FILMMMMMMMMM Flashcards
What is the mythical birth year of film? When did the movies come into existence?
1895 is the year that the Lumière Brothers held the first public exhibitions of films on a screen in front of a large audience in Paris, France
What were movies known as?
Soon movies became known as “the seventh art”
What does the term “medium” mean?
Medium is a means by which something is
communicated or expressed.
What is a mass medium?
Technology that allows communication with a mass audience to take place, (film is a mass medium)
What can the grammar of film also be called?
Cinematic Language
These elements include narrative form, cinematography, editing, and sound.
Where did the word Cinema derive from?
From Greek word kinesis, a word that is associated with motion, with movement.
What is a movie?
“Film” comes from fact that movies were shot on celluloid filmstrips from 1890s until recently
What’s the film that is largely credited with having given the Digital Revolution its final push?
James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’
What are the basic components of cinematic language?
Narrative, Shots, Editing
What does the editing control?
Editing controls what the audience sees and how the audience sees it
Why is the low angle shot effective?
Often has the effect of portraying characters
Why is cutting on action effective?
Has the effect of masking cuts and allows editor to shift to new shots, new perspectives, introduce new information, etc., without being noticed
What is cultural invisibility?
The same commercial instinct that inspires filmmakers to use seamless continuity also compels them to favour stories and themes that reinforce viewers’ shared belief systems. After all, the film industry, for the most part, seeks to entertain, not to provoke, its customers.”
What are some aspects of a protagonist?
Goal oriented, faced with challenges and antagonists, audience can identify with passions and motives.
What are explicit meanings in film?
Meanings that are out in the open and easily understood.
What are implicit meanings in film?
Meanings which lie below the surface of a film’s narrative and its presentation.
What is formal analysis?
Formal analysis takes into account all the elements of “cinematic language”: narrative,cinematography,editing,mise-en-scène, sound, etc.
What is the content of a film?
What the film is about
What is the form of a film?
The means by which the content is expressed.
What is parallel editing?
Creates illusion that all three sequences are taking place in the same place at the exact same time, while heightening suspense (“will our daring hero make the rescue in time?”)
What is the persistence of vision?
Refers to the afterimage left in the brain for a split second after one has ceased to see an object with one’s eyes.
What is the phi phenomenon?
The illusion of movement created by events that succeed each other rapidly
What does Memento manipulate?
Time
Who is the protagonist in Memento?
Leonard Shelby
What are the three main approaches to filmmaking?
Narrartive, Documentary, Experimental
What does genre mean?
French word that just means “kind” or “type”
What are M&B’s 6 major American genres?
Gangster, Film Noir, Sci/Fi, Horror, Western, Musical
What are common plot elements of a Western?
Revenge
Shootouts, gun duels, gun fights, etc.
Indian raids and rescues by the cavalry
Cowboys driving cattle across the Western plains
What are some common characters in a western?
The marshal or sheriff
The Deputy/Deputies
The Bad man
the Good-Bad Man
The Bartender
The Barber
What are some common themes in a Western?
Civilization vs. Wilderness
Revenge
Order vs. Lawlessness
What are some common techniques of a Western?
Typically set in arid, rough, and imposing parts of the North American West
(Mexico, US, Canada)
Cinematography often plays up just how inhospitable, yet awe-inspiring these settings are
Action sequences
Indian Raids
Dramatic Rescues
Who directed My Darling Clementine?
John Ford
What is the main character’s name in M.D.C
Wyatt Earp
Who are some classic Western stars?
Henry Fonda
John Wayne
Clint Eastwood
What years were the formative period?
roughly 1903 to the 1930s
What years were the period of maturity?
1939-1960s
What years were the revisionist period?
1950s to the 1970s
What is narration?
Narration is the act of telling a story.
What two things does virtually every film narrative depend on?
A character pursuing a goal
What are round characters?
Characters that have complex characterizations
What are flat characters?
Very two dimensional, uncomplicated
Who is the main character of Out of Sight?
Jack Foley
Who directs Out of Sight
Steven Soderbergh
What is a film’s catalyst
Presents the protagonist with a goal that will drive the rest of the narrative
What is the narrative peak known as?
The crisis
When does the climax come?
When the protagonist faces the crisis
What is the ellipsis?
The omission of material from a narrative that is seen as being superfluous or easily understood from contextual clues (e.g., we don’t have to show a person sleeping for 8 hours to indicate cinematically that they’ve gone to bed and slept 8 hours)
