Film Culture Final

avant-garde

new and unusual experimental ideas, or the people introducing them (the front-line, ahead of the curve)

documentary

"creative treatment of actuality" - Grierson; Nichols says it has an argument; reenactment with narrative structure; An authoritative and artistic (usually film) presentation which depicts the facts about an event or social, historical or cultural phenomena

iconic sound

"sound effect," coordination of movement and sound

uncanny

(Freud) close to life but not alive; creepy, disjunction between not alive and living

Moana

-"documentary" -Moana is thought to be the first feature film made with panchromatic black-and-white film rather than the orthochromatic film commonly used at the time in Hollywood feature films -Flaherty went well beyond recording the life of the people of Samoa as it happened; He followed his usual procedure of "casting" locals whom he considered potentially photogenic performers into "roles", including creating fictitious family relationships

cinema of attractions

cinema of display; outward facing

direct sound

music, noise, and speech recorded from the event at the moment of filming

newsreel

10 min. reels of current events, spectacles, sports, new machines, etc. (Ex: The March of Time)

classical Hollywood narrative

1917-1960: (horizontal), much like literary narration, has a plot centered around the psychological motivations of characters and their struggle towards a goal; time becomes ruling factor

city symphony

A particular genre of documentary film that provides an impressionistic view of a specific urban place -These films usually lack a narrative, tending to be abstract films structures loosely as "a day in the life of" a city or place, relying on montage to provide a sense of rhythm and movement; an artistic movement that approached cities and tries to capture the color, light, etc and put it together to express the "feel" of the place

subjectivity

Ex: subjective narrative - Last Year at Marienbad; narration from character's POV, shaped by personal feelings and opinions

mise-en-scène

all elements placed in front of the camera to be photographed

Georges Méliès

French magician and inventor who pioneered narrative films with fairy tales and science-fiction stories; employed trickality -example: A Trip to the Moon

cryptobiological teleology

Gunning: clear trajectory of progress of cinema

benshi

Japanese performers who narrated silent films

mirror stage

Laconian term; moment in infancy when child can recognize image in mirror but not as itself; reflection = ego ideal

variety cinema

a theatrical entertainment consisting of successive unrelated acts, such as songs, dances, and comedy skits

constructivism

Russian avant-garde movement that supported dominant political movement; group of artists trying to construct something (no artifice, no illusion, wants to show transparency)

myth

a traditional story about gods, ancestors, or heroes, told to explain the natural world or the customs and beliefs of a society -spread by word of mouth -unites culture

Black Maria

Thomas Edison's film studio; the first film studio

ADR/looping

actor re-records dialogue (fixes mistakes for editing purposes)

André Bazin

Tradition of Realism, critic/theorist, editor of French "Cahiers du Cinema," believed montage was one of many techniques a director could use; strong believer in realism - believed cinema is essentially an objective recording of what actually exists. Believed montage violates reality by superimposing an ideology over actual life. Pointed out that in the evolution of movies, every technical innovation pushed film closer to realistic ideals (sound, color, deep focus, widescreen); cinema = objectivity in time - favored long take - single shot (no editing)

Council of Three

Vertov, Kaufman, Svilova (Vertov's wife) -made Man with Movie Camera

Rose Hobart

a 19-minute experimental collage film created by the artist Joseph Cornell, who cut and re-edited the Universal film East of Borneo (1931) into one of America's most famous surrealist short films -Cornell was fascinated by the star of East of Borneo, an actress named Rose Hobart, and named his short film after her -The piece consists of snippets from East of Borneo combined with shots from a documentary film of an eclipse

anti-visual film

a film that can be heard; "a blind man could watch it" - Dulac

reflexivity

a film that makes the audience aware of the filmaking process -defined by such devices as looking into the camera, taking advantage of two-dimensionality of the screen, or simply making a film about making a film

genre

a group of films which share a set of characteristics (narrative structure, visual symbols, etc.)

poetic film

a number of avant-garde film and video makers have created a synthesis of poetry and film that generates associations, connotations and metaphors neither the verbal nor the visual text would produce on its own -characterized by its nonlinear narrative style of editing, and stream of consciousness flow of images and spoken words, although linear narration and editing have been used to good effect in the creation of some poetry films

rendering sound

a repeated sound that serves as a sound effect, used as punctuation, part of orchestral score

horizontal narrative

a series of cause and effect, on event leads to another

long take

a shot that continues for an unusually lengthy time before transitioning

femme fatal

an attractive and seductive woman, especially one who will ultimately bring disaster to a man who becomes involved with her; comes from white American fear of female power

direct animation

animator draws, paints, or otherwise animates directly onto film medium (often drawn on celluloid or painted on film)

diegetic sound

any voice, musical passage, or sound effect presented as originating from a source within the film's world

artist engineer

artists in the constructivist movement, served state like other workers, wore uniforms, tried to unify Soviet Union through art and film

Aleksandr Rodchenko

artists, sculptor, photographer, and graphic designer; constructivist in artist uniform; Spatial Construction No. 12 (can be folded up and put away, can be circumnavigated)

trickality

associated with Méliès, used by Gaudreault, narratives based on tricks; narratives used as means to display new effects

kino-eye

camera eye; has specific way of defining the universe; used to transform political thought and national identity

onscreen space

cinematic space that exists inside the frame

offscreen space

cinematic space that exists outside the frame

continuity editing

classical Hollywood style of editing, intended to establish logical coherence of time and space between shots, suggesting everything in the scene is physically continuous

flâneur

coined by Charles Baudelaire, denoted "dandy," man who can afford to stroll the streets, urban explorer; emblematic archetype of urban, modern experience

photogenie

coined by Louis Delluc; any aspect of things, beings, or souls whose moral character is enhanced by filmic reproduction

Grierson

coined documentary after Moana 1924

semantic genre

defined through symbols -location, props, costumes

cross-cutting

editing technique used to establish action occurring at the same time in two different locations

profilmic

everything that is placed in front of the camera that is then captured on film and so constitutes the film image

Bosko

first recurring character in Looney Tunes for Warner Brothers -wore long pants and a derby hat, and he had a girlfriend named Honey and a dog named Bruno

noir

group of films from 1941-1958 in U.S., mostly post-war; films are reflective of a particular historical moment; protagonist functions outside of norms; high contrast lighting; extremely confined visual space; influenced by German expressionism; anti-hero, femme fatal; inspired by mystery novels

uncanny valley

in animation, when animation seems uncanny, too close to human life to be believable, leaves us uncomfortable (Ex: Polar Express)

plot (sujet)

individual elements of story (like points on a line)

continuity

maintenance of continuous action and self-consistent detail in various scenes of a movie

Tatlin's Tower

meant to be recognizable icon; heroic scale; 4 rotating levels (different speeds); different branches of government rotated differently; radio tower emanating Comiturn info

syntactic genre

narratively based -Star Wars and Western

story (fabula)

overarching narrative

proscenium

part of stage in front of curtain, the wall frame for the stage, arch separating stage from auditorium

early cinema

period from 1895-1910

vertical narrative

poetic, interrupts linear progression of a story in order to add spatial complexity and depth; multiple connections between plot elements (symbolic)

Laura Molve

psychoanalytic critic; combats patriarchal language of film studies; wants to take the pleasure out of viewing; 3 major psychoanalytic elements to her argument: scopophilia, mirror stage, and castration fear

figure/ground

relationship between foreground and background; creates 3 dimensionality; background interacts with figure

indexicality

relationship between the copy and reality

pragmatic genre

setting expectations or meeting expectations -relationship to production and audience

mickey mousing

sound effect that matches the action of the film

isomorphic sound

sound where image and sound share shape like the tea kettle swaying to the melody of the music

Expressionism

style that depicts objects not as they are seen but by the emotions generated in the artist; express emotional experience

Gunnar Strøm

supported animated documentary as a sophisticated way to depict reality

syntax

the arrangement of words and phrases to create a sentence

180-degree rule

the camera stays on one side of the axis of action throughout the scene; keeps characters grounded compositionally on a particular side of the screen or frame, and keeps them looking at one another when only one character is seen onscreen at a time; gives us communication

spectatorial cross-dressing

the female viewer transsexually identifies with the representation of the male character (Valentino)

synaesthesia

the joining of two senses (e.g. sight and sound); a perceptual experience in which stimulation of one sense produces additional unusual experiences in another sense

point of view

the position from which something is being observed; a camera angle that makes it appear that they are seeing what the character sees

diegesis

the world of the film

narrative causality

things happen because the plot says they should

scopophilia

to derive erotic pleasure from looking

index

trace of something (e.g. footprint is the index of a foot, represents foot)

Lumière Brothers

used cinematograph - actuality films, outdoors, cinema of attractions, started with Nickelodeons then later added sound and length, showed movement in time and space, early cinema

actuality

uses footage of real events, places, and things

voyeurism

watching people who do not know they are being watched -can create pleasure, but not a necessary part

deep focus

when foreground, middle ground, and background are in focus

sound bridge

when one shot is linked to another through sound

to-be-looked-at-ness

woman performs body in front of the camera for the male gaze -stripped of personality and individuality -ex: women and awkward poses on the red carpet