Midterm

Question 1

narrative

Answer 1

An account of a string of events occurring in space and time; a story; a chain of events linked by cause-and-effect logic

Question 2

exposition

Answer 2

Dense accumulation of detail conveyed in the opening moments of a film; it conveys important information about the characters and the situation that informs the narrative

Question 3

diegetic

Answer 3

Diegetic elements exist in the story world

Question 4

nondiegetic

Answer 4

any narrative, sound, or visual element not contained in the story world.

Question 5

syuzhet

Answer 5

The selection and ordering of narrative events presented in a film

Question 6

Fabula

Answer 6

The chronological accounting of all events presented and suggested; the total story without being abbreviated into a runtime

Question 7

voiceover

Answer 7

A direct vocal address to the audience, which may emanate from a character or from a narrating voice apparently unrelated to the diegesis; diegetic when it is a character from the film

Question 8

turning point

Answer 8

A narrative moment that signals an important shift of some kind in character or situation

Question 9

climax

Answer 9

Major turning point

Question 10

Dénouement

Answer 10

The falling or unraveling action after the climax of a narrative that leads to resolution

Question 11

three act structure

Answer 11

The classical model of narrative form. The first act introduces characters and conflicts; the second act offers complication leading to a climax; the third act contains the dénouement and resolution.

Question 12

Four part structure

Answer 12

Adds a critical turning point at the halfway mark of most narrative films. (Climax is after this critical turning point)

Question 13

point of view shot

Answer 13

A technique in which the audience temporarily shares the visual perspective of a character or a group of characters; we simulate the character’s vision

Question 14

direct address

Answer 14

A sound and visual technique that presents one or more characters speaking into the camera as if talking to the film audience.

Question 15

restricted narration

Answer 15

A narrative approach that limits the audience’s view of events to that of the main character(s) in the film. Films that use restricted narration limit the audience’s perception to what one particular character knows, but may insert moments of omniscience.

Question 16

alternatives to conventional narrative structure

Answer 16

1. Lack of clarity
2. Lack of unity
3. Open-endedness
4. Unconventional characterizations
5. Intrusions, direct address to the audience, and other devices that call attention to narrative as a process

Question 17

ideology

Answer 17

Ideologies are systems of beliefs, values, and opinions

Question 18

In what sense do you think “ideology operates at an emotional level” (p. 318)?

Answer 18

They are formed and influenced by family and cultural background, personal experiences, education, and popular culture, including music, movies, magazines, television, and the internet

Question 19

What is the most common ideology in Hollywood film?

Answer 19

Individualism, self determination, singular hero, savior

Question 20

How are ideologies implicated in “practices of social power” (p. 320)?

Answer 20

Reaffirms values held by societies and can lead to divisions due to its roots in personal experiences, education, and familial/cultural backgrounds

Question 21

What is the “Hollywood Production Code” (p. 321)?

Answer 21

The practice of directors performing self-censorship due to an awareness of social influence of the cinema; filmmakers maintained the status quo by sticking to traditional values in their work and avoiding taboo topics

Question 22

What is the HCUA (or HUAC) and what was its purpose (p. 322)?

Answer 22

U.S. Congress’s House Committee on Unamerican Activities
i. Initially established to investigate Nazi propaganda
ii. Looked into charges that Communist propaganda was infiltrating Hollywood films

Question 23

Theodor Adorno + Frankfurt School

Answer 23

Popular films are nothing more than products of a “culture industry.” Films transmit only ideas that service corporate and government interests that dominate society at large and the film industry in particular.

Question 24

Louis Althusser

Answer 24

Commercial cinema does not browbeat its viewers into submission and instead compels individuals to comply with existing economic and social arrangements

Question 25

Jean-Louis Baudry + Jean-Louis Comolli

Answer 25

Argue that cinema has a profound ability to convey ideologies because of the immersion of the theater; we are so absorbed in the fictional world that we do not think about it being a construction

Question 26

Christian Metz

Answer 26

Argued that films induce a regression to a near-infantile state and activate primal desires associated with narcissism and voyeurism

Question 27

Laura Mulvey + Teresa de Lauretis

Answer 27

Argued that films reinforce the ideology of the patriarchal system on which Western cultures are traditionally based; active male characters are at the center of narratives in which they are rewarded for acting on their desires, whereas female characters are visual objects and are punished for expressing their desires.

Similar to Metz; narcissistic identification with male protagonists, satisfying voyeuristic desires through female bodies

Question 28

genre

Answer 28

A category of films that share narrative, visual, and/or sound conventions

Question 29

genre film example

Answer 29

Western
Male hero restores law and order by killing a band of notorious outlaws
Spacious, post civil war American frontier
Themes of individualism, savior, self determination

Question 30

subgenre

Answer 30

A group of films within a given genre that share their own specific set of conventions that differentiate them from other films in the genre
ex. slasher film = horror subgenre

Question 31

Hybrid

Answer 31

A film that uses conventions of two or more genres

Question 32

Rick Altman’s four approaches to defining genre

Answer 32

Model
- Template in film production

Structure
- Film’s textual system

Etiquette
- Names distributors and exhibitors create to help categorize and market films

Contract
- The implicit agreement between the film and the audience that governs the way fans enjoy it

Question 33

Genre vs. cliche

Answer 33

Genre films employ general aspects of the genre under which they fall while introducing new ideas, whereas clichés introduce nothing new and strictly follow all the age old guidelines of the genre

Question 34

What kind of social implications can genre films have? Make references to Robert Warshow’s comment on the Western hero; Judith Hess Wright on entertainment films and Western’s violence; and Paul Haggis on films’ portrayal of violence as a spectacle.

Answer 34

• Warshow argues that the Western hero acts as a symbol of a (real or imagined) national heritage; they can reflect society’s ideals and ideas of themselves and reinforce our understandings of the past that are not correct or accurate
• Wright argues that genre films lull the audience into complacency based on the films promise to be no more than entertainment; mindlessly absorbing cultural mythology that reinforces the status quo; turns viewers into passive receptacles
• Haggis argued that action films during American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq stirred wartime fervor

Question 35

What is the relationship between genre film and the culture in which they are produced?

Answer 35

The feel of genre films reflects the societal sentiments of the time; ex. Movies reflecting attacks on American soil after 9/11 ex. I Am Legend or Cloverfield

Question 36

How do auteurs work with genre conventions?

Answer 36

Auteurs created genre films that distinguish themselves from other films in said genre

Question 37

When did the commedia all’italiana develop as one of the most successful genres of the Italian film industry?

Answer 37

1958-64

Question 38

What was the socio-historical context at the time?

Answer 38

Italy was experiencing an economic miracle following postwar reconstruction

Question 39

How did consumerism impact film comedy in Italy?

Answer 39

A rise in consumerism led to the comedy’s focus on the relationship between people and goods and how goods mediate relations of gender and class

Question 40

What was the relationship between patriarchy and comedies in this period?

Answer 40

Comedy was male dominated and reinforced traditional gender roles, but contemporary feminity occasionally emerges in the margins of some films

Question 41

What is the Italiannes (italianità) of the Comedy, Italian Style?

Answer 41

All Italian casts, plots were rooted firmly in Italian historical and socioeconomic context

Question 42

What does Mulvey mean with “transvestism” in female spectatorship (p. 66)?

Answer 42

To enjoy the film, women undergo theoretical “transvestism” by temporarily inhabiting the traditional position of male desire so as to relate and root for the male protagonist.

Question 43

Why was the Italian comedy style also referred to as “riso amaro” (bitter laugh)?

Answer 43

Due to the fact that comedy was not always comic and instead frequently tended toward the dramatic and tragic, death was not unusual, and black humor often replaced traditional comedy

Question 44

What does Mulvey mean when she says that cinema is a form of consumption that offers its spectators “overlapping fields of desire” (p. 73)?

Answer 44

Cinema both satisfies voyeurist/fetishist desires through spectatorship, but also turns the screen into a shop window, providing the viewer with alternative scenarios of identity and belonging that appear attainable through relating with characters

Question 45

How are traditional patriarchy and modern consumerism reflected in Italian comedies of this period?

Answer 45

Men are protagonists, women are objects of desire and the object of jokes, the screen is turned into a shop window

Question 46

Bondanella

Answer 46

Fascist Filmmaking/What Rascals Men Are

Question 47

Bazin

Answer 47

Neorealism

Question 48

Zavattini

Answer 48

Neorealism/Bicycle Thieves

Question 49

Gunsberg

Answer 49

Comedy Italian Style/Divorzio all’Italiana

Question 50

Lanzoni

Answer 50

Comedy Italian Style/Divorce Italian Style