Film and Media - Midterm Flashcards
edison films
the kiss sandow glenroy brothers cockfight the barbershop
lumiere brothers films
exiting the factory
baby’s lunch
dragoons crossing the saone
arrival of the train
louis le prince films
roundly garden scene
melies films
a trip to the moon
alice guy-blache films
the cabbage patch fairy
the consequences of feminism
45 madame’s cravings
burton keaton films
sherlock jr
classical hollywood
(1917-1960) linear plot / narrative (clear beginning, middle, end)
continuity editing (illusion of creating a self contained world)
fixed cinematic conventions
making “smooth” cuts, “seamless” transitions between shots
strategic use of sound and music
gunning: early cinema
late 19th and early 20th century
CINEMA OF ATTRACTIONS has not disappeared but has been absorbed into narrative cinema = cinema of attractions –> narrative cinema
attraction is exhibitionist confrontation in avant-garde / experimental theater
moments of rupture (breaking the fourth wall) in a trip to the moon
“plot” not always central
cinema with fewer constraints - no strict division of labor
fluid interaction with theater, vaudeville, music hall comedy
talks about vaudeville, which is a show of live performances such as singing, dancing, comedy
popularity of “trick” films - Melies, Guy-Blache
caught between the philosophy of the european enlightenment and the ideology of imperialism
lumiere shorts are more than the sum of its parts (gestalt)
the “global”/ the non west as a form of commodity and entertainment
the global imaginary of early cinema
einstein is “montage of attractions” should shock and create psychological impact on audience
knopf: the theater and cinema of buster keaton
keaton entering cinema as a vaudeville performer
the importance of gags in the film / draws attention to him as a comedian
the film as a dream / fiction and complex relationship between reality and cinema
wow finish - wants to make it memorable
gaines: of cabbage and authors
why study the role of women in early cinema
period before the consolidated monopoly of hollywood studios dominated by men
women participated in cinema that wasn’t popular back then / more control of production
alice guy-blache: the consequences of feminism
classical and contemporary hollywood: director calling the shots, developing individual styles, leaving personal signatures
gaines believes that dominant notion of authorship does not apply to early cinema and we need to rethink “auteur” theory: the idea that the director is a unique in artistic control
auteurism is a school of film criticism that emerged out of french film in the 1960s
auteurist claims that film expresses the “inner personality” - the conscious and unconscious desire of the filmmaker
film is a symptom of the director’s mind that can be analyzed (psychoanalysis)
the director’s mind cannot be understood in isolation from historical and industrial forces within the film is made
woody allen films
the purple rose of cairo
munsterberg: why we go to the movies (1915)
photoplay is munsterberg’s term for film (photography and theater)
presents visual trace like a photograph
interested in the relationship between the moving image and its impact on the spectator
cinema transcends limitations of space and time
cinema as a form of mechanical project of our thoughts
- the close up as an “unconscious optics”
function of the close up
- the cinematic generation of emotion / effect (like horror, disgust, fear, pleasure, etc.)
- the close up of cecelia’s affective reaction as she is “moved”/”affected” by cinema
themes in popular weimar and hollywood cinema
- tokenistic pity for the poor - keeps social hierarchies intact
- glorification of nationalism / patriotism - elides class differences
- exotic travel as a form of escape - ignores questions of economic privilege
- tragic emale protagonists - deflects attention from unequal gender relations
kracauer: little showgirls go to the movies
late 19th and early 20th century
kracauer interested in the figure of “the shopgirl”
the shop girl becomes a “new” female profession
social and cultural anxieties around the figure of the working / consuming woman
becomes the consumer of novels
symptom of capitalist oppression; illusions with real / material effects
themes of the purple rose of cairo
the gap/gulf between hollywood romances and reality
the magical impact of hollywood on the spectator’s reality - tom represents the magical connection
hollywood as a hierarchal study
baudry: ideological effects of the basic cinematic apparatus
dominant ideology - technology is being determined by dominant ideology
transcendental spectator
mirror-state - identification
- infinite mirror
- projection; negation of difference
- artificial perspective
APPARATUS GROUP - THERE IS NOTHING “NATURAL” ABOUT FILM TECHNOLOGY. CINEMA IS PERMEATED BY IDEOLOGY, THE NATURALIZATION OF ARTIFICIAL/TECHNOLOGICAL PROCESS
baudry presents technology as “natural,” conceals mechanisms of production, normalizes conventions that make cinema profitable
converting 3D space into “naturalistic” 2D visual representation
artificial perspective - mimicking the vision of the human eye, producing the effect of distance without making distance an impediment of vision
the “all seeing” human subject
artificial perspective as MEDIATED looking
- artificial perspective in renaissance is not a neutral tool
- the CAMERA OBSCURA privileges Renaissance artificial perspective (transcends limitations of our image)
**Baudry recap
movement of cinematic recap image as technological illusion
movement produced by moving still frames - suppressing their stillness
ideology behind cinema = lifelike
examines technological manipulations
“transcendental spectator”: sense of power / omniscience produced
lacan’s theory of the “mirror stage”
child between 6 and 18 months
learns to see itself as an individual by jubilantly identifying with its mirror image
this moment of recognition is also a misrecognition / an illusion
there is a gap between what the child feels and what the child sees
illusory sensory of mastery is produced by the mirror stage / the imaginary / imaginary narcissism
this stage is associated with the mother / maternal care
the imaginary take is distinct from the realm of the language, culture
the imaginary (this illusory sense of mastery experienced by the ego) remains active in our lives