JCM 100 Midterm Exam

diegetic vs. nondiegetic

-diegetic: The world of the film’s story (its characters, places, and events), including what is shown and what is implied to have taken place. It comes from the Greek word meaning “narration.”

-nondiegetic: An insert that depicts an action, an object, or a title originating outside the space and time of the narrative world.

credits

A list of all the personnel involved in a film production, including cast, crew, and executives.

story vs. plot

-story: The raw material of a narrative

-plot: The narrative ordering of the events of the story as they appear in the actual work, selected and arranged according to particular temporal, spatial, generic, causal, or other patterns

narrative frame

A context or person positioned outside the principal narrative of a film, such as bracketing scenes in which a character in the story’s present begins to relate events of the past and later concludes her or his tale.

first-person narration

Narration that is identified with a single individual, usually a character in the film.

third-person narration

A narration that assumes an objective and detached stance toward the plot and characters by describing events from outside the story.

omniscient vs. restricted narration

-omniscient: Narration that presents all elements of the plot, exceeding the perspective of any one character. See third-person narration.

-restricted: A narrative in which our knowledge is limited to that of a particular character.

reflexive narration

A mode of narration that calls attention to the narrative point of view of the story in order to complicate or subvert its own narrative authority as an objective perspective on the world.

unreliable narration

A type of narration that raises questions about the truth of the story being told; also called manipulative narration.

multiple narration

Several different narrative perspectives for a single story or for different stories in a movie that loosely fit together.

historical location

the recognized marker of a historical setting that can carry meanings and connotations important to the narrative

ideological location

a space or place inscribed with distinctive social values or ideologies in a narrative

psychological location

suggests an important correlation between a character’s state of mind and the physical place he or she inhabits in the story

symbolic location

A space transformed through spiritual or other abstract means related to the narrative.

linear chronology

The arrangement of plot events and actions that follow one another in time.

plot chronologies

The order according to which shots or scenes convey the temporal sequence of the story’s events.

deadline structure

A narrative structured around a central event or action that must be accomplished by a certain time.

parallel plots

narrative duration

The length of time used to present an event or action in a plot.

narrative frequency

The number of times a plot element is repeated throughout a narrative.

narrative flashback

A sequence that follows an image set in the present with an image set in the past.

retrospective plot

tells of past events from the perspective of the present or the future

documentary

A nonfiction film that presents real objects, people, and events.

actualities

Nonfiction films introduced in the 1890s depicting real people and events through continuous footage. A famous example is Louis and Auguste Lumière’s Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory (1895).

scenics

Early nonfiction films that offered exotic or remarkable images of nature or foreign lands.

ex. Rough Sea at Dover

topicals

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

institutions supporting documentary practices

public institutions (such as the General Post Office in England, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Resettlement Administration, and the National Film Board of Canada) as well as private groups (such as New York City’s Film and Photo League)

PBS, BBC, ZDF

Robert Flaherty

“the father of documentary cinema;” Nanook of the North, Moana

Dziga Vertov

early filmmaker in Soviet cinema; conveying ideological messages through montage; Man with a Movie Camera

technologies that advanced documentary filmmaking

lightweight 16mm cameras, portable magnetic sync-sound recorders, Portapak video equipment, optical sound recording

cinema verite

A French term meaning “cinema truth”; a style of documentary filmmaking first practiced in France in the late 1950s and early 1960s that used unobtrusive, lightweight cameras and sound equipment to capture real-life situations. See direct cinema (the parallel U.S. movement).

direct cinema

A documentary style originating in the United States in the 1960s that aims to observe an unfolding situation as unobtrusively as possible; related to cinéma vérité.

activist videos

A confrontational political documentary that uses low-cost video equipment.

nonfiction films

Films presenting factual descriptions of actual events, persons, or places, rather than their fictional or invented re-creation.

non-narrative films

Films organized in a variety of ways besides storytelling.

distribution and availability of documentaries beginning in 1980s

Avid’s nonlinear digital editing process; cable and satellite television

cumulative organization

present a catalog of images or sounds throughout the course of the film. It may be a simple series with no recognizable logic connecting the images

ex. Rain, Thirty to Short Films About Glenn Gould

contrastive organization

present a series of contrasts or oppositions that indicate different points of view on its subject. Thus, a film may alternate between images of war and peace or between contrasting skylines of different cities

ex. 7 Up

developmental organization

places, objects, individuals, or experiences are presented through 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

ex. Faces Places, RBG

explorative postion

announce or suggest that the film’s driving perspective is a scientific search into particular social, psychological, or physical phenomena. Informed by this position, a documentary assumes the perspective of a traveler, an explorer, or an investigator who encounters new worlds, facts, or experiences and aims to present and describe these straightforwardly, often as a witness

ex. Nanook of the North, Apropos of Mice, Cave of Forgotten Dreams

interrogative position

rhetorically structure a movie in a way that identifies the subject as being under investigation — either through an implicit or explicit question-and-answer format or by other, more subtle techniques

ex. Fog of War, Night and Fog

persuasive position

articulate a 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. Some films do so through voices and interviews that attempt to convince viewers of a particular cause.

ex. An Inconvenient Truth: Truth to Power

reflexive and performative position

call attention to the filmmaking process or perspective of the filmmaker in determining or shaping the documentary material being presented. Often this means calling attention to the making of the documentary or the process of watching a film itself.

ex. F for Fake, Sherman’s March, A Song of Ceylon

historical documentary

A type of documentary that concentrates largely on recovering and representing events or figures in history.

ex. The Atomic Cafe, Ken Burns films

political documentary

aim to investigate and to celebrate the political activities of men and women as they appear within the struggles of small and large social spheres

ex. The Spanish Earth, The Hour of the Furnaces, Paris is Burning

social documentary

Documentaries that examine issues, peoples, and cultures in a social context.

ex. Drifters, Listen to Britain, Waste Land, The River

indigenous cinema

involves direct representation of native cultures and their ability to assert power through the control of the image

ex. The Spirit of TV

ethnographic films

Films that record the practices, rituals, and people of a culture; are typically about cultural revelations and present specific peoples, rituals, or communities that may have been marginalized by or invisible to the mainstream culture.

ex. Dead Birds

anthropological documentary

explore different global cultures and peoples, both living and extinct

ex. Nanook of the North, Grass, The Magicians of Wanzerbe

documentary reenactments

A re-creation of presumably real events within the context of a documentary.

mockumentary

A film that uses a documentary style and structure to present and stage fictional (sometimes ludicrous) subjects.

ex. Borat, This is Spinal Tap

fake documentary

ex. Land Without Bread, F for Fake, The Watermelon Woman