ideology, genre, auteur article by: robin wood presentation by: jed shoemaker
TRANSCRIPT
Ideology, Genre, Auteur
Article by:Robin Wood
Presentation by:
Jed Shoemaker
Outline Outline (30 sec)Introduction (1 min.)Terms To Help You Write Your Paper ( 3 min. )Capitalist Ideology in American Cinema ( 12 min.)Genre and Auteur (2 min.)Mix Gingerly (2 min.) Questions and/or clips ( 25 min. -
actual time above)
Introduction
“The Truth Lies not in one dream, but in many” -
Pasolini, Arabian Nights
“Each Theory… has its own validity” -(Wood 208)
Terms To Help You Write Your Papers
Editing is the key “creative act” and thus more important than any other
aspect.
Montage Theory-
Terms To Help You Write Your Papers
An attempt to balance the scales of production of film. “[Downgrades] montage and artifice.” (Wood 203)
Realist Theory-
Terms To Help You Write Your Papers
Rejects/”deconstructs” realist art which leads to “open text.” ( open to interpretation)
Semiotic Theory-
Terms To Help You Write Your Papers
Manner of referring to the artistic aspects of the film that is similar to discussing literature. The mise-en-scene for example, is part of a film’s overall “filmic text.”
Filmic Text-
American Capitalist Ideology In Film
2) Work Ethic
1) Capitalist right to
ownership
Honest toil =
GOOD 2) Idleness =
EVIL
American Capitalist Ideology In Film
3) Marriage &
Family
American Capitalist Ideology In Film
4) Nature - Two contradictory
views :
Nature as wild, untamed, rugged
Nature as paradise tamed by man
American Capitalist Ideology In Film
5) The City, Progress, and
Technology
Conflict between yielding to progress and maintaining tradition.
American Capitalist Ideology In Film
5) Success Vs. Wealth
* Wealth is both celebrated and chastised by Hollywood ideology depending on the means of acquisition and the particular film.
Scale of happiness based on class and wealthRich- selfish, insincere, must protect their assets -or-
educated and just.Middle class- represented as majority, have no
reasonable unmet needs. Poor- down to earth, happy but struggling -or- miserable
and struggling. Middle class- Down to earth, but not struggling.
Poor -> Rich / “New Money” Money without corruption, i.e.Molly.
UNHAPP
Y
HAPPY
(Rosebud Syndrome)->
8) America is the land of ultimate possibilities- both
positive and negative.
American Capitalist Ideology In Film
9) Standard Happy Endings- The ultimate impossibility:
American Capitalist Ideology In Film
Typical Hollywood studio productions give the main character(s) implausible but suspenseful conditions for
victory and yet most are successful.The hero or heroine overcomes impossible odds and ends
victorious, showing that he can surmount a Kantian paradox.
This “emergency exit”- (Sirk) reaffirms the ISA’s
that may otherwise be questioned due to the
otherwise illogical ideology.
American Capitalist Ideology In Film
9 & 10)
Ideal Female
Ideal Male
11) Aberrant Male is weak and docile. Similar to ideal
female.
12) Aberrant Female is too masculine or a
temptress.
* Genres are ideologically pure if they deal only with one side of a given ideological contradiction.
Genre and Auteur
* There is little ideological conflict in a simpler Genre
film. * However, when Genres are less clear, less
traditional, the conflict is visible.
•In It’s a Wonderful Life, the Baileys and Potter stand for the two different interpretations of capitalism:
Work ethic and reward Vs. Disgusting avarice
Genre and Auteur •Auteur Is a method of defining a work of film by the “finger print” of the director as an artist.
•It is flawed in that it denies the creative work of the rest of a film’s cast and crew because the director has ultimate veto. It does not take into account the fact that film is a collective process.•Auteur is valuable because it acknowledges that a director’s will is important in the overall form of the film, sometimes disproportionately so.
example: Hitchcock films.
Mix Gingerly
•Genre - Disaster Film/Romance
•Auteur- James Cameron, Director of: * Terminator 2 * Terminator 2-3D * Terminator 3 * True Lies * True Lies 2
•Ideology- conflict between the happiness and the misery caused by capitalism and polarization of wealth.
(obviously there are more conflicts)