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CLASSICAL FILM THEORY

Click to edit Master subtitle style INSTRUCTOR: SARAH TATTING-KINZY

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FEA 302 Sarah Tatting-

Two major categories of film theory:

FORMALISM concerns itself with the multiple technical elements of production, and the emotional and intellectual effects of how all of these elements come together in a film REALISM is a style where physical reality is the source of all raw materials in a film
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FORMALIST filmmakers Deliberately stylize and distort raw materials create desired effect of their film REALIST filmmakers Try to preserve the illusion that their film world is unmanipulated, an objective mirror of the actual world
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These are general terms, not absolutes.

Few films are exclusively formalist, and even fewer are completely realist.

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Lumire brothers are often considered the first realist filmmakers. George Mlis, another early French filmmaker, is often considered the first formalist filmmaker.
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George Mlis

Prolific innovator in special effects Discovered the substitution stop trick One of the first to use multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, dissolves, and hand-painted color Pioneer FEASci-Fi andTatting- genres with in 302 Sarah Horror

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J. Dudley Andrew Introduction

Film theory concerned with the general rather than the particular Not concerned with individual films as much as cinematic capability itself

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The goal of film theory

Is to formulate a schematic notion of the capacity of film The schematization of an activity allows us to relate it to other aspects of our life
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Film Theories

Generally start with a question generated by a film or technique The answer(s) must apply to more than just the film or technique the theorist began with

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Andrews Categories of Questions Asked By a Film Theorist:

Adapted from Aristotles breakdown of the four causes of any natural phenomenon Material, Efficient, Formal, and Final
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1. The Raw Material

Asked by those who question: The mediums relation to reality, photography, and illusion The mediums use of time and space
FEA 302 Sarah TattingProcesses such as color, sound, and

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2. The Methods and Techniques

Asked by those who question: The creative process, which shapes or treats the raw material Technological developments (like the zoom shot)
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3. The Forms and Shapes

Asked by those who question: The kinds of film which have been or could be made Cinemas ability to adapt other artworks
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4. The Purpose and the Value

Asked by those who question: The larger aspects of life The goal of cinema in mans universe From standpoint where Raw Material has been shaped by a Process into a given FEA 302 Sarah Tattingsignificant Form

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You can tell a great deal about a theorist by which category most intrigues them. Transposition and Interdependence also important

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Transposition
A question related to one category that touches others only by implication Example The implications of sound in film starts with Raw Material relates to other categories

Interdependence
A single question containing a number of dependent questions
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By transposing questions and following their branches of interdependence

We are able to compare the most diverse theorists Even those who begin from different perspectives and ask seemingly different questions.

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Andrew The Formative Tradition:

The first serious film essays sought to carve out a place for it in modern culture First theories sounded more like birth announcements than scientific inquiries

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Early film theorists

Worked to free cinema from the other phenomena which supported it and the public naturally associated with it -- like theater or photography Stood up against skeptics like Lumire, who was certain that cinema had no lasting impact beyond the events it could record Struggled to give cinema the stature of art FEA 302 Sarah Tatting-

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America

Poet Vachel Lindsay was the first American to publish a theory of film, The Art of the Moving Picture in 1916 He showed that cinema enjoyed the same properties of all other arts
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France

Cine-clubs and cine-artists compared film to music -concentrating on its ability to shape the flow and look of reality Led first by Ricciotto Canudo and then Louis Delluc, French theorists not only wanted to see cinema regarded as an art -- but they also insisted it was an independent art
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Countless essays of this period (1912-1925) work to differentiate cinema from theater Early filmmakers were economically obliged to record theatrical performances and never looked beyond the theater for its own essence
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Louis Delluc tried to sum up his conception of the new art in one word

Photogenie -- that special quality available to cinema alone which can transform both the world and man in a single gesture
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The Establishment film industry in Germany...

Created the movement of Expressionism -which presents the world from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas No real theorist to speak for it. Expressionist actors, designers, writers, and directors related it to cinematic method FEA 302 Sarah Tatting- no extended and function -- but

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Power shifts to Moscow in 1925

Russia began its famous State Film School in 1920 and there developed heated and productive discussion Lev Kuleshov, Dziga Vertov, V.I. Pudovkin, and especially Sergei Eisenstein are associated with this period in Moscow. With this group, nearly all questions about FEA 302 Sarah Tatting-

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Talkies

First commercial screening of movies with fully synchronized sound took place in New York City in April 1923 First feature-length movie originally presented as a talkie was The Jazz Singer, released in October 1927 By the early 1930s, the talkies were a global phenomenon
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The End of the Silent Era

Triggered more important essays More journals devoted to film emerged, including English magazines Close Up and Experimental Cinema.
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By 1935, it was taken for granted in educated circles that cinema was

An Art, independent of all other arts, yet having this in common with them -- the process of transformation where dull matter is shaped into meaningful statement If most of us still hold this general perspective, it is in large part because of film theory between 1915 and 1935
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Hugo Munsterberg

German Psychologist credited as a founder of modern Psychology who also became the head of Philosophy at Harvard Wouldnt rest until he explained cinemas workings to himself and justified its importance to the intellectuals of the time who thought it crude and silly

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Hugo Munsterberg

Wrote The Photoplay: A Psychological Study in 1916 Did this without precedent and Andrew considers him the first and most direct theorist of film Wasnt distracted by the din of FEA 302 Sarah Tattingargument, as subsequent theorists

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MATTER AND MEANS

Munsterbergs study begins with a history of film Cleanly divided between films outer and inner development -between the technological history of the medium and the evolution of societys uses of that medium
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Munsterberg

Praises the narrative capabilities of film and recalls how cinema was at first used to document stage-plays Believes that when film was freed from this, it found its own destiny as a medium of narrative Calls this medium the Photoplay
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Progression of film, according to Munsterberg:

1)

The invent of visual gadgetry Served important societal functions, such as education and information Evolved a natural affinity for the narrative, which leads to its true domain The mind of man
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1)

1)

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1)

The Photoplay came into being only when the gadgetry of filmmaking worked on the narrative capacity of the MIND -- and, through it, the artistic wonders of film emerged.
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Munsterbergs hierarchic notion of the mind

Comprised of several levels -- the higher levels depending on the operation of the lower Each level resolves the chaos of undisturbed stimuli in the world by creating our own perception of objects, events, and emotions
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Munsterbergs description of Phiphenomenon

Put him decades ahead of later theorists who would account for the illusion of moving pictures through the retention of visual stimulus theory

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Munsterberg

Recognized that the retina retains visual impressions momentarily after a stimulus has been removed, like after we look at the sun Shows that this does not account for the way we bring a series of still photos to life Said the Phi-Phenomenon accounts for this by emphasizing the active powers of the mind which work to make sense out of distinct FEA 302 Sarah Tattingstimuli

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For Munsterberg

This shows that at the most basic level, the mind has its own laws and works its effects on the mind itself The complex machinery producing intermittent still pictures has been developed to work directly on the raw material of the mind
FEA 302 The result is Sarah Tattingmotion pictures

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This basic concept let Munsterberg conceive of the entire cinematic process as a mental process Cinema is the art of the mind --just as music is the art of the ear or painting is of the eye All inventions and uses for the cinema are developed to shape and create films out of the mind of man
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Close-ups and camera angles exist not simply because of the lenses and cameras -- but because of the minds distinct way of working, which Munsterberg labels Attention Not only does the mind live in a moving world, it organizes that world by means of this property of Attention
FEA 302 picture is The motion Sarah Tatting- not a mere

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Memory and imagination are the natural resources of editing, which compresses or expands time, creates rhythms, and renders flashbacks or dream scenes To picture emotions must be the central aim of the Photoplay Since the materials of cinema are the resources of the mind, the form of cinema must mirror mental FEA events 302 Sarah Tatting- also mirrors and, in turn

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Munsterberg

Pays only fleeting attention to documentaries and instructional movies -they can never attain the stature of the photoplay Didnt think much of adding sound and color -- these technical developments dont activate a new level of the mind Believed that the cinema of his time was already FEA 302 to shape the greatest suited Sarah Tatting-

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FORM AND FUNCTION

To use Andrews system of categories -- it was #4 The Purpose or Value of cinema that Munsterberg first asked questions about The experience of losing himself in a film story proved to him that film was an art -and his psychology leans toward the aesthetics of film
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The second half of Munsterbergs book

Goes outside science to philosophy in order to account for the form and function in film -- what he calls the Noumenal realm This is a realm of objects or events known without the use of the senses -- as opposed to the Phenomenal realm where everything is known through the senses
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Munsterberg followed Immanuel Kants philosophy

That for science to be construed as true, we have to believe in the transcendence of certain logical categories that exist in the Noumenal sphere These categories cant be proven but without them all of our science FEA 302 Sarah Tattingand everyday common sense falls

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Noumenal Realm

In addition to logic, Munsterberg also places ethical first principles in this category These serve to justify our normal moral sense, giving us a gauge of right and wrong
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Kant argued that

Most of our feelings and judgments are based on the pleasure principle and are explainable within the normal range of psychology But our experience of the truly beautiful puts us momentarily outside of all considerations of personal gain or pleasure We confront anSarah Tatting-experience for FEA 302 object or

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Kant calls the object of beauty purposiveness without purpose The object is cut off from other objects and experiences and we are momentarily cut off from the normal self-interest of our daily lives The object becomes for us the whole context, a terminal value
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Munsterberg

Recalls how when we see a photo of a painting, it stirs us to want to see the original -- but we dont consider film displaced theater With a film, we are content to perceive it for itself It sustains itself away from the real world and sustains us in a state of rapt attention -- it is valuable in itself FEA 302 Sarah Tatting-

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We cultivate aesthetic experience in art objects, which are construed in the world for no practical reason Film exists not on celluloid or even on the screen -- but only in the mind which actualizes it by conferring movement, attention, memory, imagination, and emotion
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Not all films attain the height of becoming aesthetic objects

The photoplay tells us a human story by overcoming the forms of the outer world -- namely space, time, and causality -and by adjusting the events of the forms of the inner world -- namely attention, memory, imagination, and emotion. These events reach complete isolation from the practical world through the perfect unity of plot and pictorial appearance.
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Advanced view of censorship

Munsterberg believed all material is suitable for film -- even the most violent -as long as it reaches its proper conclusion The absolute unity of the artwork endures that nothing in it will affect our practical lives -- the experienced is self-contained Just as the space and time of the film are imaginary, the causality of the film doesnt follow directly into our lives FEA 302 Sarah Tatting-

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While some of Munsterbergs answers may seem shortsighted

He provided film with a carefully thought out apology taken from the respected traditions of psychology and philosophy -- support that cinema desperately needed during this era.
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Queen Elizabeth

Directed by Henri Desfontaines and Louis Mercanton in 1912 From stage play in Paris, starring Sandra Bernhardt at Elizabeth

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Rope

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1948 Based on the British play (1929) by Patrick Hamilton and adapted by Hume Cronyn and Arthur Laurents Hitchcocks first Technicolor film Notable for taking place in real time and being edited as to appear as a single FEA 302 Sarah Tatting-

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The Crowd

Directed by King Vidor in 1928 Consistently hailed as one of the greatest and most enduring American silent films A remarkably groundbreaking film Released just as the Great Depression and the arrival of sound films combined to radically change FEA 302 filmmaking Sarah Tatting-

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