Introduction to World Cinema Summary PDF

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Introduction to World Cinema Summary...

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Introduction: Course Overview and the Question of Film Form The exams will be short, essay-style answers to 2 types of questions: ● Define a term/concept or briefly describe the contribution of a person or a technical device to the history of cinema (e.g. “Define the term ‘analytical editing’ and discuss the various techniques associated with it;” “who was Thomas Edison and what devices did he invent for exhibiting motion pictures?”). ○ 6 minutes to write; will be worth about 10 points out of 100. ○ How to go about answering: (e.g. second question) “Thomas Edison is an important American inventor and is responsible for developing the early devices for exhibiting motion pictures. The first is a kinetoscope, which is a device where a viewer would look through a small peephole to view the image. The second is the vitascope, which was a more conventional form of projector. Edison was pushed to invent this second item by the Lumière brothers in Europe, among others, and their film-related inventions.” ● Discuss an aspect (or aspects) of one (or perhaps several) of the films we have screened in class. Will be a more essay-style question. (e.g. “How and in what ways can John Ford’s film Stagecoach be considered an example of Classical Hollywood cinema? Citing specific examples, discuss the narrative system and the stylistic system of the film;” “what were the objectives of the directors associated with the French New Wave and how are these objectives realized in Agnès Varda’s film Cléo de 5 à 7? Discuss specific examples.”). The first and second exams will usually consist of 3 questions: 1 of the first type and 2 of the second. They will last for approximately 40 minutes. There will be class after the exams. The final exam will usually consist of 3-4 questions of the second type and will last for approximately 60-70 minutes. Exam questions will be provided on a single sheet of paper; all answers are to be written in blue books. Evaluation of answers will be based on two things: ● Ability to convey the correct information. ● The cogency (ie. clarity) of your writing.

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The Question of Film Form (An introduction to the Study of Film) The discipline of film studies settled in American schools in the 1960s. It was most likely offered through the English department, considered literary, as much of film is narrative; however, now Film Studies is taught in literature, comparative studies, women’s studies, departments of French & Italian, history of art, and more. Cinema, film studies, is taught differently in each different discipline. The objective of this course is to introduce us to world cinema from the late 1800s to the mid-late 20th century. It is impossible to cover everything in a 14-week course. Goals: learn the history (historical context)--“who, what, when, where, and why?”; learn how to recognize and describe the basic features of a given film (FILM FORM) FILM FORM ○ story/narrative = literary techniques (narrative system) ○ visual style = cinematic techniques (stylistic system). Become familiar with the story of each film & become familiar with how that story (basic content) is structured, how it is turned into a narrative (through its literary and cinematic techniques). NARRATOLOGY: how it is formed. Focus should be on the specific cinematic techniques a director has used to make his/her story compelling in a visual way (e.g. “how is the director shooting his/her scenes--stationary or moving camera?;” “how does the director’s display shape our view/perception of the narrative?”). In Narrative (Fiction) Films, literary and cinematic techniques work together like two faces’ interaction with a vase (this is a reference to the optical illusion, ya know). Different types of film: ○ Narrative (Fiction) Film--tells a story, almost always fictional in nature. We will be viewing films in this category from the U.S., France, the Soviet Union, Germany, Japan, and Italy. We are probably most familiar with this type as it counts for the majority of mainstream (Hollywood) cinema, SO we will be omitting the other types of film in this class. However, these other types of film are… ○ Documentary Film--documents, records, certain states of affairs in the real world; events or recollections of events that have happened [e.g. Blackfish, Grizzly Man, Hornet’s Nest, films by Michael Moore]. ○ Experimental/Avant-garde Film--more of an art piece than a traditional movie, rather than presenting a story, its purpose is to challenge the perception of its viewers by modifying the way something is presented [e.g. The Holy Mountain, Salvador Dalí & Walt Disney’s film Destino, and Andy Warhol’s 1960s films like Empire (simply 8 hours of the Empire State building)].

Nineteenth Century Antecedents and the “Myth of Total Cinema” (1830-1893) The Origins of Cinema: 1830-1910 Magic Lanterns, Motion Toys, and recording motion with still photography --how cinema developed gradually Readings: 1-9; 10-40; 41-67...received Handout #1 (acts as a “map” for the material in our class references; also acts as a synopsis--a study guide. Will cover the next three classes/sessions.)

❖ Magic Lanterns ➢ The idea of entertaining people with images projected goes back centuries. ➢ 19th century “Magic Lantern Show”--where photos were projected on walls. ➢ Different discs (of images) placed behind the lens; light projected the image onto the wall. ➢ Images were not photographs--they were hand-drawn or painted.

❖ Motion Toys ➢ Artists & inventors still not skilled enough to produce moving pictures, so they decided to produce small objects of scene. ➢ Thaumatrope ■ Greek: “magical turning” ■ Around 1825 ■ Had one disc with an image on both sides of the disk. The image would move by the turning of fingers. The image created can be called a virtual creation.

➢ Phenakistoscope ■ Greek: “deceitbuil view” ■ Created by Joseph Plateau. ■ Must hold up to a mirror & spin in order to view the moving image(s). ■ This picture is ca. 1833:

❖ Persistence of Vision ➢ 19th century theory on how the human eye can connect with the mind.

➢ No longer valid in explaining how the eye and the brain work together in analyzing movement. ➢ Same idea as a flipbook. ❖ Zoetrope (“live turning”) ➢ George Foreigner invented this in the early-mid 19th century (1830s or so). ➢ It is a type of phenakistoscope. ➢ Perhaps it is the most common of these devices, because it was produced in greater quantities. ➢ Bowl-like device (or cylinder) that is placed on a pedestal. ➢ You give the bowl a spin, and the images form a continuous “image.” ➢ Like the Magic Lantern, these images are not photographically created. Most often drawn or hand-painted. ➢ A more self-contained device, can use it on its own. ➢ Called the “Wheel of Life” in advertisement from an optician--saying this device can display the persistence of vision theory.

❖ Technological Continuity and Innovation (or change)--the relationship between the phenakistoscope and the zoetrope. You can also see both continuity & change between the zoetrope and the praxinoscope. ➢ Praxinoscope ■ Like the zoetrope, you spin it, but instead of looking through slits, you look at the mirrored cylinder in the center of the bowl. ■ Improved: does not constrain your view--you can stand far away without aligning yourself (like you would with a zoetrope), and you will still see the image(s). ■ You could wind it up with a crank and let it go--auditing the process. ■ Also appears that there is a lamp (with a candle) above the middle cylinder, which would provide its own light source. ■ More user-friendly, more sophisticated. ❖ It seems as though for the content of his first videos, Thomas Edison looked to these motion toys for inspiration--gymnasts tumbling, athletes boxing, people dancing, etc..

❖ Recording Motion with Still Photography ➢ These motion toys are devices to artificially recreate the illusion of motion: the premise of motion picture technology--cinema!

➢ Previously, images used were printed, drawn, or painted. Now, photography comes into play. ➢ Photography invented in 1839, so it is no surprise that it would be incorporated into film. ➢ Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904) ■ Pioneered the usage of still photography in capturing motion. ■ Was first done at Stanford. ■ He wanted to know if a galloping horse had all four legs off the ground at one time--something the human eye couldn’t detect. 1886. ● He was commissioned to research this by placing a series of 12 still cameras (at equal intervals) along a straight section of racetrack. ● When the horse galloped, his legs tripped strings/cords that were connected to the cameras. ● What resulted was a series of still images that captured the horse’s gallop--similar set of images to a zoetrope! ● The answer to Stanford’s question was YES. ■ Muybridge then brought human subjects into his studio to perform routine motions in front of a camera. He believed this would be a useful tool in understanding human physiology. ■ His image “strips” resemble film! ➢ Étienne-Jules Marey (1830-1904) ■ French animal physiologist ■ He invented a single camera that could record a series of an object in motion. ■ His first device was the Photographic Gun (1880ish). ● He wanted to understand the mechanics of bird flight. ● The barrel of the gun is the lens; behind the barrel is a chamber that features disc placed behind it; and of course the trigger releases the shutter mechanism, which caused the disc to follow the bird in flight. ● Improvement over Muybridge--now uses just one camera! ● After this, photographic technology and war technology have a relationship. ● The resulting image disc looks similar to the phenakistoscope (continuity & innovation). ■ Wanted to perfect his invention; soon created the Chronophotographic Camera (1882ish)

● This camera produced single images that, through multiple exposures, showed motion. ● So, Marey created a single camera and now a single photograph (showing the object’s phases in motion), improving upon Muybridge. ➢ George Eastman ■ Replaced standard glass plates of photography with film (a celluloid paper coated with a gelatine emulsion that would receive light). Therefore, as a flexible film, it could then be fed through a camera on a sprocket mechanism. ■ He invented the Kodak camera! ❖ André Bazin & The “Myth of Total Cinema” ➢ French film critic. ➢ He believed that magic lanterns, motion toys, and still photography played an important role in film, but that we should refer to them in a kind of nuanced way. ➢ In a 1950s essay he wrote, he suggests that cinema’s origins are actually to be sought in a wider expanse of history, beyond the 19th century, going back to the very beginnings of human civilization. He believed the origins of film exist in an age-old human desire to capture, recreate, and preserve the spectacle of life forever--exists in the arts of painting and sculpture, ancient Egyptian death masks (like King Tut’s, which aims to immortalized the passed being). ➢ He believed film (and the desire to preserve the spectacle of life) would eventually be replaced in a better and more efficient way than cinema. ➢ We will, as a human race, never be able to satisfy our desire to capture reality through technology. He believes it will be outmoded by its successors. ➢ The idea of a way to create a perfect recreation, a compelling illusion of life/reality is only a myth--he calls this the “Myth of Total Cinema.” It means we will only continue to search.

The Origins of Cinema: 1830-1910 (Handout 1) The Components of Film Form: Developing a Cinematic Vocabulary 1. Nineteenth Century Antecedents (1830-1893) Refreshing memory: Motion toys represent the ambition of cinema, though not necessarily the origins of it.

2. Primitive Cinema (1893-1910) Cinema/the media is not used to tell a story, it is not narrative. Edison & the Lumière Brothers restricted their scenes to everyday life, offering their viewers “a cinema of attractions.” Their viewers were familiar with these subjects, as they were chosen specifically because these subjects could best represent the capacity of reality. The films were shown in viewing parlors, vaudeville theaters, and “amusement park” areas: movies were not given their own place for viewing until later (called the nickelodeons), starting with Méliès and Porter. ❖ Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) ➢ An important figure in the development of the incandescent light bulb. ➢ Was also important in the development of the phonograph, the antecedent of the record player. ■ His success in this propelled him towards the search for a means to record movement. ■ With his financial resources and assistants, he developed the Kinetograph in his West Orange, New Jersey lab. ● It is a movie camera. ◆ He didn’t really invent it, since its rudiments had been invented before. ● Kinesis: Greek for movement; graph: writing ■ Movie studio called the “Black Maria” ● Where Edison shot his first movies with his Kinetograph. ● Called this because New Jersey police had wagons that they used to gather up people who were breaking the law--these wagons were called black marias, and this building was reminiscent of these wagons. ● It seems to be sitting on a narrow or thin platform that surrounds the building in its entirety. ◆ Similar to a “lazy Susan,” which held spices and could spin. ◆ This platform could rotate, which was important to Edison because there was an opening at the top of the building for an aperture, and he could move the building to follow the movement of the sun in the sky = always a source of illumination for the studio. ■ Staged routines by circus and vaudeville performers, such as Sandow (1894), where he went into the Black Maria and went through a series of poses for the camera.

➢ Edison has a camera, a studio, and a means of presenting his films: the Kinetoscope. ■ 3½ - 4 feet tall; a “single user” device--a personal, private experience. ● Why a personal experience? ◆ Edison was predisposed to this because there was a business aspect--had to purchase many kinetoscopes for people to watch, rather than one device for all. ◆ Motion toys were all single-user toys, which had to have been in the back of Edison’s mind. ◆ Late 19th century, America and Europe were very literate societies. The main source of entertainment was through books, which were single-user devices. ■ You would look through the “peephole” at the top of it in order to watch the film, which would run through the inside of the cabinet. ■ In the mid-late 1890s, Edison’s Kinetoscopes were purchased by exhibitors around the country who owned viewing parlors. They charged customers to attend “kinetoscope viewing parties.” ■ Edison had an arrangement: if you bought his kinetoscopes, you could only show his movies. ■ What’s peculiar about this is that (at the time) Edison didn’t realize he could project his movies for a group of people sitting in the dark. ➢ His cinema of attractions: interested in “spectacle entertainments” (as in the circus and vaudeville performers). ❖ Lumière Brothers (Auguste and Louis: 1862-1954 and 1864-1948) ➢ These brothers were Edison’s French competitors. ➢ They created their own movie camera, called the Cinématographe. ■ This device was a camera, a printer, AND a projector. ➢ They held the first public film viewing. ➢ They documented everyday events, such as Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (1895). ➢ Their cinema of attractions: interested in capturing everyday life. ❖ Not to be outdone, Edison developed (though did not invent) the Vitascope, his projector, in relation to the Lumière Brothers’ cinématographe. ➢ It was advertised as “Edison’s greatest marvel.” ➢ Colorful--color photography had not yet been developed, so how? ■ Artists would paint each frame through a process called tinting.

❖ Georges Méliès (1861-1938) and Edwin S. Porter (1870-1941) ➢ Introduced techniques that would define style. ➢ Allowed this medium to become a medium that would tell stories-presented Narrative Cinema.

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Méliès: A Trip to the Moon (1902); Porter: The Great Train Robbery (1903)

3. Components of Film Form: Developing a Cinematic Vocabulary

Film Form: ❖ Story/Narrative = literary techniques = Narrative System ❖ Visual style = cinematic techniques = Stylistic System ➢ In any narrative film, these two components work together in harmony. For our purposes, we will split them apart in our analysis. ➢ The Narrative System ■ All narrative films have stories to tell, which are usually structured in a definite way, the context of action. ■ The story, overall dramatic context, and the plot. Also need characters. ● The plot presents us with a set of raw materials that will eventually be organized/configured in a certain way--these materials can be called story elements. ■ “The Complete History of Toast”: ● We do not see the context, the overall dramatic setting. ● Our story elements are the toaster, the actual toast, etc. ● Our story elements are configured chronologically (arranged in a sequence that has a definite temporal structure, which usually consists of events that move forward in time, following each other logically by specific cause-effect relations). ◆ The first panel shows the “cause,” where the bread is placed in the toaster. ◆ The second panel displays the “effect,” as the bread is being toasted. ◆ The last panel shows the final “effect,” where the resulting product is a slice of toast. ■ Aristotle, a Greek philosopher, laid down plot structure, which would lead into chronological configurations. He said that this resulted in the overall indication of an action: narrative! ● Also said the most satisfying stories have three parts... ■ Freytag’s Triangle ● A “dramatic arch.” ● Our plot is divided into three parts. ◆ A beginning (desis) ➢ “Rising Action”: events rise toward a resolution due to conflict. ◆ A middle (peripeteia) ➢ The resolution, the “climax.” ➢ Events continue to move forward in time but decrease in action, usually as a result of resolution.

◆ An end (denouement) ➢ The true solution. ● This is the most traditional organization of plot. Most directors aspire to this, though some depart from it (which happens more in post-war cinema). ■ Characters are important--they are the reason the action happens in the first place. ● In a lot of post-war (post-WWII) fiction, characters are played down. ● In “Toast” example, the characters are the toaster and the bread. ➢ The Stylistic System ■ Initially, we must think about three things: ● A shot ◆ The most basic unit in the visual/stylistic system of a film. ◆ Can you have a film without a shot?--a conundrum question, but probably not. ◆ It is defined by everything that is recorded by a single, uninterrupted run of the camera. A continuously exposed, unedited piece of film (of any length). ◆ Frame and composition: how the shot is contained (by the frame). ➢ The frame shows a fragment of reality, of the plot. ➢ The frame is characterized by how objects are distributed in and across space, AKA Composition. ➢ Some directors take great care composing their elements within the frame. It is not random, there is a structure. ■ For example, this Japanese director (Ozu)’s shot. ● The vertical lines (lighthouse, pole to the right) are counterbalanced by a series of horizontal objects (fishing poles, the pier, and ultimately the horizon). ■ For example, Stanley Kubrick’s Berry Lindon, based on a novel, the shot of a duel. ● The drama isn’t in the foreground as you would expect--it is in the middle ground. Nonetheless, Kubrick has directed our attention to it in a very interesting way: the mountains in the background coincide with the top of

the heads of four/five of the characters. He further frames the events with the stone wall in the foreground and surrounding trees, pulling our focus toward the center. ➢ The frame has been compared to the proscenium arch. ■ Both contain objects, but there is a precise difference between the two. ● ●

Editing Mise en scène

Primitive Cinema--U.S. and France (1893-1910) a) Shot (see 1/18 for more) i. Frame and composition ii. Angle ii...