A Brief Summary Of Documentar Documentary Films

Film exists in layers of physical existence and reality. You have the layer the audience views of the film’s world - setting, characters, and plot - and then you have the layer the film production workers view of the film’s world - actors, the set, and the story. Like photography, film is able to establish a physical existence. However, unlike photography, film uses two very unique and different techniques in order to establish its physical existence. According to Siegfried Kracauer, film establishes its physical existence through representation of reality as it evolves through time and with the help of techniques and devices exclusive to cinema cameras (Kracauer 187). All the world is a stage for film, however Kracauer lists specific techniques of film he refers to as cinematic due to how these techniques are read on the cinematic medium. Although Kracauer wrote his theory on Establishment of Physical Existence in 1960, the 2015 movie Tangerine contains a fair amount of content that can be serviced as examples in order to support Kracauer’s theory. Using the 2010’s movie Tangerine directed by Sean S. Baker, modern cinema examples from various scenes of the film can be provided for examples on Siegfried Kracauer’s theory of Establishment of Physical Existence through cinema’s recording functions of nascent motion, cinema’s revealing function of transients, and cinema’s revealing function of blind spots of the

Surrealism is a movement that built off of the burgeoning look into art, psychology, and the workings of the mind. Popularly associated with the works of Salvador Dali, Surrealist art takes imagery and ideology and creates correlation where there is none, creating new forms of art. In this essay I will look to explore the inception of the surrealist movement, including the Surrealist Manifesto, to stress the importance of these artists and their work in the 20th century and beyond. I also will look to films from our European Cinema course to express how films incorporate the influence of surrealism both intentionally and unintentionally.

The documentary “Fed Up” provides some important and disturbing details of the food industry. The 1977 heart disease and diet study known as the McGovern Report warned that the obesity rate was increasing rapidly due to American diets in fatty meats, saturated fats, cholesterol, and sugar. The food industry vehemently denied these claims, but the American people still demanded lower fat food products. The food manufacturers found that the fat removal made the food bland and unpalatable so to address this they replaced the fat content with sugar. Both the documentary and the Harvard Nutrition Source discuss the role sugar has in health conditions such as obesity and type 2 diabetes. They both link the consumption of sugar as the causality for

Although the best reasons for “going to the movies” are to be entertained and eat popcorn, understanding a film is actually quite complex. Movies are not only a reflection of life, they also have the capability of shaping our norms, values, attitudes, and perception of life. Through the media of film, one can find stories of practically anything imaginable and some things unimaginable. Movie-makers use their art to entertain, to promote political agendas, to educate, and to present life as it is, was, or could be. They can present truth, truth as they interpret it, or simply ignore truth altogether. A movie can be a work of fiction, non-fiction, or anything in-between. A film is an artist’s interpretation. What one takes away from a film depends upon how one interprets what has been seen and heard. Understanding film is indeed difficult.

What makes documentary filmmaking distinct to narrative filmmaking? There are a few contrasting objectives for both types of filmmaking that distinguishes them from each other. Simply put, narrative filmmaking is a movie with a pre-written script, actors and a story which is already crafted before they start shooting. while documentaries are filmmaking where real life events are captured, and a script is usually written afterwards. Narrative films rely on the three-act structure which goes Setup, Confrontation and Resolution or in other words, a beginning, middle and end. The main aim for the three-act structure is for the story to develop while the stakes get risker for our characters, so they evolve as the movie goes on. Narrative film

Jose Antonio Vargas documentary titled Documented opened my eyes to things I have never knew or particular looked at first hand from a person in his situation. Watching the film it was very touching and enlighten to bring awareness to something many people experience here in America. Something that stood out to me was how he was and known Journalist for many companies like The Huffington Post, The Washington Post and many others. Living like any person would go day to day you would never know that he was considered and illegal immigrant.

In the following I want to introduce you to two different Chicagoan artists, who were presented in the PBS series Art:21. I have chosen Chris Ware and Theaster Gates.

In the 1942 film Now Voyager, one sees these roles being played out. Yet the film does something quite different in its beginning and calls into question some problems with the pleasures of viewing. What happens when the object on screen is neither desirable for the male spectator, nor the ideal mirror image of the female self? What happens when there is nothing to 'fetishize' and the object of the gaze returns the gaze? The result is that of a suggested disturbing cinema where the male gaze is threatened, suggesting that pleasure has been denied for both male and (seemingly) female spectators. The early part of Now Voyager suggests how a cinematic world that disrupts scopophilia is coded as disturbing, one where the characters are deemed ill. Although the film temporarily disrupts this pleasure, the film ultimately maintains the notion that cinematic visual pleasure derives from the roles of male as voyeur and female as the object of the male gaze. The image of woman as object is coded as natural in this film, to be subject and maintain control of the gaze is abnormal. Therefore the film suggests that visual pleasure can only occur when men act as seers and women continue to see themselves being

‘There are…two kinds of film makers: one invents an imaginary reality; the other confronts an existing reality and attempts to understand it, criticise it…and finally, translate it into film’

To quote John Boorman, “human beings need a narrative” (McGrath, 2015, pg.11), Boorman is one of many directors who started out his career because he wanted to tell stories. He saw the world with a critical eye and wished to rewrite the narrative. In Declan McGrath’s “Moments of Transcendence: An interview with John Boorman” a backstory into Boorman’s career is released as Boorman answers questions about his films, their desired messages and how he’s learned all of his devices. John Paizs is another director who has created many films and filtered their audience responses through a fine lens. Audiences are able to become emotionally involved in the screen narrative by a careful process from the director working on the film. The director’s creative choices prove their love and their manipulation over

Many critics have noticed that Mulvey’s application of psychoanalysis and filmmaking appears in an ironic return to Freud and Jacques Lacan. Mulvey uses the gaze to examine male pleasure in narrative cinema, but Lacan

Is a documentary always more realistic than fiction film? If so, why? If not, why not? What makes a film more or less realistic?

The romantic idea of the auteur is described by film theoretician, André Bazin, observing the film form as an idealistic phenomenon. Through the personal factor in artistic creation as a standard reference, Bazin primarily refers to an essential literary and romantic conception of the artist as central. He considers the relationship between film aesthetics and reality more important than the director itself and places cinema above paintings. He described paintings as a similar ethical creation to film stating a director ‘can be valued according to its measurements and the celebrity of the signature, the objective quality of the work itself was formerly held in much higher esteem.’ (Bazin, 1967: 250). Bazin contemplates the historical and social aspects that indeed hinder a director’s retribution to their own personalised film, thus en-companying their own ideological judgement upon the world ‘more so in cinema where the sociological and historical cross-currents are countless.’ (Bazin, 1967: 256)

There are many ways that one can analyze a work of art. To say that something as complex as artistic expression can only be looked at or defined in one dimension is nothing short of a lie. In realizing this, we must also realize that film is like any work of art, the many messages and ideas behind a well thought-out film are nearly uncountable. With that in mind, perhaps one of the best ways to analyze film is through a method known as "Cognitive Psychology". Cognitive psychology deals greatly with practical perception, emotional, and conscious responses of viewers. By using cognitive psychology, we seek to explain how we recognize objects, fit disparate elements into orderly patterns, experience joy and sadness through art, and simultaneously understand multiple meanings and so forth. When we apply this theory in practice, it revolutionizes the way in which we can see the meaning behind movies, instead of relying on traditional concepts and roles to determine the ideas behind a work of film; we can shift the critical emphasis on a film to the viewer. In effect then, the viewer becomes an active participant in the creation of a film's effects and meanings. While there are a wide variety of movies that can be looked at using this method, perhaps one of those that come easiest to mind is Memento, a thriller in which the main character is afflicted with antro-grade amnesia, or the inability to create new

The art of film made it’s way into the penetration stage around the turn of the century and remained there until