agenda for 4/9
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Agenda for 4/9. Quiz #1 Man with a Movie Camera discussion Montage Editing lecture Break “Odessa Steps” and analysis “Film and Ideology” discussion What is Genre?. Man with a Movie Camera. What did you draw in your picture? Is there a story in this film? - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Agenda for 4/9
• Quiz #1• Man with a Movie Camera discussion• Montage Editing lecture• Break• “Odessa Steps” and analysis• “Film and Ideology” discussion• What is Genre?
Man with a Movie Camera• What did you draw in your picture?
• Is there a story in this film?
• What does the film tell you about life in the Soviet Union in the 1920s?
• Why does Vertov show us his filmmaking process at various points in the film?
• Why watch experimental film? What are the strategies for drawing meaning from it?
Formal Approaches to Movie Meaning-Making
• How do you use film to:– Tell a story (in a way that a novel or a play can’t)?
– Convey the complex inner thoughts and intentions of the people on screen?
– Make viewers in the audience feel strong emotions, or think new ideas, or see the world in a different way?
Classical Hollywood Narrative: Continuity and Clarity
Cinematographic Distortion: French Impressionism
Distortion of Mise-en-scene: German Expressionism
Sharp Juxtapositions in Editing:Soviet Montage
Continuity Editing• Associated with D.W. Griffith
• The convention of classical Hollywood filmmaking. – Meant to be essentially invisible
to the viewer.
• Cause and Effect Editing: – A→B→C
• Parallel Editing or Cross-Cutting: – A + B = C
Aspects of Continuity Editing• Shot-to-Shot Matches– Eyeline match– Match-on-action– Graphic match
• Spatial Consistency– “Master scenes”– Establishing shot– 180-degree rule
• Temporal Consistency– Linear progression of time
and event
Montage (or disjunctive) Editing
• Associated with Sergei Eisenstein and Soviet Cinema of the 20s.
• Meant to call attention to the editing itself:– Andre Bazin: “The creation of a sense of meaning not
proper to the images themselves but derived exclusively from their juxtaposition” (LaM 349)
• A + B = Z (where “Z” is something offscreen that we, the viewer, have to imagine or think or feel)
Editing: Kuleshov Effect
Some Aspects of Montage Editing• Tempo: Use of different shot lengths (very fast cuts, for example) to create a
feeling (like tension)
• Vectors: Using contrasting angles and movements to convey a feeling (like confusion)
• Repetition: Using the same or very similar shots multiple times in a sequence
• Fragmentation: Breaking a simple action into several different shots
• Dramatic Juxtaposition: Mixing related by not directly connected images (as in a “reaction shot”)
• Visual Metaphor: Adding unrelated images to a sequence to create a metaphoric association
Montage Editing In Man with a Movie Camera
• Graphic Matches to Draw Unusual Connections– i.e., woman washing face / someone washing the city street– Man mining coal / industrial stack producing smoke
• Fast Tempo:– Average shot length of movies made in 1929: 11.2 seconds. – Average shot length of Man with a Movie Camera: 2.3 seconds
• Use of Still Images
• Crowd Movements
• http://www.theasc.com/blog/2014/01/13/the-spinning-top-and-the-parvo-man-with-a-movie-camera/
“Odessa Steps” Sequence
• From Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin (1925)
• Watch for:– Sharp juxtapositions between shots– Mix of “crowd” and “individual” shots– Tempo of shots– Directionality and angles of movement
Film and Ideology• What’s ideology?
• How do films transmit ideology? How do you determine a film’s ideology?– “The same commercial instinct that inspires filmmakers to use
seamless continuity also compels them to favor stories that reinforce viewers’ shared belief systems . . . Because so much of this occurs on an unconscious, emotional level, the casual viewer may be blind to [a film’s] implied political, cultural, and ideological messages” (LaM 10)
• What is Sherlock Jr.’s ideology? What is Man with a Movie Camera’s?
Next Week: Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
• Read chapter 4 (on narratives) and pages 450-455
• First blog post due at the end of next week (Friday 4/18).
• I’ll talk about the shot list/essay assignment due at the end of Week 4 (Friday, 4/25)