Course Materials: Writing About Film

Section 2: Formalism and Terms

GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO FILM IDEAS In this section, you will be introduced to some basic information about film that will represent areas that we will be covering in this class. Film is a fun thing to study. The first thing to realize is that film is just plain strange. For example, here are ten strange facts: 1) When you watch a film, you, the viewer, have a choice

between two possible perspectives:

A. Looking out of a character’s eyes and seeing what that character sees.

This is called subjective point of view.

B. Looking out of the eyes of someone who is in the scene, but to whom the characters do not react.

This is called objective point of view.

2) In film, characters are always in the present. Even a

flashback is merely a jump to more present action. Since you are always in the present, film has special strategies that viewers have to learn in order to know when and where you just left, when and where you are now, and whether or not you are ever coming back.

3) Film is different than other art forms in a variety of ways.

For a painting, or a sculpture, or a photograph, we direct our attention actively to looking, and we can take as long as want to “see” it. For a film, we watch what the camera does, for as long as the camera watches it—no more, and no longer.

In a stage play, a live actor plays a character. Each performance is different. In a film, the performance involves the reproduction of a disembodied visual representation of an absent actor playing the reproduction of a disembodied representation of a character. Each reproduction is exactly the same.

For a book, we read the words: “the tree” and each of us probably “sees” a different tree. For a film, we all see the exact same tree—each one of us, every time.

5) Films are often watched with other people, as in a theater. Each person watching a film has a “viewpoint” into the scene. However, each person’s point of view is exactly the same, because any viewer can only watch what the camera does. All the people watching a given film would not all fit into the scene being watched. We are, then, both: a) in a crowd having the same perceptual experience, and; b) perceptually, totally alone.

6) Just like in older oral narratives, popular Hollywood film can

often be broken down into what Folklore calls “functions,” and follows narrative laws that can be established as a part of the form. For example, in both traditional oral tales and filmic forms, events tend to happen in threes.

7) Popular animated cartoon characters have five fingers if they

are realistically human (Aladdin, Belle, and Pocahontas). If they’re human but unrealistic (Barney Rubble, the Simpsons), or if they are anthropomorphized animals (Mickey Mouse, Jimminy Cricket), they will have four fingers (three fingers and a thumb). Likewise, some animated animals can talk, and some can’t. Why can Dumbo’s mother talk, but Dumbo can’t? Why does Goofy (a talking dog) own Pluto (a dog who can’t talk?).

8) The better filmmakers get at special effects, the more real our fantasy looks.1

9) Watching a film is a learned behavior. Think about it: There

is nothing “natural” about viewing a talking head that is seven feet wide and cut off at the neck, and people running in slow-motion is not something one sees in life. We must acquire a “literacy” to make sense of what we are seeing in a film. We learn to just accept these visual illusions, a cognitive capacity that theorist Walter Benjamin calls “unconscious optics.”

10) Film proceeds at 24 still frames—photographs, basically—a

second. The only reason that we perceive film as a moving image at all is because of “retinal burn”—the same thing that makes you see light spots if you look directly at a bright light and then look away. This perceptual event is called persistence of vision.

TERMS In this class, we will first cover certain terms. You will use them in the writing that you will do, which will be a part of the way that you demonstrate your engagement with the material. For example, you should, after completing the reading as we go along, be able to refer to the difference between, say, a “villain” and an “anti-hero.” They are not the same kind of character. To write about film, you need to understand that film is different from other arts. It has both unique potentials and unique limitations

1 This observation, and attending interpretation, is attributed to R. Vallis, Ph.D., Film Studies and Rhetoric (Writing Program, UCSB). See Beowulf in Hollywood.

that arise from the form itself. Understanding how the form creates potential and limitations for art is called the study of Formalism. Unlike writing about, say, Literature, writing about film is much less about analyzing plots or characters. It never involves whether or not you liked a film. Writing about film involves the analysis of the unique way in which film, as a form (theoretical), or a particular film (critical), creates a specific effect on any viewer. In other words, you have to understand how film works. There is a lot of information in this introduction, so read carefully. None of these terms are directly concerned with technology, per se. They do not, for example, describe the relationship between light and aperture in a film camera. Rather, they refer to the practical strategies that filmmakers use in order to create a desired effect. That effect is the result of the construction of simulacra—an artifice, or copy—of real life. Like many arts, film is primarily an art of illusion that works because it is able to manipulate human perception. These introductory terms will help you to begin to refine your descriptive prose, and will also help you to become much more aware of the way that films “do what they do” when we watch them, and what we had to learn in order to watch them. ACTION One of the fundamental limitations of film as a visual form is that action can only go. There is no “natural-seeming” way to stop the action that is occurring. Freeze-frame disrupts audience experience. Yet what we see on screen is not actually continuous. It is a stuttering series of interruptions. Imagine if, every time you blinked, you were looking at something different—a different angle, a different moment, a different place, or from a different

perspective. It would be confusing, wouldn’t it? Well, that’s film. The following terms explains how film does that. You must be able to distinguish among them to understand basic formalist elements. Frame: The frame is the individual photograph that makes

up motion picture film. To make action appear to run at “natural” speed in a film, one must proceed at 24 frames per second of film. Roughly translated, show more frames per second, and you get fast-motion. Show fewer, you get slow-motion. This means that if one wants to get a shot of a person standing absolutely still in a room for one whole minute, in a film, one must take 24 still photographs of that person per second, for one minute.

Shot: A shot is the appearance of continuous action on

the screen resulting from what appears to be a single run of the camera. For as long as that action continues, from that perspective, without some kind of transition to a different action, or a different perspective, that is a single shot.

Single shots are, typically, in film, extremely short. When a shot is unusually long in a film—say two or three minutes—it actually seems artificial, and throw us out of the experience. We are used to interruptions. In Hitchcok’s famous shower scene in Psycho (1960), for example, there are more cuts than there are seconds of film.

Cut: A break in the action on the screen, where one shot is transitioned to another shot. These transitions are called cuts. The act of deciding when and where to transition a shot to another shot, and what kind of transition to use, is called cutting a film. Besides certain digital tech., film is cut after stock is exposed.

TIME AND SPACE Film manipulates what we think of as the regular flow of time, and the normal limitations of space. Film almost never merely chronicles the real world. Film narrative, as we are used to viewing it, is not a passive recorder of events. Rather, film is designed to mimic one single individual human’s perception of events. For example, let’s take the fact that a film, on the screen, can represent a football field the size of a shoebox, or a hand the size of a car. This has much less to do with how things “really are” in the world, and much more to do with how one viewer might perceive a football field, or a hand, according to that viewer’s distance from the object in question, at a given moment in time. FILMIC TIME: What we call filmic time is the temporal ordering/arrangement of events represented within the film, especially as it is different from the normal flow of time in the real world. Gaps in Time

In film, there is, typically, more time missing than time represented. How many times have we seen James Bond go to the bathroom, or brush his teeth? Of course, we assume that Bond is a representation of a human, and, as such, must have biological imperatives, and that his character engages in typical acts of grooming and hygiene.

Are we troubled that we don’t see him doing these things? No. We assume that these things happen “in between” the events that appear on screen.

In this way, we are trained to effortlessly create a whole “background” of temporal flow out of which relatively short “slices” of time appear in the actual film. If you think about it, this is a pretty good description of how our memory works—we tend to drop what is not relevant, and remember the juicy bits.

Added Time

In film, time can be added to the “natural flow” in a variety of ways. For example, we may see the same moment from several different angles, or events may happen in slow motion.

Layered Time

If there is a certain kind of cutting between shots, events can appear to be happening simultaneously in time.

For example, a shot of a man going down the stairs could transition immediately to a shot of a woman going up the same stairs. This is called cross-cutting.

In this way, we could be made to understand that both persons are using the stairs at the same time.

Movement in Time:

Movement in time would include, for example, a flashback, or even a flash forward.

FILMIC SPACE:

Filmic space is the illusion of space created on the screen as opposed to the space that exists in the real world.

Three-dimensionality

Obviously, a film screen is flat—it has only height and width. Seeing “into” a scene is an effect of “fooling the eye” into believing there is depth of field.

Unnatural perspectives

Since I assume that none of us can shrink ourselves, or fly into the air at will, or transport great distances in a split second, a perspective that travels down a small pipe, or offers a bird’s eye view, or abruptly zooms out, say, from one soldier, to the whole battlefield, would be outside of our shared typical ocular capacity.

CROSSING OVER All fiction involves the creation of a kind of alternate reality. Like other forms, the filmic “world” will have certain rules that we have learned to recognize, based upon our ability to understand film as a communicative form. This is, in part, a recognition of the genre of a film. In the world of The Matrix, for example, we accept that people can dodge bullets at supernatural speed. In the world of Die Hard, we would be surprised and disappointed if the main character suddenly acquired that skill, although we will accept the character’s uncanny (and often unlikely) ability to avoid getting hit by one. What matters is consistency within the narrative, fidelity to genre, and the

maintenance of a pretense of an “other world” in a way that allows us to accept the rules that govern that world. The “world” that a film creates involves uniquely self-conscious strategies in the way it is presented to a viewer. Because we are used to it, we rarely notice that a film “world” often includes things that we don’t find in the real world. To understand this, we must name the difference. Diegetic What we call diegetic, or the diegesis of a film, is the internal world created by the story. This is the world that the characters themselves appear experience and encounter. This includes:

1. All events shown that are a part of that story. 2. Any events that are missing, such as events leading

up to the present moment, events that occur during gaps in time, etc.

Example: We do not have to witness an adult character’s childhood to accept that the character had one. The events of that childhood are still a part of the diegetic, because they are a part of the story, even if unrepresented.

3. Events that occur “off screen”—that is, they are not seen on the screen, but are known to be a part of the scene, or near it. This would include any sound originating from such an area, such as a voice from another room.

At this point, one might ask the question: When would film represent anything except the diegetic? The answer is: All the time.

Non-diegetic/Extra-diegetic

Non- (or extra-) diegetic element of a film involve anything represented on the screen that is not taking place within the world of the film, nor visually represented as seen, imagined, or thought by a character. This would include, for example, opening credits, subtitles, etc.

SOUND The best way to get a handle on how routinely film uses the non-diegetic, or extra-diegetic, is to take a close look at film’s use of sound. Film is called an audio/visual form. It is a running debate as to which element serves to offer the audience more meaning within a film. Sound is simply something that does not seem as important, because we tend to experience it as seamless part of watching a film. We are certainly not always listening consciously to the music that is playing in the background of a given moment of film. We experience it within the context of the whole, in which sound offers information, anticipates events, signals characters, and generates an emotional “tone” to what we are viewing. Life does not have a musical soundtrack, of course (thank goodness). Yet we don’t even tend to notice the almost constant presence of music in film. In fact, the presence of different kinds of sound is so prevalent in film that we would be more likely to notice its absence. If you were to turn off the sound in a film, you would lose an overwhelmingly significant part of the filmic experience. Think of Vader without his heavy breathing. We may even be thrown out of the experience of a film if a background sound were to fail to be included. Sound is so constant in film, and so multi-layered and diverse, that the presence of a sudden silence in film is overwhelmingly significant. Screens go black all the time, but sound is very rarely

absent. In this way, sound is arguably more active to constructing a film than visual images. There is sound to which we are supposed to pay sharp attention, sound to which we are supposed to pay peripheral attention, and sound that is supposed to just be there without requiring our attention, but that affects us profoundly in regard to the filmic experience. Characters can even have their own theme music, and that music will play whenever the character is on screen. A film may even signal that a character is on his or her way by starting the music before he or she arrives. Some sounds create reality effects, some convey mood, and some give us information pertinent to the plot. Most of the time, many of these different “kinds” of sound are simultaneously layered. We may be introduced to a shot of a rainy dark street, and the sound of the rain hitting the pavement, while we listen to someone off-screen narrate a sad story about a breakup, accompanied by the haunting strains of a violin, when suddenly the narration will stop and be replaced by the sound of the brisk click of heels, followed shortly by the screen appearance of a woman walking into the frame from around the corner, while urgent music suddenly interrupts the violin, and we hear, first softly, and then more clearly, the unseen sound of heavier footfalls behind her…. These different elements of sound are woven into film. What is important is that you are able to recognize that sounds serve specific functions, occur in specific relationships to the story, and are an intrinsic part of what we experience as a film—and sound is a particularly rich source for writing about film.

Diegetic Sound

Sound that is part of the sphere of the action, such as a character playing a piano, or a car going by, or the sound of footsteps.

Non-diegetic/Extra-diegetic Sound

Sound not within sphere of action (One presumes that Luke Skywalker does not hear the Star Wars theme while taking out the Death Star, although we do).

The important thing is that you should start “listening” for sound in film. There are many different ways that sound creates effects in film. Here are some of examples: Diegetic:

A car passes by and we hear its engine. Off-screen diegetic: A gunshot in another room, or an overheard conversations.

Anticipatory Asynchronous diegetic:

A phone rings before the scene in which the phone appears, even if the previous scene is unrelated. Watch-it happens all the time.

Non-diegetic:

Two cowboys face each other to tense music—but there’s no musical orchestra in the scene. Related non-Diegetic/Commentative:

A heartbeat accompanies a tense thriller without being attributed to a character hearing his or her own heart beating.

Transition between Diegetic/non-Diegetic:

-Music starts in an establishing shot, high above the suburbs. -The music continues to play as the film cuts to a shot of a car driving on the road. -The music continues to play as the film cuts to a shot of a man in that car. -The music stops when the man reaches over and switches off the radio (transition to diegetic)

Narration: A character narrates events (ambiguous diegetic) or a non-character narrates events (non-diegetic).

NARRATIVE In Classical Hollywood Cinema, David Bordwell sums up the narrative structure of the classical Hollywood film, still very evident in popular film today:

The classical Hollywood film presents psychologically defined individuals who struggle to solve a clear-cut problem or to attain specific goals. In the course of this struggle, the characters enter into conflict with others or with external circumstances. The story ends with a decisive victory or defeat, a resolution of the problem, and a clear achievement or nonachievement of the goals. (52)

When a popular Hollywood film tells a story, it does so in predictable ways. Hollywood narratives proceed, typically, in the following way. Narrative Arc

1) Hook; Establishes initial situation/character; 2) Major/minor conflict is introduced; 3) Dramatic climax occurs; 4) Major and minor conflicts are resolved; 5) Epilogue closes film (celebration of resolution of conflict)

Hook A short introduction that draws the viewer in and leads to establishing situation: character, location, source of conflict. Roy Vallis, in Beowulf in Hollywood, identifies three kinds of common hooks in popular Hollywood film: 1. Exemplary: Quickly develops main character

“at work,” to show typical behavior. 2. Normative: Introduces stable social

behavior in order to set up for conflict. 3. Expositive: High-action introduction to

character through main conflict. Situation An initial state of events that establishes main character, location, etc. Conflict A problem is introduced that compels the main character to action. Conflict motivates the main character into action. This conflict may arise between characters,

between a character and a group, between groups of characters, between a character and natural forces, between conflicting elements in a character’s “psyche,” etc.

Climax The word “climax” comes from Greek, and it means “ladder.” The climax in a film is the moment the action ceases to rise, and resolution of the major conflict can no longer be deferred. It is the point of highest dramatic interest for the viewer. If one is watchign television, for example, it is the point at which one is almost guaranteed to go to commercial.

Resolution Directly after the climax of the film, in which the the primary question of the whether the conflict will be successfully resolved, or not, is answered. Epilogue The final scenes of the film, in which the narrative celebrates the resolution of conflict, often involving subsequent reward/punishment of characters and resolution of minor conflicts.

CHARACTER We invest emotionally in characters: we hate them, love them, hope for them, and mourn them. This is why we often have difficulty telling the difference between the character onscreen, and the person who acted as that character for a camera somewhere in a studio six or so months earlier.

A star is an actor who we have the sensation of “knowing” through their depiction of characters, despite the fact that we have probably never met him or her, and are basing our sensation of intimacy on the reproduction of a person whose sole task it is to act like someone he or she is not. To that end, it is probably helpful to distinguish between the following:

Actor A human individual who has a job involving pretense that produces a character in a role.

Role A part in a dramatic performance that serves a function in a narrative structure.

Character Any of the various fictional representations of a person that appears in a film.

Star/Celebrity An image that attends an actor who plays a character qualities we collectively admire.

These should not be confused. It is not only that an actor is a star not for personal qualities, but qualities displayed by a character in a role. It is also a character in a film is not a real person. You might think that this would be obvious, but it is surprisingly difficult not to think and speak (and to write) of a film character as a psychological individual. It does help if you think about any given character as a function of a narrative. For example, a villain in a film fulfills the narrative function of compelling the hero into action. The function of the hero is to resolve the conflict produced.

Or, think of it this way: whether he (they’re mostly male) appears in Die Hard or Gladiator or Life is Beautiful, the hero is a function because it fulfills specific criteria. The hero usually demonstrates, through behavior, three very specific traits. A hero is always: 1. Good; 2. Resourceful; 3. Lucky

Protagonist The main character in a film with whom our sympathies lie. In certain genres, this is a:

Hero: Whether he or she blows up buildings, or not, this is a character with whom we identify because he or she exhibits admirable traits, such as bravery, or luck, or self-sacrifice. Anti-Hero Kin to a hero, this is a character with whom the viewer identifies, but that also possesses non-heroic qualities not traditionally belonging to heroes. Think Taxi-Driver. Sometimes an anti-hero is incompetent, and therefore a source of comedy; sometimes an anti-hero begins unsympathetically, but achieves viewer identification through a dramatic act of redemption; sometimes an anti-hero displays qualities associated with a villain, such as weakness, avarice, or immoral behavior outside of the social norm, but is also understood to be acting upon an alternative ethic that is often glamorized (think Godfather).

Antagonist/Villain A character in opposition to the hero, frequently a villain, who often compels the hero to take action.

FILM HISTORY-GENERAL

The history of cinema is complex, covering: the rise of the technology; how film changed historical subjectivity; film’s complex interrelationship with culture/society/legislative policy, over time; the movements film participated in/engendered; the controversies film has produced; the scienctific and technological advances that make film possible; film’s status and progression as an art form; etc. There is simply no way to even begin to chart that history here. The following information is a short timeline designed to spark any curiosity that may lead to further investigation for writing. 1896-1912: Film can be said to start with what were

really sideshow gimmicks, like the Cinema of Attractions—early technologies that were film-like, but with more emphasis on spectacle than narrative.

1912 The whole notion of film as a two-hour

experience is introduced, and the first feature length film is shown to an audience.

1913-1927: Silent Film period 1928-1932: World Cinema- everybody is making films.

1932-1946: The time of the “Golden Age” of Hollywood, and the rise of the Studio.

1947-1959: Television devastates the film industry. 1960-1980: French New Wave, and the American

Revival.

1980- Postmodern, and the broader context of alternative media.

While it is potentially important to know when certain things occurred, the relationship between film and history is more complex than a timeline. Here are some other rather random ways in which the relationship between history and film could be explored. 1. Film was a communal invention. From its earliest

introduction, there has been a debate as to whether film is an art form, but it was always easily understood as a moneymaker.

2. The history of film—how we watch it, how it tells stories,

what role it plays in social life, etc.—was not inevitable, but a result of chance and convention. For example, Edison envisioned film more like TV—people would watch films in their homes. However, The Lumiere Brothers, on December 28th, 1895, beat him to the seat. In the basement of the Grand Café, in Paris, the brothers first projected a film to a paying audience, as a group, and the concept of the “film theater” was born. By 1908 there were over 5,000 film theaters in the U.S. alone.

3. Although preceded by four other feature-length films made in both Italy and France, D.W. Griffith is usually still credited with making the first feature-length film in 1915, entitled Birth of a Nation.

Hailed as a landmark film, Birth of a Nation was one of the first films to introduce modern staples that include the close-up, tracking, panning, and the chase, still a dominant trope in film. Birth of a Nation was also the first film to be shown in The White House.

While held up as a kind of originator of many elements of modern film as we know it today, it is also interesting to note that Birth of a Nation tells a revisionist history of a valiant KKK leader who saves oppressed whites from powerful freed black slaves after the Civil War. The widespread popularity of this film is credited with inspiring the much larger second wave of popularity for the KKK in the United States, which had largely died as a movement, leading to the accompanying vicious renewal of commonplace lynching of Black Americans in the United States.

4. In 1925, German Expressionism finds voice, with

Weiner’s Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. Sweden and Denmark get into the action, and Soviet Cinema comes about with Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin (1925). Jean Renoir emerges as an auteur in French films. In the United States, in the 1940’s, Hitchcock arrives from London. During the 1940’s, and into the 1950’s, Neo-Realism begins and then subsides in Italy. France begins the Cannes Film Festival, countries in Eastern Asia begin making non-generic films, including Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954), and

India begins making films. French New Wave hits the scene, with Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (1959) and Godard’s Breathless (1960). Currently, India’s Bollywood is the most prolific filmmaking industry in the world.

5. In the 1950’s, the rise of television devastated the

American film industry. Since TV grew out of radio, TV studios tended to employ radio people instead of film people, and the divide between the two forms was firmly established. Strangely, while a product of films of the 1940’s, Film-Noir escapes into television, where it can still be seen in such shows as the Law and Order series.

6. In the 1930’s, the dominant Hollywood genres were

Westerns, Musicals, Gangster Films, and Horror. In the 1940’s, the most popular genres were War films and Film-noir. When TV collapsed the film industry in the 1950’s, Hollywood fell into a cycle of populist sentimental dramas. In 1964, the Spaghetti Western hits, but by the 1970’s, the Western had all but died. Eastwood’s Unforgiven (1992) served as homage to the dead genre, although it has reappeared in different forms (and usually outside of its own genre boundaries) in subsequent films, such as No Country For Old Men (2008). In the 1970’s, science fiction reanimated the American film industry through the potentials provided by new technology, and a new wave of directors—Lucas, Coppolla, Nichols, Hopper, Altman, Spielburg, Scorsese—usher in “The New Hollywood.”

7. In the 1920’s, Paramount, Twentieth Century Fox,

MGM, and Warner emerge. Disney is founded in the 1940’s. By 1990, 6 of 8 Hollywood studios are owned by foreign companies: Sony owns

Columbia/Tri-Star, Toshiba owns Warners, interests in Australia own MGM and Fox, and Canadian interests hold Universal.

GUIDELINES FOR ASSIGNMENT 1: DIAGNOSTIC Length: OVER TWO PAGES, double-spaced and typed Not Graded: Credit The diagnostic helps me to adjust instruction, as much as possible, in relationship to the degree of background knowledge that the majority of people in this course have in the area of Film Studies. For this assignment, watch any film, whether or not you’ve seen it before. Take notes on the film in relationship to the reading in this section. RESPOND TO THE FILM IN RELATIONSHIP TO SOME OF THE TERMS IN THE READING. BE CAREFUL TO NOTE WHEN CERTAIN FILMIC ELEMENTS ARE BEING USED IN WHAT YOU OBSERVE. PLEASE USE ONE OR MORE TERMS FROM THE FOLLOWING AREAS IN YOUR RESPONSE. Action       Frame       Shot       Cut  Time/Space       Filmic  Time         Gaps  in  Time         Added  Time         Layered  Time         Movement  in  Time  Filmic  Space       Three-­‐Dimensionality       Unnatural  Perspectives  

   Crossing  Over       Diegetic       Non-­‐  or  Extra-­‐  Diegetic  Sound       Diegetic  Sound       Non-­‐  or  Extra-­‐  Diegetic  Sound       Off-­‐Screen  Diegetic  Sound       Anticipatory  Asynchronous  Sound       Related  Non-­‐Diegetic  Sound       Transition  Diegetic  or  Non-­‐Diegetic  Sound       Narration  Narrative       Narrative  Arc         Situation         Conflict         Climax         Resolution         Epilogue  Character       Actor       Role       Character       Star       Protagonist         Hero         Anti-­‐Hero       Antagonist  (Villain)       You could focus on the whole film, or on a single scene. Remember that this writing does not have to be polished. It is for credit. The idea is to write about film as something at which you can consciously look, as opposed to just passively watching.

Section 3: FORMALISM-AGAIN SHOTS, CUTTING, AND EDITING

SHOTS Films are partly visual, and, in film, these visuals are composed of shots. There are only two ways in which we experience the act of seeing as a viewer of a film. The illusion of either is based upon the angle and location of the origin of the camera’s gaze in relationship to other objects in the visual field. We can appear to see out of the eyes of a given character.

This is called subjective point of view. We can see out of the eyes of no character.

This is called objective point of view.

Following is a list of different kinds of shots that you will see in a film. Review them thoroughly. Each shot produces a certain effect. A shot can create a “subjective” sensation, where a viewer has the sensation of looking out of a character’s eyes. An objective shot can allow a viewer to witness a character’s realization of an event. Either can create intimacy between the viewer and the character, in different ways. SHOTS CONCERNING PEOPLE Since a viewer’s primary points of interest is often other people, we can begin with how people are filmed. This list does not contain every way that people are depicted in film, of course—we can see people in a “long” shot as well—but these shots are specifically aimed at creating characters, and each gives specific information to the viewer. This is a very short list, but you should start to see them within the films you watch. Cowboy shot/ Knee shot: The most common shot in

American mainstream film, this shot shows a character from the knees up.

Full shot: A shot showing a character’s full

body Head shot: A shot that shows a character’s

head. Shot/Reverse-shot: Actually a series of shots cut to

simulate a conversation. Usually this begins with an objective POV

shot of two characters having a conversation.

At a certain point, the camera cuts to a head shot of the first character that is talking. This appears to be from the subjective point of view of the second character. The camera then cuts and reverses to the opposite angle to show a head shot of the second character talking. This appears to be from the point of view of the first character. The two angles alternate for as long as the conversation continues, occassionally interrupted by objective point of view.

Direction-of-Look shot: This is a shot that also involves at

least one cut. These two shots may occur in any order-the viewer may see at what the character is looking before seeing the character’s reaction, or after.

One shot would be of a character looking at something off screen, and reacting (horror, joy, etc.). One shot would be comprised of the vision to which the character is reacting.

SHOTS CONCERNING ANGLE The next series of shots describe the “angle” of a given shot. “Angle,” of course, when applied to visual perception, is relative to two things: 1) The origin of the point of view and; 2) The location of that which is being viewed, in relationship to other objects in the visual field. Western filmmakers remain aware that Western audiences are much more comfortable with a persistent original viewpoint at about eye level—about 5’-6” from the ground. If a film were to be shot from a high vantage point, or at knee level, Western audiences might become disoriented, unless the audience was occupying the subjective position of someone at that level (for example, someone in a wheelchair). A high or low angle directed at a character is sometimes used for effect: Shooting from a high angle can make a character seem diminished; shooting from a low angle can make it appear intimidating. In fact, there is no reason why the camera must have a persistent original viewpoint about as high as the “average” person. The idea that those who are about that tall (and not in wheelchairs) are moving around within the frame is a filmic illusion. We have simply come to expect the camera to serve as a substitute for the most common angle many people experience in relationship between visual perception and the world. Head-on-shot: Shot that shows some kind of action coming

directly at the camera (like a car), and therefore as if directly toward the viewer (objective) or viewer/character (subjective).

Overhead shot: Shot from from straight above, usually objective.

Crane shot: Shot from a crane to get wide view, usually

objective, often used for an establishing shot.

SHOTS AND PANNING Similar to the use of angles to create the illusion of subjective visual experience is the “pan.” The pan simulates the motion whereby we, as individuals, sweep our eyes across a given visual field, from one point to another, in the meantime “taking in” what is in between. The pan is rarely effective in simulating real vision, and therefore used only rarely. The reason we use a shot/reverse shot to simulate conversation is that, in real life, we often visually “lose” perception of what is in between two points, because our eyes are darting from one person’s face to another in conversation. Reaction pan: A single shot where the camera sweeps

from a scene (e.g.: a battlefield) to a character’s face to show a reaction (e.g.: horror), without a cut.

Unlike the reaction shot, the reaction pan does not seem realistic. It calls attention to itself, and throws the viewer out of diegesis, usually making the viewer aware that she or he is watching a film. However, in the process, such a pan also emphasizes the reaction as completely subjective on the part of the character, which may be important to the storyline or development.

Search pan: Either subjective or objective, this pan simulates the perceptual act of searching for something within a visual field. In this way, the camera, from a fixed position, scans the surrounding area.

Whip/zip/swishpan: This is a pan that mimics the eye rapidly

sweeping from point A to point B, across that area so quickly that the intervening visual input is blurred.

Finally, one of the shots not yet mentioned is the library or archive shot. This is a “canned” shot that saves the filmmaker the trouble of shooting at all—a shot can simply be retrieved from archive and cut into the final film. Personally, I certainly remember that in the old Tarzan TV series, Tarzan always fought the same crocodile—episode, after episode, after episode. FOCUS

Obviously, the shots and pans listed so far serve to simulate the individual experience of vision. Yet we do not just look at things in the world. We also choose on what we will focus and how closely, and this is probably the most externally controlled experience of watching film—at what the filmmaker chooses to have us look out of a wide range of options in a visual field. Focus can bring out a single face from a crowd, a peripheral object, and generate the sensation of knowing (in subjective POV) at what a character is paying attention. How film influences that selection can be complicated, but focus is a common tool. Ultimately, it is the task of film to create the illusion of depth on a flat surface.

The viewer makes certain mental adjustments when seeing the image because he or she is accustomed to “visualizing” depth where there is none. This is achieved, in part, by a flat field that records successive elements of different sizes. Depth-of-field has a long history in film, in terms of technical

possibilities. However, for this overview, it is only important to note how much power it gives the filmmaker to influence to that which a viewer pays attention within a given frame, and what significance that element gains as a part of storytelling.

Think about a zoom-in and focus on a gun behind someone’s back. Now you know something about the situation that might be hidden from characters within the room. Any correspondence or gap between the viewer’s knowledge, and a character’s knowledge, is called dramatic irony. In a visual form, what we know is primarily controlled not by what we hear (dialogue), but by what we see.

EDITING

People often imagine that a film is shot, developed, and then put on the big screen. However, shooting a film does not make it a movie. Most films are not even

shot in the order that their narratives occur—the final scene may be shot early in the process, if such things as setting or weather, for example, are an issue..

Having exposed film stock is only the very beginning of the process of putting together a film. A film does not even begin to look like the final product until it has been edited, and editing involves, to a large degree, what is called cutting. In the simplest sense, and barring a discussion of emerging technologies, cutting is where the film stock is taken into a lab and each shot is cut and matched with other cut shots, and then the two pieces are spliced together into new combinations. There are basic things involved with visually editing a film. The filmmaking team must choose among shots and put them in an order that will make sense not only to the story that is told, but to the way it is told. There is a reason why understanding cutting is so important to understanding how to read a film. The most important thing one can undertand about film, for writing, is the following: Film simulates visual perception, but deviates radically from our everyday experience of seeing in its deliberate control of what is significant. In real life, all sorts of things happen that are not particularly significant. It may matter very little to us if a building that we pass is gray or green, or flowers in a vase are lillies or tulips. Because not everything is significant to us as we move through life, doing this or that, or has substantative meaning to which we must pay attention, we select input from our perceptual capacity in order to manufacture, for ourselves, a sense of continuity and sensibility. If we paid attention to everything, we’d be disabled by our lack of ability to choose those things to which we should pay attention.

Even the slightest impairment in the cognitive capacity to choose to what we pay attention—such as the impairment those with Attention Defecit Disorder experience—can make everyday life a real challenge. Being cognizant—paying attention to specific elements in one’s environment—is also how we generate mini-narratives or histories (I go to the store; I return) out of the mass of random sense perceptual information we receive on a daily basis. We don’t always notice the cracks in the sidewalk, and, if we were to do so, that still would not make them significant, unless we were to, for example, trip over one. Even our perception of time being marked into “days” and “nights” is the result of the way that we order reality in order to make things make sense. In film, this chaotic influx of random information must be very, very carefully controlled and severely limited. Think about it this way: Isn’t the “default” weather of most films a sunny day? Did you ever notice how much it rains in funerals at the movies? How many times in a film can you remember having seen someone drop their keys, or seen a child throwing a tantrum, or seen a car with a flat tire, or heard people have a fight in a restaurant, if it was not, in some way, of immediate importance to the narrative? Accidents, messes, incidental events, and everyday human mishaps don’t happen in film unless they’re meant to happen. They are only meant to happen if they convey vital information to the viewer—at the lowest level, unusual events generate setting and develop character. Film carefully chooses input because unfiltered input would confuse any given viewer, who has been trained to see all input as important to the unified message being transmitted. That’s why, unlike life, most everything in a film is significant.

Film has a limited amount of time to tell a story that may span decades, and the form demands a clear and carefully controlled visual experience for the viewer. As a result, film tends to be extremely economical with what it offers. This is often what cutting is designed to do—to choose the best means of communication, with no “noise” that will confuse the message. EDITING: CUTTING AND MONTAGE One of the most important elements of film, cutting involves the decision about how and where to connect individual shots. While we may think that film produces meaning through what is shows inside of a given shot, it actually constructs meaning in a far more active way through the way it combines shots. Let’s say we have shot A:

The man walks in the jungle. Then let’s say that shot A is cut with shot B:

The lion waits in the grass. By themselves, these shots have separate meanings—men walk in jungles, and lions wait in grasses. When cut and spliced together, however, the combination of the shots creates more meaning than each individual shot does by itself. It brings the two events into narrative relationship—and in this case, creates suspense. Does the man know the lion is there? Does the lion know the man is there? Will the lion attack? Will the man run? What’s going to happen next?. The combination of Shot A and Shot B creates a third thing that is the result of their combination. This is one of the most important means by which films make things happen, makes things make sense, and makes things meaningful to the viewer.

The act of cutting that creates a combination of individual shots so that they create a new meaning, through that combination, is called montage. Montage has three different meanings. In the United States, we often talk about montage as #3 below: a way to indicate the passage of time. However, it is much more than that. Montage (3 different meanings) 1. Montage: The effect whereby the combination of shots

appears to create a relationship that generates new meaning through that relationship.

2. An important theory within film. Sergei Eisenstein, for

example, believed that film created a dialectic through conflict: Shot A was the thesis. Shot B was the antithesis. Their combination was the synthesis. As a filmmaker, Eisenstein would do things like cut a shot of a crowd being gunned down with a shot of a cow being slaughtered, in order to create a connection for the viewer. He did not mean this symbolically, but rather as a specifically filmic way of making meaningful connections for a viewer.

3. The most common way in which people think about montage is as an editing technique that condenses time/space while conveying action in a brief period through a series of jump cuts, dissolves, and superimpositions.

For example, a montage may involve shots of a couple doing various activities in order to indicate a period of time in which they fall in love. The montage is also employed for dreams or hallucinatory states of mind, or to build a mood. This kind of montage is often called “American montage.”

There are a multitude of ways that montage is used to generate meaning. Which shot is put against which other shot—and how fast, and why, and when—is a huge part of what we experience as meaningful within a film. GENERAL VISUAL EDITING Cutting is most often designed to be as invisible as possible, and the best way to do that is to simply switch to a new perspective or angle without anything in between. This is called a direct or action cut and is the most common kind of transition between two shots. Action cutting produces the sensation of what is called continuity cutting. This method keeps the film moving in a straightforward, logical way, uses time and space coherently, and develops narrative in a linear manner that the viewer experiences as “natural.” Filmmakers also make a decision about either fast cutting or slow cutting. Slow cutting means that cuts occur with less frequency; fast cutting means we are given a rapid series of cuts. These produce different effects—they slow the action down, or speed it up. There are other ways to transition between cuts, however, than simply directly switching to a new shot. A transition between cuts is a stylistic choice. In addiiton, transitions between shots come in and out of fashion. For example, the “watery dissolve” that served, in the ‘70’s, as a transition that would indicate the memory of a character, now seems hackneyed. TRANSITIONS Transition focus: This kind of transition indicates a shift in

time period, often reaching back, or

projecting forward, quite a bit in time. To do so, the first shot is gradually blurred until it is not visually coherent, and then comes back into focus, but with important elements changed (children become adults, etc.).

Fade Transition: This transition also often serves to indicate

a shift in time or location, and involves the gradual fading of a scene to black, and then a return to a new scene in a different place or time, with a few seconds intervening between the two.

Form Dissolve: A bit difficult to describe, this transition involves the merging of two separate images with similar forms one into the other. A good example can be seen in Psycho, when the circular drain of the tub slowly becomes the lifeless eye of the character played by Janet Leigh.

Wipe Transition: A very disruptive transition for the viewer,

a wipe transition is one in which a scene is “wiped” from top to bottom, side to side, or even (in the case of the old Bond films), opens or closes like a film aperture.

A slightly less disruptive wipe transition is called a “natural wipe,” and is created by causing a character, or a moving object, (such as a train), to briefly block out a given scene. Upon the character or object passing, a new shot is already in place.

EFFECTS CUTTING Sometimes a film is cut, or a shot manipulated, in a way that does not appear at all real. This is done in order to create a certain effect, sometimes designed to re-create the subjective experience of a given character, and sometimes simply because it is easier to create meaningful effects in a less “realistic” manner. While much of film is supposed to create the illusion of the representation of real events, a surprising amount of what is shown on screen never really occurs within the “real” events of the film. Film is not the record of real life, but rather a continually shifting and restless act of simulating what it’s like to walk around as a human being. It is not just what someone would see—it could be what someone imagines, or remembers, as well. This is called dream mode. Subjectivity: The perspective of a given individual engaged in

perception and cognition—quite literally, what looks out from behind your eyes (or the eyes of another).

Objectivity: The description of perspective that is omniscient,

attributed to no single person or character, and that is not involved in the represented action.

Dream Mode: Action that occurs onscreen, but that is not a part

of the “real” events occurring. Rather, this action is understood to be originating from a character’s imagination, dream, or fantasy.

SHOT BREAKDOWN AMERICAN BEAUTY Dir. Sam Mendez 2000 We are going to watch this scene in class, so if you’ve never seen the film American Beauty before, don’t worry about it. The important thing to note about this breakdown is that it is possible to look at a single scene and break that scene down into shots that have been cut together. Review the shot breakdown in this section briefly. This breakdown shows every single shot and tracks the point of view of that shot. The description will indicate whether the particular shot is subjective (“SU”) or objective (“OB”). If it is subjective, it will indicate from which character’s perspective the shot originates. For example, the combination “SU Ricki” means that what we see on screen is supposed to represent a subjective viewpoint of what the character “Ricki,” in the film, sees. The combination “SU RICKI/CAMERA” would indicate the point of view of the character Ricki as he is depicted as looking into the viewfinder of a video camera. Therefore, it is a kind of “combination” viewpoint—both the video camera’s point of view (in this film, always represented in black and white), and Ricki’s subjective point of view (always represented in color). A shot breakdown can help you to see things you have not seen, before. It is important to remember that, no matter what point of view is represented, what is actually being shown onscreen is artificial: any given viewpoint is always only the viewpoint of the film camera. We are not really looking out of any other perspective, even if we have the sensation of doing so.

1. Name Film/Brief Summary This film is American Beauty, directed by Sam Mendez (2000). In this particular scene, “Jane,” a teenager, has a fight with her mother. Her mother strikes her, and then leaves the room. Jane moves to her window and looks across the yard, into her neighbor’s window. This window belongs to “Ricki,” her romantic interest. He is not only looking back at her; he is filming into her window. She takes off her top for him. Ricki’s father, Frank, enters the room and strikes Ricki. 2. Shot Breakdown (Unless indicated, all continuity cutting)

1. OB viewpoint sees Jane look in mirror after mother strikes her. She touches her face where she was struck, and then moves to window. Moves to OB Viewpoint sees Jane from outside room.

2. SU viewpoint Jane sees Ricki filming her, and also sees her image as filmed on Ricki’s monitor screen. Moves to SU Ricki/Camera viewpoint filming Jane.

3. to Objective SU viewpoint Ricki/Camera with shift focus/pan left becomes OB viewpoint looking at Jane. Shift from subjective to objective is indicated by moving from black and white (Ricki/video camera subjective view), into color (objective view).

4. SU viewpoint Ricki/Camera moves to OB Viewpoint shot of Ricki filming. Ricki looks up from the camera, but his viewpoint is not represented.

5. OB Viewpoint side angle of Jane looking out of the window.

6. OB Viewpoint into Jane’s window.

7. Repeat of Shot 2.

8. Repeat of Shot 5..

9. Repeat of Shot 2. Moves to SU Ricki/Camera when zooms in on Jane.

10. Repeat of Shot 2. Moves to SU Ricki/Camera

11. SU viewpoint Ricki/Camera. Whip Pan to Ricki’s Father.

12. OB viewpoint from inside the room when Frank strikes Ricki. This is the first two-shot (two people represented in a single shot who are not reflections or TV monitor projections).

13: and again A single event repeats successfully, from a different perspective. SU viewpoint Jane sees Frank strike Ricki on monitor screen.That is, Frank strikes Ricki once, but we see the strike twice: once from inside the room, and then again on the monitor, from Jane’s perspective.

14. SU viewpoint Jane looks into monitor, which reflects camera viewpoint, SU/OB? viewpoint Camera.

15. SU viewpoint CAMERA moves to OB viewpoint of monitor.

16. etc. OB Viewpoint within room, Ricki and father. Shot/reverse shot alternates during conversation. SU Viewpoint Ricki is represented without camera for the first time in the scene.

17. SU viewpoint Frank looks at Jane. SU viewpoint Jane sees father looking at her. OB viewpoint of Jane reaction shot.

18. SU viewpoint Father looks at Jane

19. etc. Repeat of shot 16, Shot/reverse shot.

20. SU Ricki and SU CAMERA. simultaneously represented. As father exits, camera’s point of view is vertical, Ricki’s horizontal.

21. OB Viewer viewpoint sees Ricki look in mirror. He touches his face where he was struck, reaction shot, which mirrors or “bookends” first shot of scene, when Jane looks in the mirror after being struck by her mother. 3. Summary of Shot Breakdown American Beauty

Total Objective: 12 shots Total Subjective: 18 shots

Jane: 11 times Father: 2 times (w/out shot/reverse-shot) Ricki: 3 times (w/out shot/reverse-shot) Camera alone: 2 times

Ricki/Camera: 8 times

4. Provisional Questions/Conclusions from Breakdown While Jane is the one being filmed, most subjective shots are from her point of view. This is significant because it is contradictory: Jane is the one being filmed. One would think most subjective shots would come from those viewing her. Why is that? One event in the scene is repeated twice. When Frank first strikes Ricki, we see it both from an objective point of view within Ricki’s room, and also from Jane’s perspective as she watches the TV monitor inside of Ricki’s room. Why is this repeated? While there can only be an objective or subjective viewpoint within a film, the video camera that Ricki holds also has a viewpoint. This seems paradoxical—a film camera’s representation of a video camera’s perspective. The video camera’s point of view not only represents what Ricki sees, but at one point he drops the camera. In that moment, point of view is located from the the video camera alone, and projected onto the screen in the room. So, is the video camera subjective or objective? In that moment, is the video camera itself a character (an individual viewpoint), or is it the ultimate break from the “reality effect” of the film?

GUIDELINES FOR ASSIGNMENT: Shot Breakdown Length: The best guide for this is the following:

-Don’t choose 2 minutes of film, or you’ll never get through it. Shots happen quickly—in a scene involving fast-cutting, you may cover 20 seconds of film, in your whole shot breakdown.

-Avoid a shot breakdown of a conversation between characters. In a conversation scene, the means by which information is transmitted is primarily through the dialogue, and not necessarily through visual means. A shot breakdown might not necessarily be very helpful, as it will most likely be composed of a monotonous list of shot/reverse-shots.

Format: List of Shots. Not Graded: Credit Assignment: Perform a shot breakdown of a scene within any film. Don’t worry about creating graphics if you don’t want, though it can help you to see the shots. FOLLOW THESE 4 STEPS: 1. Start by naming the film, director, year, and give a very brief

summary of “what happens” in the scene. 2. In the Shot Breakdown:

Indicate whether the shot is objective or subjective POV. If it is subjective, indicate from whose viewpoint it originates. Also note any dream mode (always subjective POV). Indicate any formalist elements from the reading that you observe, using the terms that refer to them, as listed here:

        Concerning  Characters             Cowboy  Shot/Knee  Shot             Full  Shot             Head  Shot             Shot/Reverse  Shot             Direction-­‐of-­‐Look  Shot           Concerning  Angle             Head-­‐On  Shot             Overhead  Shot             Crane  Shot           Concerning  the  Pan             Reaction  Pan             Search  Pan             Whip/Zip/Swishpan           Focus  or  Zoom             Focus/Blur             Zoom-­‐in,  Zoom-­‐out           Transitions             Continuity  Cutting             Transition  Focus             Fade  Transition             Form  Dissolve             Wipe  Transition   Note anything unusual or significant as a result of cutting/editing and underline it. 3. Give a summary of Shot Breakdown 4. Draw provisional questions/conclusions from your

breakdown.

Section  6:  NARRATIVE    

General  Information:    In  many  ways,  narrative  films  (and  primarily  those  in  the  Hollywood  tradition)  follow  the  same  rules  that  govern  much  more  traditional  narratives:  in  fact,  they  resemble  nothing  so  much  as  folktales  in  the  rigid  way  they  are  constructed.    They  are  marked  specifically  by  their  formulaic  quality—the  viewer  may  enjoy  a  surprise,  but  he  or  she  does  not  want  his  or  her  primary  expectations  regarding  the  ending,  or  whether  the  guy  gets  the  girl,  disappointed.    Traditional  narratives  were  often  orally  transmitted  (through  memorized  speech,  instead  of  writing),  and  there  is  a  strange  way  in  which  formulaic  films  follow  this  oral  tradition  a  lot  more  closely  than  the  age  of  literacy  that  intervenes  between  them.    This  basic  structure  of  Situation/Major  Conflict/Climax/Resolution,  which  I  will  call  S-­‐Co-­‐Cl-­‐R,  is  a  convention:  something  that  has  developed  over  time  and  that  we  all  recognize  as  the  “normal”  way  to  go  about  telling  a  story.    This  basic  structure  is  large  part  of  the  pleasure  (anticipation,  repetition,  satisfaction  of  expectation)  of  both  listening  to  folktales  and  watching  film.        Certain  smaller  structures  make  up  the  larger  S-­‐Co-­‐Cl-­‐R  structure.    The  total  film,  or  S-­‐Co-­‐Cl-­‐R,  is  composed  of  sequences;  sequences  are  composed  of  scenes;  scenes  are  composed  of  shots.    To  begin  the  narrative,  an  establishing  shot  offers  the  initial  situation.      Establishing  Shot:    

At  the  beginning  of  a  film,  a  typically  wide  shot  gradually  focuses  in  to  give  us  

  the  initial  situation,  with  all  the  basic  information  we  need  to  know:  location,  main  character,  etc.  The  “hook”  will  usually  show  up  in  three  major  forms.    In  more  modern  films,  the  establishing  shot  is  sometimes  deferred  for  a  brief  period,  but  rarely  for  very  long.    

Scene:     A  unified  action  within  the  film’s  plot  that  normally  takes  place  in  a  single  location  and  in  a  single  period  of  time.    Imagine,  for  example,  a  “love  scene.”    Sometimes  a  scene  may  take  place  in  more  than  one  location  (e.g.:  chase  scene),  and  scenes  are  almost  always  composed  of  more  than  one  shot.  

Sequence:     A  series  of  related  shots  and  scenes  that  form  a  single,  coherent  unit  of  dramatic  action.    This  is  often  compared  to  a  chapter  in  a  book.      

The  S-­‐Co-­‐Cl-­‐R  structure  is  so  important  in  film  that  a  film  often  repeats  that  structure  in  “mini-­‐form”  inside  of  the  film  itself.    Imagine  the  whole  film  as  a  S-­‐Co-­‐Cl-­‐R  structure  that  is  like  a  chain:  Situation,  Conflict/s,  Climax,  Resolution/s.        Now  imagine  that  that  single  larger  chain  is  composed  of  smaller  chains,  which  we  will  call  “s-­‐co-­‐cl-­‐r.”    Each  smaller  chain  is  “linked”  together  through  a  relationship  of  cause  and  effect:  the  resolution  of  the  previous  chain  causes  the  situation  of  the  subsequent  chain.      If  we  mapped  it,  it  would  look  like  this:  (S)-­‐(Co/s)+  (s-­‐co-­‐cl-­‐r)+(s-­‐co-­‐cl-­‐r)+(  s-­‐co-­‐cl-­‐r)+(  s-­‐co-­‐cl-­‐r)+(  s-­‐co-­‐cl-­‐r)+  (Cl)+(R/s)  

 (…or…)  

(SITUATION-­‐CONFLICT)+(situation-­‐conflict-­‐climax-­‐resolution)+(situation-­‐conflict-­‐climax-­‐resolution)+(situation-­‐conflict-­‐climax  resolution)+CLIMAX+RESOLUTION/S.    Example:  Superman    Since  this  is  starting  to  look  like  Algebra,  let’s  look  briefly  at  a  familiar  film,  like  the  original  Superman.    If  we  looked  at  the  film  as  a  larger  S-­‐Co-­‐Cl-­‐R  structure,  it  would  look  like  this:    Situation  (S):     (Backstory)  a  baby  lands  on  Earth,  is  raised  

by  a  couple  in  Indiana,  and  grows  up  to  have  superhuman  powers.    As  an  adult,  this  child,  Clarke  Kent/Superman  [MAIN  CHARACTER]  moves  to  the  city  of  Metropolis  [LOCATION].  

Conflict/s:  (Co)   Major:  A  villain  threatens  the  people  of  Metropolis/Minor:  the  main  character’s  secret  identity  gets  in  the  way  of  romancing  Louis  Lane.  

Dramatic  Climax  (Cl):   Superman  fights  the  villain  in  a  final  battle.  Resolutions  (R)   Superman  defeats  the  villain  (major)  

/Superman  does  not  get  the  girl  (minor)    Inside  of  the  (S-­‐Co-­‐Cl-­‐R)  structure,  many  smaller  (s-­‐co-­‐cl-­‐r)  structures  may  occur.        For  example,  let’s  take  a  part  of  the  film:    

situation  (s1):     The  villain  has  launched  a  missile  aimed  at  Metropolis,  a  plane  is  falling  out  of  the  sky,  and  an  earthquake  is  occurring.    

conflict  (co1):   The  hero  must  act  heroically,  but  must  also  choose  between  stopping  the  missile,  saving  the  plane,  and  helping  people  in  the  earthquake.  

climax  (cl1):   The  hero  does  some  of  all  three.  resolution  (r1):   The  city  is  safe  from  the  missile,  but  (new  

conflict),  the  hero’s  love  interest  dies  in  the  earthquake.  

 This  resolution  acts  in  a  cause/effect  manner  to  create  the  next  conflict.    That  is,      r1  (love  interest’s  death)  causes:    

situation  (s2):   hero  discovers  that  love  interest  is  dead  conflict  (co2):   hero  must  decide  whether  or  not  to  save  

love  interest  by  turning  back  time,  which  is  forbidden  

climax  (cl2):   hero  is  ethically  tormented  in  the  act  of  turning  back  time  

resolution  (r2)   hero  saves  love  interest    And  so  it  goes:  as  a  result  of  saving  his  love  interest,  the  hero  subsequently  recognizes  his  true  responsibility,  which  causes  him  to  take  action  against  the  villain,  etc.    This  structure  is  predictable,  and  is  a  part  of  the  pleasure  of  viewing  film.    That  pleasure  is  based  on  the  fundamental  interest  that  drives  viewers:  anticipation  of  what  you  know  must  happen,  and  suspense  that  comes  from  not  knowing  how  it  is  going  to  happen.      Or,  as  D.  Roy  Vallis  once  put  it,  popular  film  is  about  “the  anticipate  done  well.”  

 Theorist  1:  Bordwell    In  classical  Hollywood  plots,  there  is  typically  a  double  causal  structure  with  TWO  plot  lines.    One  involves  heterosexual  romance;  the  other  involves  “another  area—work,  war,  mission,  a  quest,  other  personal  relationships”  (Bordwell  19).    Either  one  can  be  dominant  (major/minor  conflict).    As  Bordwell  also  notes,  these  two  storylines  will  each  possess  a  goal,  obstacles,  a  climax,  and  a  resolution.    They  are  distinct,  but  interdependent.    The  two  plots  often  coincide  in  the  climax  of  the  film.  Resolution  of  one  often  triggers  the  resolution  of  the  other.    Hollywood  narratives  tend  to  follow  this  structure,  in  varioations,  regardless  of  genre:  romances,  adventure  films,  etc:    

1. Establish  initial  situation  and  main  characters.  2. Introduce,  then  develop,  and  finally  intensify,  conflict  3. Climax  4. Resolution  of  conflict  5. Epilogue  that  celebrates  resolution  

 On  screen,  this  translates  into  the  following:    1.   Exposition:  that  part  of  the  work,  often  the  beginning,  

which  establishes,  for  the  audience,  the  general  situation  of  characters  and  the  premises  for  the  action.    Good  exposition  seems  to  be  a  part  of  the  story,  developing  the  plot  at  the  same  time  as  explaining  it.  

2.   Conflict:  a  struggle  between  two  forces  that  is  frequently  motivating  factor  in  action/plot.  May  arise:  between  

people,  between  person  and  group,  between  two  groups,  between  one  person  or  a  group  and  external  natural  forces,  between  conflicting  elements  in  an  individual  psyche.    

3.   Climax:  Greek,  meaning  “ladder”  refers  to  point  of  highest  plot  complication  when  action  ceases  to  rise  and  begins  to  resolve  itself  and  fall,  or  of  highest  dramatic  interest  for  the  viewer.    Both  occur  at  the  end  of  the  work,  but  not  necessarily  at  the  same  time.  

4.   Resolution:  Main  question  is  answered  (yes  or  no?)  in  regard  to  the  conflict  (yes  or  no?).  

5.   Epilogue:  Smaller  storylines  tidied,  and  celebration  of  resolution.  

 So,  this  is  the  plotline.    Inside  of  the  plotline,  Hollywood  formulaic  films  follow  rigid  rules.    Formulaic:  The  rules    

1. The  films  have  the  primary  function  of  telling  a  story  2. There  is  a  flow  of  action  with  a  clearly  developed  

pattern  and  a  cause-­‐and-­‐effect  chain  (because  the  jewel  is  stolen,  the  hero  goes  after  it;  because  the  hero  goes  after  it,  the  villain  attack  him;  because  the  villain  attacks  him,  the  hero  fights  back,  etc.)  

3. The  film-­‐maker  hides  the  work  of  film  production  (we  are  supposed  to  forget  we’re  watching  a  film).  

4. All  major  conflicts  are  resolved  5. Produces  pleasurable  fictions  6. Primarily  happy  endings  (and,  if  not,  they’re  

bittersweet—Gladiator)    

Formulaic:  the  Number  #1  Rule    However,  we’ve  missed  the  most  IMPORTANT  rule  of  all.    The  following  reigns  supreme:  We  must  identify  with  the  leading  protagonist/s,  sharing  its  experiences  and  see  the  situation  from  its  point  of  view.    This  means  that  Hollywood  narrative  follows  what  Bordwell  calls  the  “straight  corridor.”    This  means:  

1. the  protagonist/s  are  the  main  source  of  audience  identification  

2. the  protagonist/s  are  psychologically  defined  individuals  

3. the  protagonist  is  the  principle  causal  agent  for  the  plot  progression  

4. the  protagonist  has  clear  cut  problems  and  goals  5. the  protagonist  tries  to  resolve  a  conflict  6. the  ends  of  the  film  occurs  when  the  protagonist  

encounters  victory  or  defeat    

This  protagonist  may  be  one  of  the  following:  1. A  hero/ine:  someone  possessing  the  

qualities  of  a  hero  2. An  anti-­‐hero/ine:  someone  who  is  the  main  

point  of  audience  identification  but  who  may  possess  qualities  that  are  not  heroic—he  or  she  may  be  weak,  neurotic,  have  a  private  ethic,  have  been  immoral  in  the  past,  or  be  anti-­‐social.    That  doesn’t  mean  we  don’t  identify  with  them—think  gangsters.  

A  film  in  which  the  conflict  is  between  people  will  often  have  an  Antagonist:  a  character  in  opposition  to  the  hero,  frequently  a  villain,  who  often  compels  the  action  of  the  hero.    So,  there’s  your  bare  bones  Hollywood  film.    Most  of  the  stories  found  in  mainstream  film  are  familiar  and  predictable.    Merely  laid  out,  they  would  make  for  rather  boring  films.    In  response,  events  may  not  necessarily  be  put,  in  film,  into  chronological  order.    Films  often  jump  through  time,  or  manipulate  the  audience’s  knowledge  of  events  by  omitting  (and  then  returning)  to  important  events  of  an  earlier  time,  in  order  to  generate  suspense.        There  are  a  couple  of  terms  that  can  help  to  understand  how  story  and  plot  work  together,  and  also  how  they  can  also  be  separated,  in  order  to  generate  filmic  effects.    Theorist  2:  Tzvetan  Todorov    Todorov  was  a  narrative  theorist  who  looked  at  the  relationship  between  story  and  plot,  drawing  from  Schklosky’s  distinction  between  fabula  and  syuzet.  They  are  broken  down  in  the  following  ways:    The  Story  is  the  narrative  events  in  causal  chronological  sequence  in  the  order  in  which  they  occur  in  real  time.  In  Russian  Formalism,  Schklosky  called  this  fabula.    The  Plot  offers  the  events  of  the  story  in  a  way  that  may  disarrange  the  order,  but  presents  them  in  a  way  that  allows  the  

viewier/reader  to  understand  the  story.    In  Russian  Formalism,  Schlosky  called  this  syuzhet.    Plot  in  a  film  constructs  the  Story.    It  does  not  merely  fill  in  the  details,  but  also  establishes  relationships.    In  consuming  filmic  narrative,  we  are  aware  of  the  story,  but  we  get  it  primarily  through  plot:  time  is  a  jumbled  series  of  returns  and  juxtapositions  put  into  cause/effect  relationships  that  fill  in  gaps  and  anticipate  future  events.        To  further  clarify  the  difference  between  story  and  plot,  let’s  take  the  film  Pulp  Fiction  (1994).    Don’t  worry  if  you  haven’t  seen  the  film.      Story  (FABULA):    Following  are  the  events,  as  they  occur,  in  the  “story”  of  Pulp  Fiction.        (Backstory:  A  case  holding  undisclosed  contents  has  been  stolen  from  Marsellus,  a  crime  boss.    Vincent  and  Jules  work  for  Marsellus,  and  are  sent  to  an  apartment  to  retrieve  the  case  and  kill  the  thieves.    The  reason  that  Marsellus  knows  that  the  thieves  have  stolen  the  case  is  because  “Marvin,”  a  stooge  for  Marsellus,  has  ratted  on  his  fellow  thieves).    -­‐Vincent  and  Jules  go  to  the  apartment  to  retrieve  the  stolen  case,  shoot  the  thieves,  and  pick  up  Marvin  the  informant.  -­‐Jules  believes  he  has  has  a  revelation  from  God  caused  by  one  of  the  thieves  missing  him  in  the  shootout  -­‐As  a  result  of  his  vision,  Jules  decides  to  quit  crime.    While  Vincent  and  Jules  are  discussing  this  vision  in  the  car,  Victor  accidentally  shoots  Marvin.      

-­‐Vincent  and  Jules  go  to  a  drug  dealer’s  house,  and  Marsellus  arranges  for  a  “cleaner”  to  get  rid  of  the  body.  -­‐Vincent  and  Jules  get  hungry  and  stop  by  a  café  on  their  way  to  deliver  the  case  to  Marsellus  -­‐At  that  café,  a  robbery  takes  place.  -­‐Jules  saves  the  case.  -­‐When  Jules  and  Vincent  arrive  to  deliver  the  case,  Marsellus  is  bribing/threatening  a  boxer,  named  Butch,  to  throw  a  fight.    -­‐At  the  request  of  Marsellus,  Vincent  takes  Mia,  the  wife  of  Marsellus,  dancing.    -­‐Mia  overdoses  on  Vincent’s  heroine.      -­‐Vincent  takes  Mia  back  to  his  drug  dealer,  who  saves  her  life.  -­‐Against  orders  by  Marsellus,  Butch  wins  the  fight  -­‐Marsellus  sends  Vincent  to  Butch’s  apartment  to  kill  him  -­‐Butch  kills  Vincent  at  Butch’s  apartment.      -­‐Butch  accidently  runs  Marsellus  over  in  the  street,  and  Marsellus  pursues  him  on  foot  -­‐When  Butch  ducks  inside  of  a  shop,  both  Butch  and  Marsellus  are  taken  prisoner  by  rapists  -­‐Butch  saves  Marsellus  from  the  rapists.  -­‐Marsellus  lets  Butch  go.      Plot  (SYUZHET)  Following  are  the  events  in  the  “plot”  of  Pulp  Fiction:  the  sequence  in  which  events  are  presented  in  the  film.    -­‐A  robbery  takes  place  in  a  café  -­‐In  an  apartment,  Vincent  and  Jules  retrieve  a  stolen  case  and  take  Marvin  with  them    -­‐Marsellus  bribes/threatens  a  boxer,  Butch,  to  throw  a  fight  -­‐Vincent  and  Jules  deliver  the  case  safely  to  Marsellus  -­‐Vincent  entertains  Mia,  wife  of  Marsellus  

-­‐Mia  overdoses  on  Vincent’s  heroin  -­‐Vincent  takes  Mia  to  his  drug  dealer,  who  saves  her  life.  -­‐Butch  wins  the  fight  and  runs      -­‐Butch  returns  to  his  apartment  and  kills  Vincent    -­‐Marsellus  sees  Butch  on  the  street      -­‐Butch  saves  Marsellus  from  rapists  -­‐Marsellus  lets  Butch  go    -­‐Return  to  earlier  event:  Vincent  and  Jules  retrieve  the  stolen  case  -­‐Jules  believes  he  has  a  revelation  from  God  and  decides  to  quit  -­‐Vincent  accidentally  shoots  Marvin      -­‐Marsellus  arranges  for  a  “cleaner”  to  fix  the  mess  -­‐Return  to  earlier  scene:  Vincent  and  Jules  go  to  a  café  and  a  robbery  takes  place  -­‐Jules  saves  the  case  from  the  robbers    The  difference  between  story  and  plot  is  often  significant  within  a  film:  it  is  the  difference  between  the  story  told,  and  how  it  is  told.    The  sheer  predictability  of  certain  formulaic  films  generates  not  only  the  ability  of  films  to  be  identified  by  genres,  but  also  introduces  the  possibility  that  some  stories  just  get  repeated  over  and  over  and  over  again  within  plotlines.    In  these  plots,  regardless  of  individual  features  in  terms  of  chronology,  character,  setting,  such  narratives  repeat  old  stories.        For  example,  how  many  times  have  we  seen  the  Cinderella  story  in  films?    Not  just  “Disney  remakes,”  per  se,  but  the  “poor  (or  lower  class,  or  in  crappy  home  circumstances)  beautiful  (always)  girl  (young  woman,  really,  but  oh,  well)  gets  rescued  (or  picked  up,  or  helped  out  of  a  scrape)  by  rich  (or  powerful,  or  influential,  or  just  plain  charming)  handsome  (always)  prince  (or  rich  guy,  or  CEO,  or  

some  guy  with  economic/cultural  capital)”  thingy?    Think  Pretty  Woman.    Not  all  Hollywood  films  are  entirely  faithful  to  formulaic,  but  even  films  like  Pulp  Fiction  work  precisely  because  they  manipulate  a  form  to  which  we  have  become  accustomed.    Without  that  formula  to  provide  contrast,  the  film  would  not  have  worked  as  well.    Some  mainstream  films  do  fall  outside  of  these  boundaries,  and  rejecting  the  formulaic  may  happen  in  degrees—although  a  direct  intervention  may  cause  a  film  to  fail  miserably.    It  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  “topic”  of  the  film.    For  example,  the  film  Love,  Actually  (2003)  is  a  series  of  predictable,  rather  sappy  love  stories.    However,  the  structure  is  what  is  not  a  straight  corridor.  It  is  called  Episodic:  a  dramatic  structure  largely  made  up  of  loosely  related  episodes  with  multiple  main  characters  following  multiple  storylines,  instead  of  tight  dramatic  plot  that  unravels  a  single  main  storyline  that  follows  set  main  characters.      Narrative  Theorist  Vladamir  Propp  (different  than  Todorov)  identified  a  lot  of  functions  in  narrative.  For  example,  Russian  folktales  began  with  an  interdiction  (don’t  go  into  the  forest,  don’t  eat  the  apple,  don’t  go  into  that  part  of  the  castle,  etc.),  followed  immediately  by  the  breaking  of  the  interdiction.      Although  Propp  was  clear  that  his  list  pertained  specifically  to  Russian  folktales,  we  can  obviously  see  many  of  these  ideas  operating  in  modern  day  narratives.      In  turn,  Tzvetan  Todorov’s  distinction  between  Fabula  (plot)  and  Syuzhet  (story)  as  well  as  Axel  Olrik’s  Epic  Laws  of  oral  narrative  prove  surprisingly  well  suited  for  study  of,  for  example,  contemporary  film.  

 Theorist  3:  Axel  Olrik    Olrik  is  a  fascinating  theorist  in  regard  to  film.  His  epic  laws  of  narrative  translate  very  well  into  film  narratives.  Here  are  some  of    Olrik’s  Epic  Laws  just  pertaining  to  numbers:    1.  The  Law  of  Three  (three  tasks,  three  attempts,  three  objects,  three  wishes,  etc.)    2.  The  Law  of  Final  Stress:    

If  there  are  three  of  anything,  it  is  the  last  one  upon  which  emphasis  will  be  placed  (e.g.:  the  youngest  of  three  brothers,  the  last  of  three  attempts,  etc.)  

 3.  The  law  of  Two:    

When  two  characters  are  brought  into  contact,  they  will  be  in  contrast  (opposites,  such  as  good/evil,  rich/poor,  big/small)  even  when  they  are  like  twins  (two  characters  that  serve  the  same  function—think  the  two  evil  pirates  and  the  two  good  sailors  in  Pirates  of  the  Carribean.  One  is  fat,  one  skinny.  One  has  a  false  eye,  one  a  bad  tooth.  Or,  think  the  candlestick  and  clock  in  Beauty  and  the  Beast.)  

 Here  is  another  big  laws  he  finds:  

 The  Law  of  Epic  Unity:      The  single  event  disrupting  the  initial  stability  will  be  resolved,  and  a  situation  of  stability  restored.    Here’s  a  really  cool  one:    

Plot  constraint  on  the  narrative:  “Any  ability  of  a  character  or  a  thing  must  be  expressed  in  action;  otherwise  it  has  no  importance  for  the  narrative.”i  As  Olrik  says:  

 The  tale  about  the  little  duck  does  not  begin  by  saying  that  the  young  girl  was  ‘unhappy,  but  pretty  and  good.’    Such  an  accumulation  of  thoughts  is  avoided  in  the  narrative  world;  each  must  be  expressed  in  action,  and  these  actions  form  a  series  of  episodes  in  the  plot:  (1)  The  stepdaughter  is  sent  out  onto  the  heath  to  gather  heather,  and  she  is  given  only  ash-­‐cakes  to  take  with  her  as  food;  (2)  A  little  boy  with  a  red  cap  looks  up  from  the  knoll  of  the  heather;  she  greets  him  kindly  and  gives  him  some  of  her  ash-­‐cakes  to  take  with  him;  (3)  The  little  boy  presents  her  with  gifts:  pearls  fall  from  her  hair  as  she  combs  it,  and  a  piece  of  gold  springs  from  her  mouth  each  time  she  opens  it.  

 …and  the  list  goes  on.    Alternative  Cinema    Alternative  narratives  not  only  do  not  necessarily  follow  these  rules,  they  may  create  their  own  narrative  rules,  or  counter-­‐cinema.    Small  moments  of  counter-­‐cinema  often  show  up  briefly  mainstream  Hollywood  in  the  form  of  “stylized”  films  or  humorous  “breaks,”  but  a  serious  counter-­‐cinema  film  tends  to  fall  outside  of  it.    Transivity:  

Counter-­‐cinema:  narrative  subject  to  a  series  of  breaks.    Could  be  in  the  form  of  inserted  titles,  the  presence  of  

scenes  that  break  with  the  narrative  drive  or  style  of  the  film.      

Identification  versus  Estrangement  Counter-­‐cinema:  distanced  from  leading  characters,  as  in  an  anti-­‐hero.    Performers  may  step  out  of  character  to  address  us  directly.  

Transparency  versus  foregrounding:  In  counter-­‐cinema,  the  film-­‐maker  may  draw  attention  to  the  processes  involved  by,  for  instance,  talking  to  the  camera  operator  and  allowing  this  conversation  to  remain  on  the  soundtrack.  

Closure  versus  aperture  

In  counter-­‐cinema,  the  film  will  make  reference  to  a  world  outside  itself,  for  instance  by  referring  to  other  films  (A  Wookie  in  Star  Wars  doing  the  Tarzan  yell).  

Pleasure  versus  displeasure  In  counter-­‐cinema,  the  simple  “pleasurability”  gained  by  the  anticipation  of/successful  reception  of  a  predictable  structure  is  not,  obviously,  always  the  goal.    

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GUIDELINES  FOR  ASSIGNMENT:  SCREENING  REPORT  4  Groups  1,2,4,5    Description:  The  Film  Screening  Report  serves  to  focus  your  attention  on  a  specific  issue,  and  also  creates  preparation  for  discussion  within  a  classroom  setting.    A  Film  Screening  Report  is  a  short  write  that  organizes  and  summarizes  the  notes  that  you  take  for  a  given  film  screening.        The  success  of  the  write  will,  in  part,  depend  on  the  quality  of  notes  that  you  take  and  the  level  to  which  you  are  able  to  pay  attention.        In  the  Screening  Report,  you  perform  an  objective  analysis  of  a  certain  selected  aspect  of  the  film  based  upon  concrete,  specific  evidence  drawn  from  details  within  the  film.        You  may  go  so  far  as  to  speculate  upon  the  unique  nature  or  function  of  that  aspect  in  relationship  to  the  film,  or  begin  to  read  the  film  in  light  of  that  aspect.    You  may  concentrate  on  the  film  as  a  whole,  or  look  carefully  at  one  particular  scene.        Length:  OVER  2  pages,  typed  and  double-­‐spaced.    Film  Screening  Report  3:  Narrative    Respond,  in  relationship  to  the  film  that  your  group  viewed,  to  the  narrative  elements  of  the  film,  drawing  from  the  laws  set  out  by  one  of  the  three  theorists  in  the  reading  above:    1.   Bordwell  2.   Todorov  3.   Olrik    Use  specifics  from  the  film  to  support.  In  screening  your  film,  pay  attention  to  narrative  aspects  of  the  film:  those  elements  that  are  predictable,  where  they  are  unpredictable,  and  why.    Pay  special  attention  to  elements  of  narrative:  character  type,  repetitions  of  two’s  or  three’s,  play  upon  expectations,  anticipation,  climax,  anti-­‐climax,  hero,  villain,  etc.