Chapter 2: Film Form

Question 1

Form

Answer 1

the overall system of relationships among the parts of a film

Question 2

What does film form do?

Answer 2

1. gives the viewer a structured experience
2. creates patterns
3. creates and sustains expectations

Question 3

Narrative Elements

Answer 3

character, setting, plot, theme, story, structure, resolution, point of view, etc.

Question 4

Stylistic Elements

Answer 4

the way the camera moves, the arrangements of color in the frame, the use of music, etc.

Question 5

Referential Meaning

Answer 5

the film refers to things or places already invested with significance in the real world

ex) During the Depression, a tornado takes a girl from her family’s Kansas farm to the mythical land of Oz. After a series of adventures, she returns home.

Question 6

Explicit Meaning

Answer 6

openly asserted meaning controlled by context

ex) A girl dreams of leaving home to escape her troubles. Only after she leaves does she realize how much she loves her family and friends. Nothing she finds elsewhere can replace them.

Question 7

Implicit Meaning

Answer 7

meaning is not stated directly, a type of interpretation

ex) An adolescent who must soon face the adult world yearns for a return to the simplicity of childhood, but she eventually accepts the demands of growing up

Question 8

In narrative films, what do explicit and implicit meanings depend on?

Answer 8

relations between story and style

Question 9

Symptomatic Meaning

Answer 9

abstract and general, meaning that displays a set of values characteristic of a whole society

ex) In a society in which human worth is measured by money, the home and the family may seem to be the last refuge of human values. The belief is especially strong in times of economic crisis, such as that in the United States in the 1930s.

Question 10

What are the criteria for evaluating films?

Answer 10

realistic, moral, coherence, intensity of effect, complexity, originality

Question 11

Motif

Answer 11

any significant repeated element that contributes to the overall form

Question 12

What are some functions or aspects of motifs?

Answer 12

1. can anticipate action
2. often reappear at climaxes or highly emotional moments
3. motifs may be opposed by other motifs

Question 13

Parallels

Answer 13

cue us to compare two or more distinct elements by highlighting some similarity

Question 14

What does “development” do?

Answer 14

places similar and different elements within a pattern of change

filmmakers often treat formal development as a progression moving from beginning through middle to end

Question 15

Segmentation

Answer 15

a written outline of the film that breaks it into its major and minor parts, with the parts marked by consecutive numbers of letters

Question 16

What is the purpose of a segmentation?

Answer 16

1. enables us to notice similarities and differences among parts
2. plots overall development
3. lets us see the patterning that the filmmakers laid out

Question 17

When does a film have unity?

Answer 17

when all the relationships we perceive within a film are clear and economically interwoven