Return to Intro to Film syllabus
Udpated 9 February 2007
ENGLISH 114: INTRODUCTION TO FIL
M, Fall 2006
Section 2: Monday, 6:00-9:30 p.m., Professor Larsson
Week 4, February 5, 2007
See updates on class website, D2L
http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/introfilm/114syllsp07.htm
Note: Test 1 next week.
25 multiple-choice, true-false questions
Terms and concepts from Barsam (Chapters 1 and 2), lectures (see Terms to Know page on website:
· Film production
· Film form
· Narrative
· How terms and concepts apply in/to:
o A Star Is Born
o Bonnie and Clyde
o Frank Film
o Creature Comforts
o Dreams of Sparrows
Bring full-sized Scantron sheet (8 ½ “ X 11”) and a Number 2 pencil
Bonnie and Clyde (1960)
Producer: Warren Beatty
Director: Arthur Penn
Script: David Newman and Robert Benton
Cinematography: Burnett Guffey
Art Direction: Dean Tavalouris
Editing: Dede Allen
Music: Charles Strouse
“Foggy Mountain Breakdown” and other bluegrass
music by Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs
Cast:
Warren Beatty Clyde Barrow
Faye Dunaway Bonnie Parker
Michael J. Pollard C.W. Mosst
Gene Hackman Buck Barrow (Clyde’s brother)
Estelle Parsons Blanche (Buck’s wife)
Denver Pyle Frank Hamer (Texas Ranger)
Dub Taylor Ivan Moss (C.W.’s father)
Questions for Discussion:
1. How are the characters of Bonnie and Clyde introduced? What brings them together? Why do they turn to robbing banks? Does either of them have any long-term goals for their lives?
2. How do the other members of the gang get added to it? What complications do they introduce in the robberies and in Bonnie and Clyde’s own relationship?
3. What makes Frank Hamer become their own particular enemy? How does he manage to set up the robbers’ final downfall?
4. What—if anything—is left unexplained at the end of the film? Are any of the film’s issues left unresolved?
5. How is time handled in the movie as a whole and in individual scenes? Are any of the events presented out of order? Is time stretched out or compressed in individual scenes?
6. This film was both praised and condemned for its characters and its depiction of violence when it was released in 1967. Why does the film present thse characters and the violence in this way?
Narrative
Narrative is a way of structuring events to make sense of them
· Events are linked by cause and effect
· Set of events has a beginning and an end
· Narrative can be presented through many media, but the exact means will differ with each medium (novel, short story, opera, ballet, comic strips, etc.)
· Can be used to give structure to events in nonfiction film, but usually thought of in terms of fiction films (even when based in real events)
Nonfiction aims to present events as they actually happened
Fiction stages events (even recreated ones) with actors, created sets and dialogue etc.
“Story” vs. “Plot”
Two ways of understanding fictional events (but can be applied to nonfiction as well)
1. Story: All events that would have taken place, if they were occurring in “real life”; everything that we infer about the imagined “story world” of the film, whether it is depicted or not
Another name for that imagined “story world” is the diegesis.
As spectators, we re-create the “story” and the complete diegesis in our minds from the details given by the “plot”
2. Plot: Events that are depicted by the film itself, plus nondiegetic elements that do not come from the story world itself (“mood music,” credits, etc.)
The story of Cinderella is presented differently through many different plots and style of many media: written and oral stories, opera (Rossini’s La Cenerentola), ballet (Prokofiev), fiction film (The Glass Slipper), animation (Disney), etc.
A Star Is Born is unusual by including shots of its own film script, a nondiegetic element.
Story, Plot, and Time: Order, Duration, Frequency
A key way of understanding the difference between story and plot is how the passage of time operates in each one.
Story Order: Always chronological, one event follows another
Plot Order: Often chronological, but may skip back or forward in time (flashback, flashforward)
Events in A Star Is Born are all in chronological order, although characters occasionally refer verbally to some events in the past (Granny’s journey West)
Story Duration: How long the events actually would last in “real life,” usually days, weeks, months, years or more
Plot Duration: Usually shows only certain selected events, may skip over a few minutes or much longer stretches of time; events behind the plot may have started earlier (for example, Norman Maine is already a star when we first hear of him)
Screen Duration: The actual running time of the film
The story of A Star is Born could be said to begin with Granny’s journey West, but the actual plot begins on the night that Esther returns from watching a Norman Maine movie. We learn that she has wanted to be an actress for some time. The events in the plot take place over a period of time that has to last for at least a couple of years, but the duration is not precisely defined. The screen duration of the film is a little under two hours.
Story Frequency: Each event happens only one time, even if it is part of a repetitious pattern
Plot Frequency: Specific events may be repeated for different reasons
Aside from its self-reference through the film scipt, A Star Is Born is a good example of the Classical Hollywood Narrative
The Classical Hollywood Narrative
· Developed during early years of silent film era in Hollywood
· “Classic”: Provides model/standard for others to follow
· “Hollywood” Originally developed in Hollywood film industry but also
used by filmmakers in other countries
“Narrative” features:
· Focus of narrative is on individual characters
· Characters motivate action through individual goals and desires or search for goals
· Characters experience conflict in trying to achieve goals
· Conflicts lead to change (in characters, their situations, their goals, or their relationships or environment)
· High degree of resolution at end: most questions answered, most problems resolved
· Manipulation of plot time (order, duration, frequency) is always to serve the presentation of the characters, their goals, conflicts and resolution
· Film style (mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing, sound) serves needs of narrative, avoids calling attention to itself for its own sake
Bonnie and Clyde does not adere to these standards as strongly as A Star Is Born, but still follows the general pattern.
· Focus of narrative is still on individual characters
o Bonnie and Clyde are humanized in presentation, not presented simply as cold-blooded killers
· Characters motivate action through individual goals and desires or search for goals
o Exact reasons for Clyde’s behavior or Bonnie’s attraction to him are not explicitly spelled out but are strongly suggested through words, behavior, even clothing
o Tied to suggestion of sexual insecurity, compensating for impotence with violence, gunfire
· Characters experience conflict in trying to achieve goals
o Conflicts with law and with each other (familiar pattern in genre of gangster/road films)
o But conflicts are often presented through humor at first, becoming more serious as film progresses
o Frank Hamer becomes arch-enemy because of humiliation and symbolic castration
o Conflicts between Bonnie and Blanche stem from different backgrounds, personalities
· Conflicts lead to change (in characters, their situations, their goals, or their relationships or environment)
o Changes deal in part with compromises and betrayals by others in gang
o But closing scenes suggest that Clyde can never really change goals, just methods for robbery
· High degree of resolution at end: most questions answered, most problems resolved
o Bonnie and Clyde are killed but meaning of death is not clearly spelled out: Morality tale? Tragedy? Political protest?
· Manipulation of plot time (order, duration, frequency) is always to serve the presentation of the characters, their goals, conflicts and resolution
o Film largely adheres to standards but with exceptions—Bonnie’s family reunion has dream-like quality, use of filters to give gauzy visual effect, sound is muffled, some shots are in slow-motion (plot duration)
· Film style (mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing, sound) serves needs of narrative, avoids calling attention to itself for its own sake
o Style occasionally calls attention to itself—use of close-ups, sound, music (“Foggy Mountain Breakdown”), editing in final shootout, etc.
Reflects new directions emerging in American film in 1960s
· Influenced by collapse of the studio system and the Production Code
· Depictions of violence break new ground in explicit images of blood and wounds
· New models appearing in European film, especially the French New Wave –Truffaut’s Shoot The Piano Player, Godard’s Breathless, Band of Outsiders—(which was influenced in part by low-budget American gangster films of 1940s—You Only Live Once, They Live by Night, etc.); Truffaut even asked to be director
· Rising concerns and consciousness of violence in American life—assassinations, race riots, Vietnam war
Pauline Kael’s 1967 film review: “Bonnie and Clyde . . . has put the sting back into death.”