sp 472 american film history ii, week 13

8/9/2019 SP 472 American Film History II, Week 13

1/32

Critique What is cinema?


2/32

Critique With D.W. Griffiths

Birth of a Nation, 1915,

came film criticism &theory

Realistic Film Theory

Formalistic Film Theory

Auteur Theory

Eclectic Film Theory

Historiography


3/32

Critique Reviewers, Critics &

Theorists

Critics & Theorists areconcerned w/ the social

& political implications of

film as well as the

nature of the art form Theory is a grouping of

aesthetic

generalizations that

apply to different films in

different ways


4/32

Critique Realist & Formalist

Theories

The Art

The Artist

The Audience


5/32

Critique Realist & Formalist

Theories

The Art

The Artist

The Audience


6/32

Critique Realism

Film as attempt to

capture externalreality as accurately

as possible

Camera records

not expressive Subject over

technique

Grapes of Wrath, 1940 & Dorothea Lange photo


7/32


8/32

Critique Formalist film theory

Cinema is possible

because it is unlikereality the camera

is not the human eye

Metropolis & Transformers


9/32

Critique Patterns in mise en

scne

Visual & aural motifs


10/32

Critique Patterns in mise en

scne

Visual & aural motifs


11/32

Critique Stylized dialogue

Symbolic sounds

Reservoir Dogs


12/32

Critique Too many

exceptions for

theories to beabsolute

Amlie & Nosferatu


13/32

Critique Auteur Theory

Mid-1950s French

theorists: AndreBazin, the high

priest of realism

begat Truffaut,

Godard & French

New Wave and the

dominance of the

director and his

vision of reality


14/32

Critique With auteurs, its not

the subject or story

but how its told Still a dominant

theory in film

criticism

Inglorious Basterds


15/32

Critique Eclectic:

1.selecting what

appears to be bestin various doctrines,

methods, or styles

2 : composed of

elements drawnfrom various

sourcesKill Bill


16/32

Critique Eclecticism rejects

the notion that one

theory fits all All reaction is

personal and thus

subjective

Pauline Kael vs

Andrew Sarris


17/32

Critique Historiography

There are many film

histories defined bythe historians

interests, biases &

prejudices

Birth of a Nation, Ali, Do the

Right Thing, Within OurGates


18/32


19/32

Critique Film & Economics

Film is expensive and

development is oftendetermined by economics

like Hollywoods Studio

System & Vertical

Integration


20/32

Critique Production,

distribution and

exhibition allconsolidated under

one entity - Vertical

Integration

maximized profitslike manufacturing


21/32

Critique Block or Blind

booking

Owned theatres Monopoly

System of

manufacture

Front officeassigned personnel


22/32

Critique The Big 5

Paramount - 25%

Warner Bros. - 25%

Twentieth Century Fox

MGM

RKO

The Remaining 10%

Columbia

Universal

United Artists


23/32

Critique Stars were

investments and

properties for themajor studios

Greta Garbo


24/32

Critique Film as Social History

Collective sentiment

during a period of time Film as reflection of the

audience

Bonnie & Clyde


25/32

Critique Different

approaches lead to

differentinterpretations of the

same text

uno


26/32

Critique Italian Neo-realism

considered a high

point of realistic filmtheory applied

Post WWII response

to Italys Fascist

years and thehardship and

poverty of the post-

war years


27/32

Critique Neo-realism

avoidance of neatly

plotted stories documentary visual

style

the use of actual

locations rather thanstudio sets


28/32

Critique Neo-realism

use of non-

professional actors conversational

speech

avoidance of artifice

in editing & camerawork


29/32

Critique Open City, I

Vitelloni, La Terra

Trema


30/32


31/32

Critique Bicycle Thieves 1948

with Lamberto

Maggiorani & EnzoStaiola- both non-

professionals

Honorary Oscar for

Best Foreign Film

On countless lists as

one of the most

influential films ever

made


32/32

Critique Although he has again set his drama in

the streets of Rome and has populated it

densely with significant contemporary

types, De Sica is concerned here with

something which is not confined to Rome

nor solely originated by post-war disorder

and distress. He is pondering the piteous

paradoxes of poverty, no matter where,

and the wretched compulsions of sheer

self-interest in man's desperate struggle

to survive. And while he has limited hisvista to a vivid cross-section of Roman

life, he actually is holding a mirror up to

millions of civilized men.

Bosley Crowther, 1949, NY Times

sp 472 american film history ii, week 13

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