Film Art: An Introduction

Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
About The Authors
Preface
From The Authors
Acknowledgments
Brief Contents
Contents
PART ONE • Film Art and Filmmaking
	CHAPTER 1 Film as Art: Creativity, Technology, and Business
		Art vs. Entertainment? Art vs. Business?
		Creative Decisions in Filmmaking
		CREATIVE DECISIONS: A Modern, Old-Fashioned Musical: La La Land
		Mechanics of the Movies
			Illusion Machines
			Making Films with Photographic Film
			Filmmaking with Digital Media
		Making the Movie: Film Production
			The Scriptwriting and Funding Phase
			The Preparation Phase
			The Shooting Phase
			The Assembly Phase
		A CLOSER LOOK: Some Terms and Roles in Film Production
			Artistic Implications of the Production Process
		Modes of Production
			Large-Scale Production
			Exploitation, Independent Production, and DIY
			Small-Scale Production
			Artistic Implications of Different Modes of Production
			Bringing the Film to the Audience: Distribution and Exhibition
				Distribution: The Center of Power
				Exhibition: Theatrical and Nontheatrical
				Ancillary Markets: Taking Movies beyond the Theater
				Artistic Implications of Distribution and Exhibition
			Screens and Sounds: Stylistic Opportunities and Challenges
			SUMMARY
PART TWO • Film Form
	CHAPTER 2 The Significance of Film Form
		The Concept of Form in Film
			Form as Pattern
			Form Versus Content
			Formal Expectations
			Conventions and Experience
			Form and Feeling
			Form and Meaning
			Evaluation: Good, Bad, or Indifferent?
		Principles of Film Form
			Function
			Similarity and Repetition
		A CLOSER LOOK: Creative Decisions: Picking Out Patterns
			Difference and Variation
			Development
			Unity and Disunity
		SUMMARY
	CHAPTER 3 Narrative Form
		Principles of Narrative Form
			What Is Narrative?
			Telling the Story
		CREATIVE DECISIONS: How Would You Tell the Story?
			Plot and Story
			Cause and Effect
			Time
		A CLOSER LOOK: Playing Games with Story Time
			Space
			Openings, Closings, and Patterns of Development
		Narration: The Flow of Story Information
			Range of Story Information: Restricted or Unrestricted?
			Depth of Story Information: Objective or Subjective?
			The Narrator
		A CLOSER LOOK: When the Lights Go Down, the Narration Starts
		CREATIVE DECISIONS: Choices about Narration in Storytelling
		The Classical Hollywood Cinema
		Narrative Form in Citizen Kane
			Overall Narrative Expectations in Citizen Kane
			Plot and Story in Citizen Kane
			Citizen Kane’s Causality
			Time in Citizen Kane
			Motivation in Citizen Kane
			Citizen Kane’s Parallelism
			Patterns of Plot Development in Citizen Kane
			Narration in Citizen Kane
		SUMMARY
PART THREE • Film Style
	CHAPTER 4 The Shot: Mise-en-Scene
		What Is Mise-en-Scene?
		The Power of Mise-en-Scene
		Components of Mise-en-Scene
			Setting
			Costume and Makeup
			Lighting
			Staging: Movement and Performance
		A CLOSER LOOK: The Film Actor’s Toolkit
		Putting It All Together: Mise-en-Scene in Space and Time
		CREATIVE DECISIONS: Mise-en-Scene in a Sequence from L’Avventura
			Space
		CREATIVE DECISIONS: Guiding Our Attention in Black and White and Color
			Time
		Narrative Functions of Mise-en-Scene in Our Hospitality
		SUMMARY
	CHAPTER 5 The Shot: Cinematography
		The Photographic Image
			The Range of Tonalities
			Speed of Motion
		A CLOSER LOOK: From Monsters to the Mundane: Computer-Generated Imagery in The Lord of the Rings
			Perspective
		Framing
		A CLOSER LOOK: Virtual Perspective: 3D
			Frame Dimensions and Shape
		CREATIVE DECISIONS: Using Widescreen Framing
			Onscreen and Offscreen Space
			Camera Position: Angle, Level, Height, and Distance of Framing
		CREATIVE DECISIONS: Camera Position in a Shot from The Social Network
			The Mobile Frame
		CREATIVE DECISIONS: Mobile Framing and Film Form in Grand Illusion and Wavelength
		Duration of the Image: The Long Take
			Real Time Is . . . What?
			Functions of the Long Take
			The Long Take and the Mobile Frame
		SUMMARY
	CHAPTER 6 The Relation of Shot to Shot: Editing
		What Is Editing?
		CREATIVE DECISIONS: Why Cut? Four Shots from The Birds
		Dimensions of Film Editing
			Graphic Relations between Shot A and Shot B
			Rhythmic Relations between Shot A and Shot B
			Spatial Relations between Shot A and Shot B
			Temporal Relations between Shot A and Shot B
		Continuity Editing
			Spatial Continuity: The 180° System
			Continuity Editing in The Maltese Falcon
			Continuity Editing: Some Fine Points
		CREATIVE DECISIONS: Are You Looking at Me? Point-of-View Cutting in Rear Window
			Crosscutting
		A CLOSER LOOK: Intensified Continuity: Unstoppable, L. A. Confidential, and Contemporary Editing
			Temporal Continuity: Order, Frequency, and Duration
		Alternatives to Continuity Editing
			Graphic and Rhythmic Possibilities
			Spatial and Temporal Discontinuity
		CREATIVE DECISIONS: Discontinuity Editing in October
		SUMMARY
	CHAPTER 7 Sound in the Cinema
		Sound Decisions
		The Powers of Sound
			Sound Shapes Our Understanding of Images
			Guiding Our Eye and Mind
		Fundamentals of Film Sound
			What Do We Hear?
			Recording, Altering, and Combining Sounds
		CREATIVE DECISIONS: Editing Dialogue: To Overlap or Not to Overlap?
			Musical Motifs in Breakfast at Tiffany’s
		A CLOSER LOOK: Orchestrating Romance in Jules and Jim
		Dimensions of Film Sound
			Rhythm
			Fidelity
			Space
		A CLOSER LOOK: Offscreen Sound and Optical Point of View: The Money Exchange in Jackie Brown
			Sound Perspective
			Time
			Conversation Piece
		SUMMARY
	CHAPTER 8 Summary: Style and Film Form
		The Concept of Style
		CREATIVE DECISIONS: Style and the Filmmaker
			Decision Making: Techniques Working Together
			Watching and Listening: Style and the Viewer
		Analyzing Style
			1. What Is the Film’s Overall Form?
			2. What Are the Main Techniques Being Used?
			3. What Patterns Are Formed by the Techniques?
			4. What Functions Do the Techniques and Patterns Fulfill?
		A CLOSER LOOK: Stylistic Synthesis in Shadow of a Doubt
		Style in Citizen Kane
			Mystery and the Penetration of Space
			Style and Narration: Restriction and Objectivity
			Style and Narration: Omniscience
			Narrative Parallels: Settings
			Parallels: Other Techniques
			A Convincing Newsreel
			Plot Time through Editing
			Style and the Viewer’s Response
		A CLOSER LOOK: Gravity: Film Style in the Digital Age
		SUMMARY
PART FOUR • Types of Films
	CHAPTER 9 Film Genres
		Understanding Genre
			Defining a Genre
			Analyzing a Genre
			Genre History
		A CLOSER LOOK: Creative Decisions in a Contemporary Genre: The Crime Thriller as Subgenre
			The Social Functions of Genres
		Four Genres
			The Western
			The Horror Film
			The Musical
			The Sports Film
		SUMMARY
	CHAPTER 10 Documentary, Experimental, and Animated Films
		Documentary
			What Is a Documentary?
			The Boundaries between Documentary and Fiction
			Genres of Documentary
			Form in Documentary Films
			Categorical Form: Introduction
		CREATIVE DECISIONS: Engaging Viewers Using Categorical Form
			An Example of Categorical Form: Gap-Toothed Women
			Rhetorical Form: Introduction
			An Example of Rhetorical Form: The River
		Experimental Film
			A Range of Technical Choices
			Types of Form in Experimental Films
			Abstract Form: Introduction
		CREATIVE DECISIONS: Designing Form in an Abstract Film
			An Example of Abstract Form: Ballet Mécanique
			Associational Form: Introduction
			An Example of Associational Form: Koyaanisqatsi
		The Animated Film
			Types of Traditional Animation
			Types of Computer Animation
			An Example of Traditional Animation: Duck Amuck
			An Example of Experimental Animation: Dimensions of Dialogue
		SUMMARY
PART FIVE • Critical Analysis of Films
	CHAPTER 11 Film Criticism: Sample Analyses
		The Classical Narrative Cinema
			His Girl Friday
			North by Northwest
			Do the Right Thing
			Moonrise Kingdom
		Narrative Alternatives to Classical Filmmaking
			Breathless (À Bout de souffle)
			Tokyo Story (Tokyo Monogatari)
			Chungking Express (Chung Hing sam lam)
		Documentary Form and Style
			Man with a Movie Camera (Chelovek s kinoapparatom)
			The Thin Blue Line
		Form, Style, and Ideology
			Meet Me in St. Louis
			Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
PART SIX • Film Art and Film History
	CHAPTER 12 Historical Changes in Film Art: Conventions and Choices, Tradition and Trends
		CREATIVE DECISIONS: Film Form and Style across History
		Traditions and Movements in Film History
		Early Cinema (1893–1903)
			Photography and Cinema
			Edison vs. Lumie`re
			Early Form and Style
			Méliès, Magic, and Fictional Narrative
		The Development of the Classical Hollywood Cinema (1908–1927)
			Hollywood and the Studio System of Production
			Classical Form and Style in Place
		German Expressionism (1919–1926)
		French Impressionism and Surrealism (1918–1930)
			Impressionism
			Surrealism
		Soviet Montage (1924–1930)
			Artists and the State
			NEP Cinema
			The Priority of Editing
			The Movement Ends
		The Classical Hollywood Cinema after the Coming of Sound (1926–1950)
			Converting to Sound
			Problems and Solutions
			Studios, Genres, and Spectacle
			Deep Focus and Narrative Innovations
		Italian Neorealism (1942–1951)
			Leaving the Studio
			A New Model of Storytelling
			The Movement’s End and Its Legacy
		The French New Wave (1959–1964)
			Critics Become Moviemakers
			A New Wave Style
			Neorealism Recast
			Into the Mainstream and Beyond
		The New Hollywood and Independent Filmmaking, 1970s–1980s
			Blockbusters and Indie Pictures
			The Rise of the Movie Brats
			Other Paths
			The 1980s and After
			Hollywood and Independents, To Be Continued
		Hong Kong Cinema, 1980s–1990s
			A Local Tradition Goes Global
			The New Generation: Two Schools
			Story and Style
			Legacy Overseas
Glossary
Index
Copyright
Title Page
Dedication
Contents
Chapter 1: ‘I’m thinking’ – Oh, but are you?
Chapter 2: Renegade perception
Chapter 3: The Pushbacker sting
Chapter 4: ‘Covid’: The calculated catastrophe
Chapter 5: There is no ‘virus’
Chapter 6: Sequence of deceit
Chapter 7: War on your mind
Chapter 8: ‘Reframing’ insanity
Chapter 9: We must have it? So what is it?
Chapter 10: Human 2.0
Chapter 11: Who controls the Cult?
Chapter 12: Escaping Wetiko
Postscript
Appendix: Cowan-Kaufman-Morell Statement on Virus Isolation
Bibliography
Index
Copyright
Title Page
Dedication
Contents
Chapter 1: ‘I’m thinking’ – Oh, but are you?
Chapter 2: Renegade perception
Chapter 3: The Pushbacker sting
Chapter 4: ‘Covid’: The calculated catastrophe
Chapter 5: There is no ‘virus’
Chapter 6: Sequence of deceit
Chapter 7: War on your mind
Chapter 8: ‘Reframing’ insanity
Chapter 9: We must have it? So what is it?
Chapter 10: Human 2.0
Chapter 11: Who controls the Cult?
Chapter 12: Escaping Wetiko
Postscript
Appendix: Cowan-Kaufman-Morell Statement on Virus Isolation
Bibliography
Index