Film theory
In this weeks reading I found it really interesting that when talking about cinema, films and photographs. The reading started with Egyptian mummification the text stated: “the religion of ancient Egypt, aimed against death, saw survival as depending on the continued existence of the corporeal body. Thus, by providing a defence against the passage of time it satisfied a basic psychological need in man, for death is but the victory of time.” (159) The idea for mummification was to cheat death by preserving the body for this in their mind maintained the person alive. And this preservation helped the person psychological need because in a way it gave some control over death. This psychological need persist even now and the article mentions that: No one believes any longer in the ontological identity of model and image, but all are agreed that the image helps us to remember the subject and to preserve him from a second spiritual death”(159) This psychological need that the Egyptians had is still present today and part of maintaining a person alive is by preserving the image and that is why photography is so popular. This also reminds me of an article I read that talked about a second death (which might be similar to a spiritual death). The first death was the one we are aware of the physical death but the second death referred to the time when the last person that remembers you and your name dies (eg great grand daughter). Having this idea of another death increases the psychological need to have images to remember a person by weather it is painting or photographs. The article also talks about the uniqueness of photographs because different from paintings photos don’t have a human intervention compare to a painting that has to be interpreted by a person ( the painter). Also the idea of a “resemblance complex” is interesting because, this need to resemble is not as important with photography which will a replica of the image. Photos not only provided an exact image it freed painters to do different and abstract art like Picasso who was a painter not preoccupied with resemblance. Yet there was a limit to just photograph the article quotes: ” Chevreul, had written, “my dream is to see the photograph register the bodily movements and the facial expressions of a speaker while the phonograph is recording his speech” (165).
in photograph sound and movement is missing but film provides this the article states: “In their imaginations they saw the cinema as a total and complete representation of reality; they saw in a trice the reconstruction of a perfect illusion of the the outside world in sound, color, and relief.” (165) Film has everything need to represent reality. Yet this makes me think of something , that there is a point where film is not enough and there is a need not for actor but for real people to be depicted in TV and that is why reality shows are so popular again we try to depict real life situations.
Film theory
In this weeks reading I found it really interesting that when talking about cinema, films and photographs. The reading started with Egyptian mummification the text stated: “the religion of ancient Egypt, aimed against death, saw survival as depending on the continued existence of the corporeal body. Thus, by providing a defence against the passage of time it satisfied a basic psychological need in man, for death is but the victory of time.” (159) The idea for mummification was to cheat death by preserving the body for this in their mind maintained the person alive. And this preservation helped the person psychological need because in a way it gave some control over death. This psychological need persist even now and the article mentions that: No one believes any longer in the ontological identity of model and image, but all are agreed that the image helps us to remember the subject and to preserve him from a second spiritual death”(159) This psychological need that the Egyptians had is still present today and part of maintaining a person alive is by preserving the image and that is why photography is so popular. This also reminds me of an article I read that talked about a second death (which might be similar to a spiritual death). The first death was the one we are aware of the physical death but the second death referred to the time when the last person that remembers you and your name dies (eg great grand daughter). Having this idea of another death increases the psychological need to have images to remember a person by weather it is painting or photographs. The article also talks about the uniqueness of photographs because different from paintings photos don’t have a human intervention compare to a painting that has to be interpreted by a person ( the painter). Also the idea of a “resemblance complex” is interesting because, this need to resemble is not as important with photography which will a replica of the image. Photos not only provided an exact image it freed painters to do different and abstract art like Picasso who was a painter not preoccupied with resemblance. Yet there was a limit to just photograph the article quotes: ” Chevreul, had written, “my dream is to see the photograph register the bodily movements and the facial expressions of a speaker while the phonograph is recording his speech” (165).
in photograph sound and movement is missing but film provides this the article states: “In their imaginations they saw the cinema as a total and complete representation of reality; they saw in a trice the reconstruction of a perfect illusion of the the outside world in sound, color, and relief.” (165) Film has everything need to represent reality. Yet this makes me think of something , that there is a point where film is not enough and there is a need not for actor but for real people to be depicted in TV and that is why reality shows are so popular again we try to depict real life situations.
Bazin and realism in cinema
André Bazin described what he called “the myth of total cinema.” In Bazin’s vision, the history of film could be seen as a progressive movement toward an ultimate goal: “a total and complete representation of reality […] the reconstruction of a perfect illusion of the outside world in sound, color, and relief […] a recreation of the world in its own image, an image unburdened by the freedom of interpretation of the artist or the irreversibility of time.” (165) Bazin feels that the innate idea (the drive for realism) – which preceded the actual technology of photography – was the desire to reproduce reality as it is perceived. In that sense, Bazin asserts that cinema was brought into this world from the advances of technology in the late 19th century but from that innate desire to reproduce the world around us in perfect detail (not merely satisfied with producing technology for sale). Bazin is again stating that cinema is founded by those “primitives” who dreamed of cinema as a complete replication of nature (a reproduction of the ‘real world’). Bazin believes the desire for realism is the natural, organic beginning and end point of cinema. In the last paragraph Bazin makes an interesting point, explaining “the myth of Icarus had to wait on the internal combustion engine before descending from the platonic heavens. But it had dwelt in the soul of everyman since he first thought about birds.”(166) Bazin believes that the myth of total cinema – realism – was held in everymans’ heart long before the technology was invented.
Bazin may be correct that the essential desire of humankind is the replication and production of a cinema which perfectly imitates reality; however this is not the only drive. Indeed, Cinema is as much a tool of fantasy and dreams, a subjective art form than the reproduction of nature or “reality”. Films like “Avatar” seek to create a world that is not our world but rather one even more beautiful, that could not possibly exist. Moreover, the concept of “reality” became more blurred with time, as the images from movies and TV have changed the nature of reality itself. Reality has become more like the movies, instead of the movies becoming more like reality. Indeed, the world we live in today is saturated with images; images that do not reflect a prior reality but that are constructed, produced by TV. As technology improves, I question whether humanity’s fascination with realism will survive or dissolve.
Lights, Camera, Action
Lights, Camera, Action
Auteur Theory, Directors and Storytelling
I’ve always been fascinated by the world of film and the film industry, and I think this is in largely in part to the ways in which it overlaps with literature and storytelling. The one thing I believe more than anything about the process of filmmaking (and I am by no means no type of authority on this, I am only speaking from modest experience being around filmmakers) is that a captivating, masterpiece type of movie needs one thing at its core – a necessary and arguably also sufficient condition: a good story. The tenacity with which I believe this is probably what attracted me most to Sarris’ article on auteur theory as the reading to focus on for this blog entry. I think that in a lot of people’s minds a good story is equated with a good director i.e. a director who is capable of putting forth a good story – and in the rarest of cases a director who is also the writer of the story. Those people (and it’s often a matter of counting them on one hand, really, because I think directing and writing are pretty separate skills and when someone does possess them both…I find that truly amazing in a wonder-filled way). Sarris points out that “Marlon Brando has shown us that a film can be made without a director,” a statement from a point of view that I understand and to a certain extent agree with (Kubrick missed out), but One-Eyed Jacks also features an action-packed story that lends itself very well to Brando’s on-screen persona.
Essentially, Sarris lays out three premises of auteur theory:
(1) The technical competence of a director
(2) The distinguishable personality of the director
(3) The interior meaning – “the ultimate glory of the cinema as an art”
He explains that these three premises may be visualized as three concentric circles: the outer circle as technique; the middle circle, personal style; and the inner circle, interior meaning. He also specifies that the corresponding roles of the director may be designated as a technician, a stylist, and an auteur, and that there is no prescribed course by which a director passes through the three circles. I believe that the third circle is the one that resonates on the most concrete level with audiences. I thought Sarris’ argument that auteur theory itself “is a pattern theory in constant flux” (453) was particularly insightful, because as several of the readings for this week highlighted, one of the characteristics that sets film apart is its rapid pace – this allows it to connect to audiences in a unique and defining way. This pace, existing within the universe of rapid technological development, will undoubtedly affect the ways in which stories are told. I can see the connections between the directors on Sarris’ list of auteurs (Ophuls, Renoir, Mizoguchi, Hitchcock, Chaplin, Ford, Welles, Dreyer, Rossellini, Murnau, Griffith, Sternberg, Eisenstein, von Stroheim, Buñuel, Bresson, Hawks, Lang, Flaherty, and Vido) and I’d add Spielberg to it as well! I think his technical competence, personality, creation of interior meaning and flare for storytelling is a great example of ways in which the carrying out of auteur theory strikes a chord with audiences.
Here is a scene from E.T. (the infamous ‘ride in the sky’) that I think functions well when considered in conjunction with auteur theory: you can see the technical competence, Spielberg’s distinguishable personality (probably most notably through his characteristic use of the trope of childhood in telling a story; it’s not only the boys and the little girl who are kids, but E.T. is also a child, albeit an extraterrestrial one) and the “glory of the cinema as an art” as it’s not just bikes soaring at this point in the movie, but usually the audience’s smiles too!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR1-UFrcZ0k
And a bonus that I think also works as a good illustration:
Auteur Theory, Directors and Storytelling
I’ve always been fascinated by the world of film and the film industry, and I think this is in largely in part to the ways in which it overlaps with literature and storytelling. The one thing I believe more than anything about the process of filmmaking (and I am by no means no type of authority on this, I am only speaking from modest experience being around filmmakers) is that a captivating, masterpiece type of movie needs one thing at its core – a necessary and arguably also sufficient condition: a good story. The tenacity with which I believe this is probably what attracted me most to Sarris’ article on auteur theory as the reading to focus on for this blog entry. I think that in a lot of people’s minds a good story is equated with a good director i.e. a director who is capable of putting forth a good story – and in the rarest of cases a director who is also the writer of the story. Those people (and it’s often a matter of counting them on one hand, really, because I think directing and writing are pretty separate skills and when someone does possess them both…I find that truly amazing in a wonder-filled way). Sarris points out that “Marlon Brando has shown us that a film can be made without a director,” a statement from a point of view that I understand and to a certain extent agree with (Kubrick missed out), but One-Eyed Jacks also features an action-packed story that lends itself very well to Brando’s on-screen persona.
Essentially, Sarris lays out three premises of auteur theory:
(1) The technical competence of a director
(2) The distinguishable personality of the director
(3) The interior meaning – “the ultimate glory of the cinema as an art”
He explains that these three premises may be visualized as three concentric circles: the outer circle as technique; the middle circle, personal style; and the inner circle, interior meaning. He also specifies that the corresponding roles of the director may be designated as a technician, a stylist, and an auteur, and that there is no prescribed course by which a director passes through the three circles. I believe that the third circle is the one that resonates on the most concrete level with audiences. I thought Sarris’ argument that auteur theory itself “is a pattern theory in constant flux” (453) was particularly insightful, because as several of the readings for this week highlighted, one of the characteristics that sets film apart is its rapid pace – this allows it to connect to audiences in a unique and defining way. This pace, existing within the universe of rapid technological development, will undoubtedly affect the ways in which stories are told. I can see the connections between the directors on Sarris’ list of auteurs (Ophuls, Renoir, Mizoguchi, Hitchcock, Chaplin, Ford, Welles, Dreyer, Rossellini, Murnau, Griffith, Sternberg, Eisenstein, von Stroheim, Buñuel, Bresson, Hawks, Lang, Flaherty, and Vido) and I’d add Spielberg to it as well! I think his technical competence, personality, creation of interior meaning and flare for storytelling is a great example of ways in which the carrying out of auteur theory strikes a chord with audiences.
Here is a scene from E.T. (the infamous ‘ride in the sky’) that I think functions well when considered in conjunction with auteur theory: you can see the technical competence, Spielberg’s distinguishable personality (probably most notably through his characteristic use of the trope of childhood in telling a story; it’s not only the boys and the little girl who are kids, but E.T. is also a child, albeit an extraterrestrial one) and the “glory of the cinema as an art” as it’s not just bikes soaring at this point in the movie, but usually the audience’s smiles too!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR1-UFrcZ0k
And a bonus that I think also works as a good illustration:
Photography is a point of view
“No one believes any longer in the ontological identity of the model and the image?” … well, Mister Bazin, I was wondering if the Egyptian ever believed in it? from the ancient Greece , the illusory status of images as always been known, and theorized by Plato. The Egyptians might have very well known the images where just images but that is were the sacred could lay. And reversing the question, don’t we still sometimes believe in the ontological identity of the model and the image nowadays: what is plastic surgery if not the attempt to make a body looking young younger, the image of the young body a real young body?
I also understand that the tension between symbolism (the “aesthetic” in Bazin’s words) and reproduction of reality (the “psychological”) in plastic arts shows differently in Modern arts such as photography. Though I disagree with Bazin saying that ” [t]he personality of the photographer enters into the proceedings only in his selection of the object to be photographed and by way of the purpose he has in mind.” I think the “original” aspect of an photograph lays in the eyes of the photographer and the technical choices he makes: the framing, the light, the settings… But apart from those details, I agree that photography becomes art when the “objective” is blended into the “subjective’ or even more, when the subjective personality of a photographer makes you look at the world with new eyes. Photography is literally a point of view and a “re-presentation.” Hence the title of Robert Doisneau’s autobiography: L’Imparfait de l’objectif which is a pun with the name of a grammatical past tense in French, l’imparfait de l’indicatif or du subjonctif, as well as with the noun “imperfection” : on the one hand, it reminds the reader that the book is a collection of memories and past events from the photographer, and on the other hand it shows that the objectif (lens and objectivity) is imperfect and finds its validity in this imperfection: the beauty of a photograph is not in the objectivity but in the imperfection of the objectivity, the distortion of reality through the lens of the photographer.
Photography & Cinema
As Bazin mentions in his essay ‘From what is cinema’ that cinema was a complete representation of reality for people like Muybridge, Lumiere, Niepce etc. and hence they tried to develop moving images of people to demonstrate the reality in true sense. This is how I would relate photography with cinema. Bazin further makes comparison of photography with painting and says that photography captures a three dimensional space whereas ‘the use of drawings’ only ‘satisfied the baroque need for the dramatic’. He beautifully defines the act of photography and its difference from painting, where he says that painting would always have the presence of the painter or his subjectivity would reflect in his work no matter how talented the painter is but it is only photography which can be created in the absence of the man. “All the arts are based on the presence of man, only photography derives an advantage from his absence.” (162). He says that painting creates eternity whereas photography captures the time.
I agree with Bazin when he says that photography, though, is very objective unlike painting which is subjective, the role of selecting the objects to be photographed depends however on the photographer but the ‘originating object and its reproduction there intervenes only the instrumentality of a nonliving agent.’ We could see this in cinema, for example in the film Rear Window where the image captured from the window of the outside world is left open for the viewer to focus and interpret the image (many times). Or in one of the films made by Satyajit Ray, a famous Indian director, where he captures the image of a train passing through a village which still has no electricity or the excitement of two young kids looking at the train. We can understand how photography can capture the time in the image through the example of this film. Probably here the train was a source of introduction of the advancement of technology for the children who till then did not have any connection with technology. The other moments of capturing the time would be from the same film when one of the children fall sick and she is lying down on the floor beside a burning lamp which metaphorically demonstrates life and with the death of the child the flame goes off and the image captured is of darkness probably like the death. The other interesting images would be the flight of stairs in one of the Russian film, the image of a factory from inside with its laborers working in a Charlie Chaplin film and the image of a never ending road in Easy Rider.
I believe that photography in cinema though, captures images from the real life but, it originates from the lens of the camera and it ‘contributes something to the order of natural creation instead of providing a substitute for it.’
Some thoughts about Film
Literature as the written form has to be read, the painting, sculpture, architecture, photography have their limits like the absence of auditory perception or the absence in the visual itself of dimentions such as time and movement. Cinema, as the seventh form of ats, providing us with an uncomparable perceptual feast of senses, shows great advantages in our daily life and took an important place in the market. It perfectly combines and mobilises a larger number of the axes of perception. The Nouveaux Mouvement in french and the pravading thrilling films of hollywood has already proved the success of cinema.
It is true that painting lacks the precision than photographs and two dimensions of art lacks the duration of time and extension of space. But it is a right way to conclude the advantages and disadvantages of a certain form of art? IMAX screen and three dimensions movies are so popular right now that all old classical films are all make a reproduce and walk before our screen over again. For exemple, the film Titanic, after a makeover of 3-D, has recieved another high income of the boxes over the world. The audience was still touched and have tears dropped over the romantic love. So what really attracts the mass audience is the renovel visual perception or the story itself? …
Recently, i took a “fly-over” canada. It is not a real flight in a plane but a five dimentions movie which combines the smell, the visual, the auditory and the mobility of the chair makes us feels like a magnificent trip on the airplane. I would rather call it “an experience” than a movie because it is totally different from the traditional films. Will it take over the place of movie and become the eighth form of art? Isn’t it another step towards the full perception? Or is the development of art forms just for persuing the realism? Personnally, I think every form of art has its independant charm that attract us, although these arts interplay within themselves. In reality, there is no certain form of art can completely replace another. Every form of art is like a unique way of expression that display the broad existing world and our mind.
