Analysis Of Jean Louis Comolli And Jean Narboni 's ' Cinema / Ideology / Criticism '

Article Three – Author: David Bordwell / Title of Article: The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film

The fictionalization of events, whether they were real events or entirely fabricated, was an inherent if not articulated component of both Eisenstein and Vertov’s theories of montage. The desire to find a socialist art form capable of expressing the truth according to socialism led both directors to express truth only from an ideological point of view. They not only inaccurately displayed historical events, but also assigned to them false emotions, ideological conclusions and outcomes. Whether it was the implied mass involvement in the Russian Revolution in October, the industrialization in The Man with a Movie Camera, the fictionalized relationship between Ivan and his subjects in Ivan the Terrible, or the deification of Lenin and the transference of immortality to Stalin in Three Songs of Lenin, the creation of meaning through montage necessarily led to the creation of false history as

In Response to Fassbinder’s sudden death in 1982, the film critic Wolfram Schutte wrote an article in Frankfurter Rundschau on 11 June 1982, commenting that “the paradigmatic character of Fassbinder’s oeuvre came about both against the establishment consensus and without creating a political identity.” (qtd. Elasaesser 19) For many critics like Schutte and Elsaesser, Fassbinder’s political attitude had been the most unique aspect of him as a filmmaker. In Fassbinder’s time, the prevalent identity politics among the left made his approach highly controversial, especially among the political radicals. For example, Wilfred Wiegand criticized his film as “post-revolutionary,” which “no longer steers a course for the naïve pre-revolutionary dream of a better world, but…has absorbed the fragments of a negative historical experience.”

The notion that film functions rhetorically is hardly novel, and, indeed, there is a long tradition of film criticism within rhetorical studies.5 Historically, the rhetorical criticism of film has tended to focus on the representational aspects of cinema, attending to how films compel audiences at a cognitive rather than corporeal level. But more recently, scholars in an array of fields (Kennedy, 2000; MacDougall, 2006; Massumi, 2002; Shaviro, 1993; Sobchack, 1995, 2004) have begun to consider how cinema appeals directly to the senses, how it sways viewers somatically as well as symbolically. Attention to the body corresponds closely to the affective (re)turn in rhetorical studies,6 for conceptualizing rhetoric as embodied necessarily “reflects a merger of reason and emotion” (McKerrow, 1998, p. 322; see also Johnson, 2007). Rhetorical

The materials of this article are helpful for me to understand Renoir’s devotion to film. And it also helps me to understand his deep concerns about the people living at the bottom of

In his assessment of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, (1920), Noel Burch describes the film as a play on “carefully contrived ambiguity,” (Burch, 174). The spectator of the film, the audience is both drawn in as a participant, a “motionless voyager” (Bordwell, 96, quoting Burch) forced to imagine their own dialogue, action, and expression, and then all at once, harkened back to severe reality with contrived moments. This play between audience immersion and expulsion from the film’s environment characterizes Director Robert Wiene’s simultaneous acceptance and rejection of what we would call institutional mode of representation (IMR). In this essay I will discuss IMR and key moments in film where departure from it is

The appearance of third cinema poses a radical and singular challenge to existing or traditional categories of film. The core thematic element of third cinema is the various form of oppression that afflicts the Third World Countries. The film investigated in this paper is TERRE EM TRANSE by Glauber Rocha. The Brazilian “Cinema Novo,” provided uproar with his polemical manifesto entitled The Aesthetics of Hunger, was an important element of this new

By analyzing the historical contexts of these specific movements, we take a deeper look at society's social, religious, economic, and political conditions that existed during a certain time and place. These relevant factors profuse mass influence into a filmmakers decisions while in the production process of a film. Additionally, these components have the role of establishing distinct trends in the film industry. Each movement has its own purpose for creating each film in regards to a stylistic standpoint.

In twentieth century Germany, Frankfurt School philosophers fiercely debated the effects of modern film on our rational and critical thought processes. Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno assert film is an oppressive technology that makes us intellectually docile, while Walter Benjamin contests their assertion by recognizing film 's liberatory potential. Although Horkheimer and Adorno make important points about the current relationship between film and the masses, they fail to acknowledge any possible changes to it. In the context of futurity, Benjamin presents a convincing argument—the technology of film can create subjectivities that will help the masses assimilate into modernity. Horkheimer and Adorno 's understanding of film reflects

“It is a fascinating paradox that Roma città aperta continued many of the stylistic characteristics of cinema produced during the Fascist era, but it embodied, at the same time, a clear antifascist ideology that attempted to reconcile all of the different and conflicting political positions of the various groups making up the Italian antifascist resistance.” (Bondanella in Gottlieb, 2004)

According to Adorno and Horkheimer anything that is found within the ‘culture industry’ is similar to one another (34). What can be concluded from the argument is that many of the ideas that are presented on screen through various types of media are that the same ideas and aesthetic is repeated constantly. By looking at the example of the films produced in today’s society it is easy to believe Adorno and

There is no doubt that film is a powerful mode of cultural production that caters to politicians, academics, and the general public. We are, in our quotidian existence, unwittingly exposed to a stunning amount of sensorial stimulation. Much of this stimulation comes from film, a form of media that has captivated sociologists, psychologists, and philosophers. In the Frankfurt School, Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno interpret the sociopolitical implications of film differently from Walter Benjamin. Horkheimer and Adorno see film as a means to deceive and manipulate the proletariat—although Benjamin critiques capitalist exploitation of film, he argues that film can serve revolutionary purposes. In the context of historical film, Benjamin 's arguments are more convincing than Horkheimer and Adorno 's; film is not inherently authoritarian or oppressive. Rather, the manner film is employed socio-politically is what defines its roles in mass culture.

Vittorio De Sica is considered one of the most important directors during the time of the Italian Neorealism movement which occurred after the fall of fascism in Italy. Neorealism revolves around realistic filmmaking. Rather than produce glossy films to heal the heartbreak in this post war country, De Sica and several other directors focused on the working class and how fatal the blow of fascism was. It was an artistic response to an abundance of commercial entertainment films spewing from Hollywood. Although it was beautiful it was much more than a piece of art, it was revolutionary. These films offered not the escape that many Italians desired at the time but instead held a mirror up to the general public. It showed that if the public cares about one family's story on screen every family's story matters, a crucial point to make after years of a dictatorship that told them the opposite. The most predominant themes that are portrayed in De Sica’s work are poverty, economic turndown and choices. He displays these uniquely through mise-en-scene, dialogue, cinematography and attitude. The

After independence, the state made some significant changes in order to enhance production. Even though the funds provided were not adequate enough to make high quality films, some Moroccan filmmakers managed to achieve unprecedented success. Besides, it was visible that the only role cinema could play at that era was to reflect the ongoing social and political transitions especially that some new male and female directors made their first appearance in Moroccan cinema. Therefore, moving toward a new phase did not happen in soft ways because Moroccan filmmakers faced financial and technical hindrances. However, Moroccan cinema started to detach itself gradually from the impact of France by experiencing new film techniques. Moroccans engagement in Cinema at the beginning of the 70s reflects, convincingly, the filmmakers’ search for their identity and their socio-cultural role. This chapter explores the major characteristics of Post-independence cinema and the procedures carried out by the state to develop it. Accordingly, the regulations introduced by the CCM so as to enhance production and improve quality. It also presents specific information regarding some of the prominent films and filmmakers of that period. The purpose of the latter investigation is to delve into the core particularities of Moroccan film at the beginning of the 70s and to examine the extent to which the social transitions society is reflected in its

The purpose of this paper is to examine how characteristics of culture maintain capitalist society. I will be using Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer’s The culture industry: enlightenment as mass deception, as the backbone of my analysis. This will be accomplished by assessing aspects of society such as: monopoly capitalism, the entertainment industry and relevance to modern day society. This paper argues that capitalism transformed culture into an ideological means of domination, and acts as brainwashing tool over the masses.