SILENT FILMS
Our last unit is on films out of the “Hollywood Standard.” Film scholars Thomas and Vivian Sobchack ascribe a number of characteristics to the “Hollywood Standard” which includes film as we’re used to seeing it at the multiplex theater at the mall.
Films within in the “Hollywood Standard” tend to
1) be “a product made in the context of American capitalism,” produced primarily to make a profit;
2) be narrative, that is they tell a story;
3) have a narrative that “absorbs us…Thus, a good film is seen as the one best able to take us in, to create the conditions that most appeal to our credulity—to our willingness to believe in the visible, in what we see, as true;
4) not draw attention to the “signs… of labor and technology used in their production.”
5) follow “standards or general rules and conventions of visual and aural representation [that] tend over time…to seem not only normal, but natural.” That is, it seems that the Hollywood style is the only way to make a “good” film.
The last four weeks of our class we devote to films that are made outside of the standard of the Hollywood Studio system. We begin this week with several short and one feature length silent films. These films are out of the Hollywood Standard simply because they predate the studio system. They come before the time when films existed primarily to make money for large corporations.
The first short films we’ll see are among the first films projected before an audience on December 28, 1895, in Paris by the Lumiere brothers. Here are a couple of things to look for as we see a few of these short films, which last about 30 seconds each.
LUMIERE BROTHERS SHORT FILMS: ACTUALITIES (1895-7)
--Kinds of SUBJECTS chosen (mise en scene)?
(Why might they have chosen these subjects?)
--CAMERA--How is the camera work (cinematography) different from today's Hollywood films?
The Lumieres called their films “actualities,” which should give you some idea of the documentary nature of the films. Their goal seems to have been in part to hold a mirror up to reality. Audiences, of course, were stunned by this new technology. In fact, when the brothers projected the their first film, which was the one of the train pulling into the depot for its first audience in a Paris cafe, some of the people in the audience screamed and hid under their tables. They thought they were going to be run over! So can there be any doubt in your mind that watching films is a learned activity, something cultural and not natural.
show: Exiting the Factory, Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat, Baby’s Lunch, The Sprinkler Sprinkled, Demonlition of a Wall (and reverse), Card Party.
Why might they have chosen to shoot the film of this locomotive? Perhaps simply because there was motion in the subject: this is the kind of thing that motion pictures could do that still photography couldn’t. The other film, of the child eating, was perhaps the first in what has been a one hundred year tradition in film: the home movie!
How is the camera work different from today’s films? Well, these first filmmakers were greatly limited by the technology available to them. Besides the length of the film, you’ll note that the film is all one take, and that the camera doesn’t move.
By the time of Georges Melies a few years later, film had changed into something more of a vehicle to entertain its audiences. Melies was a originally a magician (you’ll see how this affects the kind of films he made). Melies became the most popular filmmaker in the world of his day. A Trip to the Moon is considered his masterpiece.
Here are a few things to look for:
MELIES: A TRIP TO THE MOON (1902)
--MISE EN SCENE--How is it like a staged play?
--CAMERA--How is the cinematography different from today's Hollywood films?
--How is Melies' work DIFFERENT from the Lumieres'?
You’ll note that the action in this little film all occurs as if it were taking place on a stage. Everything is in two dimensions, with very little depth. The camera seems to be placed about ten rows back in a theater: as if the film audience were given the best seat in the house for a Paris stageplay!
Once again we have a camera that doesn’t move, but we do have editing…even though all the shots keep their same distance from the action: there are no close ups, no medium shots, etc. It’s all still as if on a stage, with different backdrops. (Your text on pages 116-117 gives a breakdown of the scenes in this film, discussing the editing).
The one time the camera appears to move, when the rocket is heading towards the moon, Melies actually kept the camera still and moved the set construction of the face of the moon closer to the camera to give the impression of movement.
Melies started his career as a magician. One change in his film from the Lumiere, not surprisingly, is the use of special effects: the characters who disappear (Melies merely stopped his hand cranked cameras, removed the actor from the stage, then started cranking again: no editing took place!). And in some of his films, color, which came about not through color stock film, which didn’t exist, but through Melies himself hand painting each frame!
One important advance from Lumiere to Melies is the fact that the latter’s films tell a story, something that we’ve come to expect in our days.
Our last silent film is a feature length, 76 minute comedy from 1926 by American filmmaker Buster Keaton. It’s called The General. I think you’ll be able to see how far film advanced between the turn of the century and the era right before sound films (which began in 1927—by 1929 virtually all films had sound). I also think you’ll enjoy The General much more than the short films we saw, and you might want to ask yourself why. This could help you understand how films advanced in their first thirty years. But in The General you’ll have to watch very closely to notice the subtleties of the film. We’re used to depending on sight and sound to enjoy movies, which means in part that we can be somewhat careless. Depending only on sight means we must work a little harder.
We can surely consider Buster Keaton a film auteur. In 1920 he founded the Keaton Film Company, of which he had total artistic control. Between 1923 and 1928 he made nine films, each of which was very successful financially. The General is considered his masterpiece. You’ll notice that the film has a fairly complex narrative, but you’ll also notice that on anther level it’s a series of gags, of comic situations. One of the amazing things is that most of these gags were improvised by Keaton. They weren’t planned out ahead of time! Keaton’s films never used written scripts or shooting schedules. The filmakers knew only the premise of the film and its conclusion. The rest was improvised. Keaton did all his own gags, never using a stunt man, even for the ones that are dangerous. Keaton never smiles in the films, and he often appears as a mere speck in the mise en scene, surrounded by large machines. You’ll notice despite Keaton’s serious-little-man persona, he is almost like an acrobat or an athlete. His movements are almost balletic at times, which adds to the comedy (which is often physical humor).
One of Keaton’s associates tells us that Keaton came up with the ideas himself for 90% of the gags in the films. He also chose every camera set up, and was responsible for the final cut of the film, which means he was in charge of editing. He was usually able to execute these gags successfully on the first take, without so much as a rehearsal. Keaton believed that rehearsing the gags produced an effect that looked calculated and mechanical.
Keaton’s typical method was to shoot five or six times the amount of film he needed, edit together the footage that was funniest and leave out the rest. The films were played before audiences in sneak previews, reedited based on audience response, then released to the general public.
Some other things to look for in The General
--The Gags: a series of “theme and variations.” They have multiple parts
--Editing
--Realistic acting, costuming, settings (not melodramatic as in some early films)
--Action takes place on several planes at once (depth in the mise en scene)
--Keaton’s character in the film
--the depiction of “the girl”
AFTER THE FILM
I’m going to play through a few scenes from The General to illustrate for you some of the things I asked you to look for in the film, elements that mark Keaton’s artistry. I’ll try not to stand up here and “explain the jokes” to you, since nothing is worse than that! And I’m not going to claim some deep “hidden meaning” exists in the film. My point is to show how Keaton was skillful enough to recognize the potential of the film medium for his audiences. That’s probably why he was so popular in his day and so heralded as an important filmmaker to this day.
1. OPENING SHOTS (1:28 – 3:15)
Note how the opening shot gives us the characteristic action on several levels simultaneously, in this case three levels. Note that we have realistic acting in the film even though it’s a comedy. We don’t have handwringing and exaggerated gestures as we see in some early melodramas or comedies. Note too the degree of editing which exists in the film: “He had two loves…his train…and” and then we get a cut from the titles to a shot of “the girl,” the love interest, and then a cut to Keaton taking down her picture.
Note next the characteristic small protagonist (Keaton) against the large set, shot in a long shot, here of the girl’s family’s house. In this scene we get the first simple “gag” of the film, when Keaton discovers the girl behind him rather than inside the house, as he expects her to be. Keaton described his character’s persona as that of the classic slow thinker, who has a delayed reaction to the complications life presents him. In that delay is some of the humor, I think.
2. SITTING ON THE WHEEL OF THE LOCOMOTIVE (chapter 3, 10:35)
Here’s one of the most well known shots in Keaton’s films. Look at how the little man is so deep in thought that he doesn’t notice the train is moving. Note the expression on his face. Great comic timing!
3. CANNON GAG (19:11 - 22:33)
(read before we see the clip).
First note the use of crosscutting, (or “parallel editing” as your text calls it on page 140) in which “the film shifts back and forth between two or more actions, often suggesting tha the actions are occurring simultaneously.”
We see in a lot of the shots in this gag that Keaton the little man hero is small in the mise en scene (as he is when he’s sitting on the locomotive wheel, or running down the track chasing after the General after the Yankees have stolen it, or left alone on the empty street at the end of the film after all the Confederate soldiers have gone off to battle).
Notice too the skillful editing in this scene, how it adds to the humor. First we get a tracking shot of the locomotive hauling the cannon. This isn’t some kind of gimmick or studio shot. It probably would have been technically fairly difficult to produce this shot at the time.
The gag here, as always, is set up in a series of parts. First the cannonball comes up short, then there’s an explosion behind the train when the cannonball is pushed over the side. Then the car uncouples and the cannon lowers. Note the editing at this point: we have a long shot to show the uncoupling, then we cut to the point of view of the cannon (look at the depth in this shot). Then we get a shot from the front of the engine looking back, when Keaton uselessly throws a little piece of wood at the cannon
The gag is completed when the trains randomly come to a curve in the the track and the exploding cannonball accidentally comes close to hitting the Yankees
4. LOG ON TRACK (chapter 6 24:57)
Here’s another famous moment in The General. Again here we have the little man pictured small against the giant machine in the mise en scene. Notice the cut to tracking shot, then cut to a long shot as Keaton cleverly (and luckily) hits one log with another to clear the track. Here is a fine example of Keaton’s athleticism—Keaton as a performer, an acrobat, and a physical comedian. Imagine pulling off this “gag” in one take, without special effects!
5. ARMY RETREAT chapter 7, 28:23 - 30:28)
One last very famous scene in the film. Here’s a great example of action going on on more than one plane in the mise en scene. In the foreground, Keaton stokes the fire unaware, while behind him the Confederate Army retreats, and later the Yankee army advances. The contrary movement, the locomotive going one direction and the soldiers going the opposite direction, is visually interesting for us. And this gag is not just for laughs, but its irony is tied to the conflict and maybe the theme of the film: who after all is the real hero? Is it the supposedly gallant soldiers? Or the officers, who later in the film can’t figure out how to straighten out the track that Keaton has bent. They stand around and discuss it as if in a committee meeting, until an enlisted man with an axe finally fixes it. The hero, in The General, and in life perhaps the film is saying, is the little guy, the Keatonesque figure who by luck and by pluck comes out on to at the end.
A few last words. First, consider the shot of the train falling off the bridge into the river: tame by the standards of today’s action movies, but a pretty remarkable piece of filmmaking for 1926
Second: Some of the comedy of The General revolves around the figure of “the girl.” She’s the butt of a lot of the jokes, including the physical humor when Keaton puts her in the bag, or when he’s trying to protect her decency (by not touching her an “improper” way!) at the same time she’s crawling out of the boxcar and onto the tender. But it’s worth noting that this minor character changes somewhat! I love the stereotypical humor when she sweeps the cab of the locomotive during the chase, and throws away one big piece of wood because it has a hole in it! But later, she is the one who thinks up the trick of tying the two spruce trees together so it slows down the Yankees. And by the end of the film, she’s running the engine quite well without him. When he puts down his hand to help her up to the cab, she doesn’t need his help, but bounds up on her own instead.
And finally: what became of Buster Keaton? In 1928 he signed a contract with a major studio, MGM, a move which Keaton later referred to as “the biggest mistake of my life.” The studio system ate up Keaton. They insisted that he work from a script instead of improvising. They insisted that there be more storyline to his films. And they demanded final control over his output. His scripts got worse and worse, his films worse and worse, and by 1933 he was fired. As it does so many times, the conformity demanded by the Hollywood Standard, the conservative nature of the American corporate system, destroyed the work and the spirit of the creative individual Keaton.
But his early funny films remain.
LUMIERE BROTHERS SHORT FILMS: ACTUALITIES (1895-7)
the first films projected before an audience on December 28, 1895, in Paris
--Kinds of SUBJECTS chosen (mise en scene)?
(Why might they have chosen these subjects?)
--CAMERA--How is the camera work (cinematography) different from today's Hollywood films?
MELIES: ATrip to the Moon (1902)
--MISE EN SCENE--How is it like a staged play?
--CAMERA--How is the cinematography different from today's Hollywood films?
--How is Melies' work DIFFERENT from the Lumieres'?
The General (Buster Keaton, 1926)
Some things to look for in The General
--The film is a series of Gags: “theme and variations.” (The gags have multiple parts)
--Editing
--Realistic acting, costuming, settings (not melodramatic as in some early films)
--Action takes place on several planes at once (depth in the mise en scene)
--Keaton’s character in the film
--the depiction of “the girl”
Experimental Films
In our last unit we’re viewing films outside of the Hollywood tradition, the Hollywood Standard—specifically, a number of short and one feature length silent film last week, tonight two short and one feature length experimental films, a documentary, and a foreign language film. My purpose in showing you these films is simply to give you a chance to see films you wouldn’t have a chance to see otherwise (none of these films will be playing at Cinemark). Some of these films also make us ask some very basic questions about what film is and what film can do. This week’s films, especially, may question your assumptions, enculturated in you by the Hollywood Standard that you’re used to, that in order to be a “good film,” a film must be a narrative film, that it must be realistic, and that it must be “entertaining” in a light way that doesn’t challenge your intellect too much. The films we will see tonight are none of these. Yet I will argue that they are very good films.
The ideas and concepts we will cover in this unit will be easier than in our past units. But the films themselves will be more challenging. Therefore you must watch the films very closely, especially this week, and consider a second viewing of the films on reserve in the library.
Your text on page 367 describes characteristics of experimental films. They “may explore the possibilities of the film medium, may have been ahead of their time, are out of the mainstream, rely heavily on self-expression, and remain largely free of the limitations placed on commercial movies.”
And on page 368:
“Experimental films…tend to question the dominant ideology, including a society’s political assumptions and sexual mores.”
They…”frustrate the expectations of viewers brought up on classical Hollywood cinema and often aim to startle, if not shock.”
Keep in mind that ALL film originally was experimental and independent. Film was at first a technological experiment (think of the Lumieres), later it was a commercial experiment. Before the rise of the major Hollywood studios film was produced by individual entrepreneurs (Lumieres, Melies, Keaton), not by corporations. So what you accept now as the “natural” state of film—that it be narrative, realistic, and entertaining to large numbers of people, a mass audience—isn’t natural at all. It’s a construction of our culture and our economic system.
However, it’s also true that a lot of imagery currently IN our popular and commercial culture could be said to have ORIGINATED with the avant garde. People imagined images and pioneered film techniques for artistic purposes before the techniques were coopted for commercial ones. I’m thinking of primarily tv advertising and music videos—perhaps in the way they are edited, in what appears in the mise en scene, and the way they seem to eschew traditional narrative. You might ask yourself how these short films we’ll see tonight are similar to ads and videos. How do these art films predate the commercial films (ads and videos) that came after them?
I’ll introduce the first two, fifteen minute films to you, and then show them back to back
INTRODUCTION TO
UN CHIEN ANDALOU (Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali, 1929)
MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON (Maya Deren, 1943)
“Occasionally” writes Thomas Sobchack, “a filmmaker will create a dream without a dreamer. In a sense, it is the film that dreams or remembers.” This is the case with Un Chien Andaolou. The film comes out of the artistic and literary movement at the beginning of the twentieth century called Surrealism, which believed in the liberating qualities of illogic and shock. But the surrealists were also interested in Freud’s idea that in dreams and in the unconscious mind, and in the shocking, sometimes sexual images that appear in dreams, lay a key to understanding human behavior. Surrealist films are structured by free association of images—that is, there seems to be some kind of connection between one image and the next, one scene and the next, but it’s not a strictly logical connection. We’ve all had dreams like this, which seem illogical yet in a strange way make sense. Say for instance that you dream you’re in your apartment talking to a friend, but then for no reason you're outside with him in the backyard of your childhood home. You look again and it's no longer your friend with you, but your family dog. Your grandfather comes out the door, who's been dead for ten years, and then suddenly where your house was there is now a spaceship or a prison or a giant piece of cheese or . . .well, you get the idea.
This European surrealist movement in art, literature, and cinema was also in part a reaction to the senseless slaughter of WWI. The surrealists actually hoped to promote world revolution by releasing untrapped forces of the unconscious mind! This probably seems pretty idealistic to us now—a mark perhaps of how naive the surrealists were, but equally of how jaded politically we are in this day and age, living in a time when most people feel, even in democracies, that they can do little to bring about political or economic change.
As you watch this short film, look for
1) how it shocks you
2) how it uses free association
3) how it violates your expectation of what film should be
4) experimental cinematography
The second film short film I will show, “Meshes of the Afternoon” is credited with being the first experimental film made in America. Maya Deren was the primary figure in the new American avant garde movement in film in the 1940's
Before this film, about the only film that we could call purely experimental done in the States, believe it or not, was the animation of Walt Disney!
In this film, look for
1) where it goes against your expectations
2) experimental cinematographic techniques
3) symbols --objects that seem to have an importance beyond their everyday function in the world or in this film
AFTER THE FILMS
Chien
Director Luis Bunuel describes Un Chien Andalou this way:
“The sources from which the film draws inspiration are those of poetry, freed from the ballast of reason and tradition….This film has no intention of attracting or pleasing the spectator; indeed, on the contrary, it attacks him, to thet degree that he belongs to a society with which surrealism is at war….The motivation of the images… was meant to be purely irrational! They are as mysterious and inexplicable to the two collaborators as to the spectator. NOTHING in this film SYMBOLIZES ANYTHING.”
Perhaps you did indeed feel attacked by this short film. The title, by the way, translates from the Spanish as “An Andalusion Dog,” which the director said was also completely meaningless.
But despite the avowed lack of meaning, what effects did this very early, technologically primitive film produce on you, and how did it produce them?
1) how it shocks you (or how it at least intended to shock the audience of its day)
--opening image of eyeball being sliced by razor is one of the most famous in all of cinema history.
--man dragging a piano with 2 priests by the neck to get at woman is overtly sexual as a dream can sometimes be. We can see the new European interest in Freud.
--I find the woman poking the severed hand with a stick to be the most shocking image, along with the ants coming out of the hand in another shot
2) how it uses free association
--cloud cuts across moon, razor cuts across eye
--hair in a woman’s armpit dissolves to a man’s beard
--a book in a man’s hand turns into a gun
--a man is fondling breasts, then buttocks
There seems to be a kind of logic to the free association of these images, but it is more the logic of dreams than our waking logic. One thing suggests the next.
3) how it violates your expectation of what film should be
--not "realistsic": The man wears the clothes of a maid for no reason. There is no plot; the film is not narrative. A man is killed in one scene, then reappears in the next. The various special effects are not in the interest of creating an illusion of realism.
--violates unity of time. The titles seem to make a mockery of narrative in film: “once upon a time” “eight years later” “towards three in the morning” “sixteen years before” and finally “in the spring.”
--violates unity of place (woman leaves apartment and is directly on the seacoast, man falls in the apartment but lands in the woods)
4) experimental cinematography
--the trick dissolves mentioned above, superimposition, slow motion
Meshes
1) where it goes against your expectations
--the same character appears on screen in two, three different places
--violates unity of time (same piece of film footage repeats in the film, suggesting that time is elastic, that film does not represent an event happening only once)
--violates unity of place (towards the end, when we see the close ups of the woman walking, each footstep lands in a different place)
These last two points are what your text calls a “lack of narrative” in the film (379). We expect stories to take place in one identifiable time and place, and while there may be flashbacks, we don’t expect film to be edited in such a way as there are continual jumps in time and place not motivated by the story.
2) cinematographic techniques
--jump cuts in one scene place the woman in different places on the stairs
--slow motion: we’ll accept it now in realistic narrative films, but at one point audiences would have considered it unrealistic, dreamlike. It would have called attention to itself.
--the rocking image as woman climbs the stairs.. In the days before hand held cameras, to move the camera this way must have been disorienting or at least something new to the viewer.
3) symbols --objects that seem to have an importance beyond their everyday function in the world or in this film
key, flower, knife, mirror: these objects repeat in the film so that they seem to have a special meaning. But in keeping with the mysterious, dreamlike vision of the film, it would be difficult for us to say just what that meaning is.
Baraka (1992, Ron Fricke) 96 minutes
The making of this film involved a 13 month shoot, in 24 different countries. The filmmakers went around the world 3 times, shooting in a different culture every week or two for a year.
The film is nonverbal. there are no main characters. “The main characters are the locations and the essence that comes out of those images” said director Ron Fricke.
This from a DVD review by Larisa Lomacky Moore on amazon.com
The word Baraka means "blessing" in several languages; watching this film, the viewer is blessed with a dazzling barrage of images that transcend language. Filmed in 24 countries and set to an ever-changing global soundtrack, the movie draws some surprising connections between various peoples and the spaces they inhabit, whether that space is a lonely mountaintop or a crowded cigarette factory. Some of these attempts at connection are more successful than others: for instance, an early sequence segues between the daily devotions of Tibetan monks, Orthodox Jews, and whirling dervishes, finding more similarity among these rituals than one might expect. And there are other amazing moments, as when sped-up footage of a busy Hong Kong intersection reveals a beautiful symmetry to urban life that could only be appreciated from the perspective of film. The lack of context is occasionally frustrating--not knowing where a section was filmed, or the meaning of the ritual taking place--and some of the transitions are puzzling. However… cinematographer Ron Fricke (Koyaanisqatsi) explains that the effect was intentional: "The film is not about where you are or why you’re there; it's what's there."
Perhaps this is a film about seeing and noticing the world. Judge for yourself…
After the film:
*Why doesn’t the filmmaker provide subtitles or voice over telling us where in the world these pictures are taken?
--not necessary. Producer Mark Magidson: “it’s not about where is this and where is that. It’s not a travelogue, but a moving emotional experience.” Or perhaps the film is a comment on our need to locate. My wife every time the film switched to a new scene asked, “Where was that?? Where was that?” And sometimes when the film changed locations, I remarked out loud, “I was there!”
Perhaps just as we try to impose a narrative on Meshes of the Afternoon (has the woman killed herself? Been murdered by the man? Is this all a dream?), we try to locate the exotic images in Baraka, instead of just experiencing them.
Director Ron Fricke:
“It’s like doing a painting, really. There’s a concept in the beginning. You go out and gather up all this data, you shoot on all these occasions, then you bring it back and look at it. You make a structure based on what works with the concept.”
The director’s initial controlling idea was that the film be about “humanities relationship to the eternal.”
*What recurring themes or subjects do you see running through the images depicted?
--the sacred (whirling dervishes, budhist monks, the River Ganges, Hassidic Jews, orthodox Christianity, hieroglyphics, incredible natural beauty)
--“humanties relationship to the eternal” (terra cotta warriors, pyramids)
--poverty (people on garbage dump looking for…food?)
--fast pace of modern life (Hong Kong time lapse. Chinese factory, chicks down slot)
--environmental degradation: garbage dump, cityscapes, cutting of rain forest in Brazil, ape in hot spring in early sequence
--movement: of clouds and stars, traffic (time lapse)—like Lumeire brothers’
*also note
-world music in musical score (pan flute, bag pipes, chant, asian instruments)
--the scene of the men in a crowd (perhaps in Indonesia) waving their hands: some of the only on screen sound in the whole film! The message/effect in this scene is conveyed as much through sound as through visuals. The scene makes us ask, what are they doing? Is this sport? religious ritual? entertainment? a competition? We don’t know; we’re left only to enjoy the picture, color and movement for its own sake; to draw inferences as to its significance or purpose. Perhaps the film is about that process of active viewing, of trying to make sense of what we see.
*Why is the film edited with sequences in this particular order? Can you find connections between some back to back sequences?
--shapes: back of monk’s head, to similar rock formations
--subject: religious devotion or practice
*note cinematography:
-time lapse cinematography
-slow motion (men in steel factory)
-camera movement: slow dolly in or dolly out
-aerial shots
-symmetrical and asymetrical compositions (like a series of moving paitings) that drawa attention to composition.
-use of light and shadow
-color
-people looking directly at the camera (obviously this has been staged, arranged. The subjects are not doing something as they would in everyday life, not “natural,” so is this true, natural documentary? The filmmakers’ purpose, it seems, is to show the people as icons, as images, rather than characters. We make some kind of connection with the people through their gaze).
While this film is challenging, and I find my attention lagging at points, I hope you see the benefit in viewing a film that you clearly could not see at the local mall, a film clearly outside of the Hollywood Standard that suggests that a film can be something very different from what you’re used to and still be “a good movie.”
EXPERIMENTAL FILMS
UN CHIEN ANDALOU--Luis Bunuel &Salvador Dali, 1929
--English title: An Andalusian Dog
--Surrealism: “a movement in 1920s and 1930s European art, drama, literature, and film in which an attempt was made to portray or interpret the workings of the subconscious mind as manifested in dream.” (Phillips 369)
--structured by free association
--"uses the material of the everyday world as we normally perceive it, but puts it to incomprehensible, shocking, and funny use." (Sobchack 389)
look for
1) how it shocks you
2) how it uses free association
3) how it violates expectations of what film should be
4) experimental cinematographic techniques
MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON--Maya Deren, 1943
--Deren was the primary figure in the new American avant garde movement in film in the 1940's
look for
1) how it violates expectation of what film should be
2) experimental cinematographic techniques
3) symbols --objects that seem to have an importance beyond their everyday function in the world or in this film
BARAKA (1992, Ron Fricke) 96 minutes
Look for
*Why doesn’t the filmmaker provide subtitles or voice over telling us where in the world these pictures are taken?
*What recurring themes or subjects do you see running through the images depicted?
*Why is the film edited with sequences in this particular order? Can you find connections between some back to back sequences?
*note techniques of cinematography:
-time lapse cinematography
-slow motion
-camera movement: slow dolly in or dolly out
-aerial shots
-symmetrical and asymetrical compositions (like a series of
moving paitings)
-use of light and shadow
-color
-people looking directly at the camera
*world music in musical score
Characteristics of Experimental Films
(Phillips 367)
--may explore the possibilities of the film medium
--may have been ahead of their time,
--are out of the mainstream
-- rely heavily on self-expression
--free of the limitations placed on commercial
movies.
--tend to question the dominant ideology, including a
society’s political assumptions and sexual mores.
--frustrate the expectations of viewers and often aim
to startle, if not shock.”
Baraka -- Recurring Themes or Subjects
--the sacred (whirling dervishes, budhist monks, the River Ganges, Hassidic Jews, orthodox Christianity, hieroglyphics, incredible natural beauty)
--“humanity’s relationship to the eternal” (terra cotta warriors, pyramids)
--poverty (people on garbage dump looking for…food?)
--fast pace of modern life (Hong Kong time lapse. Chinese factory, chicks down slot)
--environmental degradation: garbage dump, cityscapes, cutting of rain forest in Brazil, ape in hot spring in early sequence
--movement: of clouds and stars, traffic (time lapse)—like Lumeire brothers’
THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE
Victor Erice 1972 98 minutes
various awards for Spanish cinema
Characters:
Ana
(amateur actor)
Isabel (older sister)
(amateur actor)
Teresa (mother)
Fernando (father)
Fugitive soldier
Spanish Civil War
1936-1939
Was fought between forces loyal to the elected Spanish Republic (Loyalists,
Republicans), socialist, and communist forces on the one hand, and fascists led
by General Francisco Franco. Franco
had support from Fascist Italy and from Hitler and Germany, and in retrospect
many people have come to think of the Spanish Civil War as a prelude, a
rehearsal if you will, for WWII, which started in Europe in 1939 when Hitler
invaded Poland.
There were appeals to help the Loyalists sounded throughout the world, but
Western democracies failed to act, in part because of the participation of
Communists and other leftists in the alliance that opposed Franco and the
Fascists.
Franco won the war, set himself up as dictator of Spain, received the support of
Western democracies during the Cold War, and remained in power for thirty five
years, through the time of the making of tonight’s film, which many critics have
seen as a veiled criticism of his regime (veiled, of course, because there was
censorship in Franco’s Spain).
CLIPS
Note how
important parts of the story are told
cinematographically, subtly, through images, rather than depending on
dialogue. Despite our discussion of
sound and of screenwriting, film remains primarily a visual medium, thus this
skill is admirable in a director.
1, 2. Setting: note
how the exterior shots, both the countryside (bookmark
#1: 1:45-2:23) (bookmark #7:
1:19:23-1:20) sand the village, are of vast open spaces, and how
small the characters often appear in the
mise en scene. This suggests
their relative unimportance in the world, and how isolated the village.
And, metaphorically how isolated Spain is from the outside world.under
Franco, according to some film critics.
Dissolves to collapse
time,
and thus tell the story economically
3. day into night at the house
(bookmark #2 20:47-21:20),
followed by sound bridge to interior shot.
4. girls run to barn the first time
(bookmark #4: 35:01-35:38
(again note how small and by extension inconsequential they appear in the
vast empty landscape depicted)
Ana returning to the barn much later, after Isabel has taken her there the first
time (no cuts between the two scenes)
bookmark #5 36:56-37:25.
The camera doesn’t
move, the scene doesn’t change, yet we can infer time has passed, perhaps a day,
perhaps more.
And how the director is able to tell a
story through pictures, not relying on dialogue:
5. scene in which Fernando comes to
bed tells us in about two minutes of running time that this is not a happy
marriage
Bookmark #3
(28:53-30:55)
The camera doesn’t move. No editing.
We know Fernando is present only by his shadows and the clunking of his
heavy shoes, which we also heard earlier when he was pacing upstairs, and the
sound of him undressing and getting into bed.
Teresa opens her eyes, but does not move or talk to him or reach out to
him. She remains still.
6.
bookmark #8(1:23-1:24:20)
scene in which Teresa burns a letter we presume is to her lover (one she
wrote to him but hadn’t mailed) .
The way I read this scene was that it implied that the Republican soldier who
was killed had been her lover, returning to see her as he was fleeing from the
victorious Fascists. But American
Movie Classics describes Teresa as “writing letters to a nonexistent
correspondent,” while a couple of other sources say she writes to a lover exiled
to France because of the Civil War in Spain.
Perhaps they conclude that by looking at the address on the envelope as
it burns in the fireplace.
I note, though, that she writes to him about the house as if he were familiar
with it. I guess that’s what made me
conclude he was a real person, not imaginary, though I can’t say for sure, and I
suspect that Erice constructs the scene and the film in such a way that he
intends that we can’t know what’s really happening between Teresa and her lover,
real or imaginary.
7. begin
1:12
end 1:18:40 (bookmark #6)
sequence in which soldier finds Fernando’s watch (first introduced at 11:39),
1:12:00. the soldier is killed, the
local constable finds Fernando’s watch among the soldier’s belongings, the
constable gives Fernando the watch back, Fernando shows the watch to Ana at the
dinner table: almost all without dialogue.
The only dialogue is an exchange of pleasantries (‘hello come in, I’ll be
right there.”) between the officer and Fernando, and it’s inconsequential
This to my mind and eye is the most masterful sequence in the film for the way
the story is advanced and the characters drawn, but relying only on images to do
so.
Note here too another dissolve to collapse time (from day to night) and move the
story forward more quickly: Ana leaves the barn and the soldier is killed,
presumably that night (1:13:42-1:14:09)
8.
1:33:18-1:34:22
(bookmark #9)
Scene in which Teresa cares for the sleeping Fernando by placing the cloak over
his shoulders and closing his diary, tenderly taking off his eyeglasses and
putting out the lamp, indicating perhaps that, now that her lover is dead, she
is resigned to her married life with him.
How is the film
different from films in the Hollywood Standard?
Does it meet any of the points in the description of European Independent
Films on page 340? (photocopy this page)
(in fact, it meets ALL of the points of in the text)
1.
we actually
see the Frankenstein monster as Ana imagines him when Ana goes to
the pond, just as the girl Maria does in Frankenstein the movie.
As a matter of fact, it looks the pond Ana goes to is exactly the same as
the one Maria goes to in Frankenstein.
2.
yes
3.
Critic Erdrich makes the point that we don’t get to know the two adults very
well (since we see them more or less as Ana does).
I still don’t understand Fernando’s writing, for instance.
I don’t know what makes Isabel such a cruel little girl (or perhaps you
don’t see her that way).
4.
Who IS the bad guy in this movie?
Fernando, because he keeps his wife from her lover?
Isabel, because she plays tricks on Ana?
Frankenstein, who in the world of
this film we know doesn’t exists?
the Franco dictatorship, which is never mentioned in the film?
Like so many things about Beehive,
we can’t say for sure
5.
None of the characters, it seems, meets his or her goals, certainly not
Fernando, with his writing, not Teresa, with her lover, not Ana, who continues
to feel insecure, continues to believe in the spirit world
6.
ambiguity is pervasive. meaning
events, images, actions can mean more than one thing at the same time.
More about that later. The
plot is episodic. Events in the
plot are not necessarily caused by the
events which preceded them. For
instance, consider the shots of the beehives dropped into the narrative. Could
they have been edited in at different places “without changing the film
substantially” I think so.
7.
Right. unobtrusive.
Only narration is when Fernando or Teresa writes, or when Isable tells
Ana a story.
8.
more likely to be
self reflexive, about filmmaking itself.
We see this in Beehive in the parallels between this film and the early classic
horror film Frankenstein, from the
1930s. especially the scene at
the pond, when Frankenstein appears. I
noticed too in the scene when the doctor exams Ana after her trauma he
concludes. “que viva,” just as Dr. Frankenstein
exclaims about his monster: “It’s alive!”
More about this self reflexivity in a moment.
How are the
characters of Ana and Isabel portrayed differently than the characters of
children would be in an American movie
like Home Alone or
The Sixth Sense?
One way, I think, is that the character of Ana, for instance, is portrayed with
psychological depth and complexity.
The opening credits seem to foreshadow this treatment, by prominently displaying
a child’s drawings (drawings done, the credits tell us, by the girls who play
the two sisters in the film, among others). Note, too , how
the mise en scene tells us that Ana is living in what she perceives as a
dangerous world.
Her point of view, her experience is respected by the film.
It’s a complex view of the world, such as an intelligent and
sensitive adult might have.
It’s not a point of view concocted to be cute or precocious in a way
merely entertaining to an adult audience.
Dangers Ana sees:
--Frankenstein, who murders a girl her age
(in fact, the young actor playing Ana was seeing the film
Frankenstein for the first time during
the shooting of Spirit of the Beehive,
so her reactions to the horror film were her real reactions, not acting)
--Don Jose, a man without a heart, eyes, lungs, etc., who is covered in a black
cloak—hardly reassuring to an imaginative child.
--Isabel’s story about the man in the barn being Frankenstein
--the poisonous mushrooms.
--the approaching train: Ana lingers by the track a moment as the locomotive
approaches
--the deep well she looks into, twice, seeing her reflection
--Isabel pretending to be dead, apparently the victim of the Frankenstein
monster in the barn, then scaring Ana by sneaking up behind.
We feel her fear I think.
--the fire the kids leap through (did you notice this scene ends with slow
motion, then a freeze frame of Isabel
in the flames, suspending her in that dangerous precarious position)
show clip (chapter 15:
104:25-105:29). Ana sees this, and
is apart from this action of the other children, perhaps aware of the danger of
what they’re doing.
Note, though, that the bees and the beehive, which most of us would perceive as
dangerous, is not a threat to her. (54:00) in the one scene where she examines
the bees, she doesn’t seem frightened of them at all.
Note parallels drawn by the film’s
iconography and by the screenplay:
“monster” figures:
--Frankenstein/Don Jose: both are unreal men constructed of body parts, an
attempt by people to recreate life, which the emcee of the
Frankenstein film says only God can
do. In Ana’s mind, this film
implies, the Frankenstein monster is
conflated with Don Jose.
--soldier walks with a limp like Frankenstein.
Ana gives him an apple innocently the way that Maria gave the monster a
flower in the scene by the pond in
Frankenstein. The soldier’s head
and hairline bear some resemblance to the Frankenstein monster.
The soldier is laid out in death on the table like Frankenstein on the
table before he’s brought to life.
The Soldier is also laid out in front of the same movie screen where the
villagers watched Frankenstein.
--Frankenstein is described by Isabel as a spirit, while the title of the film
is
Spirit of the Beehive
--Fernando’s heavy steps heard above the girls’ bedroom suggests the heavy steps
of the Frankenstein monster Fernando wears when beekeeping.
Questions
I can’t answer (which is one reason the film continues to interest me)
“Through its spare, elliptical script sculpted by strong performances and exquisite cinematography, the film layers on questions and mysteries.” the film offers “a hundred ambiguities.” (Mark Bourne, Criterion Collection)
1..In the prelude to the screened version of
Frankenstein, an emcee tells the film
audience, while looking directly at us, “You might be shocked, even horrified,
but I advise you not to take it (the film)
too seriously.” followed by a fade to black.
We could argue that one effect of this might be to make the audience of
Frankenstein in fact take the film
more seriously.
How does Erice want us to think this warning might apply to his own film,
Spirit of the Beehive?
Are we supposed to be shocked? Are
we supposed to take it seriously?
2. Similarly, Erice has Isabel tell
Ana that “everything in the movies is fake.
It’s all a trick” Given that
the audience for Erice’s film hears Isabel say this, are we supposed to be
reminded that Spirit of the Beehive is
also “fake”? Or are we not to
believe Isabel’s explanation? Are
there things in this film that aren’t “fake”?
Or is it all an imagined tale, as the opening title would seem to
suggest, “Once Upon a Time…”
These two points are what the text book would call
self reflexive, as in point 8 from the textbook’s characteristics of
European Independent cinema. That
is, the films make reference to film,
to the fact that they are films, whereas films in the Hollywood standard try to
maintain an illusion of reality, that what you’re watching on the screen is not
something made for profit and entertainment, but is real.
3. What is Fernando writing about
showing his beehives to someone… One
of the peasants seems to be referring to this writing when she tells him, “you
should come down out of the clouds.”
We know his wife years before signed a snapshot to him “my dear misanthrope”
(which refers to someone who prefers to withdraw from the company of others).
Is Fernando writing a journal or diary?
Is he writing a novel? And
what does this mean in terms of the movie?
I’m not sure.
4. What does the film mean by “Spirit of the Beehive”?
How is that spirit present or note present in other aspects of the film?
If you’re still confused, there’s a good, quick plot summary of the film on
Wikipedia.
Show film scholar Linda Erlich interview: 15:34
THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE
Victor Erice 1972 98 minutes
Characters:
Ana
Isabel (older sister)
Teresa (mother)
Fernando (father)
Fugitive soldier
Time Setting: Spanish
Civil War 1936-1939
Was fought between forces loyal
to the elected Spanish government, socialist, and communist forces on the one
hand, and fascists led by General Francisco Franco, with the support of Hitler
Note how
important parts of the story are told
cinematographically, subtly, through images, rather than through dialogue.
How is the film
different from films in the Hollywood
Standard? Does it meet any of
the points in the description of European Independent Films on page
340(blue)/324(green)?
How are the characters of Ana and Isabel
portrayed differently than the characters of children would be in an American
movie?
Note recurring references in the
film’s iconography and in the screenplay to
“monster” figures.
“Through its spare, elliptical
script sculpted by strong performances and exquisite cinematography, the film
layers on questions and mysteries.”
the film offers “a hundred ambiguities.” (Mark Bourne)
What in the film is mysterious or ambiguous to you?
What questions does it pose but perhaps not answer?
HEARTS OF DARKNESS
(Fax Barh, George Hickenlooper, footage from Eleanor Coppola, 1991)
96 minutes
Documentary
: “a film or video representation of actual (not imaginary) subjects.
Documentary filmmakers selected what subject to film and in what ways (or
they select from existing footage, or they combine footage they shot with
existing footage shot by others.)
Sometimes documentary filmmakers stage or re-create situations; and they nearly
always edit the resultant footage.” ( Phillips 364)
Auteur theory
“the belief that some filmmakers, usually directors, function as the dominant
creators of films and that the auteur’s films embody recurrent structures,
techniques, and meanings (auteur is a French word meaning ‘author’ or
‘creator’)” (Phillips 538)
see pages 392-394(green) 397-399(blue) in the text for further analysis of
Hearts of Darkness.
FOUR GOALS of
Documentary (Phillips):
To inform: All documentaries
inform. In tonight’s film, we learn
about Coppola’s difficulties making Apocalypse.
But we also learn about the filmmaking process, the obsession of an
artist (of an auteur director). We
learn about the parallels the filmmakers attempt to draw between the making of
the film and America’s involvement in Vietnam
To entertain—Most feature
length documentaries entertain, and surely
Hearts is meant to do so. The
“backstage” “behind the scenes” stories from the filmmaking process are meant to
entertain: Brando’s bizarre behavior, Coppola’s near breakdown, the fact that
the filmmakers at times didn’t seem to know what they were doing, the stories of
the actors doing drugs during filming.
To criticize—Some
documentaries criticize as well as inform and entertain.
Surely the US involvement in Viet Nam is criticized, as is Hollywood
filmmaking “business,” in Hearts. Note the last
interview in which Coppola imagines some girl in Ohio with a cheap movie camera
being the next Mozart, so that “professionalism” of movies finally ends and film
can become art. By this, I assume he
means that film can become a pure art, freed from the restrictions of
commercialism and the need to make a profit.
To celebrate—Some
documentaries celebrate their subject, “presenting it in a way the viewer can
admire,” according to Phillips.
Here, the process of filmmaking is celebrated, as are the obsessions of the
artist.
To what extent should
the filmmaker be involved in his/her own documentary?
Is it right for the filmmaker to influence the subject’s life?”
(348)
Your text brings up this question in regard to Eleanor Coppola making the film
about her husband. Clearly she’s
personally involved with the principal subject.
I note, though, that the text doesn’t seem to carry this point any
further. It seems to me that it’s
unlikely that anything that Eleanor Coppola did with her documentary camera in
any way altered what we see of the making of
Apocalypse.
The project was on too grand a scale for that to happen.
A documentary has
most or all of the following characteristics:
*Mediated Reality
(“selected, filmed, and edited representations” Phillips 355)
Filmmakers could choose from footage from 1)
Apocalypse Now, 2) Eleanor Coppola’s
footage, 3) interviews conducted after the shooting of
Apocalypse Now, and 4) other material.
They face the choices, then, of what to include, what to leave out (and
surely much of the filmed material about
Apocalypse must have not made it into
Hearts), and then what order to present the material.
Also, many of the technical choices open to narrative filmmakers are also the
choices of documentary film makers: lenses, camera angles, lighting, music, and
so on.
Phillips says, “A documentary film may seem to represent reality objectively,
but it cannot.” This is what
Phillips means by “mediated” reality.
The filmmaker is the mediator between reality and what the audience
understands of that reality.
*Real People instead of actors
While there are many actors in Apocalypse
Now, there are no actors cast in roles in
Hearts of Darkness.
*Location Shooting
The location shooting in the Philipines is a major conflict in the film, as the
shooting was plagued by a typhoon and a rebel insurgency in the country.
*Wide Range of Techniques
Phillips notes that the filmmakers use editing, cinematography, and music in
this documentary much as a filmmaker might in a fictional film.
*Artifacts and Informative Language among
other sources
newly shot footage—Eleanor
Coppola’s documentary, “behind the scenes’ footage.
The “talking head” interview footage shot by Barh in 1991.
existing footage
--(from other films, like Apocaplypse now,
from newsreels of Coppola describing his film at the Cannes Film Festioval).
pre existing music
(from Apocalypse Now and otherwise)
original music—written
just for this documentary.
“talking head” interviews conducted for
this film (1976 & 1991) with Sheen, Coppola, the screenwriter, Dennis
Hopper, etc.
audio tape
(1976)—Eleanor Coppola interviewing her husband saying his film is going to be
really, really bad .
still photos—of
Coppola, his family, stills from The
Godfather.
radio broadcast—Orson
Welles mercury theater broadcast of Heart of Darkness, which we learn was
supposed to be the subject for his first film as well, but he gave it up as
impossible to film, and shot Citizen Kane instead.
voice over narration—Eleanor
Coppola narrating her version of events.
title cards or
subtitles—giving
us, efficiently, the background information we need to know about
Apocalypse Now in case we haven’t seen
the film
newspaper headlines—from
Variety and the
New York Times, covering the delay in the production of
Apocalypse.
Is this a
NON-NARRATIVE or NARRATIVE
documentary?
(narrative: “someone with a goal who has trouble reaching it” Phillips 352).
Hearts is a
narrative documentary.
According to Phillips,
A narrative
--may not represent events chronologically
(see blue text page p. 397, graphs 1-3)
We saw the clearest example of a non-chronological representation this
semester in Memento.
But note that the narrative structure of
Hearts of Darkness is similar
to Good Night and Good Luck, what the
textbook labels B, A , C.
B= Cannes film festival, May 1979
A= flashback to the filming of apocalypse, mostly but not complete chronological
(in this, different from GN and GL, in which the long middle section is
completely chronological)
C= briefly back to Cannes and the last interview with Coppola, after the
festival.
--also may include supporting artifacts and informative language (see
above under “characteristics of the documentary”
--may use editing to criticize or praise a person or idea—show text book
examples p.398-399, (blue book)
--may have multiple plot lines—Apocalypse
Now is pretty traditional in this sense, it seems to me.
The main plot is obviously Coppola making of
Apocalypse; sub plots might be
Brando’s demands, Sheen’s heart attack, the guerilla war in the Phillipines, and
so on. Your text also maintains that
Coppola’s personal problems in the making of the film constitute a separate plot
line, though I think you could also argue that his personal and professional
problems on the set are woven together.
Your text makes the observation that
Hearts of Darkness contains all three of the basic types of conflict: people
vs. people (Coppola vs. Brando, vs. Harvey Keitel, vs. the Phillipine military,
vs. studio heads in the US), people versus nature (Coppola vs. the typhoon) and
conflict within a person (Coppola’s internal struggles making the film).
(end lecture with the question: Does
Hearts of Darkness support or refute the auteur theory of filmmaking?
We can see the many, many people—actors, technicians, extras—involved in
the making of the film. We can see
that film is a collaborative medium.
But we also can argue that Coppola is the person finally responsible for what
appears on the screen.
How a film gets made
(or almost doesn’t!)
You will hear from, or hear references to, the following people involved in film
production:
screenwriter
director
producer:
“a
person in charge of
the buseiness and administrative aspect of making film” including “acquiring
rights to the wscript and hiring the personnel to make the film.”
“the nature of their involvement (if any) remains obscure to those
outside the production.” (Phillips 640)
cinematographer
production designer
(or designer) “the person responsible for the appearance of much of what is
photographed in the movie, including architecture, locations, sets, costumes,
makeup and hairstyles.” (Phillips 626)
and the following terms:
location shooting:
shooting any place
except in a film studio. This can
pose problems related ot a particular location, as we see the location shooting
of Apocalypse Now in the Phillipines
demonstrated in Hearts of Darkness.
special effects
production schedule:
technical advisors:
in this film would be military people
shooting out of
sequence
(not mentioned, but exemplified: like most films,
Apocalypse Now was shot out of
sequence, meaning the film was not shot in the order of the scenes in the final
cut)
sets
improvising
post production
“all the work involved in making a film or video after the filming or taping is
completed, usually including editng the sots, preparing a soundtrack, and making
the credits. (Phllips 640)
Most of the above are included in the glossary of your textbook, and/or are
things we have already covered this semester.
Cultural/Historical
references mentioned in interviews within the film
Heart of Darkness—famous
novel by British writer Joesph Conrad, about British colonialism in Africa, and
the basis for Coppola’s Apocalypse Now.
Tet—The Asian Lunar New Year. In this context, it refers to the Tet Offensive of
1969, during which time the North Vietnamese shocked Americans at home with the
fervor of their combat. The North’s
Tet Offensive was largely unsuccessful, but it did much to turn public opinion
in America against the war.
Ferdinand Marcos—Dictator of the Phillipines supported by the U.S. during the
Cold War because of his anti-Communist stand.
Deposed by a people’s revolution, 1992.
Mercury Theater/Orson Welles—Mercury Theater was Welles’ radio program in the
1930s. Many of his programs were
radio adaptations of classic plays, including
Heart of Darkness.
They were broadcast in the years before he became a filmmaker and made
such films as Citizen Kane and
Touch of Evil.
The Odyssey—Epic poem by ancient Greek poet Homer, in which Odysseus makes a
long journey home after the Trojan War.
Marlon Brando—Iconic and influential screen actor of the 50’s – 90s who won his
second beset actor an Academy Award in Francis Ford Coppola’s
The Godfather Part I, shot before
Apocalypse Now.
The French in Vietnam—Vietnam was a French colony until after World War II.
Then in the 1950s the French lost a long and bloody war to the Vietnamese
fighting for their independence. The
U.S. then more or less took the place of the French fighting there because of
the Communist sympathies of Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh.
Viet Cong—guerilla soldiers from North Vietnam fighting against the U.S. and the
South Vietnamese Army.
Viet Minh—predecessor to the Viet Cong, they were the guerilla fighters who
opposed the French
HEARTS OF DARKNESS
(Fax Bahr, George
Hickenlooper, footage from Eleanor Coppola, 1991)
DOCUMENTARY:
“a film or video representation of actual (not imaginary) subjects.” (Phllips)
Auteur theory “the belief that some filmmakers, usually directors, function as
the dominant creators of films
(Phillips 538)
see pages 392-394(green) 397-399(blue) in the text on
Hearts of Darkness.
FOUR GOALS of
Documentary (Phillips):
To inform:
To entertain
To criticize
To celebrate
To what extent should
the filmmaker be involved in his/her own documentary?
Is it right for the filmmaker to influence the subject’s life?
(348)
CHARACTERISTICS OF
DOCUMENTARY
*Mediated Reality (“selected,
filmed, and edited representations” Phillips 355)
*Real People instead of actors
*Location Shooting
*Wide Range of Techniques
*Artifacts and Informative Language among other
sources:
newly shot footage
existing footage
pre existing music
original music
talking head” interviews conducted for this film
audio tape
still photos.
radio broadcast
voice over narration
title cards or subtitles
Is this a
NONNARRATIVE or NARRATIVE
documentary?
You will hear from,
or hear references to, the following people involved in film production:
screenwriter
director
producer
cinematographer
production designer
and the following
terms:
location shooting
special effects
production schedule
technical advisors
shooting out of sequence
sets
improvising
post production
CULTURAL/HISTORICAL
REFERENCES IN THE FILM
Heart of Darkness
Tet
Ferdinand Marcos
Mercury Theater/Orson Welles
The Odyssey
Marlon Brando
The French in Vietnam
Viet Cong
Viet Minh
HEARTS OF DARKNESS
(Fax Bahr, George
Hickenlooper, footage from Eleanor Coppola, 1991)
DOCUMENTARY:
“a film or video representation of actual (not imaginary) subjects.” (Phllips)
Auteur theory “the belief that some filmmakers, usually directors, function as
the dominant creators of films
(Phillips 538)
see pages 392-394(green) 397-399(blue) in the text on
Hearts of Darkness.
FOUR GOALS of
Documentary (Phillips):
To inform:
To entertain
To criticize
To celebrate
To what extent should
the filmmaker be involved in his/her own documentary?
Is it right for the filmmaker to influence the subject’s life?
(348)
CHARACTERISTICS OF
DOCUMENTARY
*Mediated Reality (“selected,
filmed, and edited representations” Phillips 355)
*Real People instead of actors
*Location Shooting
*Wide Range of Techniques
*Artifacts and Informative Language among other
sources:
newly shot footage
existing footage
pre existing music
original music
talking head” interviews conducted for this film
audio tape
still photos.
radio broadcast
voice over narration
title cards or subtitles
Is this a
NONNARRATIVE or NARRATIVE
documentary?
You will hear from,
or hear references to, the following people involved in film production:
screenwriter
director
producer
cinematographer
production designer
and the following
terms:
location shooting
special effects
production schedule
technical advisors
shooting out of sequence
sets
improvising
post production
CULTURAL/HISTORICAL
REFERENCES IN THE FILM
Heart of Darkness
Tet
Ferdinand Marcos
Mercury Theater/Orson Welles
The Odyssey
Marlon Brando
The French in Vietnam
Viet Cong
Viet Minh