Hi everybody,
I'm sure the task of memorizing answers to these 35 questions seems daunting. Just go through each question and find points from the readings that you can plug into your answers. Because some of these questions are author specific, try making flashcards which have the major themes as well as the authors on them to link them in your mind. If you're having serious trouble figuring out an answer, I can help you, but I'm not going to do a review on Thursday that covers everything--I have to focus on the most recent material. You should spend at least a few hours coming up with answers. Remember, specific terms and details will be highly rewarded! Don't let yourself down! Especially if you've had trouble on quizzes and the paper. This is your chance to bounce back! Good luck!
Eli
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Friday, October 24, 2008
Study Guide for Midterm
FILM 2400: Film Theory
Midterm Study Guide
The midterm exam (November 6) will be 75 minutes long. It will consist of 10 short answer questions. You do not have to write in complete sentences: your answers should be as exhaustive and thorough as possible, rather than well written. Although these are not essay questions, the short answer questions have been formulated in a way that presupposes that you have read all articles very carefully and synthesized the main line of argument in each article. The 10 questions will be selected from the following list.
1. Identify and briefly explain at least two of the ways in which the notion of ‘theory’ in the humanities (e.g. film theory) differs from the notion of ‘theory’ in the hard sciences.
2. What does it mean to “deprovincialize” film theory in terms of time and space?
3. Identify and briefly explain at least two of the antecedents of film theory.
4. Identify and briefly explain two major differences between formalist and realist theories of film.
5. How is the principle of montage exemplified by Japanese representational culture? Give at least three examples.
6. Identify and briefly explain at least three examples of ‘conflict within the shot’ in Eisenstein’s film Battleship Potemkin.
7. Identify and briefly explain at least three types of montage that Eisenstein discusses in his essays.
8. Identify and briefly explain at least three ways in which film is not merely a mechanical reproduction of reality, according to Arnheim.
9. Identify and briefly explain at least two ways in which the perfection of “the complete film” threatens the development of cinema as an art, according to Arnheim.
10. Identify and briefly explain at least three ways in which the photoplay differs from the stage play, according to Münsterberg.
11. According to Bazin, how does identification in cinema function differently from identification in theatre?
12. According to Bazin, what is the relative significance of actors, decor, and speech in film versus theatre?
13. Why does Bazin argue that the cinema of Flaherty and Orson Wells is superior to German Expressionism (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) and to montage cinema (Eisenstein)?
14. What does Bazin mean when he says that “film has freed Western painting, once and for all, from its obsession with realism and allowed it to recover its aesthetic autonomy” (170)?
15. What does Panofsky mean by “the dynamization of space”?
16. What does Panofsky mean by “the principle of coexpressibility”?
17. What does Panofsky mean when he writes that “the screenplay, in contrast to the theatre play, has no aesthetic existence independent of its performance, and...its characters have no aesthetic existence outside the actors” (299)?
18. Identify at least one way in which Panofsky’s discussion of the development of film style fails to exemplify his claim that the film medium owes its existence to technical experimentation.
19. Identify and briefly explain the four ‘cinematic subjects’ Kracauer discusses under the title “recording functions.”
20. Identify and briefly explain at least four of the ‘cinematic subjects’ Kracauer discusses under the title “revealing functions.”
21. Identify and briefly explain at least one way in which Antonioni’s film Red Desert exemplifies an aspect of formalist film theory and one way in which it exemplifies an aspect of realist film theory.
22. Identify and briefly explain at least two ways in which Bergman’s film Persona purposefully deviates from realism.
23. Identify and briefly explain at least three ways in which literature differs from cinema, according to Chatman.
24. Identify and briefly explain the three premises of the auteur theory, according to Andrew Sarris.
25. What is the difference between an ‘auteur’ and a ‘metteur en scène’?
26. What makes Hawks an auteur, according to Peter Wollen?
27. What does Peter Wollen mean when he says that Fuller, Hawks and Hitchcock, the directors, are quite separate from “Fuller,” “Hawks” and “Hitchcock”, the structures named after them?
28. What does Roland Barthes mean when he says that “writing is the destruction of every voice, of every point of origin” or that “it is language which speaks, not the author”?
29. What does Barthes mean when he writes that “the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author”?
30. What makes David Lynch an auteur, given Peter Wollen’s criteria for ‘auteurship’?
31. How does the ritual theory of genre differ from the ideological theory of genre?
32. How does the semantic theory of genre differ from the syntactic theory of genre?
33. According to Altman, what are the two fundamental ways in which a new genre develops?
34. How does Altman determine the exact border between the semantic and the syntactic?
35. Identify and briefly explain at least three of the problems with identifying the genre of ‘film noir’ that Frank Krutnik discusses in his article.
Good luck!
Temenuga
Midterm Study Guide
The midterm exam (November 6) will be 75 minutes long. It will consist of 10 short answer questions. You do not have to write in complete sentences: your answers should be as exhaustive and thorough as possible, rather than well written. Although these are not essay questions, the short answer questions have been formulated in a way that presupposes that you have read all articles very carefully and synthesized the main line of argument in each article. The 10 questions will be selected from the following list.
1. Identify and briefly explain at least two of the ways in which the notion of ‘theory’ in the humanities (e.g. film theory) differs from the notion of ‘theory’ in the hard sciences.
2. What does it mean to “deprovincialize” film theory in terms of time and space?
3. Identify and briefly explain at least two of the antecedents of film theory.
4. Identify and briefly explain two major differences between formalist and realist theories of film.
5. How is the principle of montage exemplified by Japanese representational culture? Give at least three examples.
6. Identify and briefly explain at least three examples of ‘conflict within the shot’ in Eisenstein’s film Battleship Potemkin.
7. Identify and briefly explain at least three types of montage that Eisenstein discusses in his essays.
8. Identify and briefly explain at least three ways in which film is not merely a mechanical reproduction of reality, according to Arnheim.
9. Identify and briefly explain at least two ways in which the perfection of “the complete film” threatens the development of cinema as an art, according to Arnheim.
10. Identify and briefly explain at least three ways in which the photoplay differs from the stage play, according to Münsterberg.
11. According to Bazin, how does identification in cinema function differently from identification in theatre?
12. According to Bazin, what is the relative significance of actors, decor, and speech in film versus theatre?
13. Why does Bazin argue that the cinema of Flaherty and Orson Wells is superior to German Expressionism (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) and to montage cinema (Eisenstein)?
14. What does Bazin mean when he says that “film has freed Western painting, once and for all, from its obsession with realism and allowed it to recover its aesthetic autonomy” (170)?
15. What does Panofsky mean by “the dynamization of space”?
16. What does Panofsky mean by “the principle of coexpressibility”?
17. What does Panofsky mean when he writes that “the screenplay, in contrast to the theatre play, has no aesthetic existence independent of its performance, and...its characters have no aesthetic existence outside the actors” (299)?
18. Identify at least one way in which Panofsky’s discussion of the development of film style fails to exemplify his claim that the film medium owes its existence to technical experimentation.
19. Identify and briefly explain the four ‘cinematic subjects’ Kracauer discusses under the title “recording functions.”
20. Identify and briefly explain at least four of the ‘cinematic subjects’ Kracauer discusses under the title “revealing functions.”
21. Identify and briefly explain at least one way in which Antonioni’s film Red Desert exemplifies an aspect of formalist film theory and one way in which it exemplifies an aspect of realist film theory.
22. Identify and briefly explain at least two ways in which Bergman’s film Persona purposefully deviates from realism.
23. Identify and briefly explain at least three ways in which literature differs from cinema, according to Chatman.
24. Identify and briefly explain the three premises of the auteur theory, according to Andrew Sarris.
25. What is the difference between an ‘auteur’ and a ‘metteur en scène’?
26. What makes Hawks an auteur, according to Peter Wollen?
27. What does Peter Wollen mean when he says that Fuller, Hawks and Hitchcock, the directors, are quite separate from “Fuller,” “Hawks” and “Hitchcock”, the structures named after them?
28. What does Roland Barthes mean when he says that “writing is the destruction of every voice, of every point of origin” or that “it is language which speaks, not the author”?
29. What does Barthes mean when he writes that “the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author”?
30. What makes David Lynch an auteur, given Peter Wollen’s criteria for ‘auteurship’?
31. How does the ritual theory of genre differ from the ideological theory of genre?
32. How does the semantic theory of genre differ from the syntactic theory of genre?
33. According to Altman, what are the two fundamental ways in which a new genre develops?
34. How does Altman determine the exact border between the semantic and the syntactic?
35. Identify and briefly explain at least three of the problems with identifying the genre of ‘film noir’ that Frank Krutnik discusses in his article.
Good luck!
Temenuga
Optional Readings - Not on Quizes or Tests
Carroll, Noël. “Philosophical Problems of Classical Film Theory: The Specificity Theory”, Braudy and Cohen 332-338
Prince, Stephen. “True Lies: Perceptual Realism, Digital Images, and Film Theory”, Braudy and Cohen 270-282
Sontag, Susan. “Theater and Film”, Styles of Radical Will 99-123 (reserve)
Andrew, Dudley. “The Unauthorized Auteur Today” in Film Theory Goes to the Movies, 77-86 (reserve)
Borde, Raymond and Etienne Chaumeton. “Toward a Definition of Film Noir” (pp. 5-13) and “The Sources of Film Noir” (pp.15-28) in Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton, A Panorama of American Film Noir (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2002) (reserve)
Friday, Krister. “A Generation of Men without History: Fight Club, Masculinity, and the Historical Symptom”, Postmodern Culture, Volume 13, Number 3, May 2003:
http://www3.iath.virginia.edu/pmc/text-only/issue.503/13.3friday.txt
Wollen, Peter. “Godard and Counter Cinema: Vent d’Est”, Braudy and Cohen 525-533
Brecht, Bertolt. “The Modern Theatre Is Epic Theatre” in Brecht on Theater, 1918-1932, trans. John Willett (reserve)
Heath, Stephen. “On Suture” in Questions of Cinema, 76-113 (reserve)
Boyd, David. “The Parted Eye: Spellbound and Psychoanalysis”. Senses of Cinema,
www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/00/6/spellbound.html
Sconce, Jeffrey. “‘Trashing’ the Academy: Taste, Excess, and an Emerging Politics of Cinematic Style”, Braudy and Cohen 534-553
Prince, Stephen. “True Lies: Perceptual Realism, Digital Images, and Film Theory”, Braudy and Cohen 270-282
Sontag, Susan. “Theater and Film”, Styles of Radical Will 99-123 (reserve)
Andrew, Dudley. “The Unauthorized Auteur Today” in Film Theory Goes to the Movies, 77-86 (reserve)
Borde, Raymond and Etienne Chaumeton. “Toward a Definition of Film Noir” (pp. 5-13) and “The Sources of Film Noir” (pp.15-28) in Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton, A Panorama of American Film Noir (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2002) (reserve)
Friday, Krister. “A Generation of Men without History: Fight Club, Masculinity, and the Historical Symptom”, Postmodern Culture, Volume 13, Number 3, May 2003:
http://www3.iath.virginia.edu/pmc/text-only/issue.503/13.3friday.txt
Wollen, Peter. “Godard and Counter Cinema: Vent d’Est”, Braudy and Cohen 525-533
Brecht, Bertolt. “The Modern Theatre Is Epic Theatre” in Brecht on Theater, 1918-1932, trans. John Willett (reserve)
Heath, Stephen. “On Suture” in Questions of Cinema, 76-113 (reserve)
Boyd, David. “The Parted Eye: Spellbound and Psychoanalysis”. Senses of Cinema,
www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/00/6/spellbound.html
Sconce, Jeffrey. “‘Trashing’ the Academy: Taste, Excess, and an Emerging Politics of Cinematic Style”, Braudy and Cohen 534-553
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Film 2400 Tutorial 3 Power Point Presentation
Film and the Arts:
Hugo Münsterberg
•Film (described as “photoplay”) gives us a view of dramatic events which are shaped by the movements of the mind. Only the mind can mold these two dimensional images into reality.
•“The photoplay tells us the human story by overcoming the forms of the outer world, namely, space, time and causality, and by adjusting the events to the forms of the inner world, namely attention, memory, imagination and emotion.”
Hugo Münsterberg: The Theater and the Cinema
–Film is further away from the physical reality seen in theater, which brings film closer to the mental world.
•Flatness vs. Presence
–Differentiates the pantomime of cinema (during the silent era) and the pantomime of theater.
•Theater is a more intense and unnatural form of pantomime
–Differentiates Theatrical Time from Film Time
•Linear (Unity of time) vs. Non-Linear
Bazin: Theater and Cinema
•Theater
–Provides every illusion except that of “presence.”
–Provides a tension absent in cinema.
–Active Consciousness
–Actor exists on an ontological level.
–Requires actors
–
•Cinema
–Accommodates every reality except physical presence.
–Passive Adhesion
–Actor exists on a psychological level.
–Does not require actors
Bazin: “Presence”
•Plastic Arts (painting, sculpture) create “intermediaries between actual physical presence and absence.” They only resemble actual presence.
•Photography creates the “trace” of an object; its luminous impression in light.
•Cinema takes that trace or mold of an object as it exists in time and “makes an imprint of the duration of the object.”
•Presence can be ambiguous: “It is false to say that the screen is incapable of putting us ‘in the presence of’ the actor.”
Bazin: Lost in Translation
•Issues with theater turned into film:
–The décor in cinema can be as integral as the actor: however, he argues some films break this rule. (We might disagree with Bazin a bit here)
–“The problem with filmed theater…does not consist so much of transposing an action from the stage to the screen as in transposing a text written for one dramaturgical system into another…”
–
–
Chatham: What Novels Can Do that Films Can’t (and Vice Versa)
•Narratology
–Narrative is a deep structure independent of its medium.
–Narrative is a kind of text organization—often featuring “double time structuring.”
–Deals with the “translatability of a given narrative from one medium to another.” What novels describe, films show rapidly. However, the pressures of the narrative in film often force the viewer to gloss over details.
Chatman: Inter-arts Comparisons
–Filming components of a painting creates narrative through sequence. The painting itself may not have sequence.
–Film critics deride use of voice-over as a device of the novel.
–Descriptions in verbal narrative can invoke visual elaboration. When a writer suggests a character is handsome, we infer just what that means. Films do not have this luxury.
–
–
Features of “Double Time Structuring”
•Narratives combine time sequence of plot, called “story time” with the time of the presentation of those events in text, called “discourse time”
•Realistic narratives have fixed time which occur in a linear way, however, the discourse time may begin at then end and flashback to the beginning.
•Unlike paintings, which can be perceived instantaneously, narratives demand duration to be understood.
Major Ideas in Sontag’s Theater and Film
•“History of cinema is treated as the history of its emancipation from theatrical models.”
•“Movies are regarded as advancing from theatrical stasis to cinematic fluidity, from theatrical artificiality to cinematic naturalness and immediateness.” But Sontag argues this is an oversimplification.
•Film creates “a document of a transient reality.”
•“Films resemble books” in that they are “portable art objects.” Theater cannot exist this way.
•Theater is performed differently each time and reflects an interpretation of a play script. Film is taken as a complete object in itself.
•
•There are major problems with an essentialist description of theater and film: Theatre may break with Panofsky’s descriptions of a fixed place. Film may not necessarily be the same each time it is screened.
•Realism is usually employed to “covertly advance a definite political-moral position.”
•Theater also attempts to create an exchange with the audience—something film can never do.
•Unlike theater, cinema is “heavily burdened with memory.” Historical peculiarities make the age of film visible both in its materiality (aging like old photos) and in the content of the images (think fashion, slang, etc).
Hugo Münsterberg
•Film (described as “photoplay”) gives us a view of dramatic events which are shaped by the movements of the mind. Only the mind can mold these two dimensional images into reality.
•“The photoplay tells us the human story by overcoming the forms of the outer world, namely, space, time and causality, and by adjusting the events to the forms of the inner world, namely attention, memory, imagination and emotion.”
Hugo Münsterberg: The Theater and the Cinema
–Film is further away from the physical reality seen in theater, which brings film closer to the mental world.
•Flatness vs. Presence
–Differentiates the pantomime of cinema (during the silent era) and the pantomime of theater.
•Theater is a more intense and unnatural form of pantomime
–Differentiates Theatrical Time from Film Time
•Linear (Unity of time) vs. Non-Linear
Bazin: Theater and Cinema
•Theater
–Provides every illusion except that of “presence.”
–Provides a tension absent in cinema.
–Active Consciousness
–Actor exists on an ontological level.
–Requires actors
–
•Cinema
–Accommodates every reality except physical presence.
–Passive Adhesion
–Actor exists on a psychological level.
–Does not require actors
Bazin: “Presence”
•Plastic Arts (painting, sculpture) create “intermediaries between actual physical presence and absence.” They only resemble actual presence.
•Photography creates the “trace” of an object; its luminous impression in light.
•Cinema takes that trace or mold of an object as it exists in time and “makes an imprint of the duration of the object.”
•Presence can be ambiguous: “It is false to say that the screen is incapable of putting us ‘in the presence of’ the actor.”
Bazin: Lost in Translation
•Issues with theater turned into film:
–The décor in cinema can be as integral as the actor: however, he argues some films break this rule. (We might disagree with Bazin a bit here)
–“The problem with filmed theater…does not consist so much of transposing an action from the stage to the screen as in transposing a text written for one dramaturgical system into another…”
–
–
Chatham: What Novels Can Do that Films Can’t (and Vice Versa)
•Narratology
–Narrative is a deep structure independent of its medium.
–Narrative is a kind of text organization—often featuring “double time structuring.”
–Deals with the “translatability of a given narrative from one medium to another.” What novels describe, films show rapidly. However, the pressures of the narrative in film often force the viewer to gloss over details.
Chatman: Inter-arts Comparisons
–Filming components of a painting creates narrative through sequence. The painting itself may not have sequence.
–Film critics deride use of voice-over as a device of the novel.
–Descriptions in verbal narrative can invoke visual elaboration. When a writer suggests a character is handsome, we infer just what that means. Films do not have this luxury.
–
–
Features of “Double Time Structuring”
•Narratives combine time sequence of plot, called “story time” with the time of the presentation of those events in text, called “discourse time”
•Realistic narratives have fixed time which occur in a linear way, however, the discourse time may begin at then end and flashback to the beginning.
•Unlike paintings, which can be perceived instantaneously, narratives demand duration to be understood.
Major Ideas in Sontag’s Theater and Film
•“History of cinema is treated as the history of its emancipation from theatrical models.”
•“Movies are regarded as advancing from theatrical stasis to cinematic fluidity, from theatrical artificiality to cinematic naturalness and immediateness.” But Sontag argues this is an oversimplification.
•Film creates “a document of a transient reality.”
•“Films resemble books” in that they are “portable art objects.” Theater cannot exist this way.
•Theater is performed differently each time and reflects an interpretation of a play script. Film is taken as a complete object in itself.
•
•There are major problems with an essentialist description of theater and film: Theatre may break with Panofsky’s descriptions of a fixed place. Film may not necessarily be the same each time it is screened.
•Realism is usually employed to “covertly advance a definite political-moral position.”
•Theater also attempts to create an exchange with the audience—something film can never do.
•Unlike theater, cinema is “heavily burdened with memory.” Historical peculiarities make the age of film visible both in its materiality (aging like old photos) and in the content of the images (think fashion, slang, etc).
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