Looking At Movies (An Introduction to Film)

Presentation on theme: "Looking At Movies (An Introduction to Film)"— Presentation transcript:

1 Looking At Movies (An Introduction to Film)
Second Edition Richard Barsam (Powerpoint)

2 CH 1. What is a Movie?

3 Looking at Movies Our goal is looking at movies rather than just passively watching them. Identifying the major components of film form and the “language of movies”. Exploring the grammar of cinematic language

4 Form vs. Content Content: the subject of the artwork
Form: the means through which that subject is expressed. A form is the overall system of relationships among elements that make up the whole film. e.g. Wizard of Oz(1939) -narrative elements + stylistic subsystem (colors) + (music) Film form may make us perceive things anew by shaking up our accustomed way of hearing, seeing, feeling and thinking.

5 Patterns We search for patterns or progressions in all art forms
As we watch a movie, we become aware that the director has organized the work around structural principles. We see patterns employed in D.W. Griffith’s classic Way Down East(1920) through parallel editing. {page 9}

6 Buzz Words Content- The subject of an artwork.
Form- The means by which a subject is expressed. The form for poetry is words; for drama, it is speech and action; and for movies, it is pictures and sound.

7 Form and Expectations Film form may make us perceive things anew.
Film form may shake us out of our accustomed way of hearing, seeing, feeling and thinking. e.g. A what follows? B---AB-you made a formal assumption. What follows AB? ABC? or ABA? Form is a concrete system of patterned relationships e.g. Narrative Form-a chain of events in a cause- effect relationship occurring in time. In Psycho, Hitchcock uses a “MacGuffin” an object that is of vital importance to the characters in his movie. The $40,000 (a “MacGuffin”) Marion steals sets up our expectations. What happens to that “MacGuffin” when Marion is murdered?

8 Principles of Film Form
Movies manipulate space and time in unique ways. Movies depend on light. Movies provide an illusion of movement.

9 Q. Which is the best description of the difference between content and form?
Content is the meaning of the movie, and form is what happens in the story. Content refers to a movie’s look, and form refers to its genre. Content is the subject of an artwork, and form is the means through which that subject is expressed. Content refers to individual scenes or shots, and form refers to the movie as a whole. None of the above. The answer: c.

10 Movies Manipulate Space and Time
Movies render the dynamization of space and the spatialization of time......Erwin Panofsky, film theorist {page 11} The motion picture camera and its lens are the key factors in manipulating space The camera mediates between the exterior (the world) and the interior (our eyes and brain)

11 Movies and Space & Time II
The movies unique ability to manipulate space and time is poignantly portrayed in: Sergei Eisenstein’s “Odessa Steps Sequence” from Battleship Potemkin(1925) {page 12} Kenneth Branagh’s 1989 film adaptation of Henry V {page 13} Charlie Chaplin’s Gold Rush(1925) {page 15}

12 Movies Depend on Light Lighting is responsible for the image we see on the screen e.g. Expressive use of light in: Grapes of Wrath, (1940;Ford) {page 16} Third Man, (1949;Reed) Citizen Kane, (1941;Welles) Double Idemnity, (1944;Wilder) Lighting is a fundamental characteristic of film art

13 Photography Movies are a natural progression in the history of photography (“writing with light”) Camera Obscura: Literally, “dark chamber”. Before the advent of photosensitive film, this device helped create life- like drawing. Development of the negative by William Talbot and subsequent refinements in technology (Daguerre) that led to plastic rolls of film by Eastman (1889) with a gelatin emulsion.

14 Figure 1.1 Camera Obscura

15 Series Photography Records the phases of an action
On May 4, 1880, using an early projector known as the magic lantern and a revolving disk called a zoopraxiscope, Briton Eadweard Muybridge’s famous series of photographs displaying a horse in motion were demonstrated to the public for the first time.

16 Series Photography II In 1882, Marey, a French physiologist, made the first series of photographs of continuous motion with the fusil photographique (a form of chrono-photographic gun) replacing Muybridge’s multiple camera setup with a single camera capable of taking consecutive pictures of live action.

17 Q. The intermediary step between still photography and cinematography is
Chronotography. Series photography. Chrono-photography. Fusil photography. Revolver photography. The answer: b. Series photography.

18 Motion Picture Photography
In 1891, William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, working with Edison researchers, invented the Kinetograph (the first motion picture camera) and the Kinetoscope (a peephole viewer) The first motion picture housed at the U.S. Library of Congress was Dickson’s “Edison Kinetoscopic Record of Sneeze”(1894) later popularly referred to as Fred Ott’s Sneeze (DVD)

19 Motion Picture Photography II
In 1893, Edison made films inside his primitive studio known as Black Maria In 1889, George Eastman began mass-producing celluloid roll film, also known as motion picture film or raw film stock on which a rapid succession of still photographs known as frames can be recorded. On one side of the perforated acetate strip is an emulsion with silver halides; the other side is a non-reflective backing.

20 Motion Picture Photography III
The strip of film is perforated with sprocket holes that allow orderly movement through the camera, processor, and projector Stage 1: shooting: camera exposes film to light Stage 2: processing: negative is developed into a positive print. Stage 3: projecting: final print is run through a projector

21 Figure 1.2 The Motion Picture Camera

22 Figure 1.3 Standard Film Gauges

23 Motion Picture Photography IIIA
16 fps (frames per second) for silent film 24 fps for sound-creates the illusion of movement Silent cameras were often hand- cranked from 12 to 24 fps.

24 Motion Picture Photography IV
Today, cameras and projectors are powered by precision electric motors that ensure perfect movement of the film. Digital technology replaces the mechanics but the role of light is unchanged. A film’s format is its gauge or width which is measured in millimeters (mm).

25 Q. The first motion picture camera was the
Kinetoscope. Zoopraxiscope. Kinetograph. Camera obscura. Cinématographe. The answer: c. Kinetograph.

26 Motion Picture Photography IVA
Formats: 8mm, super 8mm, 16mm, super 16mm, 35mm, super 35mm, 70mm, IMAX (3X70mm) Film stock length = number of feet (meters) or number of reels Film stock speed = (Exposure Index) sensitivity to light

27 Motion Picture Photography V
Digital technology uses an image capture computer (camputer) rather than a film camera and records to computer hard disks, flash memory cards, diskettes, or magnetic tape. (Tape seems to be on the way out.) Many filmmakers ACQUSITION on film and edit on computer. Digital projectors are slowly replacing film projectors.

28 Q. Which of the following technologies makes movies possible?
Optics Chemistry Electricity Precision machinery All of the above The answer: e. All of the above

29 Q. Which of the following film stocks is most often used for professional film production?
Super 8mm Super 16mm 16mm 35mm 65mm The answer: d. 35mm

30 Movies Provide an Illusion of Movement
“Movies” is an abbreviation for the phrase moving pictures and the movement on the screen is an illusion made possible by: Persistence of Vision: process by which the human brain retains an image a fraction of a second longer than the eye records it. PHI Phenomenon: illusion of movement created by events that succeed each other rapidly. Critical Flicker Fusion: a single light turns on and off so fast that it appears as one light.

31 Movies Provide an Illusion of Movement II
During the early Silent Era movies were called flicks because the projectors ran at slower speeds than were necessary to sustain this illusion; hence there was a flickering image onscreen. Andy and Larry Wachowski’s The Matrix(1999) developed new technology that resembled Muybridge’s experiments by using 120 still cameras mounted in a roller coaster-style arc to better create the illusion of super-slow motion.

32 Realism and Antirealism
Two basic directions for all cinema: Realism – French filmmakers August and Louis Lumiere (1895 – 1905) established an interest in the actual or real – viewing things as they really are. Antirealism (opposite of realism, formalism) – French filmmaker George Méliès’s interest in fantasy, abstract or fantastic. A Trip to the Moon (1902)

33 Realism and Antirealism
Today, many movies mix real and fantastic e.g. Donnie Darko (2001: Richard Kelly) {page 25} Portrait paintings as examples: The Hon.Frances Ducombe (1777) by Thomas Gainsborough {REALISM} Nude Descending A Staircase, No.2 (1912) by Marcel Duchamp.{ANTIREALISM} {page 26}

34 Verisimilitude & Cinematic Language
Verisimilitude: when a movie convinces you that things on the screen are “really there” and that things could be just like that. e.g. Ridley Scott’s Gladiator (2000) people, places and things look, sound and move in believable and convincing ways. Cinematic Language: the accepted systems, methods or conventions by which the movies communicate with the viewer. Filmmakers have a language based on shots arranged into scenes and sequences that make up a system (a movie) that provides us with meaning.

35 Q. “A convincing appearance of truth” best defines
Fantasy. Suspension of disbelief Verisimilitude. Naturalism. Cinematic convention. The answer: c. Verisimilitude.

36 Level One: The Essence of Film
The 2 Levels of Film Level One: The Essence of Film At its most basic level the moving image is a symbolic representation of being and time and its structure is an event. If he were living today, Plato might replace his rather awkward cave metaphor about human consciousness with a movie theater, with the projector replacing the fire, the film replacing the objects which cast shadows, the shadows on the cave wall with the projected movie on the screen, and the echo with the loudspeakers behind the screen. The essential point is that the prisoners in the cave are not seeing reality, but only a shadowy representation of it. The importance of the allegory lies in Plato’s belief that there are invisible truths lying under the apparent surface of things which only the most enlightened can grasp.

37 Level Two: Editing as Dialogue not Monologue
The 2 Levels of Film Level Two: Editing as Dialogue not Monologue The purpose of the editor is to maintain a dialogue (a conversation) between the film, its audience and that unique piece of time (beginning, middle, end) that the audience watches the film. Audience Film  Time You avoid the control that the monologue model implies.

38 Essential Film Slang Mediation: a key concept in film theory, literally to mean the process by which an agent or structure, whether human or technological transfers something from one place to another. e.g.1. The movie camera influences our interpretation of the movie’s meaning by selecting and manipulating what is seen. e.g.2. Realism, no matter how lifelike, always involves mediation and thus interpretation. Verisimilitude: when a movie convinces you that things on the screen are “really there” and that things could be just like that. Cinematic Language: the accepted systems, methods or conventions by which the movies communicate with the viewer. Filmmakers have a language based on shots arranged into scenes and sequences that make up a system (a movie) that provides us with meaning.

39 Types of Movies Narrative Films Nonfiction Films (Documentary Film)
Animated Film Experimental Films

40 What is Narrative? At its simplest level, a movie’s narrative is the telling of its story. The storytelling impulse runs through motion picture history. From 1916 on, the United States became the number one supplier of movies in the world market, a position it has held ever since. Hollywood’s success was based on telling stories clearly, vividly, and entertainingly. The techniques of continuity editing, set design, and lighting that were developed during this era were designed not only to provide attractive images but also to guide audience attention to salient narrative events from moment to moment. Kristin Thompson, Storytelling in the New Hollywood: Understanding Classical Narrative Technique.

41 Evolution of Narrative Form
By 1908 the cinema had risen from the status of a risky commercial venture to that of a permanent and full-scale, if not yet a major and respectable, industry. In that year, there were ten thousand nickelodeons and one hundred film exchanges operating in the United States, and they were supplied by about twenty “manufacturers” who churned out films at the rate of one to two one-reelers per director per week. A similar situation existed on the Continent and in Britain, and by the time Griffith entered the cinema, the studios or “factories” of the Western world could scarcely keep up with the public demand for new films. David Cook, A History of Narrative Film

42 Hollywood Narrative Structure
Even before the first talkie, Hollywood had established the basic feature-length narrative structure and film techniques that would dominate the industry for the next century. Feature-length films typically include characters who overcome obstacles and conflict in pursuit of goals, and they follow the pattern of a three-act structure, with rising action in the latter third of the story and strong closure at the end. Film historian Kristin Thompson notes that Hollywood filmmakers seek to avoid obvious plot “holes,” or unexplained or motivated elements, and that “the most basic principle of the Hollywood cinema is that a narrative should consist of a chain of causes and effects that is easy for the spectator to follow. This clarity of comprehension is basic to all our other responses to films, particularly emotional ones”

43 Q. Narrative is a) the main event within a movie
b) the overall connection of events within the world of a movie. c) the arrangement or order of parts of a movie d) the entire formal system of a work of art. e) the main element manipulated by filmmakers to create a movie The answer: b.

44 Genre Genre refers to the categorization of fiction films by the stories they tell or the ways they tell them. Genres are defined by sets of conventions-aspects of storytelling such as recurring themes and situations, and aspects of visual style such as décor, lighting, and sound Genres have provided a consistency to filmmaking since its beginning Genres are a flexible concept and frequently overlap

45 Fifteen Genres 1. Action: (or adventure) movies that involve characters in fast-paced events, fights, chases, violence e.g. James Bond, The Terminator (1984) The Matrix (1999) 2. Biography: (or biopics) movies that tell the life stories of well known people. e.g. Malcolm X (1992), Ray (2004) 3. Comedy: Stories that make us laugh and end happily. (also Black Comedy) e.g. Borat (2006), Annie Hall (1977) Super Bad (2007)

46 Fifteen Genres (II) 4. Fantasy: tell stories about characters and events we can only know through the imagination. e.g. Wizard of Oz (1939), Lord of the Rings ( ), Harry Potter movies 5. Film noir: French for “black film”, the term refers to highly stylized crime films whose characters tend to be cynical, disillusioned and loners. e.g. Maltese Falcon (1941) and neo-noir Chinatown (1974), Blood Simple (1984) No Country for Old Men(2007)

47 Fifteen Genres (III) 6. Gangster: stories of the underworld often overlap with action, biopics, film noir e.g. Little Caesar(1931), Bonnie and Clyde(1967), The Godfather(1972), The Departed(2006) American Gangster(2007) Eastern Promises(2007) 7. Horror: stories using suspense and surprise to scare or terrify e.g. Bride of Frankenstein(1935), The Excorcist(1973), Saw(2004) 8. Melodrama- stories that incorporate real life events that build to exaggerated emotional behavior and often relate to “women’s issues” and are sometimes called “tear-jerkers”. e.g. Way Down East(1920), Gone with the Wind(1939), Far From Heaven(2002)

48 Fifteen Genres (IV) 9. Musical: tell their stories with characters that express themselves through song and dance, as well as spoken dialogue. e.g. West Side Story(1962), Singin’ in the Rain(1952), Chicago(2002) 10. Mystery: (or crime or detective movies) Tell stories of the suspenseful work of detectives and police. e.g. The Maltese Falcon(1941), Zodiac(2007)

49 Fifteen Genres (V) 11. Romance: stories of “boy meets girl” have morphed into “boy meets boy” and “girl meets girl” as well. e.g. Camille(1936), Rebecca(1940), Casablanca(1942), Brokeback Mountain(2005) 12. Science Fiction: stories of using science for exploration, discovery, experimentation or extraterrestrial invasion. e.g. Thing to Come(1936), 2001: A Space Odyssey(1968), War of the Worlds(2005) Blade Runner (1982)

50 Fifteen Genres (VI) 13. Thriller: stories that generate excitement through suspense about what happens next and often overlap with other genres. The thriller is categorized by the effect it has on us. e.g. The Spiral Staircase(1946), Psycho(1960), Memento(2000) 14. War: stories where the war is the major action of the film, e.g. Saving Private Ryan(1998) or is the background for the action, e.g. The Best Years of Our Lives(1946), “war is hell” films Apocalypse Now(1979), Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)

51 Fifteen Genres (VII) 15. Western: stories that tell the story of the U.S. expansion westward after the Civil War. That history has often been told as myth and the characters are the Native Americans and the pioneers who became ranchers, cowboys, prospectors, sheriffs and criminals. e.g. Stagecoach(1939), The Searchers(1956), High Noon(1952), The Wild Bunch(1969), Unforgiven(1992), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid(1969) and from this last film, Robert Redford, who played the “Sundance Kid”, named America’s most famous film festival: The Sundance Film Festival

52 B Movies Explained Is it cheaply made?
Does it feature women, Italian cannibals, or black vampires? Has it got an eye-grabbing title (e.g. Satan’s Sadists or The Beast with 1,000,000 Eyes) that’s infinitely more memorable that the plot? If you answered “yes” to any two questions, you are watching a B movie, otherwise known as an “exploitation film”. The genre’s heyday came in the 60’s and 70’s with Roger Corman producing and attracting boomers ill-served by the old studio system. Modern cinema has adopted the gimmickry and shock tactics of the B Movie with: e.g. Snakes on a Plane(2006), 300(2007), Grindhouse(2007)

53 Last Looks: Genre Genre movies have stories that share certain conventions in the way they are told. Genre movies are successful because they appeal to our love of certain kinds of storytelling. We bond with those who like the same kind of movies. (think “Star Wars”, “Lord of the Rings”) Genres have helped the movie industry grow by giving people what they want. Sometimes genre films result in formulaic approaches to movies that include stereotypes and run-of-the-mill situations in all aspects of the story. Genres stay vital when they expand and play with the genre’s conventions sometimes forming a hybrid genre. e.g. Kill Bill: Vol 1(2003)

54 Q. Which of the following statements is NOT true about genre?
a) Genres avoid stereotyped filmic realities. b) Genres are defined by sets of conventions- aspects of storytelling and aspects of visual style. c) Because of the flexibility of genre, there is little consensus about when a particular type of filmmaking deserves to be designated as a genre. d) Genre frequently overlap. e) None of the above. The answer: a)

55 Film Slang Exposition: lays the foundation for the storytelling, includes the images, action and dialogue necessary to give the audience the background of the characters and the nature of their situation Generic transformation: the process by which a particular genre is adapted to meet the expectations of a changing society. Genres that don’t evolve fade away. e.g. The Western faded away in the 1960s transformed by the success of “Brokeback Mountain”(2005)

56 Nonfiction Films The nonfiction film=documentary film.
The nonfiction film is enjoying a renaissance that is unprecedented in its long history. We might say that narrative and nonfiction approaches to making movies have, in some cases, overlapped so significantly that they’ve created a hybrid. Today, many narrative movies incorporate techniques that were once thought to be solely in the province of nonfiction, and vice versa.

57 Buzz Word d-word＼’d-word＼n: 1. industry euphemism for documentary (as in: “We love your film but we don’t know how to sell it. It’s a d-word.”). SEE: catch 22, self-fulfilling prophesy; 2. virtual watering hole for those crazy enough to make d-words.

58 Defining Documentary “creative treatment of actuality”…John Grierson
Invites the spectator to draw socially critical conclusions “a work of art is a corner of Nature seen through a temperament”…Emile Zola a documentary is a corner of actuality seen through a human temperament a documentary is an organized story that exposes us to evidence that is contradictory and provocative

59 More on Defining Documentary
Nonfiction film=documentary “describing the world…life as it is, not how it might exist in the imagination”…Krzysztof Kieslowski ( Legendary Polish Director) Errol Morris, Werner Herzog, Michael Moore use their imaginations as much in their documentaries as they would a narrative film. Given recent developments the narrative and nonfiction approaches to making movies have overlapped into a hybrid form

60 Four Basic Styles of Documentary
Factual: usually present people, places or processes in a way meant to entertain and instruct without unduly influencing audiences. Instructional: seeks to educate viewers about common interests rather than persuading. Documentary: conceived by British producer John Grierson to address social injustice. Propaganda: systematically disseminate descriptive or distorted information. e.g. “Triumph of the Will”-Leni Riefenstahl’s brilliant film about the glory of Hitler and the Nazi Party

61 Q. Which of the following is NOT a type of nonfiction film?
a) propaganda b) avant-garde c) documentary d) factual e) instructional b) avant-garde

62 Factual and Dramatic Aspects of Documentary Film I
Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North (1922), a pioneering nonfiction film, established a debate that is still with us: does the use of storytelling and other dramatic techniques compromise a factual film’s claims to authenticity and historical accuracy? Flaherty spent years in the north living with the Eskimo, or Inuit, bringing his camera and film laboratory into the field to record the lifestyle and hunting practices of this nomadic people. After accidentally setting fire to his footage during the editing process (celluloid was extremely flammable in those days), Flaherty returned north and filmed a second time. Released through Pathé, a French company with extensive experience distributing international newsreels, the film became an international success.

63 Factual and Dramatic Aspects of Documentary Film II
We do not assume that a nonfiction film tells the “truth” about its subject, because any act of filmmaking involves mediation between filmmaker and subject. Every aspect of filmmaking uses formal elements and technical properties-such as narration, camera angles, editing, and music that alter the material being filmed. Thus, a nonfiction film, even though it is about real people, places and events is no more “true” than a fiction film.

64 Q. Which of the following is true about both fiction and nonfiction films?
a) They involve either love or crime. b) They are completely contrived. c) They must tell good stories. d) They are always based on real people, places, and events. e) They involve mediation between filmmaker and subject. e) They involve mediation between filmmaker and subject.

65 Factual and Dramatic Aspects of Documentary Film III
Some fiction films seem quite honest and true and some nonfiction films seem duplicitous. Because both types of filmmaking may employ similar equipment, techniques, and traditions (cameras, editing, sound tracks, directors, on-location shooting), it can be difficult to isolate the essential differences between the two types. Furthermore, fiction films and nonfiction films influence filmmakers and the culture at large and so go on to influence each other; some fiction films incorporate factual, instructional, documentary, and even propaganda filmmaking techniques, and some nonfiction films employ methods straight out oh Hollywood. “Mockumentaries” such as Rob Reiner’s seminal This Is Spinal Tap (1984) and Christopher Guest’s A Mighty Wind (2005), and fiction films such as Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool (1969) and Robert Altman’s Tanner ´88 (1988) and Tanner on Tanner (2004), which inserts actors into footage of real events, remind us of just how fluid the boundary between “real” and “staged” can be.

66 Factual and Dramatic Aspects of Documentary Film IV
Indeed, we might say that fiction films and nonfiction films differ primarily in terms of allegiance: fiction films begin with an allegiance to dramatic storytelling, but nonfiction films begin with allegiances to the recording of reality (factual films), the education of viewers (documentary films). Whatever their allegiance, all nonfiction filmmakers employ storytelling and dramatization to some degree in shaping their material. If they didn’t, their footage might end up as unwatchable and dull as a surveillance video recording everyday comings and goings.

67 Explaining Direct Cinema
In the 1960s, a group of documentary filmmakers took advantage of portable handheld 16mm cameras, cheap light-sensitive film stock (which allowed filming without supplementary light), and lightweight sound-recording equipment to create a new style of documentary film they called “direct cinema.” Directors such as D.A. Pennebaker, Albert and David Maysles, and Frederick Wiseman sought to create a more spontaneous form of nonfiction film that immersed its audience in a more “direct” experience of the subject.

68 The Art of Direct Cinema
The film that heralded this breakthrough was 1960’s PRIMARY, a collective effort of Robert Drew, Richard Leacock, D.A Pennebaker, and Albert Maysles, among others (known as Drew Associates), which captured the inner workings of the John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey campaigns during that year’s presidential primary. These filmmakers all went on to have distinguished careers of their own, creating seminal direct cinema documentaries that today stand as benchmarks of the craft.

69 Filmmaker Albert Maysles
Albert Maysles has made portraits of famous people like John F. Kennedy and the Rolling Stones. But Albert Maysles is probably best known because he makes astonishing films about ordinary lives. Back in the 1960s, Maysles was one of the first filmmakers who harnessed a new generation of lightweight documentary cameras. Maysles used them to peer into people’s souls in a way that nobody had ever done before.

70 Filmmaker Fredrick Wiseman
Wiseman has made 35 documentaries since leaving his job as a law professor in 1967 to film TITICUT FOLLIES, about a Massachusetts asylum for the criminally insane, which was banned in the United States for 25 years. Most of his films are involved meditative studies of social institutions and systems. Major Films: TITICUT FOLLIES (1967)- Frederick Wiseman’s Titticut Follies exposes the inhumane treatment of inmates inside a Massachusetts asylum for the criminally insane. The film was the subject of a lawsuit and was eventually banned, but it also sparked an outcry that led to the closing of the facility. HIGH SCHOOL (1969) WELFARE (1975) THE STORE (1983) ZOO (1993) PUBLIC HOUSING (1997) DOMESTIC VIOLENCE (2002)

71 Barbara Kopple: Direct Cinema in Service of Political Critique
Major Films: (Harlan County USA 1977), American Dream (1991) Fallen Champ: The Untold Story of Mike Tyson (1993), Wild Man Blues (1997) In Harlan County, at first nobody trusted us and the women gave us phony names. They called themselves Martha Washington and Florence Nightingale, and they said, “OK, you can be on the picket line tomorrow; you have to be there at 5 A.M. in the morning.” “We were staying in a little motel on this huge mountain; it had no guard rails and it was pouring rain and a car came and went past us and our car flipped over, and, um, we were all OK. We just crawled out in the pouring rain and walked to the picket line with all our equipment. News travels fast in, you know, these little areas in the coal fields and after that happened they knew that we were all right.” Barbara Kopple, interview from Independent View

72 Barbara Kopple: Harlan County
Barbara Kopple’s Harlan County USA won the Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary in 1977 and is included in the National Film Registry of American Film Classics. The film documents a year-long Kentucky coal miners’ strike in risking her life and the lives of her crew, Kopple aligned herself with the United Mine Workers of America, who were intimidated and sometimes shot at by strikebreakers for the Eastover Mining Company. During the film, Kopple’s cameras begin to focus on the coal miners’ wives, who encourage, cajole, and chastise their men to maintain the strike, walk the picket lines, and hold their families and communities together. To contrast and connect past labor struggles with the present one, Kopple uses footage of and ballads from strikes of the 1930s and 1940s – when the region was dubbed “bloody Harlan County.”.

73 Direct Cinema (Cinema Verite)
Kopple’s Harlan County USA is a powerful example of the nonfiction filmmaking style direct cinema. While many documentaries include onscreen or over-the-shoulder interviewers having conversations with subjects (as in the short films on television’s “60 Minutes”), direct cinema documentaries eschew interviewers and even limit the use of narrators. Instead of having voice-over narration to encourage the audience’s indignation about the crime, scandal, or corruption being exposed, direct cinema involves the placement of small, portable cameras and sound recording equipment in an important location for days or weeks, recording events as they occur. The resulting documentary may never include a question from an interviewer; instead, it enables the audience to overhear conversations and interactions as they happen.

74 Hal Hinson, The Washington Post, September 2, 1988
Errol Morris: The Self-Reflexively Artful Documentary and the Philosophical Quest I Major films: OEUVRE Gates of Heaven (1978) Vernon, Florida (1981) The Thin Blue Line (1988) A Brief History of Time (1991) Fast, Cheap and Out of Control (1997) Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. (1999) The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara. (2003) The form Morris uses for his existential explorations [in The Thin Blue Line] is a new one – a sort of documentary thriller. And his method, which marries a True Detective sensibility to the fact-gathering techniques of the documentarian, keeps asking us to make comparisons between art and reality. On the surface, the film is a James M. Cain tale told “Rashomon” style – a single dramatic event seen from multiple points of view. Hal Hinson, The Washington Post, September 2, 1988

75 Desson Howe, The Washington Post, September 2, 1988
Errol Morris: The Self-Reflexively Artful Documentary and the Philosophical Quest I Bold and brilliant, some might say reckless, Morris’s defense of convicted prisoner Randall Dale Adams might not stand up in a court of law, or a screening room of documentary purists. But it would transfix the lot. Morris takes the hybrid docudrama genre to its outer limits, intercutting newspaper headlines, bullet-wound diagrams and Texas road maps with grade-B film noir fare: a hypnotist’s swinging watch, overstuffed ashtrays, smoking guns and repeated replays of the incident that changed Adams’ life – the fatal shooting of Dallas police officer Robert Wood in cold blood one November night in The dramatic embellishments, which include a pointedly eerie score by Philip Glass and Morris’s chilling final “kicker,” fly in the face of “objective” fact-finding. But Thin Blue Line earns its documentary impact with the impassioned testimony of real people involved in the case. Desson Howe, The Washington Post, September 2, 1988

76 Errol Morris: The Thin Blue Line (1988)
Most significantly, The Thin Blue Line utilizes many sophisticated lighting, staging, and editing effects familiar from fictional feature films. For example, when two people being interviewed mention films, Morris cuts to brief clips of the films. As various witnesses describe the events leading up to the murder and each presents conflicting details, Morris presents a series of different highly stylized reenactments. At one point, the getaway car and its license plate appear in many varieties, illustrating the diversity and confusion of “eyewitness” accounts. By combining the documentarian’s dogged persistence for getting at some kind of truth with a catalog of filmmaking techniques that includes those of the fictional film, Morris invites us to explore a new kind of documentary that challenges the distinction between fact and fiction.

77 Ken Burns: Folk History and the Voices of Authority
Major films: Brooklyn Bridge (1981) The Civil War (1990) Baseball (1994) The West (1996) Thomas Jefferson (1997) Frank Lloyd Wright (2001) Mark Twain (2001) Jazz (2001) In 1990, Burns completed what many consider his “chef d’ oeuvre”: the eleven-hour The Civil War, which earned an Emmy (among other honors) and became the highest rated miniseries in the history of public television. Civil War was the apotheosis of Burns’ master mixture of still photos, freshly shot film footage, period music, evocative “celebrity” narration and authentic sound effects. Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

78 Ken Burns: Folk History II
Working on the borderline between factual filmmaking and documentary filmmaking, Ken Burns seeks to bring history alive, presenting historical documents, photographs, locations, and artifacts to public-television audiences in an exciting and inspiring style. Burns’s approach to history balances the traditional biographical concern with “great men” and leaders with the more contemporary interest in “bottom-up” explorations of working people, minorities, and average citizens. One measure of his success in striking the right balance is that his multipart series The Civil War and Baseball were the most widely seen shows ever on public television. Both reaching over forty million viewers.

79 Ken Burns: In His Own Words
Burns describes his filmmaking style as: the careful use of archival photographs, live modern cinematography, music, narration, and a chorus of first-person voices that together did more than merely recount a historical story. It was something that also became a kind of “emotional archaeology,” trying to unearth the very heart of the American experience; listening to the ghosts and echoes of an almost inexpressibly wise past. (“Why I Decided to Make The Civil War”)

80 Michael Moore: Impresario with a Camera
Oeuvre: The Big One (1997), Roger and Me (1989), Bowling for Columbine (2002), Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), Sicko (2007) Since his 1989 debut with “Roger and Me,” Michael Moore – gadfly, provocateur, muckraker, authority-questioner – has perfected what some might call an art, others a shtick. Posing as a latter-day Candide, naively bumbling around America’s hinterland to uncover the depredations of crony capitalism, he has entertained a devoted audience with mocking portraits of the corporate class, all the time casting himself as the noble voice of pure reason. Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post, October 18,2002

81 .....James Berardinelli (Film Critic)
Michael Moore: While there will always be a debate about the authenticity of Michael Moore’s documentary techniques, there’s no arguing that Bowling for Columbine succeeds equally well as a provocative essay on gun violence in America and an opportunity for the writer/director to engage in some heavy self-promotion. Whether you like him or hate him, it’s impossible to deny Moore’s charisma and persuasiveness as a showman. He takes a thesis and runs with it, and, while some of his conclusions may be a little farfetched, his probing often pays unexpected dividends. Viewers attending a Moore film should be aware that the director has a history of “faking” scenes. So, unlike in a more traditional documentary, not everything that appears on screen can be believed. Moore is skillful enough that we don’t recognize when we’re being fooled. It took a Film Comment exposé by Harlan Jacobson to unearth all of the behind-the-scenes shenanigans in Roger and Me. When Moore starts barging into houses in Toronto to determine whether Canadians keep their doors locked, this could easily have been arranged before the cameras rolled. We just don’t know. Moore claims one thing; his history argues another. .....James Berardinelli (Film Critic)

82 Michael Moore: Like Errol Morris and Ken Burns, Michael Moore has developed a style of nonfiction filmmaking that defines itself against the mainstream. Moore’s darkly humorous, self-aggrandizing style of muckraking documentary has won over many filmgoers and perhaps outraged just as many. Blatantly outspoken in his leftist political convictions, irreverent toward any and all sacred cows, the sloppily dressed Moore serves as the comical and sarcastic center of all his films. In Roger and Me, Moore is the “Me” who goes on a quest to interview Roger Smith, the General Motors CEO who oversaw the deactivation of the GM plant in Moore’s hometown of Flint, Michigan. In Bowling for Columbine, Moore seeks to understand the high rate of gun assault and murder in the United States, venturing far beyond single, common answers in his analysis.

83 Controversial Nonfiction Films
Tupac: Resurrection (2003)- about the life of Rap star Tupac Shakur gunned down in Las Vegas. (director: Lauren Lazin) Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price (2005)- an attack on Walmart policies. (director: Robert Greenwald) Super Size Me (2004) an attack on fast food culture. (director: Morgan Spurlock) Grizzly Man (2005) the story of Timothy Treadwell who lives with and is eaten by a bear. director: Werner Herzog) Zoo (2007) a film about a real-life case of bestiality which tries to get beyond the uncomfortable laughter. (director: Robinson Devor)

84 Animated Films Next to narrative films, animation is today the second most popular type of film with audiences. Before computer- generated imagery (CGI), which accounts for virtually all animated films today, animated films (or cartoons) were made by photographing drawings frame by frame with a special animation camera. Making a traditional animated film is an arduous task and requires 24 individual drawings for each second of film or 14,400=10 minutes.

85 Evolution of Animation Techniques
While there are countless possible types and combinations of animation, three basic types are used widely today: hand-drawn, stop motion, and digital. To create hand- drawn animation, animators draw or paint images that are then photographed one frame at a time in a film camera. Since twenty- four frames equal one second of film time, animators must draw twenty- four separate pictures to achieve one second of animation. Stop motion records the movement of objects (toys, puppets, clay figures, or cutouts) with a film camera; the animator moves the objects slightly for each recorded frame. Digital animation, which may begin with drawings, storyboards, puppets, and all the traditional tools of theater and animation, uses the virtual world of computer-modeling software to generate the animation.

86 Hand-Drawn In 1914, Winsor McCay’s classic animation “Gertie the Dinosaur” required over five thousand drawings on separate sheets of paper The difficulty of achieving fluid movement by perfectly matching and aligning so many characters and backgrounds led, the next year, to the development of cel animation. Animator Earl Hurd used clear celluloid sheets to create single backgrounds that could serve for multiple exposures of his main character. Thus he needed to draw only the part of the image that was in motion, typically the character or a small part of the character. Although the highly flammable celluloid first used for this process has now been replaced by acetate, this type of animation is still called “cel” animation. Until the advent of digital animation, this method was used to create nearly all feature-length animated films.

87 Stop Motion Among the first American stop-motion films was The Dinosaur and the Missing Link, a Prehistoric Tragedy (1915), by Willis O’Brien, who went on to animate stop-motion dinosaurs for Harry O. Hoyt’s live-action adventure The Lost World (1925), then added giant apes to his repertoire with Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack’s King Kong (1933), and Schoedsack’s Mighty Joe Young (1949).

88 Digital Animation John Lasseter’s Toy Story (1995) was the first feature-length digitally animated film. A commercial and critical success, it humanized computer animation and obliterated the fear that computer animation was limited to shiny, abstract objects floating in strange worlds. Toy Story’s focus on plastic toys, however, helped disguise the limitations of early digital-animation techniques. Five more years of development enabled digitally animated movies such as Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson’s Shrek (2001) to present compelling characters with visually interesting skin, hair, and fur that strive for three-dimensional realism.

89 The Best of Animation and Anime
The best means not only features like the cream of Pixar’s crop but also Sylvain Chomet’s “The Triplets of Belleville” (2002) or Hayao Miyazaki’s dreamlike masterpiece “Spirited Away” (2001). Images made in the Japanese style of animation called anime are based on Japanese manga comic books and feature characters from that culture. The same goes for “Paprika” (2006)- a Japanese anime extravaganza whose tumbling succession of bizarre images may well be the most eloquent visualization of the dream state in film history.

90 The Best of Animation and Anime II
The defining characteristic of the anime style is so-called limited animation that looks like graphic novels come to life. e.g. “Sin City” (2005) Robert Zemeckis’ digitally enhanced live action in “Polar Express” (2004) was a work in progress but his Beowulf (2007) utilizes motion capture technology and 3-D technology to show where the movie business is headed. James Cameron’s Avatar (2009) is exploring motion capture and 3-D as well.

91 The Best of Animation and Anime III
Animated works to screen include: “Tron” (1982): this sci-fi thriller is the granddaddy of computer animated films “Chicken Run” (2000): wonderful clay animation. “Corpse Bride” (2005): stop motion puppetry gem.

92 Q. Which of the following is a way of making an animated film?
Puppet animation Clay animation Computer animation Pixilation All of the above The answer: e. All of the above

93 Explaining Experimental Films
Experimental films are also known as avant-garde films (literally in the “front rank), are films in the vanguard that push the boundaries of what most people think that movies should be. “We don’t want false, polished slick films-we prefer them rough, unpolished, but alive; we don’t want rosy films-we want them the color of blood”....Statement of the New American Cinema Group

94 Explaining Experimental Films II
Many experimental films do not follow the realist-narrative construct of the mainstream film industry but use non-linear patterns of development, abstract images or images created by drawing on film stock. Experimental films explore film form, function and content in an individualistic and idiosyncratic manner much like that of a painter, dancer or a poet.

95 Q. What makes experimental films “experimental”?
They are made by independent filmmakers. They are short “vignettes” instead of full-length features. They use the cinematic equivalent of stream of consciousness. They push the boundaries of what most people think the movies are or should be. They are based on paintings. The answer: d.

96 Maya Deren America’s first major experimental filmmaker famous for the surreal film: “Meshes of the Afternoon” (1943). The film was a blend of dance, philosophy, ethnography and was the cinematic equivalent of stream of consciousness trying to capture the unedited flow of experience through the mind (much like Proust in Literature)

97 4 Subgenres of Experimental Film
The Formal: form is the overall system of relationships among elements that make up the whole film. John Whitney’s computer imagery in Matrix (1971) Self-Reflexive: those that represent their own conditions of production. Stan Brakhage’s Dog Star Man ( ); Michael Snow’s Wavelength (1967) Satirical: the use of humor to criticize. Mike Kuchar’s Sins of the Fleshapoids (1965) Sexual: the exposure of hidden sexual practices. Jack Smith’s Flaming Creatures (1963) deemed pornographic! Kenneth Anger’s gay fantasy Scorpio Rising (1964)

98 Summary: What is a Movie?
A movie is a story or event recorded by a camera, camputer (or image capture computer); a sequence of these photographs or images is projected onto a screen with sufficient speed to create the illusion of motion and continuity. Movies depend on photography and, thus, on light. Movies manipulate space and time in ways that no other art form can. In a movie, the relationship between its form and content is central to its existence.

99 Summary: What is a Movie? II
A movie can create a sense of realism and or antirealism, but it should also create verisimilitude. A movie creates its effects and meanings through a unique mode of expression that we call cinematic language. Making a movie usually involves a highly collaborative effort of many artists and technicians.

100 Screening Checklist: What is a Movie?
Before and after you see a movie, think about the direct meanings, as well as the implications of its title. Consider genre and whether the film fulfills expectations of that genre.

101 Screening Checklist II: What is a Movie?
Do any narrative or visual patterns recur a sufficient number of times to suggest a structural element in themselves? Do you notice anything particular about the movie’s presentation of cinematic space-lots of landscapes or close-ups? Moving camera? Does the director handle cinematic time in a way that calls attention to it?

102 Screening Checklist III: What is a Movie?
Does the director’s use of lighting help crate meaning? If so how? Do you identify with the camera lens? What does the director compel you to see? What is left to the imagination? How does the director’s use of the camera help to create the movie’s meaning?