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film20a final
review
142
Film, Theatre & Television
Undergraduate 2
05/11/2015

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Term
documentary
Definition
movie that aims to inform viewers about truth/fact
Term
economics of information
Definition
documentary films function on name of intellectual/spiritual/cultural development
Term
nonfiction films
Definition
present (presumed) factual descriptions of actual events, persons, places
Term
non narrative films
Definition
eschews/de-emphasizes stories/narratives
Term
documentary organizations
Definition
formal expositional strategies used in documentary movies
Term
cumulative organizations
Definition
present a catalog of images/sounds throughout the course of the films
Term
contrastive organizations
Definition
present a series of contrasts/oppositions meant to indicate the different point of views on its subject
Term
developemental organizations
Definition
places/objects/individuals/experiences are presented through a pattern that has a non-narrative logic/structure but still follows a logic of change/progression
Term
rhetoric positions
Definition
organizational point of views that shape their formal practices according to certain perspectives
-explorative, interrogative, persuasive, reflexive/performative
Term
explorative positions
Definition
announce/suggest that the film's driving perspective is a scientific search into particular social, psychological physical phenomena
-cumulative, contrastive, developmental
Term
interrogative/analytic positions
Definition
rhetorically structures a movie so that it identifies the subject as being under investigation
Term
persuasive position
Definition
articulates a perspective that expresses a personal/social position using emotions/beliefs and aim to persuade viewers to feel a certain way
Term
reflexive/performative positions
Definition
call attention to the filmmaking process/perspective of the filmmaker in determining/shaping the material being presented
Term
social documentaries
Definition
examine/present both familiar/unfamiliar peoples/cultures as social activities
Term
political documentaries
Definition
aimed to investigate/celebrate the political activities of people as they appear within the struggles of small/large social spheres
Term
historical documentary
Definition
concentrates largely on recovering/representing events/figures in history
Term
conventional documentaries histories
Definition
assume the facts/realities of a past history can be more or less recovered/accurately represented
Term
reflexive documentary histories
Definition
adopts a dual point of view
describing event + awareness that film/etc can never fully retrieve the reality of the lost history
Term
ethnographic documentaries
Definition
second major tradition in documentary film
Term
anthropological films
Definition
explore different global cultures ad peoples (living and extinct)
Term
cinema verite
Definition
('cinema truth') insists on filming real objects/people/events in a confrontational way (reality of subject acknowledges reality of camera recording it)
Term
direct cinema
Definition
(american cinema verite) more observational, less confrontational than french version
Term
personal/subjective documentaries
Definition
films that look more like autobiographical/diaries
Term
reenactments
Definition
use documentary techniques to present a theatrical staging of presumably true events
Term
mockumentaries
Definition
humorous approach to the question of truth/fact by using documentary style/structure to present and stage fictional realities
Term
fake documentary
Definition
more serious version of rockumentary
Term
genre
Definition
('kind') category/classification of a group of movies in which the individual films share similar subject matter and ways of organizing the subject through narrative/stylistic patterns
Term
cultural rituals
Definition
repetition of formulas that help coordinate our needs/desires
Term
3 functions for genre
Definition
-private models for producing other works
-to direct audience expectations
-to create categories for judging/evaluating a work
Term
1920-1940 genre
Definition
-fordism --> formula for creating movies
-studio era --> each studio had a certain niche
Term
1948-1970 genre
Definition
1948: paramount antitrust act
-film noir/blaxpoitation/fragmentation
Term
1970-present
Definition
new hollywood --> big blockbuster genres
-genres, special effects, large advertising budgets
-hong kong/bollywood
Term
generic conventions
Definition
properties/features that identify a genre (ex. character types, settings, props, etc)
Term
iconography
Definition
images/image patterns with specific connotations or meanings
Term
archetypes
Definition
spiritual/psychological/cultural models expressing certain virtues/values/timeless realities
Term
generic formulas
Definition
patterns for developing stories in a particular genre
-myths
Term
myths
Definition
spiritual/cultural stories that describe a defining action/event for a group of people/community
Term
generic expectations
Definition
describe a viewer's experience and knowledge while watching a film that help to anticipate the meaning of particular conventions or direction of certain narrative formulas
Term
cine de sacerdotes
Definition
(1940s/1950s) religious spanish films
Term
hybrid genres
Definition
mixing different genres to make a fusion
-ex. rocky horror (musical + horror)
Term
subgenres
Definition
specific versions of a genre denoted by an adjective
-ex. slapstick comedy
Term
comedies
Definition
1) characters with distinctive physical features
2) episodic narratives emphasizing gags
3) theatrical acting styles in which characters interact with mise en scene
-celebrate harmony/resilience of life
-social reconciliation
-comedia dell'arte
-slapstick, screwball, romcom
Term
slapstick comedy
Definition
marked by physical humor or stunts
-ex. mr bean
Term
screwball comedy
Definition
fast-talking verbal gymnastics
ex. the hangover?
Term
romantic comedies
Definition
happiness first, humor second
romance will eventually overcome and lead to happy ending
Term
western
Definition
travelogue of a recent but now historically lost period
1) male characters whose physical/mental toughness separates them from crowds of modern civilization
2)narratives follow quest into natural world
3) stylistic emphasis on open, natural spaces and settings
-epic, existential, political
Term
existential western
Definition
(1950s) traditional western hero is troubled by his changing social status and self doubts
Term
epic western
Definition
action/movement, developing a heroic character whose quests/battles serve to define the nation and origins
Term
political western
Definition
(1960s/1970s) troubled territory of existential westerns; heroism associated with individual independence/use of violence
Term
melodramas
Definition
intensity of music + interaction of human conflict
1) characters defined by their situations/basic traits who struggle to express emotion
2) narratives relying on coincidences --> emotional climaxes
3) visual style emphasizing emotion/elemental struggle
-man vs. society
-physical, family, social
Term
physical melodrama
Definition
physical plight and material conditions repress/control protagonist's desires/emotions
Term
family melodramas
Definition
elaborate the confines and restrictions of protagonist by investigating psychological/gendered forces of family
Term
social melodramas
Definition
extends melodramatic crisis of family to include entire community
Term
musical
Definition
songs support/punctuate story
1) characters act out/express emotion via song/dance
2) plots interrupted/moved forward by musical numbers
3) spectacular sets/settings
musicals vs. melodrama
-theatrical, animated
Term
theatrical musical
Definition
situates the musical convention onstage of "backstage"
Term
animated musicals
Definition
think disney
Term
horror films
Definition
1) characters with physical/psychological/spiritual deformities 2) narratives built on suspense, surprise, shock
3) visual compositions that move between dread of not seeing and horror of seeing
-supernatural, psychological, physical (slasher)
Term
supernatural horror film
Definition
spiritual evil erupts in human realms
Term
psychological horror fim
Definition
locates dangers and distortions that threaten normal life in the minds of bizarre/deranged individuals
Term
slasher horror films
Definition
films about ghastly killings
Term
crime film
Definition
1) characters who live on edge of a mysterious/violent society
2) plots of crime, mystery, ambiguous resolution
3) urban (dark/shadowy) settings
-gangster, detective, film noir
Term
gangster film
Definition
(1930s) underworld criminal societies thriving in defiance of prohibition
Term
hard-boiled detective films
Definition
protagonist that represents the law (like a PI)
Term
film noir
Definition
(!940s) elevates legal/moral/atmospheric ambiguity and confusion
-femme fatales
-weak men
Term
prescriptive approaches (to genre)
Definition
model for a genre preexists any particular films
films deviate as little as possible from model
Term
descriptive approaches (to genre)
Definition
genre changes over time by building on older films and developing new ways
Term
classical genre traditions
Definition
(prescriptive)
-places film in relation to a paradigm that remains the same over time
-fixed sets of formulas/conventions
-historical, structural paradigms
Term
historical paradigm
Definition
(classical genre tradition)
presumes that a genre evolved to a point of perfection at some point in history
one or more fils describe the generic ideal
Term
structural paradigm
Definition
(classical genre tradition) formal/structural ideal that may or may not be seen in any specific film
Term
revisionist genre tradition
Definition
sees a film as a function of changing historical/cultural contexts that modify the conventions/formulas of that genre
-generic reflexivity
Term
generic reflexivity
Definition
usually self-conscious about their generic identity and clearly comments on such visual paradigms
ex. young frankenstein
Term
teen films
Definition
characters/crises/rituals of contemporary american youth
Term
jidai-geki films
Definition
period films/costume dramas set before 1868 japan
-class unrest, social rebellion
Term
heimat films
Definition
depicts world of traditional folk values where love and family triumph over evil
-traditional german folk songs
Term
ideology
Definition
systematic set of beliefs that is not necessarily conscious
-with new understanding of structures of representation in order to explain how people come to accept ideas and conditions contrary to their interests
Term
poststructuralism
Definition
questions rational methodology and fixed definitions that structuralists bring to their various objects of study and includes thoughts of psychoanalysis, postcolonial, and feminist theory
Term
psychoanalysis
Definition
imaginary: images
symbolic: language
real: real
Term
mirror stage (psychoanalysis)
Definition
infant comes to recognize itself as a human individual
Term
apparatus theory
Definition
explores values built into film technology through particular context of its historical development
Term
spectatorship
Definition
using psychoanalysis to explain the mind's role in making sense of movies
Term
feminist film theory
Definition
vision of woman as "other" by attributing camera to the "male gaze"
-woman as image, man as bearer of the look
-MULVEY
Term
cultural studies
Definition
scrutinizes aspects of cinema embedded in everyday lives of individuals or groups at particular historical junctures and in social contexts
Term
reception theory
Definition
focuses on how film is received by audiences,rather than on who made a film or its filmic/thematic features
Term
phenomenology
Definition
stresses that any act of perception involves a mutuality of viewer and viewed
Term
referentiality
Definition
idea that filmic images refer to actual objects, events, phenomena
Term
postmodernism
Definition
1) incorporates many other styles through fragments or references known as pastiche
2) cultural period in which political, cultural, economic shifts challenges tenets of modernism
Term
blaxpoitation
Definition
suggest economic exploitation of black film audiences
-urban market likely to attend films about streetwise black protagonists
-black power movement
Term
primitivist
Definition
reinforcing stereotypes of non-western people as simple, childlike, outside process of history
Term
orphan films
Definition
films abandoned by owners or copyright holders, neglected
Term
NICHOLS ESSAY
What types of documentaries are there?
Definition
-poetic
-expository
-observational (direct cinema, cinema vérité)
-participatory
-reflexive
-performative
Term
poetic documentary (nichols)
Definition
-modernism, avant-garde
-patterns that resist temporality, continuity
-mood/tone/affect over rhetoric
-alternative knowledge
Term
expository documentary (nichols)
Definition
-argumentative/rhetorical
-'voice of god'
-values of objectivity, essay style
Term
observational documentary (nichols)
Definition
-direct cinema, cinema vérité
-backlash against authoritative style of expository mode
-stresses non-interventive style of director (no voiceovers)
Term
participatory documentary (nichols)
Definition
-rejects pretense that filmmaker's not there
-interviews
-overlaps with 'social documentary'
Term
reflexive documentary
Definition
-includes role of filmmaker, difficulty of representation of medium
-self-conscious (questions realism and access to world)
Term
performative documentary (nichols)
Definition
-stresses personal experience/embodied knowledge
-undercuts realism, conveys lived realities
Term
textual properties (Experimental film)
Definition
-non narrative form
-avant garde
-demanding something of viewer
-reflexive
Term
experimental film
Definition
reflect on material specificity of film medium and condition its experienced by audiences
Term
new media
Definition
referring to an array of technologies
Term
modernity
Definition
identifies an attitude toward progress and science centered on human capacity to shape history
Term
1910-1920 experimental film
Definition
-dada/expressionist art movements
-soviet montage
Term
1930-1940 experimental
Definition
-sound vs silent film
-personal film with 16mm
Term
1950-1960 experimental film
Definition
stan brakhage, andy warhol
-underground film
-gender/sexual politics
Term
1968-after experimental film
Definition
-narrative filmmaking and theatrical exhibition
-student unrest/anti-war/etc
-third world cinema (rejected norm)
Term
1980-present
Definition
-electronic video technology
-inexpensive video formats
-mtv
-video games and computer technology
Term
underground film
Definition
countercultural impulses of many US filmmakers of 1960s
Term
machinima
Definition
video game engines to modify computer animations, creating new narratives from the game worlds
Term
formalist (experimental)
Definition
concerned with problems of form over issues of content
Term
abstract films
Definition
formal experiments that are also nonrepresentational
Term
associative organizations
Definition
create psychological/formal resonances giving these films a dreamlike quality that engages viewers' emotions/curiosity
Term
metaphoric associations
Definition
link/associate different objects/images/events/individuals in order to generate a new perception/emotion/idea
Term
symbolic association
Definition
isolate discrete objects/singular images that can generate or be assigned abstract meanings - either those already given by culture or created by film itself
Term
structural organizations
Definition
reject illusionism of narrative film and challenge audiences' perceptions with a focus on material of the film
Term
participatory experiences
Definition
centrality of viewer and time and place of exhibition to cinematic phenomenon
Term
expanded cinema
Definition
video and computer tech would allow moving image media to extend consciousness
Term
surrrealist cinema
Definition
recognizable imagery in strange contexts (mostly france)
-ETERNAL SUNSHINE~SPIRITED AWAY~
Term
lyrical styles
Definition
expresses emotions/beliefs/other personal position in films
Term
critical positions
Definition
structure a film or media work through interrogation of its form, content, communication with viewer
Term
political modernism
Definition
encourage audiences to take up critical positions that expose them to formal experiements
(late 60s)
Term
detournement
Definition
images themselves taken out of a context were only way to transform society
Term
activist video
Definition
employs confrontational style
-peaked during AIDS crisis
Term
experimental organziations
Definition
1)associative
2)structural
3) participatory
Term
contemporary film theory
Definition
semiotics, structuralism, marxism, louis althusser
Term
semiotics
Definition
-C.S. Pierce, ferdinand de saussure
signifier + signified, referrent
Term
structuralism
Definition
claude levi strauss
-narratology, russian formalism, narrative analysis of myth, causality/diegesis
Term
marxism
Definition
karl marx, Frankfurt school
-economics of society is scientific
-how people are put in different socioeconomical positions
Term
louis althusser
Definition
interpellation
ideology
Term
interpellation
Definition
ideology 'hails' us back
-subjects of class relations
-national subjects
-gendered subjects
Term
ideology
Definition
the imaginary representation of the real relations in which we live
Term
beur
Definition
films by north african/nigerian french people
Term
authorship
Definition
1) theories of authorship
2) author as 'auteur'
3) La Politique des Auteurs (cinephilia, critical writing, genre, etc) --> 'metteurs en scene' vs. auteurs
4) influences of auteur theory
5) problems with author theory
Term
SINGIN' IN THE RAIN
Definition
STANLEY DONEN, USA, 1952
-studio era, genre film (musical) (MGM)
-mise-en-scene allows for theatrical mies-en-scene
Term
CITIZEN KANE
Definition
ORSON WELLES, USA, 1941
-mise-en-scene, cinematography, the long take
-almost close to film noir but not exactly
-unlike most classic hollywood films --> unusual, inventive, complex narrative
-fragmented subject/self-reflexivity/multiple flashback narrative (modernist)
Term
THE LONEDALE OPERATOR
Definition
D.W. GRIFFITH, USA, 1911
-cross-cutting editing "narrativizes" the spaces
-editing enables narration
-unrestricted narration creates suspense
Term
NORTH BY NORTHWEST
Definition
ALFRED HITCHCOCK, USA, 1959
-restricted 3rd person narrative
-work plot overtaken by romance plot
-continuity editing
Term
BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN
Definition
SERGEI EISENSTEIN, USSR, 1925
-soviet montage --> discontinuity editing
-montage as DIDACTIC: art's task to make manifest the conditions of being
-montage as CONFLICT: from collision of two given shots/factors arises a concept
-also not about a singular character
Term
THE CONVERSATION
Definition
FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA, USA, 1974
-sound is an integral part of the story and the plot
-little sound, but lots of depth of the perceptual sound of the main character
Term
RECYCLE
Definition
MAHMOUD-AL-MASSAD, JORDAN, 2008
-largely semi-observational/participatory?
-not ethnographic since filmmaker is part of the culture (not 'outside looking in')
-TV screen within doc is always contextualized via framing
Term
MEEK'S CUTOFF
Definition
KELLY REICHARDT, USA, 2011
-michelle williams <3
-an unusual type of wester --> revealing isolation and desperation of moving west rather than exploration and conquer as with traditional westerns
-sound mix is very quiet
-complication of gender hierarchies/ideology of settlement
-treatment of space, racial hierarchy, etc
Term
WHALE RIDER
Definition
NIKI CARO, NEW ZEALAND, 2002
-small Maori community
-local or universal narrative (global funding)
-branding New Zealand as "100% pure" for filmmakers to use as "Middle Earth" type places
-feminist within 'traditional' culture
Term
BALLET MECHANIQUE
Definition
LEGER, 1924
-relating machine to human body
-b/w, 11 min.
-repeating footage, abstract shapes, upside down footage, kaleidoscope effect
Term
MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON
Definition
MAYA DEREN, 1943-1959
-'logic of a dream'
-idk man this was weird af
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