Comm150N Exam 3

documentary film

a visual and auditory representation of the presumed facts, real experiences, and actual events of the world

actualities

nonfiction films introduced in the 1890s depicting real people and events; the very first movies were of this type. e.g. the Lumiere’s Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory

scenics

offered exotic or remarkable images of nature or foreign lands. e.g. Rough Sea at Dover (1896)

topicals

films that captured or sometimes re-created historical or newsworthy events.

e.g. the Spanish-American War figured in a number of these films

direct cinema

documentary style originating in the U.S. in the 60s that aims to capture unfolding events as unobtrusively as possible

shooting ratio

ratio of footage shot to footage used

nonfiction films

present (presumed) factual descriptions of actual events, persons, or places, rather than their fictional or invented re-creation

non-narrative films

de-emphasize stories and narratives, instead employing other forms like lists, repetition, or contrast as their organizational structure; they may embed stories within their organization, but those stories are secondary to the non-narrative pattern

documentary organizations

show or describe experiences in a way that differs from narrative films…without the temporal logic of narrative and without the presiding focus on how a central character motivates and moves events forward

Three organizations of documentary films:

1. cumulative organizations

2. contrastive organizations

3. developmental organizations

cumulative organizations

a catalog of images or sounds; it may be a simple series with no recognizable logic connecting the images e.g. Rain (1929)

contrastive organizations

a series of contrasts or oppositions that indicate different points of view on its subject; these contrasts may be evaluative, or may suggest a more complicated relationship between objects or individuals.

developmental organizations

a pattern that has a non-narrative logic or structure but still follows a logic of change or progression. For example, an individual may be presented as growing from small to large, as changing from a passive to an active personality, or as moving from the physical to the spiritual.

rhetorical positions

organizational points of view that shape the formal practices of documentary and experimental films

Rhetorical positions articulate their attitudes and positions according to four frameworks:

1. explorative positions

2. interrogative positions/ analytical positions

3. persuasive positions

4. reflexive and performance positions

explorative position

scientific search into particular social, psychological, or physical phenomena;  assumes the perspective of a traveler, an explorer, or an investigator. e.g. Nanook of the North; (1922);  March of the Penguins (2005)

interrogative positions/analytical positions

identifies the subject as being under investigation, either through an implicit or explicit question-and-answer format or by other, more subtle techniques. May lead to more knowledge, or may simply raise more questions than they answer. e.g. Frank Capra’s Why We Fight series (1943-1945); Alain Resnais’s Night and Fog (1955).

persuasive positions

perspective that expresses a personal or social position using emotions or beliefs and aim to persuade viewers to feel and see in a certain way. e.g. An Inconvenient Truth (2006). Other films may downplay the presence of the personal perspective and instead use images and sound to influence viewers through argument or emotional appeal, as in propaganda films. e.g. Triumph of the Will . Yet other films rely solely on the power of images, without overt argumentation. e.g. Frederick Wiseman’s Titicut Follies (1967).

reflexive and performative positions

call attention to the filmmaking process or perspective of the filmmaking process or perspective of the filmmaker. e.g. A Song of Ceylon (1985); Ross McElwee’s Sherman’s March (1986).

social documentary

examine and present both familiar and unfamiliar peoples and cultures in a social context; its goals include: authenticity in representing how people live and interact; discovery in representing unknown environments and cultures. e.g. The River (1937).

Two spin-offs from the social documentary tradition:

political documentary and indigenous cinema

political documentary

partially as a result of the various post WWI global crises, early political documentaries aimed to investigate and to celebrate the political activities of men and women as they appear within the struggles of small and large social spheres. They sought a balance of aesthetic objectivity and political purpose and tend to take analytical or persuasive positions. While these can sometimes be labeled propaganda films, they frequently use more complex arguments and more subtle tactics than bluntly manipulative documentaries. Since WWII, political documentaries have grown more varied and occasionally more militant. e.g. In the Year of the Pig (1968) a scathing attack on the Vietnam War.

indigenous cinema

involves direct representation of native cultures and their ability to assert power through the control of the image. (Indigenous groups appropriate video and film technology to tell their own stories, rather than having it done by outside observers.)

historical documentary

concentrates largely on recovering and representing events or figures in history. They are often compilations of materials such as old film footage, hotographs, and testimonials by historians.

Historical documentaries have moved in two broad directions:

conventional documentary and reflexive documentary

conventional documentary histories

assume the facts and realities of a past history can be more-or-less recovered and accurately represented. e.g. Atomic Café (1982); Ken Burns’ The Civil War (1990) and Baseball 1996).

reflexive documentary histories

alongside the work to describe an event is the awareness that film or other discourses and materials will never be able to fully retrieve the reality of that lost history.  e.g. Shoah (1985).

reflexive documentary histories

alongside the work to describe an event is the awareness that film or other discourses and materials will never be able to fully retrieve the reality of that lost history. e.g. Shoah (1985.)

ethnographic documentaries

about cultural revelations, they present specific peoples, rituals, or communities that may have been marginalized by or invisible to the mainstream culture. Two practices within the ethnographic tradition include: anthropological film; cinema verite.

anthropological films

explore different global cultures and peoples, both living and extinct. They aim to reveal cultures and peoples authentically, without imposing the filmmaker’s interpretations, but in fact they are often implicitly shaped by the perspectives of their makers.

cinema verite

(French for ‘cinema truth’) it insists on filming real objects, people, and events in a confrontational way, so that the reality of the subject continually acknowledges the reality of the camera recording it. Cinema verite arose in Canada and France in the late 1950s and 1960s and spread to the U.S. and elsewhere.

personal documentaries/subjective documentaries

emphasize the personal perspective or involvement of the filmmaker; they look more like autobiographies or diaries.

mockumentaries

take a humorous approach to the question of truth and fact by using a documentary style and structure to present and stage fictional subjects e.g. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)

fake documentary

related to mockumentaries but with more serious aims.

avant-garde cinema

meaning ‘advance guard’ or ‘vanguard’; one of a number of terms that have been used to refer to what we are calling ‘experimental film’

experimental films

noncommercial, often non-narrative films that explore film form – reflect upon the film medium itself and the conditions in which it is experienced by audiences. These conditions include such basic elements as film stock, sprocket holes, light, figure movement, editing, patterns, and projection before an audience. e.g. Decasia (2002).

new media

technologies that include the Internet, digital technologies, video game consoles, cell phones, and wireless devices and the software applications and imaginative creations they support.

modernity

the period of history from the end of the medieval era to the present as well as the period’s attitude toward progress and science centered on the human capacity to shape history.

Ballet Mecanique (1924)

“Modernist forms of painting, design, and architecture captured new experiences of accelerated and disjunctive time, spatial juxtaposition, and fragmentation enabled by technologies like the railroad, the telegraph, and electricity. Because cinema is made with machines, the medium was considered a central art of modernism. Experiments with space and time emerged early in the medium’s history…”

Manhatta (1912)

“[A]vant-garde filmmaking in the silent era was international in spirit. In the United States, Germany, as well as the Soviet Union, filmmakers paid tribute to the modern metropolis in the “city symphony” genre”

Meshes of the Afternoon (1943)

the beginning of the American avant-garde’s historical prominence. This led the way for an experimental, personal vision in filmmaking in what was termed the American visionary film movement.

The Garden of Earthly Delights (1981)

Stan Brakhage, a protégé of Deren’s, is the most influential of the next generation of American avant-garde filmmakers, with four hundred 16mm and 8mm films, mostly silent…[M]ost of his films arrange imagery in sensual, abstract patterns, [and] rely on very personal subject matter.

underground film

non-mainstream films associated with the experimental film culture of 1960s and 1970s New York and San Francisco. e.g. Andy Warhol’s Empire (1964) an 8-hour view of the Empire State building.

structural film

explore space, time, and the capacity of the camera to transcend human perception. e.g. Michael Snow’s La region central (1971) a camera mounted on a specially built apparatus swoops and swings as it captures a view of the mountainous Quebec region

machinima

modifies video game engines to create computer animation

abstract films

formal experiments that are also nonrepresentational. They use color, shape, and line to create patterns and rhythm that are purely form-based or abstracted from real actions and objects. e.g. Rhythmus 21 (1921).

narrative experimentation

“Many experimental films are non-narrative in that they lack well-defined characters or logical plots…But it is hard to avoid narrative completely in a time-based medium because this basics are implied in the sequence of beginning, middle, and end

associative organizations

create psychological or formal resonances, giving these films a dreamlike quality that engages viewers’ emotions and curiosity [e.g. Blood of a Poet (1930)]

There are two kinds of associative organizations:

metaphoric associations and symbolic associations

metaphoric associations

link or associate different objects, images, events, or individuals in order to generate a new perception, emotion, or idea

symbolic associations

isolate discrete objects or singular images that can generate or be assigned abstract meanings—either those already given those objects or images by a culture, or meanings created by the film itself The symbolic significance may be spiritual.

structural organizations

engage the audience through a formal principle rather than a narrative or chain of associations. Such films may focus on the material of the film itself, such as its grain, sprockets, and passage through a projector.

Zorns Lemma (1970)

repeated sequence of 1 second images of words on signs and storefronts arranged alphabetically

participatory experiences

the centrality of the viewer and the time and place of exhibition to the cinematic phenomenon is emphasized; the film is often part of a live performance by the filmmaker—such work is called expanded cinema

Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman (1978-1979)

Dara Birnbaum scrutinized the TV heroine’s gestures as she transforms into her superhero persona.

The ways is which experimental works interact and challenge their viewers can be categorized into two distinct traditions

expressive and confrontational

expressive styles and forms

emphasize personal expression and communication with an audience and are tied to long-standing notions of artistic originality, authenticity, and interiority. Impressionist painters and cubist painters utilized such expressive approaches.

lyrical films

use stories as the skeletons on which to elaborate and explore novel cinematic techniques and special effects.

surrealism

the use of recognizable imagery in strange contexts – simultaneously defying the realist tendencies and narrative logic of mainstream film and building on the medium’s basis in photographic reproduction and the idea of unfolding images in time

confrontational approaches

The shock of the modern—beautiful machines capable of brutal destruction; juxtapositions of commerce and art, time sped up and distances eliminated—was incorporated in the 1920s in a confrontational modernist impulse across the arts

traditional animation

moving images drawn or painted on transparent sheets of celluoid known as cels, which are then placed on a painted background and photographed in sequence onto single frames of film

stop-motion photography

records inanimate objects or human figures in different positions in separate frames and then synthesizes them on film to create the illusion of motion and action

claymation

uses stop-motion photography with clay figures to create the illusion of movment

pixilation

employs stop-motion photography to transform the movement of real human figures into rapid, jerky gestures

computer generated imagery (CGI)

still or animated images created through digital computer technology

computer animation

a digital version of traditional animation

rotoscoping

a technique using recorded real figures and action on video as a basis for painting individual animation frames digitally

documentary animation

animation that tells true stories with enhanced moving images

photorealism

the reproduction in animation of the details obtained in photography

virtual cinematography

the process of image capture in a computer environment, which may be incorporated into live-action cinematography of other computer-generated imagery

genre

a category or classification of movies that share similar subject matter, setting, iconography, and narrative and stylistic patterns; a set of formulas and conventions repeated and developed throughout film history

Well before the advent of movies, genres were used to classify works of literature theater, music, painting, and other art forms…[T]hree functions for genre began to take shape:

1. to provide models for producing other works

2. to direct audience expectation

3. to create categories for judging or evaluating a work

Fordism

the economic model that defined U.S. industry through much of the twentieth century…[it] used the division of labor and the mass production of parts to improve quality and increase the numbers of cars manufactured. These efficiencies decreased consumer costs and increased consumption.

The U.S. v. Paramount decision of 1948

in which the Supreme Court ruled that the major studios violated antitrust laws by also owning movie theaters and therefore monopolizing the film business

film noir

used stylized black-and white cinematography in nighttime urban settings and featured morally ambiguous protagonists, corrupt institutions, dangerous women, and convoluted plots

blaxploitation

low budget films made in the 1970s targeting urban, African American audiences and featuring streetwise African American protagonists

generic conventions

properties or features that identify a genre, such as character types, setting, props, or events that are repeated from film to film. e.g. in Westerns cowboys ride alone

iconography

images or image patterns with specific connotations or meanings e.g. crime movies feature dark alleys and smoky bars

archetypes

spiritual, psychological, or cultural models expressing certain virtues, values, or timeless realities.

generic formulas

patterns for developing stories in a particular genre

myths

spiritual and cultural stories that describe a defining action or event for a group of people or an entire community; all cultures have important myths that help secure a shared cultural identity

generic expectations

a viewer’s experience and knowledge while watching a film that help to anticipate the meaning of the movie’s conventions and formulas

Two terms are helpful when trying to understand the multiple combinations and subdivisions of genres:

hybrid genres and subgenres

hybrid genres

created through the interaction of different genres to produce fusions

subgenres

specific versions of a genre denoted by an adjective. e.g. spaghetti western; slapstick comedy

six important genres:

comedies; westerns; melodramas; musicals; horror films; crime films

main traits of comedy include:

1. central characters who are often defined by distinctive physical features

2. narratives that emphasize episodes or “gags” more than plot continuity or progression and that usually conclude happily

3. theatrical acting styles in which characters physically and playfully interact with the mise-en-scene that surrounds them

Three salient subgenres of comedies include:

1. slapstick comedies

2. screwball comedies

3. romantic comedies

slapstick comedies

marked by their physical humor and stunts, comprised some of the first narrative films. e.g. Mack Sennett’s Keystone Kops

screwball comedies

in the 1930s and 1940s, these transformed the humor of the physical into fast-talking verbal gymnastics, arguably displacing sexual energy with barbed verbal exchanges between men and women. They redirected the comic focus from the individual clown to the confused heterosexual couple. e.g. Bringing Up Baby (1938) – Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn; The Philadelphia Story (1940)

romantic comedies

popular since the 1930s and 1940s, humor takes a second place to happiness. The genre calls attention to a peculiar or awkward social predicament that romance will eventually overcome. e.g. Adam’s Rib (1949) – Katherine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy oppose each other in the courtroom; Nora Ephron’s You’ve Got Mail (1998)

western

grew out of late-nineteenth century stories, dime novels, and journalistic accounts of the wild American West. e.g. The Great Train Robbery (1903)

Fundamental elements of western genres:

1. characters, almost always male, whose physical and mental toughness separate them from the crowds of modern civilization

2. narratives that follow some version of a quest into the natural world

3. a stylistic emphasis on open natural spaces and setting, such as the western frontier regions of the U.S.

epic western

concentrates on action and movement, developing a heroic character whose quests and battles were to define the nation and its origins. e.g. The Covered Wagon (1923); Dances with Wolves (1990)

existential western

the traditional Western hero is troubled by his changing social status and his self-doubts, often as the frontier depicted in these films is more populated and civilized.

revisionist western

evolved by the 1960s and 1970s; the introspection of the existential western was overshadowed by foregrounding ideology and politics. They sometimes undermine assumptions of heroism and historical justice and depict people and realities marginalized in western mythologies

melodramas

a combination of the intensities of music (melos) and the interaction of human conflicts (drama)

physical melodramas

focus on the material conditions that control the protagonist’s desires and emotions; these physical restrictions may be related to the places and people that surround that person or may simply be a product of the person’s physical size or other bodily attribute

family melodramas

focus on the psychological and gendered forces restricting individuals within the family; women and young people, especially, must struggle against patriarchal authority, economic dependency, and confining gender roles

social melodramas

extend the melodramatic crisis of the family to include larger historical, community, and economic issues…[T]he losses sufferings, and frustrations of the protagonist are visibly part of social or national politics