HUM Notes

docx

School

Florida State University *

*We aren’t endorsed by this school

Course

3321

Subject

Arts Humanities

Date

Oct 30, 2023

Type

docx

Pages

Uploaded by MegaMask12426

Mise-en-scene - Literally refers to the relationship of every aspect of a shot to every other aspect of the shot - Mise-en-scene is the way that directors communicate information to the audience through things like camera angles, lighting, setting, props, position of the actors, and music - The Elements of Film Sound - dialogue, other noises picked up via microphones while filming, sound effects, and the musical score - Sound Editing- sound editors adjust volume and import sound effects to manipulate the sounds that were captured while filming - Musical Score - the score is used to convey mood and to provide continuity from one scene to the next The Camera - Camera angle, distance, and movement supply meaning through a relative system of difference - Angle- camera angles often communicate a character’s power, or lack thereof - Distance - close-ups, medium shots, and long shots help to draw attention to the most significant aspect of the shot - Movement - zooming (in or out) provides the illusion of movement. Or the camera may actually move, panning horizontally or through tracking shots, horizontal to the floor, or in any number of directions via a dolly Editing and Narrative Structure - Narrative Structure- narrative structure refers to the way in which shots compromise a scene and in which scenes are woven together to give meaning to the entire picture - Narrative structure may be linear of more complicated, involving devices such as flashbacks (Citizen Kane) or circularity (Pulp Fiction) Film Noir - 1945-1958 - German expressionism and American tough guy - Emotional realism - Total moral ambiguity - The hero isn’t grounded in any sense of right or wrong (radical instability) - Supposed to empathize with criminals - Dark, cynical, and pessimistic about human nature - Illusive - Style that crosses many genres - From the criminal’s pov - Deep shadows, strong angles, behavior over dialogue - First film noir made in Germany - Inspiration from the depression - Post-world war II “Black Tide” over Hollywood (America’s loss of innocence” - Shadowy lighting, violence, psychology, existentialism - Characters being defined by actions

- Can’t always tell who the “bad guy” is - Proper noir ending is death, trap enclosing, police coming, taking the wrong guy - Killing defines film noir in the last two lines - Sexual symbolism, cigarettes, trains in tunnels - Dark, violent, and animalistic sexualism - Billy Wilder - Stylized view point of abstract concepts - Light to dark, dark to light - Light, smoke, dark showers, light pocket, moving light - No kids, not very many normal things, urban areas - Influenced by street photographers - Complex/jumpy editing to substitute for violence - Voiceover is the character talking directly to the audience (characterizes the attitude of the film) - Very seductive- spell binding/dreamy way with flash backs - Music has to be another character (unseen presence that can create a mood or remind the audience that there may be something else besides what we see on screen going on) - Seductive in a manipulative way - Fem fatale comes to the hero with a problem, but we don’t know what the problem is/ is they are even being truthful about the problem - Fem fatale makes men go bad - The star or noir is fate - Always a feeling that things are going to end badly - Fate is not dictated, in the characters hands - Law and order bring the film to an end - Fade. Out What is comedy? Goals of American Comedy - Work to release that which society as a whole holds in check - Mentions the unmentionable - Deal with processes by which differences are bridged and a (more or less) unified American society is constructed - Deal with chaos and disorder - Critique culture - Document growing pains of American culture American Comedy - Belton: comedy acts as a “release valve” by addressing various cultural elements that society attempts to keep in check Common Issues/Themes - Racism - Immigrant Experience - Rites of Passage

- Consumerism and Capitalism - Sex and Romance - Politics - Social Integration - Race, Class, Gender, Sexuality - Workplace - Coming of Age (and regression) - Reforming the Individual *Memorize Marx quote for exam Styles of Comedy - Silent Comedy - Slapstick - Charlie Chaplin - Buster Keaton - Harold Lloyd - Sound Comedy - Romantic - Screwball - Thesis - War - Black/Dark - Animal - Geek Slapstick Comedy - Roots in Punch and Judy - “Slap Stick” - Common Gags - Misunderstandings - Roughhousing - Chase Scenes - Relationship with Society - Industrialization - Urbanization - Growth of the Middle-Class Screwball Comedy - High and Low Comedy - Elements of Romance; Witty Dialogue - Slapstick Physicality - Roots in 1930s - Depression Era/ WWII - MPPC in July 1934 - Shattered Relationships

Your preview ends here

Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version

Access to all documents
Unlimited textbook solutions
24/7 expert homework help

- Shifting of Sexual Power Dark Comedy - Comedies that make fun of dark subjects, such as death, murder, physical and mental illness, etc. - Especially in the 1960s - Cold War - Militarism - American Culture - Bureaucracy - Commercialization - Masculinity Animal and Geek Comedy Animal Comedy - Animal House (1978) started the sub-genre - Heavily reliant on sex and scatological humor - Graphical grossness - Comic celebration of grossness in general Geek Comedy - “Social misfits (often teens), who take no interest in their personal appearance, function as awkward (but ultimately successful) romantic leads, frequently bedding the hottest women in the film - Judd Apatow films - Sex and sex talk, but ultimately romance is the goal White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack - McIntosh acknowledges that there are other interlocking factors when it comes to power dominance: religion, social status, economic status, gender, geographical location - “As a white person, I have realized that I have been taught about racism as something which puts others at a disadvantage but had been taught not one of its corollary aspects, white privilege puts me at an advantage.” - How we view racism: as active, individual acts, not invisible systems of racial dominance - “I have come to see white privilege as an individual package of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was ‘meant’ to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks.” Larger political, social, and cultural changes in 1960s - President Jorn F. Kennedy - “New frontier” mentality, sophistication, style, white - Civil rights movement - Previously marginalized asserting their rights - Vietnam war - Unpopular war both in Vietnam and US - Women’s liberation

- Women demanding gender equality - Cultuerculucat movement - Larger rejection of traditional values John F. Kennedy (1960-1963)  Born in 1917 Kennedy assumes the presidency at 43 replacing 70-year-old Dwight Eisenhower  The Kennedy family brought style, grace, and elegance to the white house  A war hero A cold war frontier  Bay of pigs invasion, April 1961  Berlin wall, august 1961  Cuban missile crisis, October 1962  Vietnam 1961-1963 Civil rights movement  Cornerstone of 1960s activism  Woolworths, Greensboro NC 1960  Oxford, MS 1962  Birmingham, AL 1963  Tuscaloosa, AL 1963  Jackson, MS 1963  Neshoba, 1964  1965- Malcolm X assassinated  1966 - Black Panthers founded  1968 - MLK and JFK assassinated within two months of each other  Voting rights act (1965)  Civil rights Act (1964, 1968) Women's liberation movement  1960 witnessed the first oral contraceptive “the pill” known as Envoid, giving women more control over their bodies than ever  Published in Feb of 1963, Betty Frienda’s The Feminine Mystique helped spark the Equal Pay Act of 1963, signed into law on June 10th, stipulated women receive the same pay as men for the same work  The women’s liberation movement arguably led to “new forms of subjugation” objectifying women new deemed “more accessible” for men History in real time  One two consecutive days in June 1963 in two lyrical speeches, JFK pivots dramatically and body on the two greatest issues of his time: nuclear arms and civil rights  In language unheard within segregated, Cold War America, Kennedy appeals to Americans to see both Russians and the “negroes” as human beings November 22, 1963  “I don't think there’s any point in being Irish if you don’t know that the world is going to break your heart eventually. I guess that we thought we had a little more time “we’ll laugh again, but we’ll never be young again” - Daniel Patrick Moynihan The Vietnam, war, 1954-74

 80% of the 2.5 million enlisted men who served Vietnam – out of 27 million men who reached draft age during the war –came from working-class and impoverished backgrounds  In 1971 the pentagon paper, a study stolen by RAND employee Daniel Ellsberg and published by The new your times, reported that out o the Us intentions in Vietnam o 70% - to avoid a humiliating Us defeat o 20% to keep (south Vietnam) (and the adjacent) territory from Chinese hands o 10%- to peppermint the people (of South Vietnam) to enjoy a better, freer way of life o ALSO - to emerge from the crisis without unacceptable taint from methods use o NOT - to help a friend, although it would be hard to stay in if asked out Countercultures of the 1960s What did this mean for Hollywood? The two 1960s  For conservative middle-aged middle-class mainstream  For younger more liberal middle and lower-class audience 1960s - For conservative, middle-aged,middle-class mainstream: went to big budget historical spectacles, lavish musicals, A Clash of Ideals - At a combined budget of 24 million dollars (226 million+ in 2022), Spartacus and The Alamo fought multiple ideological battles against epic backdrops, waging wars against tyranny and bigotry - The plight of the Hollywood Ten vs the Motion Picture Alliance - Humanity vs Patriotism - Human vs American - Both film technologies utilize - In order to make Spartacus, actor Kirk Douglas hired Dalton Trumbo, one of the members of the Hollywood Ten, who had gone to jail for refusing to cooperate with HUAC and had been forced to write scripts under a pseudonym for a decade afterword - Douglas, irate with Hollywood’s hypocrisy, helped to destroy the blacklist The Alamo - A passion project for John Wayne, who saw the 13-day siege and battle of the Alamo as a metaphor for America’s place in the world - Wayne, formally a member of the Motion Picture Alliance and supporter of the Hollywood blacklist, starred, produced, and directed the film which earned 6 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture - The Oscar campaign, headed by Russel Birdwell, drew a metaphorical line in the sand, us vs. them – alienating critics and audiences The Cold War on Film - The Cold War continued on film, exacerbating fears already heightened the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Assassination of President Kennedy

Your preview ends here

Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version

Access to all documents
Unlimited textbook solutions
24/7 expert homework help

- Hollywood produces a number of “classics” during this period Did Uncle Walk spark the Counterculture? - Long before the cultural tumult of the sixties, Disney films preached pacifism, introduced a generation to the notion of feminism offered the screen’s first drug-trip imagery, encouraged young people to become runaways, insisted on the need for integration, advanced the notion of a sexual revolution, created the concept of multiculturalism, called for a return to nature, nourished the cult of the righteous outlaw; justified violent radicalism in defense of individual rights, argued in favor of communal living and encouraged antiauthoritarian attitudes Did Film during the 1960s address the Race Problem - Films of the period do not address the root cause of racial problems - Figures like Sidney Poitier, whose color provoked racism, but whose class status solved for whites their problem with his blackness - Racism looked at as human problem, not a political/systemic problem - Paternalism, such as that occurring in To Kill a Mockingbird , marketed to appeal to whites How did Hollywood Address the Vietnam War? - “The Green Berets is a film so unspeakable, so stupid, so rotten and false in every detail that it passes through being fun, through being funny, through being camp, through everything and becomes an invitation to grieve, not for our soldiers or for Vietnam, but for what has happened to the fantasy-making apparatus in this country. Simplicities of the right, simplicities of the left, but this one is beyond the possible. It is vile and insane.” – The New York Times - The critics overkilled me, the picture, and the war. As a result, so many people went to see it that I had a check from the distributors for $8 million within three months. That’s the cost of the picture, so we moved into profit the next day.” - John Wayne How did the 1960s Impact the Depiction of Women in Film? - Women depicted as sexually liberated or aggressive - Sexual revolution did not transfer to Hollywood - Overall discrepancy between women in women’s liberation movement and women on the big screen - Stereotypical roles persist How did Hollywood approach America’s youth? - Youth movement/student movements also do not transfer well onto the big screen - Students depicted as confused college kids in search of easy sex and cheap thrills - Existential adolescent angst makes films of this period forgettable Evidence of New Change: 1966-1969 - The West “is the best,” as Jim Morrison once said, and the Western, itself a dying genre by the end of the 1960s, challenged conventional norms and social issues in ways other films of the period could not Easy Rider - “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose…” – Janis Joplin

- “Easy Rider is very likely the clearest and most disturbing presentation of the angry estrangement of American youth to be brough to screen” – Hollywood Reporter - Wyatt and Billy, much like those in Western mythology Sam Peckinpah - “Killing a man isn’t clean and quick and simple. It’s bloody and awful. And maybe if enough people come to realize that shooting somebody isn’t just fun and games, maybe we’ll get somewhere.” – Sam Peckinpah War and Cinema - Hollywood’s war cinema mediates our relationship with war, shaping our understanding of real wars. “Images of war explain why we fight; they stage and restage war’s battles; and they attempt to explain why we won or lost.” - Specifically, Hollywood justifies the wars that the US has waged. Victories are informed by an “inherent pacifism” that redeems us from the brutality of our enemies. And the lone defeat (Vietnam) is the result of a heightened sense of conscious Propaganda and the Combat Film - World War I- before America’s involvement in WWI, isolationist sentiments were manipulated to keep the US out of the war. After the US entered the war, however, films became markedly pro-war - World War II- Films followed a similar pattern to that of WWI, moving from an isolationist to pro-war, depending upon the US’s level of involvement The Vietnam Reversal - In Vietnam, the solider learned to question the simplistic, Cold War rhetoric about the nature of the enemy and the justness of the American cause The 1991 Gulf War, World War II Redux, and the Iraq War - Contemporary war films are shaped by the American experience in Vietnam - The Gulf War- films such as rules of engagement and courage under fire approach combat as a source of personal trauma - WWII Redux- recent films that deal with WWII muddy the waters of previous treatments, blurring the simplistic lines of classic WWII pictures ( Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line ) - The Iraq War- the few films that have appeared on the Iraq war deal largely with post- traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) ( Stop Loss ) Crossovers - War comedies - Western War A different world - A world of Chaos- every choice is life or death, the randomness of death (i.e., land minds) - A suspension of morality- things considered immoral in non-war settings are not only allowed, but often celebrated in war settings (torture, rape, etc.) - From individuals to group goals: working for the good of the group always outweighs the needs/desires for good of the individual; even ‘heroic’ actions are often shown as selfish

Masculinity in War Films - Masculine/feminine- the psyche of the male solider must be reshaped to repress the feminine- to transform him into a ruthless, unemotional, fighting machine - Woman as weakness- soldiers who show compassion or love interest (back home) are penalized - Conventional homoeroticism - Returning from the front- men who return from war often struggle with normalcy The Psychic Violence of War - The Enemy is Us- some films, especially those shot after Vietnam, illustrate divisions within the us regarding war - The Aftermath- films of this period also deal with the complicated aftermath of war, often focusing on the physical and psychological damage that war does to returning veterans We Have Been Watching the Same Movie about America’s Wars for 75 Years by Peter Van Buren - 2015 article in the Nation - No time spent on why the savages are going after us- Chris Kyle in American Sniper- nightmares about not saving more American lives, not about the people he killed - American soldiers are human beings with engaging back stories, sweet gals waiting at home and promising lives ahead- bad guys not so much - Americans can experience brief moments of regret, introspection - American war movies lack ambiguity - Americans take no responsibility for what they do when in war

Your preview ends here

Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version