film analysis midterm

Opposition in Westerns

the individual, the community, nature, culture, the west, the east

the individual

freedom, honor, self-knowledge, integrity, self-interest, solopism

the community

restriction, institutions, illusion, compromise, social responsibility, democracy

nature

purity, experience, empiricism, pragmatism, brutalization, savagery

culture

corruption, knowledge, legalism, idealism, refinement, humanity

the west

america, the frontier, equality, agrarianism, tradition, the past

the east

europe, america, class, insutrialism, change, the future

The Westerns of John Ford

stagecoach, the searchers, the man who shot liberty valance

auteur theory

a theory of film popularized by the critics of the French Journal Cahiers de Cinema (Andre Bazin, Francois Truffont, Jean-Luc Godard) in the 1950s. The theory emphasizes the director as the major creator of film art, stamping the material with his or her own personal vision, style, and thematic obsession

The Great Train Robbery (Year and Dir.)

1903, Edwin S. Porter

The Arrival of a Train (Year and Dir.)

1896, Lumiere Brothers

A Trip to the Moon (Year and Dir.)

1902, George Melies

Battleship Potempkin (Year and Dir.)

1925, Sergei Eisenstein

The Player (Year and Dir.)

1925, Robert Altman

Casablanca (Year and Dir.)

1942, Michael Curtiz

Psycho (Year and Dir.)

1960, Alfred Hitchcock

Lady in the Lake (Year and Dir.)

1947, Robert Montgomery

The Kid (Year and Dir.)

1921, Charlie Chaplin

One Week (Year and Dir.)

1921, Buster Keaton

The Birth of a Nation (Year and Dir.)

1915, D.W. Griffin

It Happened One Night (Year and Dir.)

1934, Frank Capra

My Man Godfrey (Year and Dir.)

1936, Gregory LaCava

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (Year and Dir.)

1936, Frank Capra

Written on the Wind (Year and Dir.)

1956, Douglas Sirk

Bicycle Thieves (Year and Dir.)

1948, Vittorio De Sica

Rome, Open City (Year and Dir.)

1945, Roberto Rosselini

Umberto D (Year and Dir.)

1952, Vittorio De Sica

On the Waterfront (Year and Dir.)

1954, Elia Kazan

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (Year and Dir.)

1962, John Ford

The Searchers (Year and Dir.)

1956, John Ford

Stagecoach (Year and Dir.)

1939, John Ford

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (Year and Dir.)

1969, George Roy Hill

Casablanca Official Hero

Victor Lazlo

Casablanca Outlaw Hero

Rick Blaine

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance Official Hero

Ransom Stoddard

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance Outlaw Hero

Tom Doniphon

diagetic sound

within the world of the film able to be heard by the characters

non-diagetic sound

not within the world of the film not able to be heard by the character but the audience

slow stock

film stocks that are relatively insensitive to light and produce crisp images and a sharpness of detail. When used in interior settings, these stocks generally require considerable artificial illumination

stock

unexposed film

fast stock

film stock that’s highly sensitive to lights and generally produces a grainy image. often used by documentaries who wish to shoot only with available light

filters

pieces of glass or plastic placed in front of the camera lens that distort the quality of light entering the camera and hence the movie image; intensify certain qualities and suppress others

lens

a ground or molded piece of glass, plastic, or other transparent material through which light rays are refracted so they converge or diverge to form the photographic image within the camera

jump cut

an abrupt transition between shots, sometimes deliberate, which is disorienting at terms of continuity of space and time

cross-cutting

the alternating of shots from sequences often in different locales, suggesting that they are taking place at the same time

parallel cutting

the switching of shots of one scene with another at a different location

oblique angle

a lateral tilt of the camera, horizon is skewed

realism

tries to preserve the illusion that the film world is unmanipulated

formalism

uses editing to manipulate the real world in the film world

high key

bright, even illumination and no conspicuous shadows (comedies)

low key

diffused shadows and atmospheric pools of light (mysteries, thrillers, gangsters)

high contrast

harsh shafts of light and dramatic streaks of blackness (tragedies and melodramas)

short lenses

short focal lengths and wide angle of view

mise-en-scene

arrangement in one shot

open forms

emphasize the immediate, the familiar, the intimate aspects of reality

closed forms

emphasize the unfamiliar; images are rich in textual contrasts and compelling visual effects

point of view editing

see the actor, what they see, their reaction

thematic montage

stresses the association of ideas, irrespective of the continuity of space and time

eyeline match

a character looks to the side, cut to a point of view show of what they see, audience assumes its to the side the character looked to

subjective camera

viewer is in the perspective of the camera

hayes code

1934 what shouldn’t be in movies (sex, violence) before movies received first amendment protection in 1952

Italian Neorealism Characteristics

location shooting, long takes, available lighting, working class, non-professional and professional actors, social justice, open-ended plots

Italian Neorealism Years

1942-1952

5 Major Studios

Paramount, MGM, RKO, Warner Bros, 20th Century Fox

Kushelov Experiment

editing brings out new meanin

Genres of Order

western, gangster, detective

genres of integration

musical, screwball comedy, family melodrama

order hero

individual (male)

order setting

contested space (ideologically unstable)

order conflict

externalized—violent

order resolution

elimination (death)

order thematics

mediation—redemption, macho code, isolated self-reliane, utopia as promise

integration hero

couple/collective

integration setting

civilized space (ideologically stable)

integration conflict

internalized—emotional

integration resolution

embrace (love)

integration thematics

integration—domestication, maternal-family code, community cooperation, utopia as reality

Charlie Chaplin

“The Heart” played a lot of marginalized characters in his comedies

Buster Keaton

“The Head” geometric precision, stone face, what the audience can see is what the characters could see

Transition to Sound

new equipment was needed, cameras needed to be boxed in, film became more expensive

Classic Hollywood Paradigm

strong in star, story, production values

The Birth of a Nation

encyclopedia of racism, based on a book, The Klansmen