week 12

--What were the average shot lengths (ASLs) for the following periods?

1920s - 4-6 seconds
1930-1960 - 8-11 seconds
Mid-1960s - 6-8 seconds
1980s - 4-7 seconds
2000 (“by century’s end”) - 3 seconds

--How has faster editing in Hollywood affected the other elements of film style?

Directors now feel no hesitation to cut in the middle of a camera movement. Gratuitous fast, jerky camera movements have become common. Directors also have begun to use the rack focus as a kind of cut to keep up the tempo.

--Why are establishing shots less necessary in intensified continuity?

Shot/reverse shot exchanges tend to reiterate the information that is given with an establishing shot. So, more time is being spent on the characters in order to intesify dialogue exchanges instead of orienting the viewer.

Going to Extremes

--How were wide angle (short) lenses used after 1970?

Filmmakers using wide-screen formats commonly resorted to the wide-angle lens to provide looming close-ups, expansive establishing shots, views inside cramped quarters, and medium shots with strong foreground-background interplay. The use of the distorting effects of the wide-angle lens also became widely used in comical situations.

--How were telephoto (long) lenses used after 1970?

The long lens could suggest either a documentary immediacy or a stylized flattening, making characters appear to walk or run in place. The long-socus lens became an all purpose tool, available to frame close-ups, medium shots, ocer the shoulder shots, and even establishing shots. When used for close ups, its shallow depth of field automatically softened and glamorized faces. Its squeezed perspective suited the abstract pictorialism of films like Scarface.The long lens encouraged the self conscious rack focusing that came to prominence in the 60s.

Annotated Bibliography and Research Question

How was the film I'm Not There received in the U.S. and what aspects of the film most influenced the reviews it received?



Works Cited
Crisafulli, Chuck, Michael Paoletta, and Jonathan Cohen. "Musical Family." Billboard 3 Nov. 2007: 27-29. 29 Oct. 2008. Academic Search Premier. EBSCOhost. Randall Library, Wilmington, NC. 29 Oct. 2008. Path: "i'm not there" and (film* or movie or cinema* or "motion picture").
The article is about how a new wave of musical films takes an unconventional approach to the genre.
(link to the article through ebscohost: http://0-search.ebscohost.com.uncclc.coast.uncwil.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=27328889&site=ehost-live)

"I'm Not There." Variety. Variety Magazine. 29 Oct. 2008. http://www.variety.com/profiles/film/main/166265/i.
The Variety Magazine profile for the film.

Lane, Anthony. "I'm Not There." Review. New Yorker 3 Dec. 2007: 27-27. 30 Oct. 2008. Academic Search Premier. EBSCOhost. Randall Library, Wilmington, NC. 30 Oct. 2008. Keyword: DE "I'M Not There (Film)"
A review of the film in the New Yorker
(link through ebscohost: http://0-search.ebscohost.com.uncclc.coast.uncwil.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=27645498&site=ehost-live)

Male, Andrew. "Dylan Director Comes Clean." MOJO. 12 June 2007. MOJO: The Music Magazine. 29 Oct. 2008 http://www.mojo4music.com/blog/2007/12/dylan_director_comes_clean.html.
An Interview with Todd Haynes about the film.

Porton, Richard. "I'm Not There." Review. Cineaste Winter 2007: 56-57. 30 Oct. 2008. Academic Search Premier. EBSCOhost. Randall Library, Wilmington, NC. 30 Oct. 2008. Keyword: DE "I'M Not There (Film)"
A review of the film.
(link through ebscohost: http://0-search.ebscohost.com.uncclc.coast.uncwil.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=27976299&site=ehost-live)

week 9 questions

How do films with multiple protagonists work within the model?

Sometimes the films have all the characters heading for the same goal. Other times, the characters' stories don't have much influence on one another. In this case, the film usually focuses more on 2 of the protagonists' stories.

List and briefly describe the narrational tactics discussed in the section "Tightening the Plot" (starting on p. 43).

two plotlines - one being a romance, normally heterosexual. romance may or may not be the main plotline.
"dangling cause" - each scene ends with something left unresolved leading into the next scene.
"dialogue hook" - line at the end of a scene that links directly to the next action
ticking clock - something that drives the plot forward, like a bomb or a deadline, or an appointment or some sort.
appointments - something unapparent planted early in the plot that becomes a key causal agent later on. like the first chest arc reactor piece that Pepper Potts has engraved for Tony Stark in Iron Man.
repeated object/line (motifs)- something that is repeated throughout the film
limited omniscience - the audience is shuttled from one character to the next, always knowing more than the characters, but never knowing everything.
credits/ addressing the audience - at the beginning and end of a film. used to introduce the setting and cue the film's conclusion (walk off into the sunset, etc).
montage - used to condense time and summarise a plot section, like training sequences in Rocky.

What does Bordwell mean by his claim that Hollywood narratives have "passages of overtness balanced with less self-conscious ones" (p. 50)?

Hollywood narratives have passages that almost directly confront the audience and make the movie's presence known. Like with title sequences, montages, or motifs. Anytime there's a scene that calls attention to the fact that you're watching a movie and not real life. Some scenes in movies have to address the audience, like with text scrolling across the screen for any reason.

-------------------
just a note, Bordwell's book is a LOT easier to read than anything else we've read so far. I am able to read it, retain it, and want to keep reading. as opposed to everything else, when it feels like i'm being forced to eat a giant bowl of plain oatmeal when i'm full.

week 8 questions

what does murray smith mean by "semi-independant" pictures?
Is he talking about subsidiary companies like Focus Features and Paramount Vantage? Or does he mean independent films with big budgets? or films with a star in them? what is the difference between an independent film and a semi-indie one?
or is he arguing that there can be no successful truly independent films in the U.S. today?

Does "Classical Hollywood" refer to the fordist mode of production, or the style of movies that are produced. Or does it encompass both? If so, is it considered classical hollywood if a film is made with an undifferentiated mass market in mind, but also made outside the ford system? if it is still considered classical hollywood, does this mean that a classical hollywood film could still be made in an era of post-classical hollywood? or would it be considered neoclassicism? maybe i just don't understand the difference between classical and neoclassical.

sorry it's late...
i was feeling horrible yesterday and didn't know if i had something contagious or not, so i just stayed in bed all day.

week 7 questions

Kramer explains how different critics and historians have used the term "New Hollywood" to describe both the 1967-1975 period and the 1975-present period. Setting the terminology aside, explain what he means by the contrast between "artistically and politically progressive liberal cycles" of the earlier period and the "regressiveness of the blockbusters" of the later period. What are the assumptions behind the terms progressive and regressive? Do you agree with these assumptions?

In the earlier period, film makers were making films like easy rider, films that were ambitious, political, and stylized and still made big money. Then Star Wars and Jaws basically brought the later period which is focused on spectacle and special effects, and much less on narration and the art side of film making. We assume that one era being described as "progressive" and one as "regressive" that the first period is like the renaissance compared to the dark ages. That one era is dominated by artistic vision and the other by beurocrats. I don' t really see it that way. I think they are just two different equally respectable ways to make movies. Each just has a different motive. One is to entertain and one is to make the audience think. After all, it's much easier to sit through and enjoy the action in Star Wars than the sort of awkwardness we experience during Bonnie and Clyde.

Why is "allusionism" significant for both modernism and post-modernism? If modernist filmmakers alluded to film history, what do post-modernist filmmakers allude to?

Allusionism lets films create emotion or information in the viewer by drawing on elements created in older films. Also, Allusionism allows film makers to speak with a "two-tiered system of communication." A movie can be entertaining to the masses while still retaining little nuances that play to the film buff crowd. Allusionism can also be used to undermine certain expectations an audience might have for a genre film. If modernist filmmakers allude to film history to undermine expectations, postmodern filmmakers would allude to film history to meet expectations, but usually in an exploitive way.

Explain Kramer’s summary of Yvonne Tasker in your own words

New Hollywood doesn't celebrate film as a specific artform, or even as celluloid. It celebrates the mixing of almost all media that goes into making a movie: Advertising, endorsements, television, soundtracks, action figures, video games, even fast foods.

week 6 questions

Which of Altman’s stylistic techniques does Sawhill associate with "inclusiveness"?

Sawhill describes how Altman's use of camera movement combined with the zoom lets the audience feel like they are interacting with the film as opposed to just viewing it. He used a sound system that included more minor-character and ambient sounds. He used more than one camera at a time so that the actors had to be more "real" and couldn't play to the camera. He also has his actors bring their own personal experiences into their characters.

What does Sawhill suggest are the functions of the recurring "wires, phones, intercoms, cameras, mikes, speakers" throughout the film? [Note: Read the whole article before responding, don't just look for this list of devices in the article.]

The use of all the media technology creates a self reflexivity in the film. He's recording a culture recording itself.

What does Sawhill mean when he suggests that Altman "was making nonlinear multimedia before the form existed," and that Nashville "doesn't suffer from the fragmenting effects of stop-and-start, at-home viewing"?

Altman created a film that isn't plot driven, but still brings the audience on a ride into the life of the city/culture that is Nashville. The film doesn't need to be seen from start to finish in order to grasp what's going on and understand the film, yet the film is still interesting enough to keep watching because you still wonder where the film is taking you.

week 5 questions

Compare and contrast Bazin’s and Seldes’s timelines for Hollywood classicism (from week one) with the timelines proposed by Peter Lloyd, Thomas Elsaesser and Steve Neale. Bazin and Seldes said that classical Hollywood was from 1920-1939. Lloyd, Elsaesser, and Neale argued that it was from 1910-mid 60s.

Bazin held that a classical Hollywood film was one made under the vertically integrated machine that the studios ran, and that when movies stopped being made in that way the classical Hollywood style was gone. Elsaesser, Neale, and Lloyd believed that classical Hollywood films are those that tell a story in a more conservative way (hero moving towards a goal) and fit into a type or genre. Films like Bonnie and Clyde broke these rules and moved Hollywood in a new direction.

Todd Berliner, "The Pleasures of Disappointment: Sequels and The Godfather, Part II."Give two specific examples of how Part II disappoints the viewer (according to Berliner) and how these disappointments "work" for the film.


Part II dissappoints the reader with a less interesting climactic montage and through the noticeable lack of violence and romance that was present in the first film. Both examples create a longing for the first film that coincide with the actual story of Part II. Part II has a constant longing for the goodtimes of The Godfather.