Film Analysis

3 Dimensions of Art

Beauty

Goodness

Truth

5 dimensions of engagement

Aesthetic

The world of sounds, the world of forms, the world of tints, and the world of poetic ideas, can have no other source than God . . .

. . . and it is our privilege as bearers of his image, to have a perception of this beautiful world, artistically to reproduce it, and humanly to enjoy it.

Abraham Kuyper

Emotional

© Phil Shirley, used under a Creative Commons licence

The moving image stirs our emotions rather than engaging our minds.

Ingmar Bergman

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Each fictional world creates a unique cosmology and makes its own ‘rules’ for how and why things happen within it. No matter how realistic or bizarre the setting, once its causal principles are established, they cannot change.

Robert McKee, Story, p. 70

Intellectual

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[Works of art] are not simply the oozings of subconscious impulses; they are the result of beliefs and goals on the part of the artist.

Nicholas Wolterstorff

Surface see it as entertainment

Middle realise that there is a message

Deep realise traces of worldviews

5 worldview dimensionshumanity

reality knowledge

ethics redemption

Moral

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We must recognise ‘ways in which movies either illuminate our world and our lives with glimmers of transcendence or cast shadows of brokenness and alienation.’

Gordon Matties

• Does the film deal with life with integrity?

• Does it ask the right questions about life?

• To what extent is the moral behaviour in the film consistent with biblical morality?

• What stance does the film take towards the moral behaviour it portrays?

Spiritual

Spirituality concerns how humans relate to reality – to themselves, to each other, to the world around them and (most importantly) to ultimate reality – via their worldview beliefs, concomitant attitudes and subsequent behaviour.

Peter S. Williams

Despite our constant talk about the lordship of Christ, we have narrowed its scope to a very small area of reality. We have misunderstood the concept of the lordship of Christ . . .

. . . over the whole of man and the whole of the universe and have not taken to us the riches that the Bible gives us for ourselves, for our lives and for our culture.

Francis Schaeffer

Reading a Film

Meaning

mise en scène montage(editing)

dialogue

soundtrack

actors’ performances

Space Timecinematography

Indicators of significance

lighting

focus

point of view

looks

motifs

repeated words

sounds

music

Mise en scène

locationset layout

blocking(positioning of actors)

set design

props

costumes

focus

choice of lenspoint of view

balancelighting

camera movement

Whose point of view does the camera represent?

Are particular visual elements used as symbols, metaphors,

or pointers?

Editing

• Selecting best takes

• Shots cut and reassembled to create scenes

• Scenes assembled into sequences

• Sequences arranged into the final film

My job as an editor is to gently prod the attention of the audience to look at various parts of the frame. And I do that by manipulating, by how and where I cut and what success-ion of images I work with.

Walter Murch

simple cuts

dissolves and wipes

match cuts

cross-cutting

jump cutsmontages

How does the film’s editing contribute to the meaning of

the film?

Films as narrative

Characters

What choices do the characters make? Why?

How do the main characters change?

What do they discover?

Structure

goals

What causes the major turning points?

Why does the film end this way?

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