Film Studies Notes
April 7th
John Keats' letter to J.H. Reynolds:
"We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us…"
Negative Capability: Being able to exist in uncertainties, mysteries, and doubts without needing facts or reason.
Use of Voice and Camera Shots:
Analogies between voice in fiction and camera shots in film.
Films often start with an establishing shot.
Daniel Arijon, Grammar of the Film Language (1991): Film has a language where shots convey specific meanings.
Establishing Shot:
Establishes time of day and geography.
Indicates the scale of subjects relative to their environment.
Transitions between scenes.
Similar to narrative voice in function.
Master Shot: Captures the entire scene.
Wide Shot: Positions subjects far from camera.
Shows subject's relation to environment.
Comments on this relationship and can show isolation.
Full Shot:
Presents the character fully.
Makes a statement about their physicality, personality, or mental state.
Medium Full Shot: Presents a subject as confident, dangerous, or confrontational.
Medium Shot:
The most frequently used shot.
Resembles human interaction.
Medium Close-Up Shot: Used for intimacy without losing physicality; captures a range of emotions, especially during emotional moments.
Extreme Close-Up Shot: Isolates a body area (e.g., lips, ears).
Insert Shot: Isolates an object crucial to the film's subject.
Stage vs Screen
Characters can either arrive or depart at the start of a movie.
The Kuleshov Effect: Reaction shots.
Montage: Assembling or editing.
Types: Metric, rhythmic, tonal, overtonal, intellectual.
Conversation Camera Positions: Over the shoulder/in the conversation.
Telephone Conversations: Types where the person on the other end can or cannot be heard.
Camera Movement
Static Shot: Camera remains still.
Lens Choice: Prime lens (fixed focal length) or zoom lens.
Prime lens requires a dolly for zoom-like effects.
Zooming: Camera stays fixed while the lens moves closer or away.
Dolly Shot: Camera mounted on a dolly.
Pans and Tilts:
Pan: Horizontal movement (left to right).
Tilt: Vertical movement.
Steadicam Shot: Camera follows characters, creating a sense of accompanying them.
Crane Shot: Camera on a crane, moving in the air; mirrors character's sense of discovery.
POV Shot: Camera shows a character's point of view.
Shot-Reverse Shot: Achieved by lingering on the second subject's face.
Transition from predictable to unpredictable shot sequences.
Origins of Cinema
Persistence of Vision: Retinal persistence; the basis for movies.
Mention of Michael Faraday's paper.
Consideration of the relationship between photography and cinema.
Surrealism
Discussion of the film Un Chien Andalou.
Authentic Art vs. Putrefacte:
Dali and friends advocated "authentic art" challenging the acceptable.
Cinema was seen as ideal for Dali's anti-art stance.
Dali: "Photography, pure creation of the spirit".
Photographic imagination and new organic possibilities of photography were highlighted.
Questions: How is cinema still affected by surrealism? The distinction between waking and dream life in film vs. literature.
Raskin & Art Movements
Raskin's list overlooks inter-artistic allusions.
Importance of looking at a brief, highly visual history of major art movements.
Mention of art movements that shaped our world via YouTube videos.
The shot list.
Imitation and emulation.
Intertextual allusion and artistic competition (Film meets art II - YouTube).
Art movement that changed film forever (YouTube).
Comedy
Vincent Price mentioned.
Art of the gag and the facial gag from vaudeville tradition ("there are persons who imitate by voice”).
Aristotle on Comedy:
Imitation of characters of a lower type, but not "bad."
Consists of some defect or ugliness that is not painful or destructive.
Extended definition: Use of unusual facial gestures.
Dialogic Trill
Rapid back-and-forth verbal play between characters in a conversational scene.
Length will vary but shouldn't be excessively extended.
Comic dialogue best ends with a complete reversal of the initial intent.
Amplitude/magnitude represents an Aristotelian poetic structure: movement from minor adversity to minor prosperity (or vice versa).
Three repetitions is a rough maximum.
Plot Genotype Theory
Arrival/departure: Villain arrives, amorous hero/prince departs.
Request: A first family member makes a request to a second.
Reluctance/hesitation: Second family member seems reluctant.
Request-reluctance example: Pride and Prejudice.
Clear coherence and comparative suitability are essential in dialogic scenes.
Basic pattern observed in vaudeville.
Types of Conflict
Bad types: Static, Jumping.
Good types: Rising, Foreshadowed.
Same rules work for history and tragedy; serious dialogues end best with complete reversal.
Plot Genotype Cont.
Test: Heroes are tested.
Hero's reaction: Heroes must react positively.
Receipt of a magical agent: Heroes acquire a magical agent.
Spatial transference: Heroes move to a site of struggle.
Raskin's Parameters (Short Film Analysis)
Amplitude/magnitude.
Clear coherence is always important.
Sufficient amplitude to allow a probable succession to produce a change in fortune.
Morphology & Structure
Morphology of the Folktale (1928).
31 functions in the wondertale.
Character network: Villain, helper, dispatcher, hero, princess, donor, false hero.
Syd Field's 3-act structure: Setup, confrontation, resolution.
Lajos Egri, “The Art…”
Premise examples:
Great love defies death (Romeo and Juliet).
Ruthless ambition leads to destruction (Macbeth).
Blind trust leads to destruction (King Lear).
Jealousy destroys both itself and the object of its love (Othello).
Four Types of Conflict again!
Bad types: Static, jumping.
Good types: Rising, foreshadowed.
Raskin's 7 Parameters
Image vs. Sound: Minimal dialogue, restraint in dialogue means less important things are left unsaid, sound and image take turns, never assist one another.
Character vs. Setting
Character vs. Object: Objects in short films have a more important role, macguffins.
Character vs. Subject
Single Character Focus vs. Focus on Character Interactions: Characters in dialogue should differ markedly, and restraint should be used so as to let unimportant things be left out
Casualty vs. Choice
Consistency vs. Surprise
Closure
Closure Recalls Opening: Most typical closure involves arrival in and departure from a scene/setting. Simplicity of construction vs. Depth of meaning
The shot list: imitation and emulation
Relationship between painting and film discussed.
Live-Action Fiction Short
Refers to films up to 60 minutes.
America (Classical Hollywood Narration) vs. Europe (Art Cinema).
Classical Hollywood: Who, why, how will it be resolved?
European Art Cinema: Who is telling the story, how, and why?
Personal vision of the director emphasized.
Linear or circular organization and suggestive endings.
Hollywood Babylon
Phrase; thanks to D.W. Griffith.
Published in France in 1959, US in 1965 (banned within two weeks).
Demise of the Hollywood Studio System: Late 1940s, studios began to liquidate their theatre chains.
Live fiction shorts discontinued (a lot) late 1950s.
New Short Films Proliferation of film schools on a global level.
Realism + expressivity (not ambiguity); art cinema motivated by realism and authorial expressivity.Three main factors of art cinema not specified in notes (??)
Three ways platforms beat pipelines: YouTube as platform vs. Hollywood as pipeline; platforms unlock new sources of value, creation, and supply.
Cinematography & Jill Schary Robinson
What is cinematography? (YouTube link provided)
Reference to lectures on classical rhetoric and the art of the short fiction film, plus "How the Jews Invented Hollywood."
Jill Schary Robinson (father Dore Schary headed MGM) - memoirist, journalist, novelist, her first memoir, 1963’s With a Cast of Thousands chronicled her experiences of growing up in Hollywood's Golden Age
The American Dream
Russian-Jewish immigrants in Hollywood created their idea of an eastern aristocracy in a place with no connection to reality - The American Dream is a Jewish invention (Jill Schary Robinson).
F. Scott Fitzgerald: Hollywood is a Jewish dream and a Gentile tragedy.
Neal Gabler’s An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood (1989).
Harry Cohn, William Fox, Carl Laemmle, Louis B. Mayer, Jack and Harry Warner, and Adolph Zucker were giants who invented their vision of the American Dream.
Adolph Zukor (Paramount); Carl Laemmle (Universal Pictures); William Fox (Fox Film Corporation); Louis B Meyer and Samuel Goldwyn (Metro Goldwyn Meyer); Harry, Sam, Albert, and Jack Warner (Warner Brothers).
Neal Gabler speaks about Hollywoodism (YouTube link).
Movie industry admitted Jews when other professions didn't; financial barriers were low - opened a theater for less than .
A deep spiritual kinship: Utter rejection of their past and devotion to the new country. A ferocious embrace of America.
A special compatibility: They understood public taste and were masters at gauging market swings, at merchandising, at pirating away customers and beating the competition. Peculiar sensitivity to the dreams and aspirations of other immigrants and working-class families.
Reinventing America: Fabricated an empire in their image of America, creating its values, myths, traditions, and archetypes, creating a new country, where they not only were admitted, but would govern as well.
Jew-Gentile cultural conflict: Their dominance became a target for anti-Semites, who thought they used movies to undermine traditional American values. They created a powerful cluster of images and ideas - colonized the American imagination. As a result, American values came to be defined largely by the movies the Jews made.
The Career of Adolph Zukor (Paramount): Every picture is an enterprise by itself said Zukor
From Furrier to…: Zukor went to the United States to seek his fortune and did so, by becoming a furrier.
Edisonia Hall: Mark operated what he called Edisonia Hall, an arcade that featured Thomas Edison’s marvels. Mark has decided to open an arcade on 125th St in New York City, and he offered a partnership to Goldstein for .
Victorian Peep Machine: https://youtu.be/yvhFX_iqS2A?si=GnJj0py3lMvJvkSY.
*The Tenderloin District: As he later recounted his inspiration to Michael Korda, I looked around and said, “A Jew could make a lot of money at this