The Independence Of Meta Cinema And Authorship

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

In Jean-Louis Comolli and Jean Narboni’s essay “Cinema/Ideology/Criticism,” they put forward the central argument that film is a commercial product in the capitalist system and therefore also the unconscious instrument of the dominant ideology which produces it. In opposition to the classic film theory that applauds camera as an impartial device to reproduce reality, they argue that what the camera reproduces is merely a refraction of the prevailing ideology. Therefore, the primary and political task for filmmakers is to disrupt this replication of the world as self-evident and the function of film criticism is to identify and evaluate that politics. Comolli and Narboni then suggest seven categories of films confronting ideology in different ways, among which the second category resists the prevailing ideology on two levels. Films of this group not only overtly deal with political contents in order to “attack their ideological assimilation” (Comolli and Narboni 483), but also achieve their goal through breaking down the conventional way of depicting reality.

This film analysis will delineate the diverse directorial decisions of The French New Wave cinema movement, and how they have been utilised and developed to challenge and subvert the typical Hollywood filmmaking conventions and techniques of the 1950s and 60s Hollywood cinema, in François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (1959). Hollywood produced films of the time used a very limited variation in film techniques such as camera, acting, mise-en-scene, editing and sound. This can be mainly attributed to the low innovative thought of creative and expressive camera movements, angles, etc… due to technological hindrances. In particular, this film analysis will de-construct the filmmaking elements of the revelatory French New Wave movement in Truffaut’s The 400 Blows ending scene (01:34:42 – 01:39:32) portraying the main character Antoine Doinel’s escape from juvie and trek to the bespoken beach.

She discusses how Weimar Cinema came to be and how it did so well financially, moves onto the introduction of Expressionism into film from its origin in theater and painting, and finally describes the characteristics of Expressionism in Cinema as opposed to other artforms. From there, she discusses how the various members of the Prana cinema team came together and how their expertise contributed to the movie, how they prepared the masses for Nosferatu, and how they presented the movie. However, she provides the counterpoint of how Florence Stoker’s lawsuit against the Prana film company damaged the movie’s reputation and popularity. From there she describes how the plot of Nosferatu follows the pattern established by Noel Carroll in Philosophy of Horror of an onset phase, a discovery phase, a confirmation phase, and a confrontation phase. As the chapter progresses, Massaccesi’s description of the plot includes lengthy and in-depth analyses of each character in terms of their interactions with each other and with the setting(s). From there she considers the significance of various aspects of the film in relation to the film’s events and characters, such as camera angles and symbolic imagery, She also discusses the significance of other aspects of the film in relation to the sociopolitical situation in Germany and Europe as a whole, applying themes such as the defeat of a tyrannical villain figure or the supernatural wonder associated with Romantic artwork.

“A true film auteur is someone who brings something genuinely personal to his subject, instead of producing something tasteful, accurate but lifeless rendering of the original material,” a quote by Francois Truffaut. Auteur Theory was bold and risky for Francois Truffaut and Orson Welles to carry out throughout their film, but doing so led to having a wider audience and creating impressive memorial films. This New Wave of cinema had inspired many film makers to go outside the box and has led to the creation of idolizing films. An example would be Tim Burton, who has created many loved fantasy films from his unique out-there approach to directing. Auteur Theory has really shown us the importance of creating subjects of work that really reflect

The essay film, as contextualized in this course by Agnès Varda and Ross McElwee, has been defined by many traits, perhaps most notable in the physical presence of said directors in their films; at times on screen, at times in voiceovers, sometimes a combination of thereof. Over the span of several class meetings, this particular trait (the film maker’s presence a la Varda and McElwee) and its implications became the epicenter of most discussions, as well as the assumed baseline by which other directors would be critiqued. In this paper, the argument advanced is that by the standard(s) that emerged from the class’ discussions and evaluations of the aforementioned directors, Errol Morris—specifically in his films The Thin Blue Line and The Fog of War—technically is not an essayistic film maker. However, this stance also states that Morris is a film-essayist by other means, in that Morris simply implements Laura Rascaroli’s thoughts on reflectivity and subjectivity in a form dissimilar to Varda and McElwee.

Alfred Hitchcock is widely regarded as a prime example of an auteur, a theory that emerged in the 1950s by Truffaut, in the ‘politique des auteurs’ of Cahiers du Cinema (Tudor 121). The auteur theory, as defined by Andrew Tudor, is premised on the assumption that “any director creates his films on the basis of a central structure”(140) and thus, if you consider their films in relation to each other, commonalities can be found within them. These commonalities work to demonstrate the view of the director as “the true creator of the film” (Tudor 122). Evidence of an auteur can be found in examining a director’s creative tendencies, in their distinctive themes and motifs, stylistic choices,

This book provides an insight into Italian filmmaking and Fascism as well as the attitude that the state had to regulate cinema during the war presenting us with a new viewpoint into this period in cinema history.

An auteur director is viewed as prime mover in creative filmmaking, whose work is considered to have a distinctive style and innovative. Wes Anderson exemplifies the concept of auteurism due to his personal influence, and artistic control in his movies. His films feature a continuity of technical aspects with similar themes of familial drama and disgruntlement. From his well-composed mise en scene to classic pan shots, his style has surely become an acclaimed signature. The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Darjeeling Limited, and The Royal Tenenbaums are chosen from Anderson’s filmography to show that the use of these features has remained constant since his earliest work.

After WW1 the Great Depression had a very late impact on the major film companies in France, when it did, it unfortunately caused several film studios to go bankrupt, then in the late 1920’s to 1930’s many small film companies and groups emerged giving birth to the tendency called poetic realism. Because the large companies who made films with a focus on making money were gone the filmmakers and artists were able to concern themselves with the art of film, they often took poetic innovations that we can associate with impressionism or surrealism and combined them to create a more realistic style of narrative filmmaking. Therefore these films stylistic techniques have been influenced by the political and economical historical contexts that took place in France that has enhanced these films aesthetic. The growth of political awareness had then reflected in the films of this time, thus the enormous historical impact that effected France’s films and industry. The question can be asked, how did these social, political and economic issues of France at the time come thought the arts and cinema and start a very impactful thread of films.

She asked why not judge a film on its own merit? This spat began a culture war with two seemingly opposed camps ‘Sarrisite Or Paulette’ that continues today. Implications of auteur theory can be seen in modern films, for example, Fans of the Star Wars trilogy will attest that the first trilogy is superior to the second because it offered a more balanced input from different directors, George Lucas directed A New Hope (1977) but the second a third films in the trilogy were directed by Irvin Kershner and Richard Marquand respectively The second trilogy was too lucas-y. Sarris finished his essay by saying " At this late date I am prepared to concede that auteurism is and always has been more a tendency than a theory, more a mystique than a methodology, more an editorial policy than an aesthetic procedure… ”(Sarris, A.

Naomi Greene once said that, “Pier Paolo Pasolini was the more protean figure than anyone else in the world of film.” This means that Pasolini was a versatile film director because he simplified cinema into the simplest way possible, while still visually embodying an important message to his cinematic viewers. Because of his encounter with Italy’s social changes, it influenced the writing and films he chose to write. His aspirations regarding his written work “Cinema of Poetry” explains how a writer usage of words and a filmmaker’s choice of images are linked to how cinema can be a poetry of language. He characterizes cinema as irrational and his approach on free indirect point of view is used to achieve a particular effect in his body of work. His claims made in the Cinema of Poetry illustrate why he stylized his films in the manner he did, such as Mamma Roma through the images he portrayed on screen. By examining Pasolini’s approach to poetic communication in the Cinema of Poetry, we can see that these cinematic attributes about reality and authenticity depicted in Mamma Roma are utilized to question cinematic viewer’s effortless identification of cinema with life. This is important to illustrate because Pasolini wants to motivate viewers to have an interpretative rather than a passionate relationship with the screen.

According to film theorist Thomas Schatz, “a genre approach (to film) provides the most effective means for understanding, analyzing, and appreciating the Hollywood cinema (Schatz vii).” His approach to film is strongly supported by theorist Edward Branigan’s and the narrative representation of character interaction (Branigan), and André Bazin’s arguments that the objective reality pressed against audience interpretation.

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

The evaluation of a film assigns some form of value to a film and the experience you encountered while watching the film. Evaluation can imply the criteria and standards that you can argue about to place value on a film. Thus, giving people a reason to question a film to develop reasons, make such standards are met and to understand the film. These standards can stem from the classical evaluation and pluralistic-category method which has given viewers a blueprint of how you should properly evaluate a film. There are certain ways that you can go about judging a films effectiveness. For instance, the classical evaluation method imposes the use of cinematicity within three concepts that all films should have. Like medium specificity, cinematicity allows film to distinguish itself from theatre with the use of close-ups, camera movement, etc.; thus, creates a universal structure for critics to judge a film. This is based on the creative style of the director and how much the viewers admire the way the has stuck with its cinematicity. However, the pluralistic-category does not base its evaluation on style and opinion. In all, these types of evaluations are used in different ways which will be further explained throughout this essay.