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.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
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.
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.
Monday, September 15, 2008
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.
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.
Monday, September 8, 2008
week 4 questions
What is meant by “modernist” in the passage: “Critics engaged with a self-declared ‘New American Cinema’ exemplified by the work of writers and directors such as Jonas Mekas, Kenneth Anger, and John Cassavetes, certain aspects of which constituted, according to David Bordwell, a conscious ‘modernist’ break with Hollywood classicism?”
modernism - The deliberate departure from tradition and the use of innovative forms of expression that distinguish many styles in the arts and literature of the late nineteenth and the twentieth century.
modernist - an artist who makes a deliberate break with previous styles
New American Cinema was/is a conscious break in form and style from traditional classical Hollywood films.
What does Kramer argue was characteristic of the bulk of Hollywood-centred film criticism in the 1960s?
the critics only focused on a small set of directors, trained in classical Hollywood style, who worked mainly in established genres, like Hawks or Hitchcock.
What was Kael’s critique of art cinema and the New American Cinema, and why was Bonnie and Clyde “the most excitingly American American movie” at the time?
Kael said that the problem with art cinema is that incoherent crap can be celebrated as art, when it's absolutely nothing but incoherent crap. And i totally agree with her. There's a difference between absurdity and art.
Bonnie and Clyde "made a different kind of contact with American audiences from the kind that is made by European films." The film managed to combine classical Hollywood qualities with the New American Cinema qualities.
modernism - The deliberate departure from tradition and the use of innovative forms of expression that distinguish many styles in the arts and literature of the late nineteenth and the twentieth century.
modernist - an artist who makes a deliberate break with previous styles
New American Cinema was/is a conscious break in form and style from traditional classical Hollywood films.
What does Kramer argue was characteristic of the bulk of Hollywood-centred film criticism in the 1960s?
the critics only focused on a small set of directors, trained in classical Hollywood style, who worked mainly in established genres, like Hawks or Hitchcock.
What was Kael’s critique of art cinema and the New American Cinema, and why was Bonnie and Clyde “the most excitingly American American movie” at the time?
Kael said that the problem with art cinema is that incoherent crap can be celebrated as art, when it's absolutely nothing but incoherent crap. And i totally agree with her. There's a difference between absurdity and art.
Bonnie and Clyde "made a different kind of contact with American audiences from the kind that is made by European films." The film managed to combine classical Hollywood qualities with the New American Cinema qualities.
Monday, September 1, 2008
week 3 questions
Why was the Charles Theater important for the development of “underground film” in New York City?
The Charles simply provided a place for film to be screened without rules or censorship. The result was a mass of edgy underground films that drew all types of audiences. The Charles tried to cater to every walk of life, even old Ukranian people, so why not crazy weirdos?
What were some of the characteristics of “Baudelairean Cinema”?
films without inhibitions. almost, if not, exploitive. gross use of sex, violence, and other vulgarities
The Charles simply provided a place for film to be screened without rules or censorship. The result was a mass of edgy underground films that drew all types of audiences. The Charles tried to cater to every walk of life, even old Ukranian people, so why not crazy weirdos?
What were some of the characteristics of “Baudelairean Cinema”?
films without inhibitions. almost, if not, exploitive. gross use of sex, violence, and other vulgarities
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