Film Aesthetics: Formalism and Realism

A Single Man by Tom Ford

Is film an Art Form? Why or Why not?

Shutter Island by Martin Scorsese

How do we study the cinema?

The Wizard of Oz by Victor Fleming

Write a 4-6 sentence response to the questions.

You have 5 minutes

Ten Approaches (Study of..)

• Technological history

• Techniques

• Personalities (Studio Moguls, stars, etc.)

• Relation between film and other arts

• Classical and important films

• Film relation to society

• History of Hollywood studios

• Directors

• Genres

• Regulation of the film industry by means of censorship and anti-trust (or monopoly) law.

Critical and Analytical Discussion of Technical Choices

• Three technical choices film makers have to make:1. Set Design (mise-en-scene) 2. Mise-en-shot (the way the mise-en-

scene is filmed)3. Editing and Montage

These are aspects of film that film scholars focus on in an attempt to defend film as art.

Film Techniques

“My aim here is to enable you to go beyond the informal practice of merely verbalizing your personal impressions of a film.”

–Warren Buckland

• The only way to reject 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.

• The critical and analytical study of films therefore begins with the way the film is constructed.

• Emphasis on a film’s construction combines film practice and film aesthetics…

…because it analyzes the choices that are made when a film is constructed, and the

effects these choices have on film spectators.

Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock

Mise-en-Scene

Most frequently used term in film analysis.

Translates as putting on stage or staging

Designates everything that appears on stage- set design, lighting and character movement.

What is in front of the camera.

What else adds to the mise-en-scene?

The purpose: helps express a films' vision by generating a sense of time and space.

Also, evokes a feeling/mood.

Sometimes suggesting a character’s state of mind.

Wall-E

Key Aspects

Set Design- Setting of a scene and the objects visible in a scene.

Set design can be used to amplify character emotion or dominant mood.

Lighting- The intensity, direction, and quality of lighting can influence an audience’s understand of characters actions, themes and mood.

Space- Representation of space affects the reading of a film.

Depth, proximity, size, and proportions of places and objects in a film can be manipulated through camera placement and lenses, lighting, set design, effectively determining mood or relationships between elements in the story world.

Composition- The organization of objects, actors, and space within the frame.

Costume- Clothes characters wear.

Make up and hair styles- Establishes tie period, reveal characters traits and signal changes in character.

Acting- Actors involvement in the scene.

Film stock- The choice of black and white or color, fine-grain or grainy.

Character placement- Where the director places the character depend in the important of the role.

Mise-en-shot

The process of filming, or translating mise-en-scene into film.

A major part of the art of film making involved the interaction between the filmed events (mise-en-scene) and the way they are filmed (mise-en-shot).

Main parameters of mise-en-shot include:Camera position

Camera movement

Shot scale

The duration of the single shot

The pace of editing

Mise-en-shot cont.

Three options directors have in rendering a scene on film:

Using a long takeUsing deep focus photography

Long take and deep focus are usually usually combined.

Using continuity editing

Long TakeShot of long duration; longer than the norm.

Children of Men by Alfonso Cuaron

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.

Continuity Editing

Editing breaks down a scene into a multitude of shots.

Continuity editing functions to create a synthetic unity of space and time.

Why would a filmmaker want to use editing raaher than the long take?

Scenes are puzzle pieces, not until you have all the pieces do you see the whole picture.

Editing versus The Long Take

Through the changes in the viewpoint implied by the change of shot, the director can fully involve the spectator in the action.

Film Sound

What is the source or origin of the sound?Where is is sound coming from?

Diegetic- refers to sound whose origin is to be located in the story world.

Includes the voice of the characters and the sound of objects that exists in the story world. Also, music from instruments from the story world.

External diegetic sound

Internal diegetic sound

Non-diegetic sound

External Diegetic

Has a physical origin in the story world.

Sounds that all characters in the story world can hear.

Examples- the voice of the characters, the sound of objects and music from instruments.

Internal Diegetic

Its origin is inside the character’s mind.

Sound refers to subjective sounds- either the rendition of a characters thoughts or imagined sounds.

These sounds are still diegetic because they derive from the story world, but they are internal because they cannot be heard by others characters.

Non-diegetic Sound

Origin of the sound derives from outside the story world.

The music soundtrack of films.

Voice overs (voice of God) in documentary films.