Film and Media - Midterm

Question 1

edison films

Answer 1

the kiss
sandow
glenroy brothers
cockfight
the barbershop

Question 2

lumiere brothers films

Answer 2

exiting the factory
baby’s lunch
dragoons crossing the saone
arrival of the train

Question 3

louis le prince films

Answer 3

roundly garden scene

Question 4

melies films

Answer 4

a trip to the moon

Question 5

alice guy-blache films

Answer 5

the cabbage patch fairy
the consequences of feminism
45 madame’s cravings

Question 6

burton keaton films

Answer 6

sherlock jr

Question 7

classical hollywood

Answer 7

(1917-1960) linear plot / narrative (clear beginning, middle, end)
continuity editing (illusion of creating a self contained world)
fixed cinematic conventions
making “smooth” cuts, “seamless” transitions between shots
strategic use of sound and music

Question 8

gunning: early cinema

Answer 8

late 19th and early 20th century
CINEMA OF ATTRACTIONS has not disappeared but has been absorbed into narrative cinema = cinema of attractions –> narrative cinema
attraction is exhibitionist confrontation in avant-garde / experimental theater
moments of rupture (breaking the fourth wall) in a trip to the moon
“plot” not always central
cinema with fewer constraints - no strict division of labor
fluid interaction with theater, vaudeville, music hall comedy
talks about vaudeville, which is a show of live performances such as singing, dancing, comedy
popularity of “trick” films - Melies, Guy-Blache
caught between the philosophy of the european enlightenment and the ideology of imperialism
lumiere shorts are more than the sum of its parts (gestalt)
the “global”/ the non west as a form of commodity and entertainment
the global imaginary of early cinema
einstein is “montage of attractions” should shock and create psychological impact on audience

Question 9

knopf: the theater and cinema of buster keaton

Answer 9

keaton entering cinema as a vaudeville performer
the importance of gags in the film / draws attention to him as a comedian
the film as a dream / fiction and complex relationship between reality and cinema
wow finish - wants to make it memorable

Question 10

gaines: of cabbage and authors

Answer 10

why study the role of women in early cinema
period before the consolidated monopoly of hollywood studios dominated by men
women participated in cinema that wasn’t popular back then / more control of production
alice guy-blache: the consequences of feminism
classical and contemporary hollywood: director calling the shots, developing individual styles, leaving personal signatures
gaines believes that dominant notion of authorship does not apply to early cinema and we need to rethink “auteur” theory: the idea that the director is a unique in artistic control
auteurism is a school of film criticism that emerged out of french film in the 1960s
auteurist claims that film expresses the “inner personality” - the conscious and unconscious desire of the filmmaker
film is a symptom of the director’s mind that can be analyzed (psychoanalysis)
the director’s mind cannot be understood in isolation from historical and industrial forces within the film is made

Question 11

woody allen films

Answer 11

the purple rose of cairo

Question 12

munsterberg: why we go to the movies (1915)

Answer 12

photoplay is munsterberg’s term for film (photography and theater)
presents visual trace like a photograph
interested in the relationship between the moving image and its impact on the spectator
cinema transcends limitations of space and time
cinema as a form of mechanical project of our thoughts
- the close up as an “unconscious optics”
function of the close up
- the cinematic generation of emotion / effect (like horror, disgust, fear, pleasure, etc.)
- the close up of cecelia’s affective reaction as she is “moved”/”affected” by cinema
themes in popular weimar and hollywood cinema
- tokenistic pity for the poor - keeps social hierarchies intact
- glorification of nationalism / patriotism - elides class differences
- exotic travel as a form of escape - ignores questions of economic privilege
- tragic emale protagonists - deflects attention from unequal gender relations

Question 13

kracauer: little showgirls go to the movies

Answer 13

late 19th and early 20th century
kracauer interested in the figure of “the shopgirl”
the shop girl becomes a “new” female profession
social and cultural anxieties around the figure of the working / consuming woman
becomes the consumer of novels
symptom of capitalist oppression; illusions with real / material effects

Question 14

themes of the purple rose of cairo

Answer 14

the gap/gulf between hollywood romances and reality
the magical impact of hollywood on the spectator’s reality - tom represents the magical connection
hollywood as a hierarchal study

Question 15

baudry: ideological effects of the basic cinematic apparatus

Answer 15

dominant ideology - technology is being determined by dominant ideology
transcendental spectator
mirror-state - identification
- infinite mirror
- projection; negation of difference
- artificial perspective
APPARATUS GROUP - THERE IS NOTHING “NATURAL” ABOUT FILM TECHNOLOGY. CINEMA IS PERMEATED BY IDEOLOGY, THE NATURALIZATION OF ARTIFICIAL/TECHNOLOGICAL PROCESS
baudry presents technology as “natural,” conceals mechanisms of production, normalizes conventions that make cinema profitable
converting 3D space into “naturalistic” 2D visual representation
artificial perspective - mimicking the vision of the human eye, producing the effect of distance without making distance an impediment of vision
the “all seeing” human subject
artificial perspective as MEDIATED looking
- artificial perspective in renaissance is not a neutral tool
- the CAMERA OBSCURA privileges Renaissance artificial perspective (transcends limitations of our image)
**Baudry recap
movement of cinematic recap image as technological illusion
movement produced by moving still frames - suppressing their stillness
ideology behind cinema = lifelike
examines technological manipulations
“transcendental spectator”: sense of power / omniscience produced

Question 16

lacan’s theory of the “mirror stage”

Answer 16

child between 6 and 18 months
learns to see itself as an individual by jubilantly identifying with its mirror image
this moment of recognition is also a misrecognition / an illusion
there is a gap between what the child feels and what the child sees
illusory sensory of mastery is produced by the mirror stage / the imaginary / imaginary narcissism
this stage is associated with the mother / maternal care
the imaginary take is distinct from the realm of the language, culture
the imaginary (this illusory sense of mastery experienced by the ego) remains active in our lives

Question 17

mulvey: visual pleasure and narrative cinema

Answer 17

classical hollywood empowers not all viewers but only those who can align themselves with the position / view of the male protagonist
classical hollywood cinema privileges at certain kind of looking, or gaze, and specifically a “male gaze”
scopophilia and narcissism
- woman starts envying the penis
- mulvey is turning to these problems because she is critiquing psychoanalysis
classical hollywood splits the pleasure in looking into “active” male and “passive” female
the man is the “bearer” of the look
woman connotes a certain “to be looked at ness”
SCOPOPHILIA IS THE PLEASURE OF LOOKNG AT OTHERS (THE OBJECTIFIED WOMAN IN CLASSICAL HOLLYWOOD CINEMA) AND NARCISSISM DEMANDS IDENTIFICATION WITH THE SUBJECT OF THE GAZE (THE MALE PROTAGONIST)
STRUCTURE OF IDENTIFICATION CONSTRUCTED BY THE INDUSTRY (MULVEY) V. RESPONSES OF ACTUAL, INDIVIDUAL SPECTATORS (DIAWARA)
castration anxiety
- female poses a deeper problem/lack of penis, implying a threat of castration and hence impleasure
- psychoanalysis as a diagnosis of patriarchy
- **castration anxiety - the anxiety of not being “masculine enough”
- phallocentric order - maintaining male female hierarchy
voyeurism - devaluation, punishment, an object to be saved
fetishism - disavowal of the anxiety by idealizing the woman - producing a woman as a creature of extraordinary beauty

Question 18

diawara: black spectatorship

Answer 18

we need to think about the responses of actual spectators, social and historical positions shaping individual responses
the resisting spectator is an oppositional reading practice
the african american spectator is questioning the ideology (truth effect) behind the representation - a “neuristic device”
resisting spectator and black spectator can be used interchangeably

Question 19

merian c. cooper and ernest b. schoedsack’s films

Answer 19

king kong (1933)

Question 20

solanas and getino film

Answer 20

the hour of the furnace (1968)

Question 21

what are first and second cinema

Answer 21

first cinema: hollywood and other mainstream popular cinemas
second cinema: avant garde cinema - individual directors challenging hollywood’s aesthetic conventions and political ideologies; not necessarily completely outside “the [mainstream] system’ of production and distribution”

Question 22

jean luc godard

Answer 22

one of the leading filmmakers of the 1960s french new wave
protests against consumerism, capitalist exploitation, and institutionalized forms of violence and discrimination, bureaucrats control over education

Question 23

wollen: Godard and counter cinema

includes the seven deadly sins and his counter cinema - separate card

Answer 23

godard and solons both shunning the system of hollywood
a cinema with and for “the masses”
cinema meant for political action, not entertainment
critique of the propagandist use of cinema
relying on the powers of smaller group of people
creating ideology that is against the masses
critique of “universalism”
critique of art and cinema as “entertainment” and “surplus value”
creating a notion of cinema of resistance / for social justice
cinema for the masses and by the oppressed masses
the content and the form should reflect the misery of the masses
the goal is not to produce sympathy for the masses but to motivate the oppressed to act
system - class struggle - doesn’t allow class mobility
neocolonialism vs colonialism
hollywood is a part of a “systematic” neocolonial force

Question 24

seven deadly sins of hollywood

Answer 24

narrative transitivity
identification
transparency
single diegesis
closure
pleasure
fiction

Question 25

godard's counter cinema to seven deadly sins

Answer 25

``` intransitivity estrangement foregrounding multiple diegesis aperture unpleasure reality beyond the film text ```

Question 26

solanas and getino

Answer 26

second cinema is trapped inside the fortress european aesthetic between godard and solons too caught up in parodying solanas is for the people the auteurs have become celebrities production and distribution mimics the system (godard)

Question 27

the main goals of third cinema

Answer 27

make films that the system cannot assimilate, films that explicitly fight the system collaborative production - not about "auteurs" use of testimonies / interviews of citizens and non-actors as subjects filmmaking and viewing as political activities active spectatorship - contrast with hollywood (and even godard's) passive spectators

Question 28

flaherty's films

Answer 28

nanook of the north (1922)

Question 29

nichols: major voice shaping documentary studies

Answer 29

representing reality situating documentary as a distinct field of study what is the social status of documentary documentaries are often deemed truer because they are closer to discourses of sobriety than fiction films nichols is questioning hierarchy - less fictional than reality (discourses of sobriety) less truthful than image - plato and his fear of images nichols pointing out a socially embedded mistrust / fear of images (platonism and neo platonism) images matter; they determine how we see the world around us and interact with each other ideologies / socially held beliefs are what makes us social communities ideology, image, imaginary are all tied together but that doesn't mean the nonfictional makes the unquestionable truth doesn't mean that fiction and nonfiction produce same reaction

Question 30

nanook of the north

Answer 30

``` the use of inter titles acting as the voice of flaherty flaherty offering knowledge around the images we trust flaherty to say the truth episodic organization, editing, control the myth of "lack of control" (nichols) an aura of truthfulness (nichols) ```

Question 31

rony: flaherty's ethnography as taxidermy

Answer 31

taxidermy - seeks to make look that which is dead as if it were still living response to loss / death to preserve what is lost (makes us feel as if that thing is still alive) flaherty's historical moment: western impression dying out - one must believe / bringing it back to life in a false way culture is dying out so needs to be preserved - feel nostalgic but need to distinguish past and present - inuit culture is perceived to be dying attempts to preserve dying culture the use of long shots with deep focus emphasizing the analogy with baby as being cute but also very savage

Question 32

what makes a documentary a documentary

Answer 32

moving target multiple definitions from different vantage points the myth of lack of control filmmaker - the documentary is what filmmakers who call themselves documentarians produce an institutional formation the text - informing logic; problem / solution structure; often relies on authoritative narration reenactments not used typically, editing: evidentiary and continuous the viewer - truth as an expectation; we expect the sound / image to have indexical relation with the historical world; procedures of rhetorical engagement; habit and formal motivation - epistophelia; pleasure in gaining knowledge

Question 33

5 modes of documentary

Answer 33

``` expository observational interactive performative reflexive ```

Question 34

resnais films

Answer 34

night and fog (1955)

Question 35

framptom film

Answer 35

nostalgia (1971)

Question 36

barthes: camera lucida / la chambre claire (1980)

Answer 36

a phenomenological study of photography (philosophical and spiritual approach to photography) the conscious experience of the photo the spectator's experience emotional impact the photograph cannot be separate from the referent (it can directly tell you who i am referring to; referring to the subject in photograph) - who is in the photograph but not physically there the photograph is absolute contingency - exact, particular, unique moment in that the photograph captures - that moment will soon change - contingency = temporary / accident / can't replicate the moment - it is a chance encounter barthes wants us to focus on the unique circumstances (contingency) of the photograph (phenomenological essence) studium - general like / dislike of the photograph, understanding what the photograph is and the matter - what is going on - allows you to gather info about image of given context something that the spectator has to explain, seek out, to understand the meaning punctum - small detail that stands out - not linked to the other of the studium - not intended by the photographer - something very individual - varies from person to person - related to memory, death, or loss - the puncture's (metonymic) power of expansions (one small object stands in for a set of objects) the noeme / essence of the photograph

Question 37

photographs in nostalgia by hollis framptom

Answer 37

``` refusal to link image to sound the narration (stadium) is temporarily out of sync, ahead of the photograph ```

Question 38

night and fog

Answer 38

the narration and editing of stadium is not about the particular photograph but a larger european calamity it matters who creates and reads the stadium images of bodies are very still / dead but look alive indeterminacy between stillness and motion - the moving image looks like it is a photograph because of dead / still body

Question 39

the couple in the cage

Answer 39

reflection on the act of visual documentation film and photography as products of social relations viewer who is truly caged demonstrates the use of interactive mode

Question 40

azouley: the execution portrait

Answer 40

why can't punctum arise from stadium encounter between subject and camera and the encounter that will unfold when photo is distributed different levels of violence in photo itself being in common with subjects (forms of violence that infold in the image) - atrocity image caption can be a part of the photo itself dominant conventions of the atrocity image - overt bodily harm - publicized as extraordinary scandal - gratuitous - if the photograph was taken at the site, it is an atrocity image - azoulay - normalization of the regime - made disaster atrocity not legible from perpetrator's p.o.v - we have to think of the atrocity image beyond the immediately visible punctum vs. atrocity - atrocity is a part of the studium left behind - atrocity wouldn't just be death itself the wanted man photo = publicly proclaiming that he is a wanted man - world knows that he is a wanted man and life is in danger - moving from state of invisibility to state of visibility