Return to English 114 syllabus
Updated 15 September 2006
ENGLISH 114: INTRODUCTION TO FILM, Fall 2006
Section 3: Thursday, 6:00-9:30 p.m., Professor Larsson
Week 3, September 14
6:00-6:10
Questions and follow-up on last week
6:10-7:15
Form and Film
Examples: Begone, Dull Care and Neighbors
7:15-7:25
Break
7:25-8:00
View An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
8:00-9:30
Discuss An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and narrative form
NOTE: The films listed above are on reserve at the Educational Resource Center in the lower level of Memorial Library.
FORM AND NARRATIVE IN FILM
The Concept of Form
Example: Begone, Dull Care (Canada, 1949), directed by Norman McLaren and Evelyn Lambart
Questions:
1. What is this film about?
2. How do you know that?
3. What are the parts of the film as a whole?
4. What elements stand out because of their similarity to other elements?
5. What elements stand out because of their differences from other elements?
Form in Begone, Dull Care
§ Film is “about” the relationship of sound (music) to moving images (abstract shapes and lines)
§ The film’s form helps to shape our understanding of what it is about. Cues based on color or lack of color, movement and music, types of lines and shapes work through similarity or difference to get our attention.
§ Types of images and colors are keyed correspond to speed of music, particular instruments (drum, bass, piano)
§ 3 “movements”—fast, slow, fast (boogie-woogie)
§ Some types of movements correspond to each other in each section (lines moving toward the middle)
§ The words at the beginning and end help to frame the 3 movements and set them apart
§ Use of many languages suggests that music and art are both “universal” languages”
§ Begone, Dull Care is “about”
o joy (banishing worry—“Begone, dull care!”)
o synaesthesia (the blending of senses—“seeing” music, “hearing” color and movement)
o a universal experience through art
Film exhibits properties of
o Coherence
o Progression
o Unity and balance
(See Barsam, Chapter 2)
Begone, Dull Care is an example of experimental (avant-garde) film. Also example of abstract form.
§ Form is what gives a particular work its shape, its sense of wholeness as an object (applies to all arts, whether in painting, music, literature, theater, dance or film, among others).
§ Some types of form are governed by particular rules or conventions. Others make their own rules or combine the two.
§ Abstract form does not try to tell a story or even convey something within the physical world. It may use real objects (as in Ballet Mechanique) but takes them out of context and uses them for their appearance rather than their usual purpose. Begone, Dull Care goes further by relying only music (which is itself usually an abstract art) and colors and shapes (with a few recognizable images that look like shovels or carrots)
Narrative Form
The form that a work takes in telling a story through a particular medium (oral storytelling, written literature, theater, dance, opera, comic strips, film, etc.)
Narrative elements combine with the specific stylistic elements of the medium to convey the story. This combination determines the overall form of a film.
Example: Neighbors (Canada, 1952), directed by Norman McLaren
1. What is the story that this film tells?
2. How does it tell it?
3. What is the point of the story?
Elements of Neighbors are used to tell a story without words
Setting:
Similarities between the two houses, yards, and families
Deliberately stylized—recognizable images, but not “realistic”
Props:
The flower: movitates the action, gives a reason for events to occur
The fence: advances the action by contributing to escalating tensions
Also provides the ending as a fence around a cemetery plot
Makeup and Costume:
Torn clothing
Makeup reflects growing hatred and violence (similar to tattoos of Maori warriors in New Zealand)
Action:
Speeded up artificially through process of “pixilation” (filming one frame at a time to create artificial movement)
Music and Sound:
Reflect action without words
Narrative = set of events linked by cause and effect
Events in Neighbors
Opening: order, stability, tranquility, but hints of conflict to come (newspaper headlines)
Progression: Flower appears, both men enjoy it
Complication: Both men want the flower for themselves, leading to
Conflict: Escalating from disagreement to full-scale mutual annihilation
Resolution: Peace restored but at cost of both men’s and their families’ lives
Explicit Moral (in several languages): “Love your neighbor”
Implicit: Satire on tensions between US and USSR during Cold War
Film narrative
· May be created after the fact through editing
· May rely heavily on improvisation by actors
· Usually involves detailed planning
Screenplay:
· Begins as idea/pitch to producer
· First written as synopsis/treatment
· May go through multiple drafts/scenarios
· Results in complete shooting script (may include storyboards that sketch out how different shots or whole scenes may be set up to look, indicating camera placement, action, etc.)
Story and Plot in Film Narrative
Example: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (France, 1962), directed by Robert Enrico, from a short story by Ambrose Bierce
Situation: The film takes place during the American Civil War. Peyton Farquahar, a Southern plantation owner, has been caught by Union troops and is about to be hanged as a spy.
1. What exactly is taking place in the story world of the film?
2. What elements in the film are not part of that story world?
3. How is time handled in the film? What is the order of events? How long do they last? How often do they occur?
4. What is the point of view in the film? Is there more than one?
Story: All of the events depicted in the film, plus
· All the events that we infer as taking place, even when we don’t see them
· Or, all the events as they would have unfolded if they were really happening
These events form the film’s diegesis, its total imagined story world. Anything that is a part of that story world is “diegetic.” Anything that has been added to that world by the film in “nondiegetic.” Music, for example, may be diegetic or nondiegetic, depending on whether it has a source in the story world or not.
Plot: The events as they are depicted in the film, plus any nondiegetic elements
· Or, the events as they have been selected and arranged and presented in the film (or other narrative medium)
A key difference between story and plot may be in how the plot handles story time.
Order of events
Story: events are always chronological
Plot: events are often chronological but may re-order time in different ways
· Flashbacks, flashforwards, and more complicated arrangements
Duration (how long do events last?)
Story: Events unfold in real time
Plot:
· Some films or parts of film take place in “real time”
· Most films summarize actions over some periods of time
· A few films stretch plot time beyond its actual story duration
Screen duration: how long the film itself lasts
Frequency (how often do events happen?)
Story: All events occur just one time, although some events may forms repetitive patterns
Plot: Individual events may be repeated, as part of the manipulation of plot order or for their own sake
POINT OF VIEW
Physical: relationship of camera and/or character to what is seen
Mental: what the character knows, thinks, imagines
· Subjective—What the characters knows is filtered through his or her perception, including dreams, hallucinations, etc.
· Objective—We can generally trust that what the character knows is real in terms of the film’s diegesis
Film’s attitude/perspective: The way the film as a whole guides us toward a particular set of interpretations or conclusions
Narrative and Point of View in An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Story, summarized:
Peyton Farquahar is about to be hanged as a spy. As he drops off the side of the bridge, he imagines his escape and reunion with his wife. Then the rope goes taut, and he dies.
Order: Includes flashbacks as memories of Peyton’s wife
Duration: Plot covers several days (story is only a few minutes)
Frequency: Plot repeats some events, especially toward the end (running)
Point of View:
· The film at first seems to be completely objective, but at the end we learn that it has mostly been subjective, in Peyton’s mind
· Some physically direct point of view shots from Peyton, but also Yankee sniper
Some hints given by Peyton’s sharpened sense of hearing and perception, which we share
The film implies the meaning that all people will desire to continue living when they fact certain death, and that time itself can be subjective—two days unfolding in a fraction of a second in the mind.
Next Week: Chinatown and Quiz 2