Film Studies- An Introduction Read online

  examines the problematic area of film genres. Genre study is both internal and external: it is internal to the extent that it attempts to identify the common intrinsic attributes of a group of films, and external to the extent that it attempts to relate a film to its historical and social context, arguing that genre films manifest the basic anxieties and values of a society. This xiv

  chapter examines the following genres: the melodrama (and analyses films such as Josef von Sternberg’s Blonde Venus and John Stahl’s Only Yesterday), the film noir (in particular the neo- films noirs of John Dahl), and the 1950s science fiction film (such as Gordon Douglas’s Them! and Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers). Chapter 5 looks at the way documentary film-makers organize and structure reality. Prominence is given to the five types of documentary format: expository (in films such as Alberto Cavalcanti’s Coalface), observational (Frederick Wiseman’s High School), interactive (Michael Moore’s Roger and Me and Bowling for Columbine), reflexive (Dziga Vertov’s Man With a Movie Camera) and performative (Errol Morris’s The Thin Blue Line). Finally, in Chapter 6, the activity of film reviewing comes under scrutiny. Here I expose the conventions film reviewers adopt in writing about and evaluating films.

  As examples, reviews of Anthony Minghella’s The English Patient and Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar (2014) are closely examined.

  Following each chapter you will find a list of books that have been quoted in the chapter and recommendations

  for further reading (Dig deeper). This book is intended to function only as the first step on the long and enjoyable path called film studies.

  Digdeeper

  Corrigan, timothy, A Short Guide to Writing About Film, Fourth edition (New York: HarperCollins, 2000).

  A concise and practical guide for students on how to write about films, from taking notes during screenings, to the style and structure of essay writing.

  Hayward, Susan, Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts, third edition (london and New York: Routledge, 2006).

  more than a glossary, this invaluable reference book includes both shorter entries and mini essays on the industrial, technical and theoretical concepts that currently dominate film studies.

  Introduction xv

  Sharff, Stefan, The Elements of Cinema: Toward a Theory of Cinesthetic Impact (New York: Columbia university Press, 1982).

  A concise and informative study of cinematic structure through the close analysis of several significant film scenes.

  Wollen, Peter, Signs and Meaning in the Cinema, Second edition, (london: Secker and Warburg, 1972).

  this is a key book in the history of film studies. Wollen was the first author to present a sophisticated, theoretical exposition in english of Sergei eisenstein, film semiology and a structuralist version of auteur criticism.

  xvi

  1

  Film aesthetics:

  formalism and

  realism

  Inthischapteryouwilllearnabout:

  33 ten different approaches to studying film

  33 an examination of one of those approaches –

  namely, a study of film techniques, divided into:

  43 elements of mise-en-scène (including set

  design)

  43 elements of mise-en-shot (including the

  long take, deep focus and colour)

  43 rules of continuity editing

  43 film sound

  33 a theoretical study of film aesthetics, divided

  into:

  43 the realists (e.g. André Bazin, Siegfried

  Kracauer)

  43 the formalists (e.g. Rudolf Arnheim, Sergei

  Eisenstein), including the theory of montage.

  1

  … film had to legitimize its place in our culture. And the way that it initially set about getting itself taken seriously was to prove that it was an art – an art on a par with its seven predecessors.

  Noël Carroll, Philosophical Problems of Classical Film Theory, p. 4

  Once we have accepted the notion that studying the cinema isn’t an absurd idea, the question arises: How do we study the cinema? The cinema has been studied from a multitude of approaches. Following, and modifying, a list put together by Charles Altman, we can identify ten approaches to the cinema (the list is not exhaustive):

  1 A technological history which may emphasize pioneers, such as the Lumière brothers or Edison, and/or technological

  innovations such as the coming of sound, the development of colour, etc.

  2 A study of techniques: either historically, which asks questions such as: When was the first close-up used? or – as in this book – critically and analytically: What technical choices are available to film-makers?

  3 A study of personalities (studio moguls, stars, etc.).

  4 A study of the relation between film and other arts, usually theatre or the novel; this type of approach was one way in which university departments of English justified their study of film in the 1960s and early 1970s.

  5 A chronological history of classical or important films.

  Such histories canonized a small group of films (the most unusual, such as Citizen Kane, Orson Welles, 1941) and marginalized the majority of films from study (usually the typical or ordinary film).

  6 Film in relation to society. Film can be studied in relation to important social events such as the Second World War.

  7 A history of Hollywood studios (including economic histories).

  8 A study of directors (see Chapter 3).

  2

  9 A study of genres – either formally or as a social ritual (see Chapter 4).

  10 Regulation of the film industry by means of censorship and anti-trust (or monopoly) laws; censorship is briefly discussed in Chapter 4.

  This chapter focuses on point 2, a critical and analytical discussion of the technical choices available to film-makers.

  In the first part of this chapter, I shall examine three technical choices film-makers have to make. The first concerns set design, or mise-en-scène. The second concerns mise-en-shot – the way the mise-en-scène is filmed. Here we shall look at the long take, which is sometimes combined with deep focus photography.

  Finally, we shall look at editing and montage. In the second half of this chapter, we shall see how realist and formalist film scholars concentrated on these, and other, filmic techniques in their attempts to defend film as an art.

  As I pointed out in the introduction, my aim here is to

  enable you to go beyond the informal practice of merely

  verbalizing your personal impressions of a film. The starting point for rejecting this impressionistic talk about films is to study the basic components of the medium of film and

  the way these components are organized in a particular

  film. In Chapters 1, 2 and 3 we shall explore the stylistic and narrative dimensions of various cinemas – Hollywood

  studio films, independently produced American films and

  European cinema.

  The critical and analytical study of films therefore begins with the way a film is constructed. This emphasis on a film’s construction combines film practice and film aesthetics because it analyses the choices that are made when a film is constructed, and the effects these choices have on film spectators. The aim of the first section of this book is therefore to enable you to study in an exact and orderly fashion the basic choices available to film-makers, and the effect making a choice has on a film’s meaning and effect.

  1 Film aesthetics: formalism and realism

  3

  Mise-en-scène

  One of the most frequently used terms in film analysis is mise-en-scène, which literally translates as ‘putting on stage’, or ‘staging’. The term originates from the theatre, where it designates everything that appears on stage – set design, lighting and character movement. In film studies, mise-en-scène often has a vague meaning: it is either used in a very broad way to mean the filmed events together with the way
those events are filmed, or it is used in a narrower sense (closer to its original theatrical meaning), to designate the filmed events. In this book the term mise-en-scène will be used in its narrower sense to mean what appears in front of the camera – set design, lighting and character movement. Another term will be used to name the way the filmed events, mise-en-scène, are filmed – namely, mise-en-shot, which literally means ‘putting into shots’, or simply

  ‘shooting (a film)’.

  Set design

  If you read film credits, you may notice the category ‘Art Director’. Art directors are people who design or select the sets and decor of a film. Initially, their job was simply to create a background in which the action of the film was to unfold.

  In the heyday of the Hollywood studios (from the 1920s to the end of the 1950s), art directors built entire worlds inside movie studios. More recently, some art directors have become production designers, whose job is to co-ordinate the look of an entire film. They develop a visual concept around which sets, props, lighting and costumes are designed to work together.

  This is particularly important in contemporary science fiction films, in which the production designer creates a total concept and image of the future. The director Ridley Scott takes set design so seriously that he almost takes over the job of art director on some of his films (he trained as an art director).

  On his film Blade Runner (1982), for instance, he worked closely with the art department in conceiving and designing sets. Michael Deeley, the film’s producer, goes so far as to argue that the futuristic ambience and look of the film was essentially designed by Scott.

  4

  The production designer begins by making sketches and by building miniature sets in order to determine the best way to construct and film the actual sets. This is particularly important from a financial point of view because a film may need

  several – even dozens of – sets, all of which require an army of carpenters, prop buyers and so on, to construct and take down again. This is in opposition to the theatre, where only a few sets are constructed. Because of the expense, many film sets are only partly constructed. In other words, only those parts of the set that appear in the film need to be constructed.

  We shall now consider the stylistic options available to art directors/set designers and the choices that two Hollywood studios made in the 1930s. These choices strongly determined the look of the films; in fact, they determined the identity of the studio.

  Spotlight

  1939 is usually considered to be the most significant year in the Hollywood studio era. In that year, Hollywood produced a whole raft of films that have stood the test of time: Gone With the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Mr Smith Goes to Washington, Ninotchka, Only Angels Have Wings, Stagecoach, and many others.

  SetDeSIgnIn1930SWarnerBroS.fIlmS

  In the 1930s, Warner Bros. produced low-budget films, many of which had a contemporary theme since their stories were in large part inspired by newspaper stories. One of the themes that dominated American society in the 1930s was gangsterism, so it was little wonder that Warner Bros. made a number of gangster films, the most notable being Little Caesar (Mervyn Le Roy, 1932) and The Public Enemy (William Wellman, 1931). Due to Warner Bros.’ policy of low-budget films, little was spent on set design. Many Warner Bros. films of the 1930s have simple, bare sets – shabby, dank rooms and bare streets. This economic factor largely determined the visual style of Warner Bros. films in the 1930s. But like all artists, Warner Bros. film-makers made the most of this limitation and even used it to their own 1 Film aesthetics: formalism and realism

  5

  advantage. Directors were frequently forced to use medium shots (shots of the actors from waist to the top of the head) or close-ups (a shot of an actor’s head and shoulders) so that the actors would take up most of the frame. Low-key lighting (in which only part of the set is lit) was also used in order to partly conceal the cheapness of the set and its small size. Much of the set was shrouded in darkness. Further, Warner Bros. was one of the first studios to use fog generating machines, which also served to hide the set.

  Yet, these sets are consistent with the stories and the

  circumstances that the characters find themselves in. Many of the gangster films are about the impoverished backgrounds of the gangsters. The sets and lighting therefore add to the story’s meaning – they complement the story. Although the stylistic options available to Warner Bros. film-makers at this time were severely limited, they used this economic limitation to their own advantage.

  mgmSetDeSIgn

  In complete contrast to Warner Bros., MGM spent a great

  deal of money on sets and lighting. In fact, MGM had the biggest costume, property and art departments in Hollywood.

  MGM art directors created large elaborate sets, which were lit using full, high-key lighting, creating a very bright image with little or no shadows. In MGM colour films, the colours are usually saturated. MGM’s philosophy was to create clear, clean images. One problem was that the set occasionally

  dominated the action and the stars – think of the sets of two very famous MGM films, The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939) and Gone With the Wind (Fleming, 1939). The director Vincente Minnelli made musicals for MGM, including Meet Me in St Louis, which opens with a long, elaborate shot of the set of St Louis built on the MGM backlot. It seems imperative that, if the studio was to spend a great deal of money on the sets, then they should be lit properly and should be ‘shown off’ on screen, which frequently meant that the director used long shots (showing the whole actor in his or her

  surroundings) or very long shots (in which the actor appears small within the frame).

  6

  Mise-en-shot

  Above I made the distinction between mise-en-scène (staging) and mise-en-shot (shooting, or filming). Mise-en-scène (in the narrow definition adopted in this book) designates the filmed events – set design, lighting and the movement of the actors. In this sense, mise-en-scène refers to a stage of film production that exists prior to filming. In this narrow definition, we can clearly distinguish the filmed events from the way they are filmed. The process of filming, of translating mise-en-scène into film, is called mise-en-shot, a term invented by the Soviet film-maker Sergei Eisenstein.

  A major part of the art of film-making involves the interaction between the filmed events ( mise-en-scène) and the way they are filmed ( mise-en-shot). To make a successful film, film-makers need to establish a productive relation between mise-en-scène and mise-en-shot.

  The main parameters of mise-en-shot include:

  3

  3

  camera position

  3

  3

  camera movement

  3

  3

  shot scale

  3

  3

  the duration of the single shot

  3

  3

  the pace of editing.

  In the following pages we shall look at three options directors have in rendering a scene on film. The three options are: 3

  3

  using a long take

  3

  3

  using deep focus photography

  3

  3

  using continuity editing.

  thelongtake

  A long take is the name given to a shot of long duration. In itself, this definition is not very informative, because we have no background information with which to define ‘long duration’.

  Fortunately, the work of the film analyst Barry Salt can help us 1 Film aesthetics: formalism and realism

  7

  establish this background information. Salt has calculated the average length of shots in Hollywood films across the decades.

  The work he carried out is extensive and detailed, and the results reveal the most common shot lengths for each decade.

  For example, Salt has calculated that the most common shot length in 1940s Hollywood
films is 9 seconds. This means that, in a Hollywood film of the 1940s there is, on average, a change in shot every 9 seconds. What this average can define are the deviations from the norm, such as the long take. A long take refers to a shot that is significantly longer than the norm. Any shot in a Hollywood film of the 1940s that lasts significantly longer than 9 seconds (anything over 30 seconds) is therefore a long take.

  DeepfocuSphotography

  Deep focus photography keeps several planes of the shot

  in focus at the same time (foreground, middle-ground,

  background), allowing several actions to be filmed at the same time. This decreases the need for editing to present these actions in separate shots.

  The long take and deep focus photography are usually

  combined. Orson Welles was one of the most celebrated

  directors in 1940s Hollywood who consistently used the long take with deep focus photography. Several scenes in Welles’s films Citizen Kane (1941) and The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) were filmed using the long take with deep focus. The long take plus deep focus is therefore one of the stylistic choices made by Welles.

  Why did Welles make this stylistic choice? We can approach this question by considering the most celebrated long takes in Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons. Eighteen minutes into Citizen Kane, we get the famous Colorado sequence, a flashback to 1871 when Kane was a young child. His parents come into a huge fortune, so they decide to have their son brought up by Mr Thatcher. Welles films the moment Mrs Kane signs the adoption papers in a 90-second long take combined with deep focus – as well as other technical choices, including camera movement and a low camera angle (we can tell that the camera is low because it reveals the ceiling). The camera begins 8

  outside with Kane playing in the snow. The camera soon begins to track backwards through a window into the Kane family home. As it continues to move backwards, Mrs Kane is revealed on the left side of the screen (she comes into view at the precise moment she begins to talk). The camera continues to track back, revealing Mr Thatcher on the right of the screen (he too enters the frame at the same time he begins to talk). The camera reveals Mr Kane screen left as it continues to track backwards.