Jean Luc Godard's Weekend as Didactic Self-Reflexive Cinema

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

Film and realism are connected to one another; it gives the audience an opportunity to interpret the film in their own perspective, in relation to the real world. As someone with a firm opposition to editing and montage, Bazin stated that the mise en scène truly represents “true continuity” in film, reproducing the real world more realistically. (Cardullo, 7) There are two editing systems: Classical Hollywood Cinema and Neorealist Cinema. From their similarities and differences, it can be said that Neorealist Cinema portrays the real world more realistically and effectively than CHC… In order to produce Bazin’s “true continuity” and reproduce situations more realistically, the filmmaker must choose an effective editing system, refrain from interrupting the flow of images, and use minimal editing, proven through the two films Bicycle Thieves (Neorealist Cinema) and Stagecoach (CHC).

Designing a film is something not everyone can do. It takes a lot of patience and attention to detail to ensure the creators of films make the best possible scenes with zero to minimal mistakes. Every scene needs to be spot on with elements such as setting, lighting, costuming, and temporal elements. When watching a movie for the first time, people don’t normally pay much attention to the small details but when a film is a considered a favorite, people tend to spot small mistakes within films. Let’s take a look on how these artists focuses on making films a detailed and enjoyable.

2) What are some of the themes that are central to the film? How have they been communicated?

“The point of theatre is transformation: to make an extraordinary event out of ordinary material right in front of an audience 's eyes. Where the germ of the idea came from is pretty much irrelevant. What matters to every theatre maker, I know, is speaking clearly to the audience 'right now. '” This quote by English playwright and screenwriter, Lee Hall, from an essay he published in the Times of London, is central to the connection between theatre and motion picture technology. Since the rise of film in the early twentieth century, these elements have been influencing each other, and working together, to elevate the storytelling and experience of each medium and, in turn, better connecting them to the modern audience. The collaboration of these two mediums has resulted in a new form of theatre, known as digital theatre, that shows “theatrical entertainment does not have to be either purist (involving only ‘live’ actors on stage), or be consumed by the dominant televisual mass media, but can gain from the strengths of both types of communication.”(Masura). Throughout this paper, the intersection of theatre and motion picture technology will be explored through their effect on each other, in storytelling and experience, and the product of their collaboration—digital theatre.

In the early 1900’s silent films amazed audiences with images, later talkies impressed with sound, today we have 3D. As technology continues to evolve so too will film genres. Genres, while having some shared characteristics, also differ in terms of stylistic devices used. For instance, the dramatic film “The Notebook” effectively uses color to reinforce theme and has plausible performers as the two main protagonists.

This paper will discuss various elements of mise-en-scene, specifically; character development, lighting, performance, costume, makeup in the film "Casablanca".(Michael Curtiz,1942) The setting of the story sets the tone for the entire film. Shots of tanks and planes show the violence of war that coincides with the cutthroat city that is Casablanca. From there, those sentiments are reinforced when a man is shot in the street while another man pick pockets someone whom is distracted. The mood of the movie stays on the dark side of things when we enter Rick's Café, where we meet our protagonist played by Humphrey Bogart. In this scene we are treated to the jaded portrayal of night club owner. We see his utter disregard for a French woman

Theorist Vsevolod Pudovkin claims that narrative films are mainly a “product of construction” and cautious compilations of “selections of images that have been shot” (Renée).

‘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’

In Dan Graham’s book, he explains his artworks as well as video techniques and architectural decisions made which pertain to the “self” with some connects to split personalities. In Graham’s “Video, Architecture, and Television” essay, it has different sections pertaining his opinions on how certain techniques, and their notable uses relating to what those uses mean. Graham discusses the “self” as well as the “self”-image in a section about “Video Feedback” With the topic of video feedback, the mentioning of “self”-perception is important to the discussion. When viewing an image, it’s usually “detached [and] static” (Graham 55). However, video feedback contributes another element to the perceiver, causing them the process the footage differently.

Auteur Theory is based on three premises, the first being technique, the second being personal style, and the third being interior meaning. Furthermore, there is no specific order in which these three aspects must be presented or weighted with regard to a film. An Auteur must give films a distinctive quality thus exerting a personal creative vision and interjecting it into the his or her films.

built and used in audiovisual products to narrate, generate sensations and configure "worlds", real and fantastic, respect to the reality of the history of fiction (which may not coincide with reality as the viewer knows it in his own life, but that this understands and accepts as the reality of history that is being counting within the audiovisual piece).

This paper will focus on the film techniques used by Cameron in his three most known movies, Titanic (1997), Avatar (2009), and Terminator series. Mise-en-scene according to John Gibbs is used in film studies in the discussion of visual style. Translated literally it means “To put on stage”, but for the purpose of students, it is defined as the contents of the frame and the way they are organized (p 5). In addition, a director’s style can be identified only through the arrangement and orchestrations of the film’s mise-en-scene (Nelmes, 425).The films Titanic, Avatar, and Terminator series were successful

Tristan Bernard's "I'm Going!" is a "comedy in one act," the dramatic counterpart to a prose short story like Guy de Maupassant's "The Necklace." Both of these modern works of French literature reveal issues such as gender roles and gender norms within a traditional heterosexual marriage framework. The stories suggest tensions between traditional patriarchy and the more egalitarian gender norms that are transforming the way couples relate. Both "I'm Going!" and "The Necklace" take place in an urban setting and also show how issues like social class can impact the domestic partnership. For Henri and Jeanne in "I'm Going!" it is how they use their conspicuous leisure time that forms the central conflict in the "comedy in one act." Clearly Henri and Jeanne are of the upper class or bourgeoisie. On the contrary, Mathilde and her husband are of the working class and by the end of the story are outright poor. Their socio-economic class status adds tension and a unique dynamic to the Loisel relationship, as it helps to define the protagonists' characters. Therefore, gender norms and socio-economic class define the couples and the individual characters in Tristan Bernard's "I'm Going!" and Guy de Maupassant's "The Necklace."

Author, Kate Chopin, presents the character of Mrs. Louis Mallard. She is an unhappy woman trapped in her discontented marriage. Unable to assert herself or extricate herself from the relationship, she endures it. The news of the presumed death of her husband comes as a great relief to her, and for a brief moment she experiences the joys of a liberated life from the repressed relationship with her husband. Finally, she recognizes the freedom she has desired for a long time and it overcomes her sorrow: "Free! Body and soul free! She kept whispering." In her soul, the dark clouds are disappearing because she is illuminated. All the memories of her husband are now of the past. She is living in the present. At this point, she is no longer "Mrs.Mallard." She is Louise and is ready to welcome a new horizon of freedom : "Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own." Overwhelmed with a new sense of herself, she feels as if she