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20th century professor who created the "theory of the sign"
signifier (word)--> signified (object)
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| “Différance” and “Structure, Sign, and Play” |
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Jacques Derrida
Meaning is endlessly deferred
Nothing is self present except creation
Defference: meaning is endlessly deffered
Différence: can only gather meaning by recognizing the differences in comparison to other things |
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Hollis Frampton (1971)
o Think about different ways of structuring films around nostalgia
o Want to see the image described, image described is what’s shown next
o Signified doesn’t coincide with sign (what’s being described and image displayed don’t coincide)
o Meaning is relative and deferred
o Pictures are being burned- watching them re-morph and open to interpretation
o “This photograph as you see it”= shifters- words meant to pinpoint something exactly- structure destabilizes |
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Richard Linklater (1991)
o About representing emotions and state of mind
o Classical, traditional beginning with his perspective in taxi
o Series of events unconnected/collection of mini stories
o Film about tangents- structure/dialogue/geography= wandering in tangents
§ Digression/chatty-ness is form of film- film is about experience of wandering |
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Robert Nelson (1971)
o =Bull Shit- trying to get you to attach meaning to it
o This film is literal- trying to turn experience of watching a film into a game with banter
o Trying to piece everything together and make something out of nothing
o Disjunction between sound and images
o Trying to guess names of boats/project story off of these images
o Robert Nelson comes in at the end of this film- there are 2 plains in this movie- what we’re seeing and what they’re doing |
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If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler |
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Italio Calvino
o The title starts with “if”- idea that a structure starts from the beginning- first word of book is “you”- last word of book is “Italo Calvino”
o Omniscient narrator- interrupts story- tells you different stories going on at the same time
o Interweaving and intercutting of stories
o Is the structure of a story like a layer of a cake or an arrow?
o Narrator’s ability to tie 10 stories- he’s trying to expose machinery by addressing reader
o Manipulation-> bullying/challenge= narrator’s role- go into your room and don’t be interrupted but the entire novel is an interruption |
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D.W. Griffith (1909)
o Period when films are starting to develop cutting between stories
o Fragmentation of space and time
o Simultaneous because tied together by phone
o All 3 lines come together at the end
A gang of thieves lure a man out of his home so that they can rob it and threaten his wife and children. The family barricade themselves in an interior room, but the criminals are well-equipped for breaking in. When the father finds out what is happening, he must race against time to get back home.
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Edwin S Porter (1903)
o Experimenting with different lines and interruption
o Omniscient narrator interrupts
o Starts with straight forward unified stage and time moving forward- cut to another space with train
o Lack of fragmentation of space and time is noticeable
o Implicit narrator exerting this power of what you’re going to see and when you’re going to see it
o Left hanging at the end
The clerk at the train station is assaulted and left tied by four men, then they rob the train threatening the operator. (They) take all the money and shoot a passenger when trying to run away. A little girl discovers the clerk tied and gives notice to the sheriff, who at once goes along with his men hunting the bandits.
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Life of an American Fireman |
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Definition
Edwin S. Porter (1903)
o Early cinema in New Jersey, CA not established yet
o Fire= early premise of film- static unity of time and space because camera doesn’t move and you sit and watch horses
o Perspective 1: there are 2 versions- one with intercutting and paralleling- you watch him keep coming back- no cutting of space, stories, and times
o Perspective 2: another perspective because there’s no parallel structure, you are forced to go back in time |
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Harold Ramis (1993)
o Sur-reality/surrealism/surreal: suggestion that there is more than one reality. Art movement in 20s and it had to do with dreams and the unconscious/subconscious which is associated with free association- in dreams you’re leaping from time to time
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Maya Deren (1943)
o Dream logic that’s tied in with everyday life
o Defamiliarization: concept that derives from Russian criticism in the 20s. The purpose of art is to make the stone stony- in other words- what art does is that it takes objects of everyday existence and gives us a new insght into them- it shows you the existence of the stone- it makes the familiar things you take for granted unfamiliar
o Ostramene= to make strange- film fulfills same function- film does it thru the power of the close up. It meshes with ideas of defamiliarization- reality below ever day. Defamiliarzing everyday life
o Crazy woman ** |
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Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel (1929)
o Takes us out of context of surrealism
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Alian Resnais (1961)
o Time and place distinguished in title
o Deliberately no orientation in space
o Opens with wandering around of camera and the narrator is just narrating at the same time- no stable orientation (opening= instable)
o Photograph= form of proof of what happened the year before
o See people as audience- foregrounding artificiality of film
o I/you= shifters- don’t know who I/you is
o “Le monde est”= the world is= motto- only things you can experience are those that are in the present- the past blurs into eternal present- beginning= image of eternal present- deconstructing the present- dream= permanent present- whose dream is it??
o Sense of constant repetition
o Set design= emphasis on architecture
o Game that other players cant win- game is the plot
§ Straightforward narrative
§ Structure with manipulation game
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Straightforward game= central- game gets resolved- game is plot
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Julio Cortázar
o What difference does order make?
o There’s frustration with mixing the chapters up- chaos of numbers- matrix of numbers- asylum inmates also have numbers- primal way to impose order thru numbers |
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Bruce Conner (1958)
o had all essential elements of a movie
o order created from music
o random bunch of clips
o music makes you feel certain emotions
o music taps into something cognitive/precognitive
o forces you to think of music as manipulative
o Kuleshov= montage (French word for editing)- colliding images- order changes meaning- order defines meaning- montage theory
o Make meaning in film thru juxtaposition of images- sequence of still images- make images through bleeding images together
o Each image creates a new meaning
o Line of images and a line of music- forward movement of images, forward movement of music |
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Chris Marker (1962)
o Vertical Structure by Eisenstein. To think about past, present, future all existing as different lines throughout the movie. What happens in La Jetee, you start mingling these lines together. All are conglomerated. Story is told by photographs
o There is no stable present, everything is in the past or future
o Protagonist is a pon that is being bounced around in this room of time (past/present/future)- being manipulated
o aesthetic choice of using photographs
Time travel, still images, a past, present and future and the aftermath of World War III. The tale of a man, a slave, sent back and forth, in and out of time, to find a solution to the world's fate. To replenish its decreasing stocks of food, medicine and energies, and in doing so, resulting in a perpetual memory of a lone female, life, death and past events that are recreated on an airports jetée. |
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Christopher Nolan (2000)
A man, suffering from short-term memory loss, uses notes and tattoos to hunt for the man he thinks killed his wife. |
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Lawrence Sterne
o Provides alternative way of writing thru use of 1st person and effort to capture narrative voice thru 1st person= structure of story
o Digressionà voice
o Frustrating that he’s digressing- it’s the way of telling the story of his life- the digression is the thing itself- it’s tangential
o Experience is being caught up in vice and personality that develops |
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Richard Linklater (2001)
o 10 years after Slacker- same structure and model as slacker- told in episodes about counter cultural people in Austin- different form made by roto-scoping live and animations.
o Tries to show alternative experience thru alternate kind of form
o See life in a fresh way
o It’s like seeing live action in heightened skew way
Technique gives you deeper experience versus realist technique |
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Louis Malle (1981)
o stories within stories within stories
o showing someone telling story |
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Kevin Smith (1994)
o Troublemaker/publicity hand who started interesting road- made films like Linklater’s that thematically had substance of daily life of chattyness and randomness
o About 2 clerks who work in radio/convenience store. Substance of their day/convo combined with inserts of characters around them.
o Made film about conversation- structured around that- not incidental
o Experience of life is what we think about digression because there’s no certified center- it’s about daily experiences- talks specifically about how he needs to get direction- way you experience without direction (aimless) is thru style that’s wandering and hanging around. Making movies about counter-cultural marginal people outside framework of regular jobs because it shows the lack of their direction |
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| Tristam Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story |
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Michael Winterbottom (2006)
o Approach to film- to make it a meta movie
o Tristam Shandy is already an experiment with narration- film narrates by filming people making a film about Tristam Shandy
o Digressive nature multiplied
o Reflexive meta interpretation
o Steve Cougan is playing Tristam who’s also playing Steve Cougan in off stage- there’s fictional crossed with non-fictional- maing fun of himself while playing himself- alternative reality- see pieces of another life
o In credits of film: meta frame on whole thing- 2 of them commenting on film |
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Céline and Julie go Boating |
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Richard Linklater (1995)
- couple (Ethan Hawke) walking around the city, wandering city
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