non-diegetic sound
In film language, sound is divided into two terms:
● Diegetic sound has a physical origin in the film world
(e.g., a character coughing or the radio playing)
● Non-diegetic sound has no direct origin in the film world
(e.g., the soundtrack or the voice of a narrator). In other words,
diegetic means within the world of the film, and non-diegetic
may be defined as external to the film world.
Absence of non-diegetic music
● As non-diegetic music is very much associated with
mainstream cinema and the overt and deliberate manipulation of
audience emotions, some realist filmmakers chose to avoid it as
much as possible. The absence of non-diegetic music can
therefore be used to make scenes seem more realistic, such as in
The Blair Witch Project.
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Contrapuntal sound
Contrapuntal sound strongly contrasts with the mood or tone of
the scene.
Parallel sound
Parallel sound matches the mood or tone of the sequence.
Exaggerated/Pleonastic sound
Directors often use exaggerated sound to heighten emotion or
meaning in a scene. Using sound in this way can suggest an
incoming threat before the audience sees it. It can be used to
reinforce a character’s threatening nature when they are present
on screen. It can also help to emphasise the emotional impact of
a specific action taking place on screen.
Unmotivated sound
Sometimes directors will use sound effects which do not
logically match the actions on screen but do add to the
emotional impact of a scene. A director might use a record
scratching sound to suggest a sudden mishap in a comedy film.
An unmotivated swooshing noise is also common to emphasise
a character turning their head.
IX. PRODUCTION, DISTRIBUTION AND RECEPTION
OF FILMS
The film industry consists of the technological and commercial
institutions of filmmaking: i.e., film production companies, film
studios, cinematography, film production, screenwriting, pre-
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Pre-production
In pre-production, every step of actually creating the film is
carefully designed and planned. The production company is
created and a production office established. The film is pre-
visualized by the director, and may be storyboarded with the
help of illustrators and concept artists. A production budget is
drawn up to plan expenditures for the film. For major
productions, insurance is procured to protect against accidents.
Storyboard is a visualization method that creates a blueprint of
what the shot sequence should be. The visual images are drawn
or made by programs such as Photoshop. There may also be a
written caption as needed for each shot. The director is primarily
responsible for the storytelling, creative decisions and acting of
the film. The unit production manager manages the production
budget and production schedule. They also report, on behalf of
the production office, to the studio executives or financiers of
the film. In production, the video production/film is created and
shot. More crew will be recruited at this stage, such as the
property master, script supervisor, assistant directors, stills
photographer, picture editor, and sound editors. These are just
the most common roles in filmmaking; the production office
will be free to create any unique blend of roles to suit the
various responsibilities possible during the production of a film.
Post-production
Here the video/film is assembled by the video/film editor. The
shot film material is edited. The production sound (dialogue) is
also edited; music tracks and songs are composed and recorded
if a film is sought to have a score; sound effects are designed
and recorded. Any computer-graphic visual effects are digitally
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Distribution
This is the final stage, where the film is released to cinemas or,
occasionally, to consumer media (DVD, VCD, VHS, Blu-ray) or
direct download from a provider. The film is duplicated as
required and distributed to cinemas for exhibition (screening).
Press kits, posters, and other advertising materials are published
and the film is advertised and promoted. Film distributors
usually release a film with a launch party, press release,
interviews with the press, press preview screenings, and film
festival screenings. Most of the films have a website. The film
plays at selected cinemas and the DVD typically is released a
few months later. The distribution rights for the film and DVD
are also usually sold for worldwide distribution. The distributor
and the production company share profits. Filmmaking also
takes place outside of the mainstream and is commonly called
independent filmmaking. Since the introduction of DV
technology, the means of production have become more
democratized. Filmmakers can conceivably shoot and edit a
film, create and edit the sound and music, and mix the final cut
on a home computer.
However, while the means of production may be democratized,
financing, traditional distribution and marketing remain difficult
to accomplish outside the traditional system. In the past, most of
the independent filmmakers have relied on film festivals to get
their films noticed and sold for distribution. However, the
Internet has allowed for relatively inexpensive distribution of
independent films. As a result, several companies have emerged
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studios that only have to run one marketing campaign for all
releases. The flip side, though, is that such distribution efforts
are often regarded as experimental and thus, do not receive
substantial investment or promotion.
In the course of the years, simultaneous release approaches have
gained both praise, with Mark Cuban claiming movies should
simultaneously be made available on all media allowing viewers
to choose whether to see it at home or at the theatre, and
disapproval, with director M. Night Shyamalan claiming it could
potentially destroy the "magic" of movie going. A straight to
video (or straight-to-DVD or straight-to-Blu-ray depending on
the medium upon which the movie is made available) release
occurs when a movie is released on home video formats (such as
VHS, DVD, etc.) without being released in theatres first, thereby
not taking into consideration the "theatrical window". As a
result of strong DVD sales, STV releases also achieved higher
success and have become a profitable market lately, especially
for independent moviemakers and companies.
X. FILM CENSORSHIP
Film censorship is carried out by various countries to differing
degrees, sometimes as a result of powerful or relentless lobbying
by organizations or individuals. Films that are banned in a
particular country change over time.
A motion picture rating system is designated to classify films
with regard to suitability for audiences in terms of issues such as
sex, violence, substance abuse, profanity, impudence or other
types of mature content. A particular issued rating can be called
a certification, classification, certificate or rating.
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1. U- Universal
Unrestricted Public Exhibition throughout India, suitable for all
age groups. Films under this category should not upset children
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SECTION B
INTRODUCTION TO FILM GENRES
In film theory, genre refers to the method based on similarities
in the narrative elements from which films are constructed. Most
of the theories in the film genre are borrowed from literary genre
criticism. As with genre in a literary context, there is a great deal
of debate over how to define or categorize genres. Besides the
basic distinction in genre between fiction and documentary, film
genres can be categorized in several ways.
Fictional films are usually categorized according to their setting,
theme, topic, mood, or format. The setting is the milieu or
environment where the story and action takes place. The theme
or topic refers to the issues or concepts that the film revolves
around. The mood is the emotional tone of the film. Format
refers to the way the film was shot or the manner of
presentation. An additional way of categorizing film genres is
by the target audience.
The major genres:
1. Narrative
2. Avant Garde
3. Documentary
4. Feature films
5. Short films
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1. NARRATIVE
Fictional film or narrative film is a film that tells a fictional or
fictionalized story, event or narrative. In this style of film,
believable narratives and characters help convince the audience
that the unfolding fiction is real. Lighting and camera
movement, among other cinematic elements, have become
increasingly important in these films. Great detail goes into the
screenplays of narratives, as these films rarely deviate from the
predetermined behaviours and lines of the screenplays to
maintain a sense of realism. Actors must deliver dialogue and
action in a believable way, so as to persuade the audience that
the film is real life.
Beginning in 1904, American commercial film making became
increasingly oriented towards storytelling. The filmmakers could
not experiment with the causal, special and temporal relation in
many films as the audience could not understand it. They came
to assume that a film should guide the spectator’s attention,
making every aspect of the story on the screen as clear as
possible. One of the first well-known narratives ever made was
Georges Méliès’s A Trip to the Moon in 1902. Most films
previous to this had been merely moving images of everyday
occurrences. Méliès was one of the first directors to progress
cinematic technology, which paved the way for narratives as
style of film. Many films are based on real occurrences;
however, these too fall under the category of a “narrative film”
rather than a documentary. This is because films based on real
occurrences are not simply footage of the occurrence, but rather
hired actors portraying an adjusted, often more dramatic,
retelling of the occurrence.
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V. SHORT FILMS
A short film is an audio-visual production that is mainly
characterized by its short duration and because it also deals with
innovative issues, which are already a little worn or have a
different language. In other words, we can define a short film as
a film or a film effort in which the duration never exceeds 30
minutes, and which can have a minimum duration of 5 minutes.
Also known by the name of short, is a very important part for all
those who want to start their lives as new filmmakers, as it is
very important because it allows them to put into practice all
their skills as future producers. Many of the big film producers
started making simple short films, until they settled in the place
they enjoy today.
At the beginning of the short films, these were seen as
documentary type, and with time, they were also leaning in the
area of fiction. At that time, the duration practically depended
on the size of the recording roll, which was generally no longer
than 10 minutes. By means of the editing they were able to make
it take a little longer of time.
Moreover, a short film is any film not long enough to be
considered a feature film. No consensus exists as to where that
boundary is drawn: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that
has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all credits".
The term ‘featurette’ originally applied to a film longer than a
short subject, but shorter than a standard feature film. The
increasingly rare term short subject means approximately the
same thing. An industry term, it carries more of an assumption
that the film is shown as part of a presentation along with a
feature film. Short is an abbreviation for either term. Short films
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MINOR GENRES
1. THRILLER
Thriller is a broad genre of literature, film, and television
programming that uses suspense, tension and excitement as the
main elements. Thrillers heavily stimulate the viewer's moods
giving them a high level of anticipation, ultra-heightened
expectation, uncertainty, surprise, anxiety and/or terror. Thriller
films tend to be adrenaline-rushing, gritty, rousing and fast-
paced. Literary devices such as red herrings, plot twists and cliff
hangers are used extensively. A thriller is a villain-driven plot,
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The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) was one of the most
successful and critically acclaimed films of Hitchcock's British
period. Alfred Hitchcock's first thriller was his third silent film
The Lodger (1926). His Rebecca (1940) won Best Picture,
unusual for a psychological thriller film.
Other examples are: George Cukor's psychological thriller
Gaslight (1944), The film noir, Laura (1944), The Spiral
Staircase (1946) The Lady from Shanghai (1948), Sorry, Wrong
Number (1948), The Third Man (1949), Michael Powell's tense
Peeping Tom (1960), Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), Harold
Becker's Malice (1993).
2. MELODRAMA
The term ‘melodrama’ refers to a dramatic work that
exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the
emotions. It is a drama, such as a play, film, or television
program, characterized by exaggerated emotions, stereotypical
characters, and interpersonal conflicts. It refers to dramas of the
18th and 19th centuries in which orchestral music or song was
used to accompany the action. The villain was always the central
character in melodrama and crime was a favourite theme. The
misfortunes of a discharged prisoner is the theme of the
sensational The Ticket-of-Leave Man (1863) by Tom Taylor.
Melodrama films are a subgenre of drama films characterised by
a plot that appeals to the heightened emotions of the audience.
They generally depend on stereotyped character development,
interaction, and highly emotional themes. Melodramatic films
tend to use plots that often deal with crises of human emotion,
failed romance or friendship, strained familial situations,
tragedy, illness, neuroses, or emotional and physical hardship.
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audience's primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the
viewer. The macabre and the supernatural are frequent themes.
Thus, they may overlap with the fantasy, supernatural, and
thriller genres. Horror films often deal with the viewer's
nightmares, hidden fears, revulsions and terror of the unknown.
Plots within the horror genre often involve the intrusion of an
evil force, event, or personage, commonly of supernatural
origin, into the everyday world. Themes or elements prevalent in
horror films include ghosts, vampires, werewolves, curses,
Satanism, demons, gore, torture, vicious animals, monsters,
zombies, cannibals, and serial killers. Conversely, stories of the
supernatural are not necessarily always a horror movie as well.
The first depictions of supernatural events appear in several of
the silent shorts created by the film pioneer Georges Méliès in
the late 1890s, the best known being Le Manoir du diable (The
Haunted Castle, 1896) which is sometimes credited as being the
first horror film. Another of his horror projects was 1898's La
Caverne maudite (The Cave of the Unholy One, literally "the
accursed cave"). Japan made early forays into the horror genre
with Bake Jizo and Shinin no Sosei, both made in 1898. In
1910, Edison Studios produced the first film version of
Frankenstein, which was thought lost for many years.
In the early 20th century, the first monster appeared in a horror
film: Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre-Dame, who had
appeared in Victor Hugo's novel, Notre-Dame de Paris (1831).
Films featuring Quasimodo included Alice Guy's Esmeralda
(1906), The Hunchback (1909), The Love of a Hunchback
(1910) and Notre-Dame de Paris (1911). The first vampire-
themed movie was F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu (1922), an
unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula.
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The term film noir, French for "black film", first applied to
Hollywood films by French critic Nino Frank in 1946, was
unknown to most American film industry professionals of the
classic era. Film noir encompasses a range of plots—the central
figure may be a private eye (The Big Sleep), a plainclothes
policeman (The Big Heat), an aging boxer (The Set-Up), a law-
abiding citizen lured into a life of crime (Gun Crazy), or simply
a victim of circumstance (D.O.A.). Though the noir mode was
originally identified with American productions, films now
customarily described as noir have been made around the world.
Many pictures released from the 1960s onward share attributes
with film noirs of the classic period, often treating noir
conventions in a self-referential manner. Such latter-day works
in a noir mode are often referred to as neo-noirs.
Film noir's aesthetics are deeply influenced by German
Expressionism, an artistic movement of the 1910s and 1920s
that involved theatre, photography, painting, sculpture, and
architecture, as well as cinema. Fritz Lang's magnum opus, M—
released in 1931, two years before his departure from
Germany—is among the first major crime films of the sound era
to join a characteristically noirish visual style with a noir-type
plot, one in which the protagonist is a criminal.
Josef von Sternberg’s films such as Shanghai Express (1932)
and The Devil Is a Woman (1935), with their hothouse eroticism
and baroque visual style, specifically anticipate central elements
of classic noir. Italian neorealism of the 1940s, with its emphasis
on quasi documentary authenticity, was an acknowledged
influence on trends that emerged in American noir. The Lost
Weekend (1945), directed by Billy Wilder, tells the story of an
alcoholic in a manner evocative of neorealism. Most of the film
noirs of the classic period were similarly low- and modestly
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9. EXPRESSIONISM
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry
and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the
20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from
a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional
effect in order to evoke moods or ideas. Expressionist artists
sought to express meaning or emotional experience rather than
physical reality.
It was a movement that developed in the early twentieth-century
mainly in Germany in reaction to the dehumanizing effect of
industrialization and the growth of cities. The term refers to an
artistic style in which the artist seeks to depict not objective
reality but rather the subjective emotions and responses that
objects and events arouse within a person. There was an
Expressionist style in the cinema, important examples of which
are Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), The
Golem: How He Came Into the World (1920), Fritz Lang's
Metropolis (1927) and F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu, a Symphony
of Horror (1922) and The Last Laugh (1924). The term
"expressionist" is also sometimes used to refer to stylistic
devices thought to resemble those of German Expressionism,
such as Film Noir cinematography or the style of several of the
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10. HISTORICAL
The historical drama is a film genre in which stories are based
upon historical events and famous persons. Some historical
dramas attempt to accurately portray a historical event or
biography, to the degree that the available historical research
will allow. Other historical dramas are fictionalized tales that are
based on an actual person and their deeds, such as Braveheart,
which is loosely based on the 13th century knight William
Wallace's fight for Scotland's independence.
This kind of movie is a detailed description of one event in the
past that was important to many people. For example, the film
Cleopatra relates the history of a woman who was queen of
ancient Egypt. Another aspect of Historical movies is that they
are often filmed in the same place where the original event
occurred. This is the case with Schindlers List, which was
filmed in Krakow, Poland. Another important element of history
movies is that they are very expensive to make because of the
costumes, the kind of director, and the actors.
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11.MYTHOLOGICAL FILMS
These are films made using plot derived from legend and the
literary epics. Mythological films have the advantage of
familiarity with the story in a way. Everyone understands
mythology and seems to have a connection with it. As everyone
seems to be familiar with the world of mythology then through
films one brings in their perspective in a unique way of
storytelling. Earlier, animated films Hanuman (2005) and Bal
Ganesh (2007) had done well at the box office. Some of the
films based on Greco-Roman mythology are Helen of Troy
(1956), The Odyssey (1997), and Hercules (1997)
12. ROAD MOVIE
A road movie is a film genre in which the main character or
characters leave home to travel from place to place. They
usually leave home to escape their current lives. The genre has
its roots in spoken and written tales of epic journeys, such as the
Odyssey and the Aeneid. The road film is a standard plot
employed by screenwriters. It is a type of bildungsroman, a
story in which the hero changes, grows or improves over the
course of the story. The on-the-road plot was used at the birth of
American cinema but blossomed in the years after World War
II, reflecting a boom in automobile production and the growth of
youth culture. Even so, awareness of the "road picture" as a
genre came only in the 1960s with Easy Rider and Bonnie and
Clyde. Some examples are: Near Dark (1987), The Vanishing
(1988), and The Week End (1967).
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16. 3D FILM
3D films have existed in some form since 1915, but had been
largely relegated to a niche in the motion picture industry
because of the costly hardware and processes required to
produce and display a 3D film, and the lack of a standardized
format for all segments of the entertainment business.
Nonetheless, 3D films were prominently featured in the 1950s in
American cinema, and later experienced a worldwide resurgence
in the 1980s and 1990s driven by IMAX high-end theatres and
Disney-themed venues. 3D films became increasingly successful
throughout the 2000s, peaking with the success of 3D
presentations of Avatar in December 2009, after which 3D films
again decreased in popularity. Certain directors have also taken
more experimental approaches to 3D filmmaking, most notably
celebrated auteur Jean-Luc Godard in his films 3X3D.
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SECTION C
INTRODUCTION TO MAJOR MOVEMENTS AND
THEORIES
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During the golden age of Hollywood, which lasted from the end
of the silent era in American cinema in the late 1920s to the
early 1960s, films were prolifically issued by the Hollywood
studios. The start of the golden age was arguably when The Jazz
Singer was released in 1927. Most of the Hollywood pictures
adhered closely to a genre—Western, slapstick comedy,
musical, animated cartoon, biopic (biographical picture).
However, motion picture companies made money by operating
under the studio system. MGM dominated the industry and had
the top stars in Hollywood, and was also credited for creating
the Hollywood star system altogether. Another great
achievement of American cinema during this era came through
Walt Disney's animation. In 1937, Disney created the most
successful film of its time, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
The apogee of the studio system may have been the year 1939,
which saw the release of such classics as The Wizard of Oz,
Gone with the Wind, Stagecoach, Mr. Smith Goes to
Washington, Destry Rides Again, Young Mr. Lincoln, etc.
The style of classical Hollywood cinema has been heavily
influenced by the ideas of the Renaissance and its resurgence of
mankind as the focal point. Thus, classical narration progresses
always through psychological motivation, i.e., by the will of a
human character and its struggle with obstacles towards a
defined goal. In the classical Hollywood style space and time are
unified, continuous and linear. They appear as a unified whole
to match our perception of time and space in reality. Time in
classical Hollywood is continuous, since nonlinearity calls
attention to the illusory workings of the medium. The only
permissible manipulation of time in this format is the flashback.
Likewise, the treatment of space in classic Hollywood strives to
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Soviet Union during the Soviet Central Asia era. North Asia is
dominated by Siberian Russian cinema, and is thus considered
part of European cinema.
East Asian cinema is typified by the cinema of Japan, China,
Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea, including the Japanese
anime industry and action films of Hong Kong. South Asian
cinema is typified by the cinema of India, the cinema of
Pakistan (including Punjabi and Urdu cinema), the cinema of
Bangladesh (Bengali cinema), and the cinema of Nepal.
Southeast Asian cinema is typified by the cinema of the
Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, and other Southeast Asian
countries. The cinema of Central Asia and the southern
Caucasus is typified by Iranian cinema and the cinema of
Tajikistan. West Asian cinema is typified by Arab cinema,
Iranian cinema, Israeli cinema (which may overlap with Jewish
cinema), and Turkish cinema.
6. THIRD CINEMA
Third Cinema, also called Third World Cinema, aesthetic and
political cinematic movement in Third World countries (mainly
in Latin America and Africa) meant as an alternative to
Hollywood (First Cinema) and aesthetically oriented European
films (Second Cinema). Third Cinema films aspire to be socially
realistic portrayals of life and emphasize topics and issues such
as poverty, national and personal identity, tyranny and
revolution, colonialism, class, and cultural practices). The term
was coined by Argentine filmmakers Fernando Solanas and
Octavio Getino, the producers of La hora de los hornos (1968;
The Hour of the Furnaces), one of the best-known Third
Cinema documentary films of the 1960s, in their manifesto
“Hacia un tercer cine” (1969; “Toward a Third Cinema”).
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7. INDIAN CINEMA
The cinema of India consists of films produced across India.
Following the screening of the Lumière moving pictures in
London (1895) cinema became a sensation across Europe and by
July 1896 the Lumière films had been in show in Bombay. The
first Indian film released in India was Shree pundalik a silent
film in Marathi by Dadasaheb Torne on 18 May 1912 at
'Coronation Cinematograph', Mumbai. Some have argued that
Pundalik does not deserve the honour of being called the first
Indian film because it was a photographic recording of a popular
Marathi play, and because the cameraman—a man named
Johnson—was a British national and the film was processed in
London. The first full-length motion picture in India was
produced by Dadasaheb Phalke. Dadasaheb is the pioneer of
Indian film industry a scholar on India's languages and culture,
who brought together elements from Sanskrit epics to produce
his Raja Harishchandra (1913), a silent film in Marathi. The
female roles in the film were played by male actors. The film
marked a historic benchmark in the film industry in India.
Dadasaheb Phalke is the Father of Indian cinema. The
Dadasaheb Phalke Award, for lifetime contribution to cinema,
was instituted in his honour, by the Government of India in
1969, and is the most prestigious and coveted award in Indian
cinema.
Raghupathi Venkaiah Naidu was an Indian artist and a pioneer
in the production of silent Indian movies and talkies. Starting
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SECTION D
INTRODUCTION TO THE BASIC CONCEPTS OF FILM
THEORIES
I. REALISM
The term realism comes from a literary and art movement of the
nineteenth century which went against the grand tradition of
classical idealism and sought to portray ‘life as it really was’.
The focus was on the ordinary life, especially the lives of the
socially deprived and the conditions they had to bear. Film as
cinema makes absence the presence, it puts reality up on to the
screen. It purports to give a direct and truthful view of the real
world through the presentation it provides of the characters and
their environment. Realism functions in films on both the
narrative level and the figurative (ie., pictorial/ photographic). In
this regard the physical realism marries into psychological
realism via the narrative structures. Basically, realist films
address social issues. There are arguably two types of realism
pertaining to film.
1. Seamless realism, whose ideological function is to disguise
the illusion of realism. In this type, film technique erases the
idea of illusion, creating the ‘reality effect’. The use of lighting,
colour, sound or editing draws attention to the illusionist nature
of the reality effect. The whole purpose is to stitch the spectator
into the illusion- keeping reality safe.
2. Aesthetically motivated realism, which attempts to use the
camera in a non-manipulative fashion and considers the purpose
of realism in its ability to convey a reading of reality, or several
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Characteristics of Formalism:
● Camera angles can move towards higher or lower angles.
● A moving camera can be used to emphasize subjective
states or create energy and/or mood.
● Lighting can move to more extreme use of colour, light
and shadow in the creation of subjective states and visual
metaphors.
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In France the concept of auteur (in the 1920s) comes from the
other direction, namely that the filmmaker is the auteur –
irrespective of the origin of the script. Auteur in French literally
means “author”. Director Francois Truffaut, writing as a critic in
the influential French journal Cahiers du Cinema (Cinema
Notebook), developed the concept of the auteur in his 1954
essay “A Certain Trend in French Cinema”.
Truffaut wrote about the films of several new French
filmmakers who he termed auteurs. He drew contrasts between
auteurs and directors of mainstream studio movies—who he
dismissed as merely “stagers” of a script written by another
artist. Truffaut argued that the filmmakers who made the best
films were those who wrote and directed their own films and
who had a unique, personal vision. Truffaut called that approach
La politique des auteurs (“The policy of the authors”).
Truffaut’s ideas on film were embraced by an era of French
filmmakers who were part of what he called La Nouvelle Vague
(what English speakers call the French New Wave).
Auteur theory is the idea that the director is the author and
primary creative force behind a movie. It shifted some power
away from actors, producers, and studio moguls. It shifted
power towards the directors- specific types of directors.
According to this theory, the director is more than a channel for
the script. The auteur director shapes every part of the movie
and they are the film’s true artist who is the visionary behind it.
The three Components of Auteur Theory
Andrew Sarris, film critic for The New York Times, expanded
on Truffaut’s writing and set out a more comprehensive
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how posters and publicity materials send signals that tell you
about the genre of the film.
A key field of study in semiotics relates to the text (literature,
film, or even a piece of music). Films construct meaning
through signs. Sign has two parts: Signifier/signified. Signifieris
the physical part; or the tangible thing we see/hear. It is what we
perceive. Signified is the psychological part, the reaction to the
object, the mental picture a signifier evokes; the internal
response to the signifier; Signified could mean different things
to different people.
The signifier is the vehicle and the signified meaning. The key
aspect is that the relationship between the signifier and the
signified is arbitrary. Let's consider a scenario where a man
gives a woman a red rose. In most cultures this signifies
romance or passion though Gertrude Stein famously declared,
“A rose is a rose is a rose.” Thus, in American Beauty, (2000)
Lester Burnham fantasizes about his teenage daughter’s friend
Angela’s body covered in roses that are in a saturated shade of
red. A key feature of semiotics is that the sign exists within a
system of differences. Thus, a sign is part of a code, which
permeates the whole of social life.
Peter Wollen’s discussions of Howard Hawks and John Ford in
Signs and Meaning in the Cinema (1969) also uses the auteur-
structuralist approach to analyze thematic structures in the films
of these two directors. One of the most important early works in
theorizing film studies using the structuralist approach was
Christian Metz’s Film Language: A Semiotics of Cinema
(1968). Metz illustrated the way films signify meaning through
semiotic codes through specific arrangements of shots possible
in a narrative sequence. Christian Metz followed Jean Louis
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Reference:
● “Auteur theory”. Web.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auteur_theory. Accessed 25 May
2016.
● Beasley, Chris. 1999. What is Feminism? An
Introduction to Feminist Theory. New York, NY, USA. Sage.
Pp. 3–11.
● “Formalist film theory”. Web.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formalist_film_theory. Accessed
25 May 2016.
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MODULE II
SELECTED ESSAYS ON FILM
THE EVOLUTION OF THE LANGUAGE OF
CINEMA (FROM WHAT IS CINEMA?)
Andre Bazin
INTRODUCTION
In almost all forms of art, realism was the first mode of
expression, and formalism came only later. But in cinema
formalism came first- film introduced all techniques and
artefacts in the very beginning itself. Theorists who observe that
film has achieved perfection before the introduction of sound
(1928), rather assume that sound has destroyed the perfection
achieved by the ‘images’. Realism which came with the
introduction of sound was considered as a means of surrendering
to chaos. Perhaps for this reason, Charlie Chaplin movies used
sound only in 1941, though sound was introduced in 1928.
Andre Bazin, the champion of Neorealism, attacks images
(montage) used in silent movies as opposed to realism. To Bazin
the cinema is inherently realistic because of the mechanical
mediation of the camera.
OUTLINE
In the history of cinema, the earlier division was between silent
movies and sound movies; and the dividing line was in the year
1928. But Bazin points out some similarities between movies of
sound and silent era, and suggests that the real division is
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male and female roles. The "three different looks", as they are
referred to, explain just exactly how films are viewed in relation
to phallocentrism. The first "look" refers to the camera as it
records the actual events of the film. The second "look"
describes the nearly voyeuristic act of the audience as one
engages in watching the film itself. Lastly, the third "look"
refers to the characters that interact with one another throughout
the film.
The main idea that seems to bring these actions together is that
"looking" is generally seen as an active male role while the
passive role of being looked at is immediately adopted as a
female characteristic. It is under the construction of patriarchy
that Mulvey argues that women in film are tied to desire and that
female characters hold an "appearance coded for strong visual
and erotic impact". The female actor is never meant to represent
a character that directly effects the outcome of a plot or keep the
story line going, but is inserted into the film as a way of
supporting the male role and "bearing the burden of sexual
objectification" that he cannot.
In her "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" Laura Mulvey
utilizes psychoanalysis theory as a "political weapon" to
demonstrate how the patriarchal subconscious of society shapes
our film watching experience and cinema itself. According to
Mulvey, the cinematic text is organized along lines that are
corresponding to the cultural subconscious which is essentially
matriarchic. Mulvey argues that the popularity of Hollywood
films is determined and reinforced by pre-existing social
patterns which have shaped the fascinated subject.
Mulvey's analysis in "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema"
combines semiotic methodology of cinematic means of
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Reference:
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v) Reflexive documentary
vi) Performative mode
POETIC DOCUMENTARY
The poetic mode was introduced in the 1920s. Such a mode is
not a linear mode of filming. The filming style moves away
from the simple factual telling of a story. The actors are not cast
as full-bodied characters. The poetic mode gives us alternative
forms of reality. For example, if you have to show an actor
crying then in the poetic mode the filmmaker could just show
rainfall. If you have to show a person running then again you
could just show the beauty of a horse racing. In order to
highlight the importance of a game for the nation one could just
show the game with patriotic music playing in the background.
It gives us an alternative form of reality instead of just telling us
about the reality in a straightforward manner. They are abstract
and loose in genre just like a poem.
The film could be about a city and it may just give us a sense of
the city by showing famous landmarks like India Gate, Lotus
Temple, Qutub Minar, Connaught Place, Metro and a huge
statue of the God Hanuman. The moment one sees these
landmarks perhaps interspersed with shots of pigeons flying,
traffic jams and corn sellers with just music in the background
you get a sense of Delhi the capital of India and the filmmaker
may also show shots of these places from the past marking the
passage of time. Francis Thompson’s N.Y., N.Y. (1957).
The poetic mode may also use historical footage, freeze frames,
slow motion, tinted images, and occasional titles to identify
places, some narratives and also music to build the mood.
EXPOSITORY DOCUMENTARY
Arose in the 1920s and is still very popular. It is used in
television news and reality television shows. Nature and science
documentaries too use this mode extensively. Biographies too
are largely shot in this mode. This mode is also often referred to
as the Voice of God commentary mode in which the speaker is
heard but not seen for example think of several films in which
there is a voiceover. The expository mode was dominated by
professionally trained male voices.
Expository mode relies heavily on logic and the voice
dominates. The images are subordinate and are edited in a way
so as to maintain a continuity with the narration. The voice over
appears as the dominant mode and as the voice of authority. It
speaks in a voice and tone of logic and authority.
Expository documentaries facilitate generalization and large-
scale dissemination of information. For instance, the film on
family planning mentioned above relies on common sense and
supports a common sense understanding of family planning
from different parts of India in a logical and coherent manner.
As sociologists we understand that common sense is limited by
time and place thus the common sense which the expository
mode relies on is also limited by time and place. It loses its
relevance once the context in terms of time changes.
OBSERVATIONAL DOCUMENTARY
This mode arose from the availability of 16 mm cameras and
magnetic tape recorders in the 1960s. The observational mode
found the poetic mode too abstract and the expository mode too
moralizing. The observational mode relies on facts and often has
PARTICIPATORY DOCUMENTARY
Anthropology and Sociology have advocated the use of
participant observation for observing the lives of people.
Participant observation involves the filmmaker being in the field
for long periods of time and becoming one with the subjects
being observed. The researcher is also expected to be able to
maintain a sense of objectivity and distance from those being
observed. In the Participatory mode the filmmaker is there in the
front of the camera and becomes one with the people being
observed. The filmmaker is in no way masked as he is in the
Reference:
● Nichols, B. (2010), Introduction to Documentary, 2nd
ed., Indiana University Press, Bloomington.
MODULE III
CASE STUDIES OF EARLY CLASSICS
THE GOLD RUSH (1925)
Directed by Charlie Chaplin
INTRODUCTION
The Gold Rush is a dramatic comedy written and directed by
Charlie Chaplin in 1925. Charles Chaplin made The Gold Rush
out of the most unlikely sources for comedy. The first idea came
to him when he was viewing some stereoscope pictures of the
1896 Klondike gold rush, and was particularly struck by the
image of an endless line of prospectors snaking up the Chilkoot
Pass, the gateway to the gold fields. At the same time, he
happened to read a book about the Donner Party Disaster of
1846, when a party of immigrants, snowbound in the Sierra
Nevada, were reduced to eating their own moccasins and the
corpses of their dead comrades. Chaplin - proving his belief that
tragedy and ridicule are never far apart - set out to transform
these tales of privation and horror into a comedy. He decided
that his familiar tramp figure should become a gold prospector,
joining the mass of brave optimists to face all the hazards of
cold, starvation, solitude, and the occasional incursion of a
grizzly bear.
THE FILM
The Gold Rush abounds with now-classic comedy scenes. The
historic horrors of the starving 19th century pioneers inspired
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the sequence in which Charlie and his partner Big Jim (Mack
Swain) are snowbound and greedy. Charlie cooks and eats his
boot, with all the airs of a gourmet. In the eyes of the delirious
Big Jim, he is transformed into a chicken - a triumph both for
the cameramen who had to affect the elaborate trick work
entirely in the camera; and for Chaplin who magically becomes
a bird. For one shot another actor took a turn in the chicken
costume, but it was unusable: no one else had Chaplin’s gift for
metamorphosis.
The lone prospector’s dream of hosting a New Year dinner for
the beautiful dance-hall girl provides the opportunity for another
famous Chaplin set-piece, the dance of the rolls. The gag had
been done before, by Chaplin’s one-time co-star Roscoe “Fatty”
Arbuckle in The Rough House (1917); but Chaplin gives unique
personality to the dancing legs created out of forks and rolls.
When the film was first shown audiences were so thrilled by the
scene that some theatres were obliged to stop the film, roll it
back and perform an encore.
The Gold Rush was the first of his silent films which Chaplin
revived, with the addition of sound, for new audiences. For the
1942 reissue he composed an orchestral score, and replaced the
inter-titles with a commentary which he spoke himself. Among
the scenes he trimmed from the film was the lingering final
embrace with Georgia, with whom he had maintained a long and
often romantic friendship. Perhaps some private and personal
feelings caused him to replace the kiss with a more chaste shot
of the couple walking off, simply holding hands.
Today, The Gold Rush appears as one of Chaplin’s most
perfectly accomplished films. Though he himself was inclined to
be changeable in his affections for his own work, to the end of
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his life he would frequently declare that of all his films, this was
the one by which he would most wish to be remembered.
There is a moment in The Gold Rush which captures the
essential tone of the film. Having survived near-starvation,
privation, and isolation, Chaplin's lone-prospector, a barely-
disguised reprise of his iconic 'tramp,' spears a pair of potatoes
which he then transforms into a pair of dancing feet. There is a
hint of fancy in the way that Chaplin manipulates his improvised
props, a celebration of food in a world of want. The display he
puts on is a show; and a show requires an audience, the creation
of relationships. It is a moment in which the return of normalcy,
the mundane, is celebrated. And so, the film underlines its
deconstruction of the American pioneer, revealing not in grand
adventure, but the lived experience of the impoverished and the
desperate.
Considering its name, there is remarkably little wealth on show
in The Gold Rush. There are dilapidated cabins, worn and
broken equipment, and weather-worn faces aplenty but little
evidence of that around which the film ostensibly revolves.
Indeed, the early part of the film evidences murder,
abandonment, and abject desperation - albeit wrapped in
masterful and ironic comedic routines. The sight of Chaplin and
his equally desperate interlocutor sharing a meal of boiled
footwear with imagined and forced delight certainly adds
laughter to the desperation; but it never entirely erases the
underlying trauma at the heart of the scene. Behind every
chewed piece of leather, every begrudging bite, lies murder in
the Arctic wastes and an uncertain future. Seeing Chaplin turn
into a chicken before the eyes of his starving companion is
deeply humorous; the implied attempt at murder which it
predicts, less so. So much for the gold.
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the back, a happy ensemble dances and drinks and carouses. The
comedy is almost perfectly realised. Confrontations emphasise
the pioneer's inherent cowardice, his unsuitability for life on the
wilderness, whilst luck (and at least a little guile), once again,
happily carry him through the day, turning the disaster that is the
life of the impoverished into the stuff of working-class laughter
and escapism.
Still, for all its successes, the film does not always succeed in
attaining the depth of some of Chaplin's other feature length
films. It is certainly funny, and it has a heart - but not one as
large as 1921's The Kid. There is a social commentary, but it
does not cut with the same razor-sharp insight as 1941's The
Great Dictator, nor does its pathos come close to touching
1952's “Limelight.” But if The Gold Rush fails to succeed
without qualification, it is a reflection more of Chaplin's other
successes than it is any failures he made with this film. If the
social commentary here is not always as sharp as in some of his
other films, the comedy redeems it. If the setting is not always
as vibrant as those Chaplin had attained in the past, a new set of
camera tricks and special effects compensates for that shortfall.
The Gold Rush is not, then, an unqualified success - but that
does not mean that it is not wonderful. Like so much of
Chaplin's work from the 1920s and 1930s it combines whimsy
and pathos with a sharp appreciation for life below the poverty
line. It revels in expertly realised humour to draw out sympathy
for its characters and, ultimately, all of those who suffer as
Chaplin did during his childhood in London. Despite being a
film about the life of American pioneers, it remains unable to
escape the shadow cast by its creator's own history of poverty
and desperation. It is an escapist fantasy, rooted in traumas of
the past, deeply felt and never set aside. It is, then, a film about
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Reference:
● https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2335-the-gold-
rush-as-good-as-gold
● Anonymous "The Gold Rush Summary". GradeSaver, 2
August 2017 Web. 17 December 2021.
● https://moviessilently.com/2015/07/05/the-gold-rush-
1925-a-silent-film-review/
where spaces meant for youth only serve to illustrate the ways
adolescents must sneak under the judgemental and demanding
eyes of teachers, parents, and other authority figures. Antoine is
one of these children that discounts the authority of adults, and
is therefore marked as a bad child. Despite his delinquent social
status, it is evident that Antoine is no worse behaved than other
boys his age and that it is his environment that works against
him.
The main character in the movie is a young troubled boy named
Antoine, who lives in Paris with his mother and his stepfather.
Antoine gets into trouble frequently at school and has a tough
relationship with his teachers and his peers, often getting into
conflict and having physical fights with his classmates.
Gradually, the movie reveals that Antoine is not the only one to
blame for his behaviour. Towards the end of the film, the viewer
learns that Antoine knows that the man married to his mother is
not his biological father, and that he was raised by his
grandmother for a big portion of his childhood because his
mother was unable to take care of him, and that his mother
wanted to get an abortion after she found that she was pregnant
with Antoine and that Antoine was frequently let alone to do as
he pleased because his parents were seldom home.
Despite its focus on youth, the film is filled with mature themes
and motifs. Antoine feels abandoned by his family and he often
tries to find comfort in his friends rather than at home. In fact,
the relationship Antoine has with one of his classmates, René, is
stronger than the relationship he has with his own parents. At
the observation center, Antoine longs to see Rene more than he
wants to see his own mother. Among the other themes tackled in
the film is the idea that the children have no freedom, and are
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STORYLINE
After setting his camera in search of the Eiffel Tower through
the opening credits, Truffaut sets us down inside a classroom.
As the students take a test, they pass around a picture of a pin-up
model. Antoine Doinel draws a moustache on the woman and is
caught with it, and as punishment is sent to the corner without
recess privileges. It is in his nature to rebel, and so he writes a
poem on the wall about the fact that he has been unfairly
punished. Following recess, the class returns and their teacher
recites the poem, “The Hare,” asking everyone to copy it down.
Antoine, however, must stay in the corner and clean his poem
off the wall.
At home, Antoine takes money hidden in the mantle, sets the
table for dinner, gets flour from the store for his mother and
takes out the garbage. His mother is especially hard on him, and
his father—who is actually his stepfather—shows him
inconsistent affection.
His parents don’t set the alarm the next morning, so Antoine is
late for school. On his way, he runs into his best friend, René,
and the two boys decide to skip school. On their day of hooky,
Antoine and René go to the movies and play games, and at the
end of the day Antoine spots his mother kissing another man,
and she sees him. They do not talk about it. At home later that
night, Antoine and his father cook dinner together as Mrs.
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drinking wine in his bedroom. All of this turns into a plan to get
money so that they can live the life they hope for, free from their
parents' watchful gaze. Without any way to make money, the
two boys resort to stealing. Antoine goes to Mr. Doinel's office
after hours and steals his typewriter to sell.
As they cannot sell the typewriter, Antoine brings it back to the
office, but is caught by a guard while putting it back. Mr. Doinel
decides to turn him in to the police, and have him sent off to a
state home for children.
Mrs. Doinel meets with the judge, and she is willing to let her
son be taken to a juvenile observation center. Here, she reveals
that Mr. Doinel is not Antoine’s biological father. At the
juvenile observation center, Antoine goes to a psychologist and
reveals that he knows he is not Doinel's son, and that he also
knows his mother wanted to abort him during her pregnancy. It
was his grandmother who stopped her from doing it. When Mrs.
Doinel next visits her son, she says that she is giving up custody
of him once and for all. With no one to care for him, Antoine
breaks out of the observation center and makes a run for it,
ending up on the beach, unsure of what to do next.
Francois Truffaut came on to the filmmaking scene during the
French New Wave, and many critics categorize The 400 Blows
as marking the start of the movement, though this is debated.
The "New Wave" describes a group of filmmakers who didn’t
shoot scenes in studios, relied heavily on available light, filmed
mainly with handheld cameras, used black and white film stock,
and broke with many of the filmic conventions of the
mainstream. Jean Renoir had a major influence on Truffaut and
set him on a path towards becoming one of the mavericks of the
New Wave.
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Major Themes
"Liberty, Equality and Fraternity"
These words are carved into the exterior of the school Antoine
attends. It is also the national motto of France. We see these
three words rather briefly after Antoine has been placed in the
corner by the French teacher for being caught with an image of a
pinup girl. The slogan has an ironic bent in The 400 Blows, as
we can clearly see that Antoine is systematically deprived of
liberty and equality by his teachers and in his home life with his
parents. Antoine is also betrayed by the fraternity of his
classmates, and his only friend and ally is René. The deprivation
of these three rights—rhetorically central to the school and to
France itself—casts an even more ironically tragic light on
Antoine's experience.
Solitude
Throughout the film we see Antoine struggle with his parents,
teachers and other adults who don't seem to give him attention
or care. This deprivation of affection pushes Antoine further and
further away from what is deemed to be “normal,” because he
has no one to relate to. The first time we see Mrs. Doinel
listening to Antoine is when he returns home after sleeping in
the paper factory. She isn’t emotionally connected with her son,
and when he begins to tell her about why he’s struggling, she
doesn’t attempt to go any deeper with him. In the absence of real
affection, Antoine isolates himself to find solace. All of
Antoine's personal issues push him to the outskirts of society
and away from normal connection. He flees the observation
center and runs to the beach, fully alone. With no one else
around, he walks into the water a bit, and then stares at his last
and only companion—Truffaut's camera.
Betrayal
Throughout the film we see Antoine’s parents having the
opportunity to be there for him, to do what’s right, but
constantly letting him down and meeting his actions with
punishment and neglect. By the end of the film, they give up
their parental rights to the state, and try to wash their hands
clean of him. This betrayal is magnified when we find out that
Antoine has known his mother never wanted to have him, that
she wanted an abortion, and that Doinel is not his real father.
The people who are meant to be responsible for his well-being
let him down at every turn, and Antoine can rely on no one but
himself (and René).
Antoine's Imagination and Mind
Part of what makes Antoine so badly suited to everyday life and
normal schooling is the fact that he is very intellectually curious
and alert when he wants to be. His wayward attitude is not only
due to the neglect of the adults in his life, but also due to his
being trapped in his own mind, often dreaming up new schemes
and hardly paying attention to the world around him. He wants
nothing more than to have freedom from the institutions that tie
him down, but this has partly to do with his desire to be an adult,
to pursue and do whatever he chooses. After his mother makes
the deal with him that she'll give him 1,000 francs if he writes a
good essay, he begins reading Balzac. He has a passion for
Balzac that surely few of his classmates share, even building a
shrine for the novelist, but his passion cannot translate into the
classroom, where he is expected to think inside a very narrow
box. When Mr. Doinel takes Antoine to the police chief, he
notes that Antoine is particularly spacey, always lost in thought,
and dreaming about something else. Even though this is one of
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Punishment
While the viewer gets the sense that perhaps more love would
give Antoine a better sense of proportion and motivate him to do
well in school and behave better, this is not the ethic touted by
the adults in his life. Instead, force and punishment are the
norm. The film is a series of mishaps in which Antoine is
punished by the adults in his life. He is suspended, slapped in
the face, scolded, and eventually put in a jail of sorts. When
Mrs. Doinel asks the judge how she might better control her son,
he says, "Perhaps you exercise control too inconsistently."
While there is some truth to this statement, the viewer also
knows that the adults in his life are exceedingly emotionally
negligent of the young Antoine, who simply wants to feel
wanted and loved by his parents. Antoine contends not only
with the consequences for his actions, but also a philosophy of
accountability that favours punishment and force rather than
understanding and curiosity.
Freedom vs. Captivity
Antoine has a strong drive to break free from whatever confines
he finds himself in. He longs to not have to go to school, to
wander the streets, and to make his own way in the world
without the disapproval of hypocritical adults. He achieves
freedom when he stays away from home for the night and
wanders the streets, stealing a bottle of milk from a delivery
man. Then later, he finds freedom when he stays at René's
house. These tastes of freedom, however, are punished harshly,
and when his stepfather doesn't know what else to do with him,
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Reference:
● The 400 Blows. Dir. François Truffaut. Les Films du
Carrosse, S.E.D.I.F., MK2, 1959. Janus Films: The Criterion
Collection, 2006. DVD.
● https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-the-
400-blows-1959
8½ (1963)
Directed by Federico Fellini
8 1/2 is an Italian avant-garde film written and directed by
Federico Fellini that was released in 1963. Its title derives from
its position as the eighth and a half film that Fellini directed. The
film is produced by Angelo Rizzoli, and has garnered two 1963
Academy Awards (for Best Foreign Language Film and Best
Costume Design) and was nominated for Best Director, Best
Original Screenplay, and Best Art Direction in black-and-white.
Besides, it won prizes for best director, producer, original story,
screenplay, music, cinematography, and supporting actress from
the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists that year. Its
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STORYLINE
Guido Anselmi is an Italian filmmaker whose success both in
his career and in his love-life has brought him to the point of
utter exhaustion, even physical collapse. Rehab and recovery
will take place at a sumptuous, expensive and exclusive spa.
While taking time off, Guido employs a popular critic, Carini
Daumier, to look over the ideas he is mulling over for the
subject of his next film. What he hears is not good: the ideas are
lifeless, confusing and ultimately far too weak to be worth
filming.
During his stay, Guido is constantly having visions. The Ideal
Woman is a major character in these hallucinations and he
interprets her as the key to finding the perfect subject to film
next. Meanwhile, his mistress arrives from Rome to see how he
is doing, but he sets her up in another hotel and then proceeds to
do everything he can to avoid her.
His production crew relocates to the spa to help him get started
on this next idea. Their arrival appears to be in vain, however,
because Guido is committed to one thing above almost all else:
avoiding as best he can his crew, nosy reporters and even the
actors waiting to find out their roles. Pressure is mounting on
Guido to move from the idea process to the filming process, but
all he seems capable of producing are more visions which range
from a dance with a hooker on the beach while still in school to
punishment by the Catholic staff of the school. Guido wonders
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sauna. Also watching is Guido’s wife, who runs from the room
after witnessing how her husband has chosen to portray her.
The vision of the Ideal Woman is realized in the person of an
actress named Claudia. When he takes Claudia to visit one of
the proposed sets, he explains that the movie will be about a
creative burnout finding redemption through his concept of the
Ideal Woman. Claudia expresses interest in the idea, but
ultimately disapproves of it, saying that it won't be possible to
sympathize with a man who lacks the capacity to love another
human being.
Rejected by the personification of his vision of the Ideal
Woman, Guido announces the production is being shut down.
The producer nevertheless promises a press conference at the
rocket ship set on the beach while Guido desperately attempts to
escape the rush of journalists begging for information. Finally
cornered amidst expectation of some sort of response, Guido
crawls beneath a table and in his final fantasy shoots himself.
The rocket ship set is being disassembled by the crew amid
news that the film has been permanently called off. The critic
asserts that this decision was the only wise thing to do, but
Guido has had a revelation. The epiphany is simple: rather than
trying to film as a way of resolving personal issues that could
help others, he need only accept life on the terms he lives it.
Asking Luisa for help in making this a reality, she reluctantly
agrees to try.
A troupe of clowns suddenly appear, led by Guido dressed as a
child, and together they turn the rocket into a circus where all
the people who have played a role in Guido’s memories parade
down some steps. Guido directs them via a large megaphone
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into the circus ring and his mistress steps forward to inform him
that she has figured out what he was attempting to say all along.
Her message is that Guido needs everybody who enters his life
and cannot be complete unless they are always there when he
needs them. Everybody joins hands and starts running around
the ring with the last to enter the circle being Guido and his
wife.
MAJOR THEMES
Cinema
The nature of cinema itself dominates 8 1/2, since the film is
largely structured around Guido's loss of faith in his creative
voice. Throughout the film, people offer unsolicited advice on
cinema's role in the world. The first to do so is the writer,
Daumier, who boldly states that cinema lags behind all other
artistic mediums by 50 years. Later in the film, a clergyman tells
Guido that cinema has the ability to "educate or corrupt millions
of souls." Even characters to whom we are only briefly
introduced mercilessly probe Guido on the topic of art and life;
this reaches its climax at the press conference, where reporters
harass Guido, asking him everything from "Are you afraid of the
atomic bomb?" to "Do you really think your life can be of
interest to others?" Throughout the film, Guido remains silent on
the topic of cinema, with the exception of his conversation with
Claudia, to whom he confesses he just wants to make an "honest
film." Authenticity, then, emerges as the ultimate goal of
cinema, as opposed to pure artifice or pure memoir. This
underlies Guido's final monologue in the film, wherein he
realizes, "now everything’s all confused again, like it was
before. But this confusion is me as I am, not as I’d like to be."
Purity
Purity, particularly as an analog to the notion of truth, is a strong
theme throughout 8 1/2. For starters, we meet Guido at a spa
whose water supposedly purifies one's system regardless of the
specific ill with which it is plagued. Throughout the film, water
and the color white stand in as visual representations of purity;
this is at work in the spa, which is built from white stone and
tended by nurses clothed in white. This is also where we meet
Claudia, Guido's ideal woman (who likewise wears white), in
one of Guido's fantasies. Later on in the film, Guido explicitly
calls Claudia a "symbol of purity and spontaneity," but when we
meet her in person, she wears black and pokes holes in Guido's
ideas about love and truth. This is one of many ways in which
Fellini complicates the notion of pure or objective truth; when
supposedly angelic Claudia tells him he's an unsympathetic
character, for example, he realizes she isn't his ideal woman,
saying, "You're a pain like the others." Even the spa water,
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Realism
Authenticity and realism, especially as they relate to
filmmaking, are the abstract ideals to which Guido aspires, yet
he is unable to master them. He explicitly mentions this when in
the car with Claudia, to whom he confesses he just wants to
make an honest movie; her part in the film, he explains, will be
"both young and ancient, a child yet already a woman, authentic
and radiant." In moments like this, it seems like Guido has a
clear vision for the film as one of realism and honesty. Later in
the scene, however, he admits that there is neither a part for
Claudia nor a film to be made, and we see that his endeavour to
make an honest film (in response, of course, to accusations from
his wife and friends that he is a liar) is a sham. Throughout, the
question of what genre of film Guido is making is a salient one;
in the same breath, various acquaintances and critics ask him if
he's capable of making a film about love yet beg him to stop
making films about his personal life. Late in the film, we find
out he's making a science fiction movie about an escape from
Earth after thermonuclear war, a premise that seems steeped in
artifice and surrealism.
This desire for realism functions not merely as a genre of film
but also as a yardstick for the women with whom Guido
interacts, many of whom constitute absurd archetypes for
femininity. Carla is silly and cartoonish in her bombshell
aesthetic, and Claudia manifests chiefly in Guido's imagination
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Mortality
Guido's fear of mortality is a theme that haunts both his dreams
and his waking life. In the film's very first sequence, for
example, Guido escapes from a smoking car and crashes to the
ground from a great height. In his next dream, he chats with his
dead father about his tomb and later helps lower his father into a
freshly dug grave. Even Guido's overarching goal—to make an
honest movie for the first time—characterizes him as a character
in search of legitimate achievement before he dies. This anxiety
about aging is clearly present in his escapades with women, both
real and fantastical, since nearly all of his mistresses (Carla,
Claudia, the Danish stewardess) are younger than his wife,
Luisa. This is notably untrue of Jacqueline Bonbon, the showgirl
who Guido orders to retire from pleasing him in his fantasy. Her
retirement eventually galvanized a rebellion amongst the girls in
Guido's fantastical harem, since they believe it is unfair that
Guido is much older than them yet passes judgement on their
age. Real-life Claudia likewise calls Guido an "old man" near
the end of the film, confirming his worst fear. Ultimately, Guido
seems to accept his own aging and death, just as he accepts the
reality of his imperfect life. Indeed, the final sequence of the
film, in which everyone from Guido's past and present march
together in a circle, seems to gesture at the circle of life that will
eventually call for Guido's death. The final shot of the film,
wherein a little boy is left alone in the dark, likewise seems to
symbolize the fact that even the little boy that we've watched
grow into an old man (Guido) will someday die.
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Memory
Memory is integral to the way in which Guido relates to his past
through dreams, fantasies, and real life. It is notable that all of
Guido's dreams and fantasies are populated by real people from
his past and present; even Claudia, to whom we are introduced
in several of Guido's fantasies (in which she is nameless), is
eventually revealed to be a woman from Guido's past. As Guido
navigates the production of the film he'll never make, he is often
haunted by his past, and memories are often juxtaposed with
reality much like dreams are in the film. For example, when
Guido chats with the clergymen at the spa, he is reminded of his
childhood encounters with Seraghina, triggering a lengthy
remembrance of the Catholic punishment he received as a result.
In episodes like this, it is evident that the past is never truly dead
for Guido, but rather fluidly woven into his present, and even
into his dreams. Guido's memory of his father, for example,
appears in a dream, wherein his father coexists with the living
(Guido's mother and Luisa). This melding of memory with
present experience culminates in the film's final sequence, in
which everyone from Guido's past and present join together for
a celebration of Guido's life. This viscerally embodies the fusion
of Guido's past with his present, as both are represented equally
in this morbidly absurd circus.
Religion
Guido's complicated relationship to religion is evident
throughout 8 1/2, since it is one of the primary ways in which
Guido attempts to find meaning and authenticity in preparation
for his film. Even the spa at which we meet Guido is a religious
domain; before we even see Guido's face, we hear a doctor
prescribe him a dose of holy water to drink every hour. He also
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visits the local clergy in the guise of doing research for his film,
instead using these interviews to seek advice on his own artistic
and personal life. In the first of these visits with the local
cardinal, Guido lapses into a memory of Seraghina, a seaside
prostitute that he visited as a child. Through this memory, we
see that Guido was caught with Seraghina and subsequently
punished by the church in ways that seem severe given the
innocent nature of the childhood indiscretion. Even so, Guido
probes—and is probed by—the cardinal and other members of
the clergy in two separate meetings. In one of these meetings, a
priest essentially tells Guido he doesn't believe cinema as a
medium is fit to represent divine love.
All this contributes to Guido's growing confusion about the role
of cinema and art, a frustration that he only reconciles when he
realizes that he must embrace the messiness of his life and its
flaws. Ultimately, this conclusion seems rather Catholic in
nature, since it emphasizes the inevitability of sin. The finale of
the film seems to lend itself to this reading, since the image of
Guido's friends and family marching, dressed in white, in a
circle to celebrate his life seems almost funereal in nature and
perhaps even gestures at the ascent to heaven that we see Guido
nearly achieve in his opening dream sequence.
Conclusion
Fellini’s 8½ is the prime example of the cinema of bliss, as are
many other Italian films of this period. Fellini’s 8½ has a unique
atmosphere that is able to emphasize the film's essentia as auto
analysis of Fellini’s own life, as exploration of the Italian male
psyche and of the cinema itself, thus making it a prime example
of the cinema of bliss. This is evidenced by the fact that the
entire film is essentially the main character Guido's stream of
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Reference:
● https://www.gradesaver.com/8-1-2/study-guide/quotes
● GradeSaver "8 ½ Quotes and Analysis". GradeSaver, 25
August 2021. Web. 25 August 2021.
For his own part, the doctor seems to care little about the
mother’s suspicions of him. Instead, he is preoccupied by an
existential soliloquy, into which he is literally propelled with the
collapse of a fence on which he and the mother are sitting. This
symbolic fall sends the doctor into a state of intense reflection,
which ultimately leads him to express his doubts about the
meaning of human behaviour. In his monologue, the doctor
compares humans, who are always “rushing around and
speaking in platitudes,” to plants, which appear steadfast and
content. According to the doctor, the problem with humans is
that we “doubt” and make too much “haste.” After his
monologue, the doctor quickly departs, abandoning his original
plan to obtain a means of opening the enigmatic suitcase. As he
walks back the way he came, Tarkovsky captures in a long shot
an unexpected burst of powerful wind flooding the landscape.
The image seems to hallow the doctor’s visit with a strange
significance, and highlights the isolation of the doctor as a lone
figure in a stretching country landscape, as well as the distance
between the doctor and the mother.
This initial sequence captures the anxiety of emptiness on two
levels. Within the narrative of the film, doubt about the doctor’s
identity and intentions is escalated by his monologue into a
general state of doubt about the meaning of human activity.
With little expository preparation, the viewer is suddenly asked
in the opening minutes of the film to question the general nature
of social existence, and told furthermore that, as a human, she
“doesn’t trust [her] inner nature.” This brings us to the second
level on which the sequence attempts to capture the essence of
this type of anxiety. It is not only the case that the characters in
the scene (the doctor in particular) express a strong sense of
doubt and potential anxiety; in addition, the audience members
viewing the scene cannot help but feel a vague sense of unease
and disorientation.
The scene is strange and presented with almost no narrative
background: in medias res, the viewer struggles to discover who
these characters are, their relation to and intentions toward each
other, and the significance of the doctor’s reflective remarks, as
well as the remarkable, transitory gust of wind that coincides
with his departure. Tarkovsky heightens the ambiguity of the
scene by repeating the shot of the wind blowing immediately
after it is first shown, a very unusual cinematic technique.
The tone of emptiness anxiety established by this scene carries
through the following series of shots of the narrator’s childhood
country home, accompanied as they are by a spoken poem (by
Arseni Tarkovsky) about a youthful romance, which seemed at
first to imbue all mundane objects with intense meaning but was
nevertheless followed by “Fate . . . like a madman brandishing a
razor.” In the next, transitional sequence, the threat of mortality
makes an initial, subtle appearance in the film in the form of a
burning home next door to the narrator’s house, in which, as an
unidentified character shouts, someone may be “burning to
death.” This brief appearance of the threat of mortality on screen
heralds the concretization of the initial tone of emptiness anxiety
in the film into a concrete object of fear, specifically the fear of
meaninglessness.
The doctor’s state of emptiness is elevated to the threat of
meaninglessness in the first black-and-white dream sequence
that follows the fire scene. After the fire, we are presented with
a hauntingly beautiful black-and white image of the wilderness.
This shot is followed by a sequence in which we first see the
narrator’s father, who steps away from the camera to reveal the
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CONCLUSION
As Tillich observes, all anxiety strives to find an object, a
concrete symbol of nonbeing against which being can assert
itself and reaffirm its courage. Thus, the speech therapist in the
prologue of Mirror focuses the stutterer’s tension and anxiety
into his hands and fingers—a concrete object—and when he
confronts this focalized anxiety, he is released from vocal
paralysis and free to speak. Similarly, as noted by Synessios
(2001), Tarkovsky’s original intention in making Mirror was to
come to terms with troubling dreams and emotional demons that
haunted him from his personal and cultural past. In various
ways, Mirror concretizes, in an object of aesthetic
contemplation, the diffuse anxiety we feel in connection with
life’s instability and meaninglessness, with the guilt that burdens
our memories, and with our fear of the future and our death. By
immersing ourselves in this highly experiential film, we
encounter our anxieties in a concentrated form and, if we are
fortunate, feel our absolute faith renewed, and experience the
release (however temporary) of the stutterer.
Reference:
● Synessios, N. (2001). Mirror (KINOfiles Film
Companion Vol. 6). London, England: B. Tauris.
● Tarkovsky, A. (Director), & Waisberg, E. (Producer).
(1974). Mirror [Film]. USSR: Mosfilm.
MODULE IV
CASE STUDIES OF CONTEMPORARY CLASSICS
ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST (1975)
Directed by Milos Forman
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was the second English
language film for Czech-born filmmaker Milos Forman, who
would go on to win two Oscars (one for this movie and one for
Amadeus), and was the picture that catapulted him onto the A-
list for directors. The negative aspects of mental health care
challenged by One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest are largely no
longer in place today (electroconvulsive therapy is rarely used,
frontal lobotomies are not performed), but the film's other
themes are germane. On the surface, the movie is about the
struggle of wills between patient R.P. McMurphy (Jack
Nicholson) and Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher). Beneath the
surface, it is about the attempts of an autocratic force to squash
the individual.
Jail is a frequent residence for McMurphy, whose latest
conviction is for statutory rape. Rather than spending time
behind bars, he decides it might be easier to serve his time in a
psychiatric hospital, so he "plays mad." The plan works, but
McMurphy soon discovers that life is not so great in an asylum.
The rules are looser, but some of the privileges he associated
with prison - like being able to watch the World Series on TV -
do not apply. Undaunted, McMurphy begins to make himself
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● https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-one-
flew-over-the-cuckoos-nest-1975
STORYLINE
The head of a decaying joint family, Unni lives with his two
younger sisters in his village ancestral home. Janamma, his
assertive elder sister, is away, married and a mother of grown-up
children. She fights for her share of crops and property.
Rajamma, the second sister, is docile and self-effacing and is
virtually enslaved by her brother’s childlike dependence on her.
In her late thirties, she remains unmarried, mute, a victim of her
brother’s insensitiveness and outdated values. She toils and is
expected to have no personal urges. But the youngest, Sridevi, is
defiant and practical. Exposed to the world outside, she is
neither relenting nor submissive.
Unni is, in fact, the last link in the line of a feudal joint family
which has for long lived on the fruit of others’ labour. The
languor and leisure thus afforded has rendered them lethargic
and insensitive. The land-holdings are today divided and the
deeply entrenched matrilineal joint family has crumbled. Yet
some of the jaded values of the old order have survived. As an
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his room, and replicates the early chase for the rat with the
villagers chasing Unni himself in the film's end.
STRUCTURE
In Elippathayam, Gopalakrishnan's first film in colour, the
landscape is established with even more painstaking detail, and
the surface naturalism of the film is precision-honed with words,
sound and images, all put together in a perfect blend. The
haunting naalkettu architecture of the buildings; the dramatic
possibility of the swift alteration in lighting as the clouds roll in
and clear up; the mask-like face of the main actor, Karaman; and
the advantage of having a strong social theme-all these would
have made a good film anyway.
But Gopalakrishnan lends a unique complexity to these
ingredients as he invests them with a ballad-like quality. At one
level, his Kerala becomes as indistinguishable on celluloid as
Ray's Bengal in Pather Panchali or the American Wild West in
John Ford's classics. Gopalakrishnan is the only contemporary
Indian film-maker who has been able to use the language of the
cinema to precisely depict the immediate scene as well as
extract its universal message.
Furthermore, Elippathayam starts off with a rat trap, and the
whole film goes on to become a metaphor of the rat trap. Unni,
the scion of a landed feudal family, has a personality problem
which prevents him from facing any situation which involves
taking a stand. Even for his little personal comforts he is
miserably dependent on his younger sister, Rajamma, the
workhorse of the household and the family's inarticulate
conscience.
wire mesh on the rat trap, and enclose Unni. Only Rajamma, the
unmarried second sister, tries to draw Unni out of the trap with
compassion. When she fails, her only protest is to fall sick. And
then the household chores lie unattended, and she has to be
carried away on a stretcher, to the unfailing accompaniment of
the film's theme music.
Gopalakrishnan says the film is perfectly autobiographical and
that Unni's passivity, which borders on infantile regression, is
both symbolic and real. "Feudalism is so dead that it can't even
feel it," says he with the hint of a smile. He gently acknowledges
his indebtedness to Ray: after all, the classic train sequence in
Pather Panchali is but a blatant precursor to the deafening jet
noise in Elippathayam; Rajamma's illness has a strange
resemblance to the muted death wish of Durga in the Ray
masterpiece; the lyricism of the rain is the same in both films.
But, at the same time, he maintains that his film is not open-
ended like Ray's, that he wished to make a "statement" at the
end hinting at the only option left to Unni - that of being
overthrown violently. Is the midnight raid natural? Does it
follow from the script? "Maybe it doesn't." he argues, "but the
whole film is guided by a thematic logic rather than a narrative
logic. Maybe nothing really happened in the film, and the whole
story is one of Unni's extended nightmares." This dream-like,
almost surrealist quality of Gopalakrishnan's work sets him apart
from most other contemporary film-makers who are trying to
portray the social scene. It undoubtedly emanates from his
moorings in Kerala's great dance form - Kathakali.
Gopalakrishnan's uncle was a Kathakali master, and his native
village, Adoor, after which he names himself, in the best style of
the Kathakali artistes, has produced a long line of masters of the
dance drama.
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Reference:
● http://www.filmreference.com/Films-Dr-
Ex/Elippathayam.html
● https://upperstall.com/film/elippathayam/
● https://www.boloji.com/articles/14432/elippathayam-
aka-rat-trap-1981
GUELWAAR (1993)
Directed by Ousmane Sembene
Reference:
● https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guelwaar
● https://www.britannica.com/topic/Guelwaar
● https://africanfilmny.org/films/guelwaar/
The wooden gates open once again, this time on the season of
summer. The young novice is now a teenager (Seo Jae-Kyung),
moderately adept at keeping the Buddhist rituals of the temple in
place. Soon, however, the tranquillity of the hermetic abode is
disturbed by the arrival of a young woman, afflicted with an
unspecified malady. The master allows her to stay in order to
restore her physical and mental strength, noting calmly, “When
she finds peace in her soul, her body will return to health.”
Needless to say, the young woman awakens sexual desire in the
student, with their playful flirtations culminating in passionate
lovemaking amidst shoreside rocks and the hull of the master’s
rowboat. Upon discovering their secret tryst, the old monk is,
however, unmoved and simply observes, “Lust leads to desire
for possession, and possession leads to murder,” once again
foreshadowing later events. He then dispatches the young
woman, now healed, back to her mother. The student is
devastated and, forsaking his monastery home, follows after her
leaving his eremitic life behind.
The lush and arcadian environment where nature is in its fullest
bloom has seeped deep into the soul of the student, stimulating
the innate need for consummation and lust. Indeed, the master
acknowledges the inevitability of his protégé’s actions by stating
wrily it is only natural for him to succumb; without the full
realization of the Buddha’s teachings, the cause of our pain and
anguish, as the second Noble Truth wisely informs us, is
unfettered craving and desire.
No ignorance or end of it,
Nor all that comes of ignorance;
No withering, no death,
No end of them.
—The Heart Sutra
The wooden threshold now reveals the arrival of autumn. The
old monk has considerably aged and yet his modest life is as it
always was. Returning from a trip to replenish food supplies, by
chance, the master notices devastating news about his former
student reported in the local newspaper. Anticipating his
imminent arrival, the pupil returns, now a thirty-year-old
fugitive (Kim Youg-min), on the run from a violent crime he has
recently committed.
In an act of penance, the student attempts suicide but his master
beats him brutally before writing out the Heart Sutra
(Prajnaparamitahrdaya or The Heart of the Perfection of
Wisdom) on the monastery deck, using his cat’s tail as a
calligraphy brush. When he finishes, he commands the young
monk: “Carve out all of these characters and while you are
carving, anger will be cut out of your heart.” As the disciple’s
rage dissipates through the painstaking transcription, two
policemen arrive to arrest the young monk and carry him away
to his fate.
Once again, the old monk is left alone to reflect upon the
purpose of life. His duty towards his former student is now
completed for he understands that even the pursuit of wisdom
itself is rooted in emptiness. He builds a funeral pyre in the
rowboat and, covering his ears, eyes, nose and mouth with paper
in the manner of the traditional Buddhist death ritual, is engulfed
by flames as the boat drifts slowly across the lake, the scene
closing with a snake slithering along the hermitage deck.
Nor is there pain, or cause of pain,
Or cease in pain, or noble path
To lead from pain;
Not even wisdom to attain!
Attainment too is emptiness.
—The Heart Sutra
The creaking of the wooden doors now reveals winter has
descended upon the secluded monastery, long since abandoned
and frozen in ice. Once again, the student returns (as the director
himself, Kim Ki-duk), this time on parole as a mature man in
middle age. Coming to the realization that his beloved teacher
has left the temporal world, he excavates his master’s charred
remains from the icy corpse of the rowboat, placing them on the
altar, and then embarks upon a new life of prayer, meditation
and qigong.
The monk’s spiritual journey is finally coming to an end as the
last two of the Buddha’s Noble Truths are now realized through
penance and disciplined adherence to the steps of the Eightfold
Path. And thus, in a pilgrimage of atonement for the
accumulation of all the suffering in his heart, both unwittingly
and wittingly enacted, the monk takes out a statue of Guan Yin,
then attaches a millstone to his body with a rope and drags it to
the top of a mountain, whereupon he sits in meditation, looking
knowing his story is coming to an end, builds a pyre and his life
is taken by the flames.
In the “Winter”, the apprentice that is now an adult comes back
to the monastery that was left with nobody in it. He makes a
Buddha statue with ice, starts to exercise in the ice, and gets
ready to take his master’s place.
The story closes when a woman leaves a baby that becomes this
once-young monk’s apprentice. When he is able to go through
all of the seasons, he is ready to take his master’s place and
spread his knowledge to a new prodigy, having finally gotten
control over his life.
Every frame is a painting
This is one of the most visually stunning movies made in this
century. You are able to stop this movie at any frame and the
shots, the lighting, the colour, and everything else you can see
on the scene is – at least – nearly perfect. The symbols used in
the movie are full of references to Eastern culture and to
Buddhism, and the monastery floating in the middle of the lake,
surrounded and protected by the forest, is such a perfect place to
make this story and those characters come to life while
producing amazing imagery.
The cinematography by Dong-Hyeon Baek shows an amazing
use of natural light, and respects the natural colours as well as
the place of their characters in the middle of such amazing
landscapes. We can basically say that any still of this film could
be framed and put up on a wall.
Reference:
● "Themes In 'Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring'."
ukessays.com. 11 2018. UKEssays. 12 2021
https://www.ukessays.com/essays/philosophy/themes-in-spring-
summer-fall-winter-and-spring-philosophy-essay.php?vref=1
● https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring,_Summer,_Fall,_Wi
nter..._and_Spring
● https://macguff.in/macguffin-content/an-
appreciation/spring-summer-fall-winter-and-spring/
*******