How did stanley donen and gene kelly satirize the film industry in singin’ in the rain (1952)?

New Examples Appeal to Movie Buffs of Today — and Tomorrow Eye-catching new part and chapter openers spotlight recent movies like Man of Steel, Fruitvale Station, The Avengers, The Great Gatsby, The Heat, and Inception alongside classics like The Wizard of Oz, Psycho, and City of God, linking film’s rich history to contemporary cinema.

Reading about Film: Critical Theories and Methods C h A p T E R 1 1 427

new technology can be seen as merely enhancing the film experience as we have known it (for example, the return of 3-D technologies), in other ways it alters both the medium and our experience of it (for example, the puzzles, interactivity, and convergence culture of video games). Scholars continue to draw on the lega- cies of previous inquiries in film theory in order to identify the salient questions our contemporary audiovisual experience raises and to develop tools with which to address those questions.

11.33 The Matrix (1999). “What is the matrix?” the film’s ad campaign asked. Postmodern theorist Jean Baudrillard is quoted in the film.

This chapter has aimed to demystify the field of film theory, which is not to imply that readers will not have to struggle with theory or do some work to understand film on a more abstract plane. Because film theory is a notoriously difficult discourse, any summary gives it much more continuity than it actu- ally warrants. The film journals in which filmmakers like Eisenstein or Louis Delluc debated the new medium are not unlike film blogs that today consider the future of cinema in an age of media convergence. In reading and pick- ing apart theorists’ work, it is important to recall that referring to “theory” in the abstract is misleading. In reviewing Stuart Hall’s approach to reception theory or Fredric Jameson’s definition of postmodernism, we look at concrete responses to intellectual challenges. The term “theory" is a useful, shorthand way to refer to a body of knowledge and a set of questions. We study this corpus to gain historical perspective — on how realist theory grew from the effects of World War II, for example; to acquire tools for decoding our experi- ences of particular films — like the close analysis of formalism; and above all to comprehend the hold that movies have on our imaginations and desires.

■ Consider whether cinematic specificity is affected by watching films across platforms.

■ Think of insights from other academic disciplines or artistic pursuits that seem to be missing from this account of film theory, and consider what we might learn from these new approaches.

■ How might the formalist and realist film theorists debate the return of 3-D technology?

■ Consider how debates about race and representation raised by a film like 12 Years a Slave (2013) could be reframed by drawing on film theory.

Activities ■ Do a shot-by-shot analysis of the opening sequence of a film. What

codes — of lighting, camera movement, framing, or figure movement — are used to create meaning?

■ Compare reviews of a film from a number of different sources (and periods, if relevant). Pay particular attention to the time and place each review appeared. What does the range of reviews tell you about the film’s reception context(s)?

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Concepts at Work Feature Better Connects Ideas and Films The chapter-ending Concept at Work feature clearly connects each key concept mentioned in the chapter to specific films — both those mentioned in the chapter and other notable examples.

Proven Learning Tools That Foster Critical Viewing and Analysis The Film Experience’s learning tools have been updated for this edition, including new Viewing Cues in every chapter, in-depth Film in Focus essays on films like Stories We Tell and Minority Report, Form in Action boxes with analysis of multiple films, and the very best coverage of writing about film.

Francis Ford Coppola directed Apocalypse Now (1979), one of Hollywood’s most ambitious film narratives, not long after his blockbuster successes The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II and his ingenious The Conversa- tion. Coppola and his first successful films were part of an American renaissance in moviemaking during the 1960s and 1970s, revealing the marked influence of the French New Wave filmmakers Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, and others who brought decidedly experimental and ironic attitudes to film narrative. Apocalypse Now is also one of the first serious attempts by a U.S. director to confront the lingering anger and pain of the Vietnam War, a then-recent and traumatic memory that Americans struggled to make sense of.

The film’s story is deceptively simple: during the Vietnam War, Captain Willard (played by Martin Sheen) and his crew journey into the jungle to find a maverick and rebellious U.S. Army colonel named Kurtz (Mar- lon Brando). The story describes Willard’s increasingly strange encounters in the war-torn jungles of Vietnam and Cambodia. Eventually he finds and confronts the

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bizarre rebel Kurtz at his riverside encamp- ment in Cambodia.

Apocalypse Now constructs its story through a particular plot with a particular nar- rative point of view. The story of Willard and Kurtz could be plotted in a variety of other ways — by offering more information about the crew that accompanies Willard, for instance, or by showing events from an objective point of view rather than from one man’s percep- tions and thoughts. However, the film’s plot concentrates less on the war or on how Kurtz became what he is (which is the main topic of the characters’ conversations) than on Willard and his quest to find Kurtz.

The plot begins with the desperate and shell-shocked Willard being given the assignment to seek out and kill Kurtz, to “terminate with extreme prejudice,” and then fol- lows Willard on his journey as he encounters a variety of strange and surreal people, sights, and activities [Figure 6.43]. In one sense, the plot’s logic is linear and progres- sive: for Willard, each new encounter reveals more about the Vietnam War and about Kurtz. At the same time, the plot creates a regressive temporal pattern: Willard’s journey up the river takes him farther and farther away from a civilized world, returning him to his most primitive instincts.

The mostly first-person voiceover narration of Apoca- lypse Now focuses primarily on what Willard sees around him and on his thoughts about those events. At times, the narration extends beyond Willard’s perspective, showing actions from the perspective of other characters or from a more objective perspective, while still representing the other characters and events as part of Willard’s confused impressions. Bound mostly to Willard’s limited point of view, the narration colors events and other characters with a tone that appears alternately perplexed, weary, and fascinated. As a function of the film’s narration,

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plot and Narration in Apocalypse Now ( 1979 )

See also: The Deer Hunter (1978); Platoon (1986); Full Metal Jacket (1987)

FILM IN FOCUS bedfordstmartins.com /filmexperience

To watch a video about narration in Apocalypse Now, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

6.43 Apocalypse Now (1979). Toward the end of his journey and the film, one of many shots that approximate the point of view of Willard, the film’s narrator.

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form in

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Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox uses stop-motion animation to bring a much-loved Roald Dahl children’s book to life. The tale pits three ruthless farmers against Mr. Fox’s thrill-seeking thievery, pull- ing an array of animals into the fray in the process. Taking Ander- son’s predilection for telling stories through mise-en-scène to its extreme, the film sets its largely underground action within an elab- orately textured design. Since characters, props, and sets are all constructed, the film relies on the coordination of figure movement and lighting to direct the viewer’s attention to narrative elements.

A scene depicting the displaced animals’ new home in Badger’s Flint Mine opens with Mole playing the piano in a relaxed manner reminiscent of 1950s Hollywood [figure 2.39a]. The space is large and tastefully lit by candles and a garland of what appears to be fruit and fake flowers entwined with twinkling lights. Even in this first im- age, however, the storage racks in the background indicate that the gracious living of Badger’s home is being challenged by an influx of refugees and the hoarding of stolen supplies.

The camera tracks right to a kitchen area [figure 2.39b]. Bright, cheery lighting highlights Rabbit chopping ingredients for a commu- nal meal, and the cramped space and detailed abundance of food (like the roasting rack of stolen chickens) indicates both the large number and the camaraderie of the refugee animals.

The camera moves right again to Mr. Fox and Badger, strolling past the opening to a bedroom where the feet of an exhausted ani- mal can be seen lying on a top bunk [figure 2.39c] and discussing the sustainability of the group’s current living arrangement.

The scene ends at a punch bowl [figure 2.39d], beyond which the makeshift aspects of the living arrangements are evident: stolen cases of cider, bags of flour, and chicken carcasses are stored in the background. It is at this point in the shot that Ash, Mr. Fox’s son, believing decisive action is needed to restore Mr. Fox’s honor, asks his cousin Kristofferson to help him retrieve his father’s tail from the ferocious Farmer Bean.

Production design by Nelson Lowery richly colors this tale in which animals dress and act more human than the humans hunting them.

mise-en-scène in Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

form in action bedfordstmartins.com/filmexperience

To watch a video about the mise-en-scène of Fantastic Mr. Fox and a clip from the film, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

2.39b

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http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/filmexperience

http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/filmexperience

f o u r t h E d i t i o n

t h E f i l m E x p E r i E n c E An Introduction

Timothy Corrigan University of Pennsylvania

Patricia White Swarthmore College

Bedford/St. Martin’s Boston  •  New York

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For Bedford/St. Martin’s

Publisher for Communication: Erika Gutierrez Developmental Editor: Jesse Hassenger Senior Production Editor: Harold Chester Senior Production Supervisor: Lisa McDowell Marketing Manager: Tom Digiano Copy Editor: Denise Quirk Indexer: Leoni McVey Photo Researcher: Jennifer Atkins Text Design: Jerilyn Bockorick Cover Design: William Boardman Cover Art: Drive-in movie theater. © Will Steacy/Getty Images Composition: Cenveo Publisher Services Printing and Binding: RR Donnelley and Sons

Copyright © 2015, 2012, 2009, 2004 by Bedford/St. Martin’s All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except as may be expressly permitted by the applicable copyright statutes or in writing by the Publisher.

Manufactured in the United States of America.

9 8 7 6 5 4 f e d c b a

For information, write: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 75 Arlington Street, Boston, MA 02116 (617-399-4000)

ISBN 978-1-4576-6354-3 (paperback) ISBN 978-1-4576-9585-8 (Loose-leaf Edition)

Acknowledgments

Art acknowledgments and copyrights appear on the same page as the art selections they cover. It is a violation of the law to reproduce these selections by any means whatsoever without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Distributed outside North America by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS Companies and representatives throughout the world.

ISBN 978-1-137-46395-1

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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This book is dedicated to Kathleen and Lawrence Corrigan and Marian and Carr Ferguson, and to Max Schneider-White.

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Timothy Corrigan is a professor of English and Cinema Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His work in Cinema Studies has focused on modern American and contemporary international cinema. He received a B.A. from the University of Notre Dame and completed graduate work at the University of Leeds, Emory University, and the University of Paris III. His other books include New German Film: The Displaced Image (Indiana UP); The Films of Werner Herzog: Between Mirage and History (Routledge); Writing about Film (Longman/Pearson); A Cinema without Walls: Movies and Culture after Vietnam (Routledge/Rutgers UP); Film and Literature: An Introduction and Reader (Routledge); Critical Visions in Film Theory (Bedford/St. Martin’s), also with Patricia White; American Cinema of the 2000s (Rutgers UP), and The Essay Film: From Montaigne, After Marker (Oxford UP), winner of the 2012 Katherine Singer Kovács Award for the outstanding book in film and media studies. He has published essays in Film Quarterly, Discourse, and Cinema Journal, among other collections, and is also an editor of the journal Adaptation and a former editorial board member of Cinema Journal. In 2014, he received the Society for Cinema and Media Studies Award for Outstanding Peda- gogical Achievement.

Patricia White is a professor of Film and Media Studies at Swarthmore College. She is the author of Women’s Cinema/World Cinema: Projecting 21st Century Feminisms (Duke University Press) and Uninvited: Classical Hollywood Cinema and Lesbian Representability (Indiana University Press), as well as numerous articles and book chapters on film theory and culture. She is coeditor with Timothy Cor- rigan and Meta Mazaj of Critical Visions in Film Theory: Classic and Contemporary Readings (Bedford/St. Martin’s). She served on the editorial collective of the femi- nist film journal Camera Obscura and the board of Women Make Movies and is currently on the advisory boards of Camera Obscura and Film Quarterly.

About the Authors

iv

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v

preface

“ Experience is not what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens.”

—Aldous Huxley

i n our culture, movies have become a near-universal experience, even as their delivery methods have expanded and changed. Whether watching filmed im- ages unfold over a giant multiplex or local art-house screen, a state-of-the-art TV set or portable tablet, we have all experienced the pleasures that movies can bring: journeying to imaginary worlds, witnessing re-creations of history, observing stars in familiar and unfamiliar roles, and exploring the laughter, thrills, or emotions of different genres. Understanding the full depth and variety of the film experience starts with that enjoyment. But it also requires more than just initial impressions.

This book aims to help students learn the languages of film and synthesize those languages into a cohesive knowledge of the medium that will, in turn, en- hance their movie watching. The Film Experience: An Introduction offers students a serious, comprehensive introduction to the art, industry, culture, and experience of movies—along with the interactive, digital tools and ready-made examples to bring that experience to life.

As movie fans ourselves, we believe that the complete film experience comes from an understanding of both the formal and the cultural aspects of cinema. Knowing how filmmakers use the familiarity of star personas, for example, can be as valuable and enriching as understanding how a particular editing rhythm creates a specific mood. The Film Experience builds on both formal knowledge and cultural contexts to ensure that students gain a well-rounded ability to engage in critical analysis. The new fourth edition is better equipped than ever to meet this challenge, with the best art program in this course, revised Concepts at Work boxes that prompt students to connect their own film experiences to each chapter’s concepts, and the addition of dozens of new video clips and accompanying questions, providing accessible visual examples. The learn- ing tools we have created help students make the transition from movie fan to critical viewer, allowing them to use the knowledge they acquire in this course to enrich their movie-watching experiences throughout their lives.

The Best Coverage of Film’s Formal Elements We believe that comprehensive knowledge of film practices and techniques allows students a deeper and more nuanced understanding of film meaning. Thus The Film Experience provides strong and clear explanations of the major concepts and

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practices in mise-en-scène, cinematography, editing, and sound, plus the best and most extensive coverage of the structure of narrative film, genre, documentaries, and experimental films. Going beyond mere descriptions of the nuts and bolts of film form, The Film Experience highlights how these formal elements can be ana- lyzed and interpreted within the context of a film as a whole—formal studies made even more vivid by our suite of new online film clips.

In choosing our text and video examples, we draw from the widest variety of movies in any introductory text, demonstrating how individual formal elements can contribute to a film’s larger meaning. We understand the importance of con- necting with students through films they may already know, and we have added new examples referring to recent films like Man of Steel, The Great Gatsby, Life of Pi, The Avengers, The Bling Ring, and Fruitvale Station; we also feel that it is our responsibility to help students understand the rich variety of movies throughout history, utilizing classics like The Jazz Singer, Citizen Kane, The African Queen, Bonnie and Clyde, The Godfather, and Chinatown, as well as a wealth of experi- mental, independent, and international films.

Fully Encapsulating the Culture of Film In addition to a strong foundation in film form, we believe that knowledge of the nature and extent of film culture and its impact on our viewing experiences is necessary for a truly holistic understanding of cinema. As such, one of the core pillars of The Film Experience story has always been its focus on the relation- ship among viewers, movies, and the industry. Throughout, the book explores how these connections are shaped by the social, cultural, and economic contexts of films through incisive discussions of such topics as the influence of the star system, the marketing strategies of indies versus blockbusters, and the multi- tude of reasons why we are drawn to some films over others. In particular, the Introduction, “Studying Film: Culture and Experience,” explores the importance of the role of the viewer, recognizing that without avid movie fans there would be no film culture, and offers a powerful rationale for why we should study and think seriously about film. Chapter 1, “Encountering Film: From Preproduction to Exhibition,” details how each step of the filmmaking process—from script to release—informs, and is informed by, the where, when, and why of our movie- watching experiences.