Spielberg suggests that this film raises profound questions about infinity

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)?

C O n C E p T S A T w O R K

13_COR_6354_11_396_427.indd 427 8/22/14 2:10 PM

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

240

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,

FILM IN

FOCUS

157010

157010

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.

08_COR_6354_06_210_251.indd 240 8/14/14 8:48 PM

form in

action

85

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

2.39c

2.39d

2.39a

04_COR_6354_02_060_093.indd 85 8/14/14 8:31 PM 01_COR_6354_FM_i-xxii.indd 1 9/26/14 4:58 PM

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

01_COR_6354_FM_i-xxii.indd 1 9/26/14 4:58 PM

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.

01_COR_6354_FM_i-xxii.indd 2 9/26/14 4:58 PM

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

01_COR_6354_FM_i-xxii.indd 3 9/26/14 4:58 PM

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

01_COR_6354_FM_i-xxii.indd 4 9/26/14 4:59 PM

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

01_COR_6354_FM_i-xxii.indd 5 9/26/14 4:59 PM

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.

New to This Edition Thanks to the valuable feedback from our colleagues and from our own students, in this new edition we have taken the opportunity to update and enhance The Film Experience for today’s students. As ever, The Film Experience continues to be the best at representing today’s film culture—with cutting-edge coverage of topics like 3-D technology, digital distribution, and social media marketing campaigns.

LaunchPad Solo for The Film Experience Brings Film to Life—through Video This edition takes advantage of the media with a new online platform, home to numerous movie clips, video essays, discussion questions, and more—perfect for interactive learning. Bringing print and digital together, the Viewing Cue feature in the margins of each chapter now includes special video call-outs directing students to a film clip online in LaunchPad Solo for The Film Experience. The video essays are based on the book’s Film in Focus and Form in Action features and illustrate

Preface vi

01_COR_6354_FM_i-xxii.indd 6 9/26/14 4:59 PM

the concepts discussed in the chapter. Each film clip or video is accompanied by thought-provoking discussion questions. The LaunchPad Solo platform makes it easy to assign the videos and questions, and, because students will all have access to the same group of clips and activities, classroom conversations can start from a common ground. Access to LaunchPad Solo for The Film Experience can be pack- aged free with the book or purchased on its own.

The Strongest Art Program Available—Now Better Than Ever With more than nine hundred images—the best and most extensive art program in any introductory film text—The Film Experience visually reinforces all the major techniques, concepts, and film traditions discussed in the text. New part-opening and chapter-opening images cover both classic and contemporary cinema, and examples throughout the text have been updated and enhanced. As always, the vast majority of the images are actual film frames from digital sources, rather than publicity or production stills. We have selected the best available source versions and preserved the aspect ratios of the original films whenever possible.

Concepts at Work Boxes Connect Concepts and Films The chapter-ending Concept at Work boxes have been strengthened to clearly con- nect each key concept mentioned in the chapter to specific films—both contemporary films students will recognize and memorable examples from the classics. This better connects the book’s history, theories, and ideas with students’ own film-watching experiences. The feature acts as an accessible walkthrough of the chapter, mak- ing connections to students’ experiences while also reviewing the material they’ve learned. These connections are further enhanced by end-of-chapter activities that can work as in-class discussions or homework assignments.

New Examples from a Broad Range of Films Appeal to Movie Buffs of Today (and Tomorrow) Each generation of students that takes the introductory course (from eighteen- year-old first-year students to returning adults) is familiar with its own recent history of the movies; hence we have updated this edition with a number of new examples that reflect the diverse student body, from Hollywood blockbusters such as The Hunger Games, Gravity, and Frozen to independent fare like Pariah, Much Ado About Nothing, and Stories We Tell, as well as popular international films like Persepolis, My Name Is Khan, and Oldboy.

Proven Learning Tools That Foster Critical Viewing and Analysis The Film Experience transforms students from movie buffs to critical viewers by giving them the help they need to translate their movie experiences into theoretical knowledge and analytical insight. Our host of learning tools includes:

■ Compelling chapter-opening vignettes that immediately place students inside a film. Each vignette, many of them new to this edition, draws from actual scenes in a real movie to connect what students know as movie fans to key ideas in the chapter’s discussion. For example, Chapter 9 opens with a discussion of how the generic familiarity of the conventions and formulas in Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The World’s End contributes to our enjoyment of these films.

Preface vii

01_COR_6354_FM_i-xxii.indd 7 9/26/14 4:59 PM

■ Film in Focus essays in each chapter that provide close analyses of specific films, demonstrating how particular techniques or concepts inform and enrich those films. For example, a detailed deconstruction in Chapter 4 of the editing patterns in Bonnie and Clyde shows how they create specific emotional and visceral effects.

■ Form in Action boxes with image-by-image analyses in each formal chapter (Chapters 1–9), giving students a close look at how the formal concepts they read about translate onscreen. With several new additions, including Chapter 5’s comparison of the ways popular music has been used throughout film his- tory, each Form in Action essay brings key cinematic techniques alive and teaches students how to read and dissect a film formally.

■ Marginal Viewing Cues adjacent to key discussions in the chapter highlighting key concepts, prompting students to consider these concepts while viewing films on their own or in class—and to visit our online clip library for some spe- cific examples.

■ The best instruction on writing about film and the most student writing ex- amples of any introductory text. Praised by instructors and students as a key reason they love the book, Chapter 12, “Writing a Film Essay: Observations, Arguments, Research, and Analysis,” is a step-by-step guide to writing papers about film—from taking notes, choosing a topic, and developing an argument to incorporating film images and completing a polished essay. It includes several annotated student essays, including a new one on Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report.

Resources for Students and Instructors For more information on the student resources or to learn more about package options, please visit the online catalog at bedfordstmartins.com/filmexperience/catalog.

■ For students and instructors: LaunchPad Solo for The Film Experience at bedfordstmartins.com/filmexperience.

Available packaged free with The Film Experience or purchased separately, LaunchPad Solo features a collection of short videos, including both film clips and unique annotated video essays designed to give students a deeper look at important film concepts covered in the text. The videos further the discussions in the book and bring them vividly to life. The videos are great as in-class lecture launchers or as motivators for students to explore key film concepts and film history further.

■ For instructors: the Online Instructor’s Resource Manual by Amy Monaghan, Clemson University.

The downloadable Instructor’s Resource Manual recommends methods for teaching the course using the chapter-opening vignettes, the Viewing Cues, and the Film in Focus and Form in Action features. In addition, it offers such standard teaching aids as chapter overviews, questions to generate class dis- cussion, ideas for encouraging critical and active viewing, sample test ques- tions, and sample syllabi. Each chapter of the manual also features a complete, alphabetized list of films referenced in each chapter of the main text. Instruc- tors who have adopted LaunchPad Solo for The Film Experience can find a full instructor section within LaunchPad Solo that includes the Instructor’s Resource Manual and PowerPoint presentations.

■ The Bedford/St. Martin’s Video Resource Library. For qualified adopters, Bedford/St. Martin’s is proud to offer in DVD format a variety of short and

Preface viii

01_COR_6354_FM_i-xxii.indd 8 9/26/14 4:59 PM

http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/filmexperience/catalog
http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/filmexperience
feature-length films discussed in The Film Experience for use in film courses, including films from the Criterion Collection. For more information, please contact your local sales representative.

Print and Digital Formats For more information on these formats and packaging information, please visit the online catalog at bedfordstmartins.com/filmexperience/catalog.

LaunchPad Solo is a dynamic new platform that dramatically enhances teaching and learning. LaunchPad Solo for The Film Experience collects videos, activities, quizzes, and instructor’s resources on a single site. LaunchPad Solo of- fers a student-friendly approach, organized for easy assignability in a simple user interface. Instructors can create reading, video, or quiz assignments in seconds, as well as embed their own videos or custom content. A gradebook quickly and easily allows instructors to review the progress for a whole class, for individual students, and for individual assignments, while film clips and videos enhance every chapter of the book. LaunchPad Solo can be packaged for free with The Film Experience or purchased on its own. Learn more at bedfordstmartins.com /LaunchPad.

The Film Experience is available as a print text. To get the most out of the book and gain access to the extensive video program, package LaunchPad Solo for free with the text.

The loose-leaf edition of The Film Experience features the same print text in a convenient, budget-priced format, designed to fit into any three-ring binder. Package LaunchPad Solo with the loose-leaf edition for free.

The Bedford e-Book to Go for The Film Experience includes the same con- tent as the print book, and provides an affordable, tech-savvy PDF e-book option for students. Instructors can customize the e-book by adding their own content and deleting or rearranging chapters. Learn more about custom Bedford e-Books to Go at bedfordstmartins.com/ebooks.

Acknowledgments A book of this scope has benefited from the help of many people. A host of review- ers, readers, and friends have contributed to this edition, and Timothy Corrigan is especially grateful to his students and his University of Pennsylvania colleagues Karen Beckman, Peter Decherney, Meta Mazaj, and Nicola Gentili for their hands- on and precise feedback on how to make the best book possible. Patricia White thanks her colleagues in Film and Media Studies at Swarthmore, Bob Rehak and Sunka Simon; the many colleagues and filmmakers who have offered feedback and suggestions for revision, especially Homay King, Helen Lee, and Jim Lyons (in memoriam); and her students and assistants, especially Mara Fortes, Robert Alford, Brandy Monk-Payton, Natan Vega Potler, and Willa Kramer.

Instructors throughout the country have reviewed the book and offered their advice, suggestions, and encouragement at various stages of the project’s develop- ment. For the fourth edition, we would like to thank Jacob Agatucci, Central Or- egon Community College; Elizabeth Alsop, Western Kentucky University; Timothy Boehme, Jefferson College; Jennifer Clark, Fordham University; Angela Dancey, University of Illinois at Chicago; Mark Eaton, Azusa Pacific University; Stacey Effrig, Blue Ridge Community College; Daniel Fitzstephens, University of Colo- rado; Jim Ford, Rogers State University; Todd Kennedy, Nicholls State University; Sherry Lewis, University of Texas El Paso; Jayne Marek, Franklin College; Yosálida C. Rivero-Zaritzky, Mercer University; and Ramsay Wise, University of Missouri– Columbia.

Preface ix

01_COR_6354_FM_i-xxii.indd 9 9/26/14 4:59 PM

http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/filmexperience/catalog
http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/LaunchPad
http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/LaunchPad
http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/ebooks
For the third edition, we would like to thank Kara Anderson, Brooklyn Col- lege; Craig Breit, Cerritos College; John Bruns, College of Charleston; Chris Cagle, Temple University; Donna Campbell, Washington State University; Jonathan Cavallero, Pennsylvania State University; Shayna Connelly, DePaul University; Joe Falocco, Penn State Erie, The Behrend College; Neil Goldstein, Montgomery County Community College; Gregory Dennis Hagan, Madisonville Community Col- lege; Roger Hallas, Syracuse University; D. Scot Hinson, Wittenberg University; Michael Kaufmann, Indiana University—Purdue University Fort Wayne; Glenn Man, University of Hawai’i at M–anoa; Sarah T. Markgraf, Bergen Community College; Tom Marksbury, University of Kentucky; Kelli Marshall, University of Toledo; Michelle McCrillis, Columbus State University; Michael Minassian, Broward Col- lege; Robert Morace, Daemen College; Scott Nygren, University of Florida; Deron Overpeck, Auburn University; Anna Siomopoulos, Bentley University; Lisa Stokes, Seminole State College; Richard Terrill, Minnesota State University, Mankato; and Robert Vettese, Southern Maine Community College.

For the second edition, we would like to thank Kellie Bean, Marshall Uni- versity; Christine Becker, University of Notre Dame; David Berube, University of South Carolina; Yifen Beus, Brigham Young University Hawaii; Jennifer Bottinelli, Kutztown University; Donna Bowman, University of Central Arkansas; Barbara Brickman, University of West Georgia; Chris Cagle, Temple University; Shayna Connelly, Columbia College; Jill Craven, Millersville University; Eli Daughdrill, Santa Monica College; Clark Farmer, University of Colorado—Boulder; William Ferreira, Houston Community College Southwest; Anthony Fleury, Washington and Jefferson College; Rosalind Galt, University of Iowa; Neil Goldstein, Montgom- ery County Community College; Thomas Green, Cape Fear Community College; Ina Hark, University of South Carolina; Elizabeth Henry, Eastern Oregon University; Mary Hurley, St. Louis Community College; Christopher Jacobs, University of North Dakota; Brooke Jacobson, Portland State University; Kathleen Rowe Kar- lyn, University of Oregon; David Laderman, College of San Mateo; Peter Limbrick, University of California—Santa Cruz; William Long, Camden County College; Cyn- thia Lucia, Rider University; Glenn Man, University of Hawai’i at M–anoa; Jayne Marek, Franklin College; Kelli Marshall, University of Texas at Dallas; Adrienne McLean, University of Texas at Dallas; Jeffrey Middents, American University; Stuart Noel, Georgia Perimeter College; Dann Pierce, University of Portland; Dana Renga, Colorado College; Susan Scheibler, Loyola Marymount University; Mat- thew Sewell, Minnesota State University, Mankato; Steven Shaviro, Wayne State University; Kathryn Shield, University of Texas at Arlington; Christopher Sieving, University of Notre Dame; Ed Sikov, Haverford College; Philip Sipiora, University of South Florida; Dina Smith, Drake University; Cristina Stasia, Syracuse Univer- sity; Nickolas Tanis, New York University–Tisch School of the Arts; Kirsten Moana Thompson, Wayne State University; John Tibbetts, University of Kansas; Willie Tolliver, Agnes Scott College; Chuck Tryon, Fayetteville State University; Kenneth Von Gunden, Penn State Altoona; and Greg Wright, Kalamazoo College.

For the first edition, we are grateful to Nora M. Alter, University of Florida; Con- stantin Behler, University of Washington, Bothell; J. Dennis Bounds, Regent Uni- versity (Virginia); Richard Breyer, Syracuse University; Jeremy Butler, University of Alabama; Jill Craven, Millersville University; Robert Dassanowsky, University of Colorado—Colorado Springs; Eric Faden, Bucknell University; Lucy Fischer, University of Pittsburgh; Stefan Fleischer, State University of New York, Buffalo; Brian M. Goss, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Mark Hall, California State University—Chico; Tom Isbell, University of Minnesota, Duluth; Christopher Jacobs, University of North Dakota; Jonathan Kahana, Bryn Mawr College; Joe Kickasola, Baylor University; Arthur Knight, College of William and Mary; Gina Marchetti, Ithaca College; Ivone Margulies, Hunter College, City University of New York; Joan McGettigan, Texas Christian University; Mark Meysenburg, Doane

Preface x

01_COR_6354_FM_i-xxii.indd 10 9/26/14 4:59 PM

College (Nebraska); Charles Musser, Yale University; Mark Nornes, University of Michigan; Patrice Petro, University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee; Kimberly Radek, Illi- nois Valley Community College; Frank Scheide, University of Arkansas; Jeff Smith, Washington University (St. Louis); Vivian Sobchack, University of California, Los Angeles; Maureen Turim, University of Florida; Leslie Werden, University of North Dakota; Jennifer Wild, University of Iowa; Sharon Willis, University of Rochester; and Sarah Witte, Eastern Oregon University.

Special thanks go to the following individuals and organizations for their as- sistance and expertise in acquiring photo stills: Beth and Margaret at Narberth Video & Entertainment and Rob Epstein and James Chan at Telling Pictures. James Fiumara provided assistance in many ways, most notably for his comprehensive revision of the chapter summaries and quizzes on the book companion Web site. Thanks also go to Amy Monaghan for her excellent work on the Instructor’s Re- source Manual.

At Bedford/St. Martin’s, we thank Erika Gutierrez, publisher, for her belief in and support of this project from the outset. We are especially grateful to develop- mental editors Jesse Hassenger and Angela Kao for guiding us with patience and good humor throughout this project. We are indebted to photo researcher Jennifer Atkins for her extraordinary work acquiring every piece of art in this book and to Tayarisha Poe for all her work capturing the film grabs—the art program was a tremendous undertaking, and the results are beautiful. Thanks to Harold Chester, senior project editor, and Lisa McDowell, senior production supervisor, for their diligent work on the book’s production. We also thank Jerilyn Bockorick for over- seeing the design and Billy Boardman for a beautiful new cover. Thanks also go to Tom Digiano, marketing manager, Matt Killorin, media producer, and Caitlin Crandell, editorial assistant, for helping to make the media for this book happen.

We are especially thankful to our families, Marcia Ferguson and Cecilia, Gra- ham, and Anna Corrigan, and George and Donna White, Cynthia Schneider, and Max Schneider-White. Finally, we are grateful for the growth of our writing part- nership and for the rich experiences this collaborative effort has brought us. We look forward to ongoing projects.

Timothy Corrigan

Patricia White

Preface xi

01_COR_6354_FM_i-xxii.indd 11 9/26/14 4:59 PM

this page left intentionally blank

Brief contents

Preface v

PART 1 CULTURAL CONTEXTS: watching, studying, and making movies 2 introduction Studying Film: Culture and Experience 5

chapter 1 Encountering Film: From Preproduction to Exhibition 19

PART 2 FORMAL COMPOSITIONS: film scenes, shots, cuts, and sounds 60 chapter 2 Mise-en-Scène: Exploring a Material World 63 chapter 3 Cinematography: Framing What We See 95 chapter 4 Editing: Relating Images 133 chapter 5 Film Sound: Listening to the Cinema 175

PART 3 ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURES: from stories to genres 210 chapter 6 Narrative Films: Telling Stories 213 chapter 7 Documentary Films: Representing the Real 253 chapter 8 Experimental Film and New Media: Challenging

Form 283

chapter 9 Movie Genres: Conventions, Formulas, and Audience Expectations 311

PART 4 CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES: history, methods, writing 350 chapter 10 History and Historiography: Hollywood and

Beyond 353

chapter 11 Reading about Film: Critical Theories and Methods 397

chapter 12 Writing a Film Essay: Observations, Arguments, Research, and Analysis 429

Glossary 462 The Next Level: Additional Sources 477 Index 483

xiii

01_COR_6354_FM_i-xxii.indd 13 9/26/14 4:59 PM

this page left intentionally blank

Preface v

contents

xv

PART 1

CULTURAL CONTEXTS: watching, studying, and making movies 2

introduction Studying Film: Culture and Experience 5 Why Film Studies Matters 7

Film Spectators and Film Cultures 9

form in Action: identification, cognition, and film Variety 13

film in focuS: The 400 Blows: An Auteur’s film Experience (1959) 14

The Film Experience 16

chapter 1 Encountering Film: From Preproduction to Exhibition 19 Production: How Films Are Made  21

Preproduction 21 Production 26 Postproduction 28

Distribution: What We Can See  29 Distributors 30 Ancillary Markets 34 Distribution Timing 37

film in focuS: distributing Killer of Sheep (1977) 40

Marketing and Promotion: What We Want to See  42 Generating Interest 43 Advertising 45

form in Action: the changing Art and Business of the film trailer 47

ViEwing cuE: Man of Steel (2013) 48 Word of Mouth and Fan Engagement 49

Movie Exhibition: The Where, When, and How of  Movie Experiences 51 The Changing Contexts and Practices of Film Exhibition 51

film in focuS: promoting The Blair Witch Project (1999) 52 Technologies and Cultures of Exhibition 54 The Timing of Exhibition 55

film in focuS: Exhibiting Citizen Kane (1941) 56

01_COR_6354_FM_i-xxii.indd 15 9/26/14 5:00 PM

chapter 2 Mise-en-Scène: Exploring a Material World 63 A Short History of Mise-en-Scène  66

Theatrical Mise-en-Scène and the Prehistory of Cinema 66 1900–1912: Early Cinema’s Theatrical Influences 67 1915–1928: Silent Cinema and the Star System 67 1930s–1960s: Studio-Era Production 68 1940–1970: New Cinematic Realism 68 1975–Present: Mise-en-Scène and the Blockbuster 68

The Elements of Mise-en-Scène  69 Settings and Sets 69

ViEwing cuE: Life of Pi (2012) 70 Scenic Realism and Atmosphere 70 Props, Actors, Costumes, and Lights 71

film in focuS: mise-en-Scène in Do the Right Thing (1989) 80 Space and Design 84

form in Action: mise-en-Scène in Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) 85

Making Sense of Mise-en-Scène  86 Defining Our Place in a Film’s Material World 86 Interpretive Contexts for Mise-en-Scène 87

film in focuS: naturalistic mise-en-Scène in Bicycle Thieves (1948) 90 Spectacularizing the Movies 92

chapter 3 Cinematography: Framing What We See 95 A Short History of the Cinematic Image  97

1820s–1880s: The Invention of Photography and the Prehistory of Cinema 98

1890s–1920s: The Emergence and Refinement of Cinematography 98

1930s–1940s: Developments in Color, Wide-Angle, and Small-Gauge Cinematography 100

1950s–1960s: Widescreen, 3-D, and New Color Processes 102

1970s–1980s: Cinematography and Exhibition in the Age of the Blockbuster 102

1990s and Beyond: The Digital Future 103

The Elements of Cinematography  104 Points of View 104 Four Attributes of the Shot 106

ViEwing cuE: Touch of Evil (1958) 106

PART 2

FORMAL COMPOSITIONS: film scenes, shots, cuts, and sounds 60

Contentsxvi

01_COR_6354_FM_i-xxii.indd 16 9/26/14 5:00 PM

FORM IN ACTION: Color and Contrast in Film 116

vIewINg Cue: Rear Window (1954) 118

vIewINg Cue: The Battle of Algiers (1967) 119 Animation and Visual Effects 119

Making Sense of the Film Image 122 Defining Our Relationship to the Cinematic Image 122 Interpretive Contexts for the Cinematic Image 123

FILM IN FOCuS: From Angles to Animation in Vertigo (1958) 124

FILM IN FOCuS: Meaning through Images in M (1931) 128

chapter 4 Editing: Relating Images 133 A Short History of Film Editing 134

1895–1918: Early Cinema and the Emergence of Editing 135 1919–1929: Soviet Montage 137 1930–1959: Continuity Editing in the Hollywood Studio

Era 138 1960–1989: Modern Editing Styles 139 1990s–Present: Editing in the Digital Age 140

The Elements of Editing 140 The Cut and Other Transitions 141

vIewINg Cue: Chinatown (1974) 143 Continuity Style 144 Editing and Temporality 155

vIewINg Cue: The General (1927) 159

FORM IN ACTION: editing and Rhythm in Moulin Rouge! (2001) 160

Making Sense of Film Editing 161

FILM IN FOCuS: Patterns of editing in Bonnie and Clyde (1967) 162 Disjunctive Editing 165 Converging Editing Styles 169

FILM IN FOCuS: Montage in Battleship Potemkin (1925) 170

chapter 5 Film Sound: Listening to the Cinema 175 A Short History of Film Sound 176

Theatrical and Technological Prehistories of Film Sound 177 1895–1920s: The Sounds of Silent Cinema 177 1927–1930: Transition to Synchronized Sound 179 1930s–1940s: Challenges and Innovations in Cinema Sound 180 1950s–Present: From Stereophonic to Digital Sound 180

The Elements of Film Sound 181 Sound and Image 181 Sound Production 184

FILM IN FOCuS: Sound and Image in Singin’ in the Rain (1952) 186 Voice in Film 189 Music in Film 193

FORM IN ACTION: Pop Music Soundtracks in Contemporary Cinema 195 Sound Effects in Film 199

Contents xvii

01_COR_6354_FM_i-xxii.indd 17 30/09/14 11:22 PM

ViEwing cuE: Winter’s Bone (2010) 199

ViEwing cuE: The Thin Red Line (1998) 200

Making Sense of Film Sound  201 Authenticity and Experience 201 Sound Continuity and Sound Montage 202

film in focuS: the role of Sound and Sound technology in The Conversation (1974) 206

chapter 6 Narrative Films: Telling Stories 213 A Short History of Narrative Film  214

1900–1920s: Adaptations, Scriptwriters, and Screenplays 216

1927–1950: Sound Technology, Dialogue, and Classical Hollywood Narrative 217

1950–1980: Art Cinema 219 1980s–Present: From Narrative Reflexivity to Games 219

The Elements of Narrative Film  220 Stories and Plots 220 Characters 222 Diegetic and Nondiegetic Elements 229 Narrative Patterns of Time 230

form in Action: nondiegetic images and narrative 231

ViEwing cuE: Shutter Island (2010) 234 Narrative Space 236 Narrative Perspectives 238

ViEwing cuE: The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) 238

film in focuS: plot and narration in Apocalypse Now (1979) 240

Making Sense of Film Narrative  243 Shaping Memory, Making History 244 Narrative Traditions 245

film in focuS: classical and Alternative traditions in Mildred Pierce (1945) and Daughters of the Dust (1991) 248

chapter 7 Documentary Films: Representing the Real 253 A Short History of Documentary Cinema  256

A Prehistory of Documentaries 256 1895–1905: Early Actualities, Scenics, and Topicals 257 The 1920s: Robert Flaherty and the Soviet

Documentaries 257 1930–1945: The Politics and Propaganda of

Documentary 258

PART 3

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURES: from stories to genres 210

Contentsxviii

01_COR_6354_FM_i-xxii.indd 18 9/26/14 5:02 PM

1950s–1970s: New Technologies and the Arrival of Television 258

1980s–Present: Digital Cinema, Cable, and Reality TV 260

The Elements of Documentary Films  261 Nonfiction and Non-Narrative 261 Expositions: Organizations That Show or Describe 263

film in focuS: nonfiction and non-narrative in Man of Aran (1934) 264

ViEwing cuE: The Cove (2009) 265 Rhetorical Positions 266

Making Sense of Documentary Films  269 Revealing New or Ignored Realities 270 Confronting Assumptions, Altering Opinions 270 Serving as a Social, Cultural, and Personal Lens 271

film in focuS: Stories We Tell (2012) 272

form in Action: the contemporary documentary: Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010) 280

chapter 8 Experimental Film and New Media: Challenging Form 283 A Short History of Experimental Film and Media 

Practices  286 1910s–1920s: European Avant-Garde Movements 287 1930s–1940s: Sound and Vision 288 1950s–1960s: The Postwar Avant-Garde in America 289

film in focuS: Avant-garde Visions in Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) 290 1968–1980: Politics and Experimental Cinema 293 1980s–Present: New Technologies and New Media 294

Variations of Experimental Media  295 Formalisms: Narrative Experimentation and Abstraction 295 Experimental Organizations: Associative, Structural,

and Participatory 296 film in focuS: formal play in Ballet mécanique (1924) 298

Making Sense of Experimental Media  301 Challenging and Expanding Perception 302 Experimental Film Styles and Approaches 302

ViEwing cuE: Gently Down the Stream (1964) 303

form in Action: lyrical Style in Bridges-Go-Round (1958) 306

chapter 9 Movie Genres: Conventions, Formulas, and Audience Expectations 311 A Short History of Film Genre  313

Historical Origins of Genres 313 Early Film Genres 314 1920s–1940s: Genre and the Studio System 314

Contents xix

01_COR_6354_FM_i-xxii.indd 19 9/26/14 5:03 PM

1948–1970s: Postwar Film Genres 315 1970s–Present: New Hollywood, Sequels, and Global Genres 316

The Elements of Film Genre  317 Conventions 317 Formulas and Myths 318 Audience Expectations 319

Six Movie Genres  320 Comedies 321 Westerns 324 Melodramas 326 Musicals 329 Horror Films 332 Crime Films 334

ViEwing cuE: The Searchers (1956) 337

Making Sense of Film Genres  338 Prescriptive and Descriptive Approaches 338 Classical and Revisionist Traditions 339

film in focuS: crime film conventions and formulas: Chinatown (1974) 340

form in Action: genre revisionism: comparing True Grit (1969) and True Grit (2010) 343 Local and Global Genres 344

film in focuS: genre history in Vagabond (1985) 346

PART 4

CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES: history, methods, writing 350

chapter 10 History and Historiography: Hollywood and Beyond 353 Early Cinema  355

Cinema between the Wars  356 Classical Hollywood Cinema 356 German Expressionist Cinema 358 Soviet Silent Films 359 French Impressionist Cinema and Poetic Realism 360

Postwar Cinemas  361 Postwar Hollywood 361 Italian Neorealism 363

ViEwing cuE: Gilda (1946) and Rome, Open City (1945) 364 French New Wave 364 Japanese Cinema 365 Third Cinema 366

Contemporary Film Cultures  366 Contemporary Hollywood 367 Contemporary Independent Cinema 368 Contemporary European Cinema 369

Contentsxx

01_COR_6354_FM_i-xxii.indd 20 9/26/14 5:04 PM

film in focuS: Taxi Driver and new hollywood (1976) 370 Indian Cinema 373 African Cinema 374 Chinese Cinema 375 Iranian Cinema 377

The Lost and Found of Film History  378 Women Filmmakers 379 African American Cinema 382 Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender (LGBT) Film History 385

film in focuS: lost and found history: Within Our Gates (1920) 386 Indigenous Media 390 Excavating Film History 392

chapter 11 Reading about Film: Critical Theories and Methods 397 The Evolution of Film Theory  399

Early and Classical Film Theory  400 Early Film Theory 400 Classical Film Theories: Formalism and Realism 402

Postwar Film Culture and Criticism  405 Film Journals 405 Auteur Theory 406 Genre Theory 407

Contemporary Film Theory  408 Structuralism and Semiotics 408

ViEwing cuE: The Wizard of Oz (1939) 409 Poststructuralism 411

film in focuS: Signs and meaning in Persepolis (2007) 412 Theories of Gender and Sexuality 415 Cultural Studies 418 Film and Philosophy 422 Postmodernism and New Media 423

film in focuS: Clueless about contemporary film theory? (1995) 424

chapter 12 Writing a Film Essay: Observations, Arguments, Research, and Analysis 429 Writing an Analytical Film Essay  431

Personal Opinion and Objectivity 431 ViEwing cuE: Moonrise Kingdom (2012) 432

Identifying Your Readers 432 Elements of the Analytical Film Essay 433

Preparing to Write about a Film  434 Asking Questions 435 Taking Notes 435

Contents xxi

01_COR_6354_FM_i-xxii.indd 21 9/26/14 5:04 PM

Selecting a Topic 437 film in focuS: Analysis, Audience, and Minority

Report (2002) 438

Elements of a Film Essay  441 Thesis Statement 442 Outline and Topic Sentences 443 Revising, Formatting, and Proofreading 444 Writer’s Checklist 445

Researching the Movies  445 Distinguishing Research Materials 446

film in focuS: interpretation, Argument, and Evidence in Rashomon (1950) 448 Using and Documenting Sources 453

film in focuS: from research to writing about The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) 456

Glossary 462 The Next Level: Additional Sources 477 Index 483

Contentsxxii

01_COR_6354_FM_i-xxii.indd 22 9/26/14 5:04 PM

T H E F I L M E X P E R I E N C E

02_COR_6354_Intro_001-017.indd 1 8/14/14 8:21 PM

2

P A R T 1

C U LT U R A L CO N T E X T S watching, studying, and making movies

In 2013, Man of Steel became the latest reincarnation of the Superman legend, telling the story of the famous comic-book hero, his mysterious arrival on a farm in Kansas, and his mission to fight for justice against extra-

terrestrial evil. Featuring Hollywood stars Amy Adams, Henry Cavill, and Russell

Crowe and replete with elaborate special effects, the film was budgeted at over

$200 million, and its blockbuster summer release followed an extensive advertising

campaign. A very different tale of justice, Ryan Coogler’s Fruitvale Station

screened at the Cannes Film Festival only weeks before the release of Man of

Steel. It recounted the true story of a twenty-two-year-old African American

who struggles to right his life but who then becomes the tragic victim of urban

violence when he is shot and killed by a transit police officer. When its wider

theatrical release in July 2013 coincided with the acquittal of George Zimmerman

for his “Stand Your Ground” shooting of a young, unarmed African American in

Florida, Frutivale Station became a social lightning rod.

Social and institutional forces shaped these very different films in very

different ways — from their production through their promotion, distribution,

and exhibition. Part 1 of this book identifies institutional, cultural, and

industrial contexts that shape the film experience, showing us how to connect

our personal movie preferences with larger critical perspectives on film. The

Introduction examines how and why we study film, while Chapter 1 introduces

the movie production process as well as the mechanisms and strategies of film

distribution, promotion, and exhibition. Understanding these different contexts

will help us to develop a broad and analytical perspective on the film experience.

02_COR_6354_Intro_001-017.indd 2 8/14/14 8:21 PM

C H A P T E R 1 Encountering Film: From Preproduction to Exhibition ■ Stages of narrative filmmaking

■ Mechanisms of film distribution

■ Practices of promotion and exhibition

I N T R O D U C T I O N

Studying Film: Culture and Experience ■ Identifying the dimensions and importance of film

culture

■ Appreciating, interpreting, and analyzing film

■ Understanding the changing film experience

Top: © Warner Bros. Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection. Bottom: © The Weinstein Company/courtesy Everett Collection

3

02_COR_6354_Intro_001-017.indd 3 8/14/14 8:22 PM

02_COR_6354_Intro_001-017.indd 4 8/14/14 8:22 PM

5

In Woody Allen’s 1977 film Annie Hall, Alvy Singer and Annie Hall stand in line to see the 1972 French documentary The Sorrow and the Pity. Next to them in line is a professor who pontificates about movies and about the work of media theorist and counterculture critic Marshall McLuhan, author of Understanding Media and The Gutenberg Galaxy. Alvy grows more and more irritated by the conversation, and finally interrupts the professor to tell him he knows nothing about McLuhan’s work, as Annie looks on, embarrassed. When the professor objects, Alvy counters by bringing McLuhan himself out from a corner of the lobby to confirm that the professor is all wrong about McLuhan’s writings. While this encounter among movie- goers comically exaggerates a secret wish about how to end an argument about the interpretation of movies, it also dramatizes, with typical Allen humor, the many dimensions of film culture — from scholarship to courtship — that drive our pleasure in thinking and talking, both casually and seriously, about film. For Alvy and many of us, going to the movies is a golden opportunity to converse, think, and disagree about film as a central part of our everyday lives.

Studying Film Culture and Experience

Introduction

Courtesy Everett Collection

02_COR_6354_Intro_001-017.indd 5 8/14/14 8:22 PM

For more than a century, the movies have been an integral part of our cultural experience, and as such, most of us already know a great deal about them. We know which best-selling novel will be adapted for the big screen and what new releases can be anticipated in the summer; we can identify a front-runner for a major award and which movie franchise will inspire a Halloween costume. Our encounters with and responses to motion pictures are a product of the diverse attitudes, back- grounds, and interests that we, the viewers and the fans, bring to the movies. These factors all contribute to the film culture that helps frame our overall film experience.

Film culture is the social and historical environment that shapes our expectations, ideas, and under- standing of movies. Our tastes, viewing habits, and venues all inform film culture; in turn, film culture transforms how we watch, understand, and enjoy movies in a variety of rapidly expanding ways. We can catch a showing of the epic Lawrence of Arabia (1962) on cable, join lines of viewers at an old movie palace for the latest install- ment of the Star Wars franchise [Figure I.1], enjoy the anime fan- tasy Ghost Hound (2007) instantly on the Netflix Web site, attend a documentary festival at a local museum, or watch the short silent films of Charlie Chaplin on an iPad. Our encounters with and responses to these films — how and why we

I.1 Star Wars fans in line. Experiencing the premiere of a movie becomes a singular social event with friends and other fans. HECTOR MATA/AFP/Getty Images

6

K E Y O B J E C T I V E S ■ Define film studies and film culture, and discuss the various factors that create and distinguish them.

■ Describe the role and impact of film viewers, and note how our experience of movies and our taste for certain films have both personal and public dimensions.

■ Discuss the ways in which film culture and practice discussed in this text- book contribute to the film experience.

02_COR_6354_Intro_001-017.indd 6 8/14/14 8:22 PM

Why Film Studies Matters

As students, you bring to the classroom a lifetime of exposure to the movies. For example, your opinions about casting certain actors in the film Precious (2009) may reflect your understanding of how common movie character types appear and function; your mesmerized attraction to the special effects of In- ception (2010) may pique your curiosity about new cinematic technology; your expectations of genre formulas, such as those found in the classic horror movie The Shining (1980), may provoke an outburst when a character heads down a darkened corridor. Film studies — the discipline — takes your common knowledge about and appreciation for film and helps you think about it more analytically and more precisely.

Film studies is a critical discipline that promotes serious reflec- tion on the movies and the place of film in culture. It is part of a rich and complex history that overlaps with critical work in many other fields, such as literary studies, philosophy, sociology, and art history. From the beginning, the movies have elicited widespread attention from scientists, politicians, and writers of many sorts — all of them attempting to make sense of the film experience [Figure I.2]. A film’s efforts to describe the world, impose its artistic value, or shape society have long been the subject of both scholarly and popular debate. In the decades before the first public projection of films in 1895, scientists Étienne-Jules Marey and Eadweard Muybridge embarked on studies of human and animal motion that would lay the groundwork for the invention of cinema as we know it. In the early twentieth century, poet Vachel Lindsay and Harvard psychologist Hugo Münsterberg wrote essays and books on the power of movies to change social relationships and the way people perceive the world. By the 1930s, the Payne Fund Studies and later Margaret Farrand Thorp’s America at the Movies (1939) offered sociological accounts of the impact of movies on young people and other social groups. Eventually courses about the art of the movies began to appear in universities, and elite cultural institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York City began to take the new art form seriously.

I.2 Mon ciné. Since the 1920s, Mon ciné and other movie magazines from around the world have promoted movies not just as entertainment, but also as objects of serious study with important sociological and aesthetic value. Mary Evans Picture Library/The Image Works

7

select the ones we do, why we like or dislike them, and how we understand or are challenged by them — are all part of film culture and, by extension, film study.

02_COR_6354_Intro_001-017.indd 7 8/14/14 8:22 PM

P A R T 1 Cultural Contexts: Watching, Studying, and Making Movies8

After World War II, new kinds of filmmaking emerged in Europe along with passionate, well-informed criticism about the history and art of the movies, including Hollywood genre films and the accomplishments of certain directors [Figure I.3]. Such criticism fueled film studies, which attained a firm foothold in North American universities by the 1970s. Today the study of film represents a wide spectrum of approaches and points of view, including studies of different historical periods or national cinemas, accounts of economic and tech- nological developments, studies of how race and gender are depicted in movies and affect audiences’ responses to them, and explications of particular aesthetic or formal features of films ranging from experimental to documentary to narrative cinema.

One sign of today’s rich film culture is the popular demand for DVD supplements — “extras” that have been called “film studies on a disk” [Figure I.4]. Many of us now rent or purchase DVDs and Blu-rays not just for the movies themselves but also for the extra features; these may include a film expert’s commentary, a director’s discussion of some of the technical decisions she made during filming, or his- torical background on the story behind the film. Some DVD editions address issues that are central to film studies, such as preservation of original promotional or textual materials. Trailers and posters that provide a glimpse of film culture at

the time of the film’s release, as well as scholarly commentary, are now available to the everyday film viewer. For example, in the Treasures from American Film Archives series, early films, hard- to-find gems, restored classics, and film experi- ments have been preserved and contextualized with scholars’ voiceovers, making accessible to consumers works that were previously only avail- able to experts. With research on movies facilitated by the Internet, the complexities and range of films and film cultures may now be more available to viewers than ever before.

The Film Experience provides a holistic perspec- tive on the formal and cultural dynamics of watch- ing and thinking about movies. It does not privilege any one mode of film study over another, but rather provides critical tools and perspectives that will allow individuals to approach film study according to their different needs, aims, and interests. Addi- tionally, it provides the vocabulary needed to under- stand, analyze, and discuss film as industry, film as art, and film as practice. The Film Experience raises theoretical questions that stretch common reactions.

These questions include psychological ones about perception, comprehension, and identification; philosophical ones about the nature of the image and the viewer’s understanding of it; and social and historical ones about what meanings and messages are reinforced in and excluded by a culture’s films. Far from destroying our pleasure in the movies, studying them increases the ways we can enjoy them thoughtfully.

I.3 Cahiers du cinéma. Appearing first in 1951, Cahiers du cinéma remains one of the most influential journals of film criticism and theory. Rue des Archives/The Granger Collection, NY

I.4 Lord of the Rings DVD supplement index. Expanded DVD formats and extras about production, postproduction, special effects, and sound editing can now provide self-guided study tours of technical and even scholarly issues.

02_COR_6354_Intro_001-017.indd 8 8/14/14 8:22 PM

9Studying Film: Culture and Experience I N T R O D U C T I O N

Film Spectators and Film Cultures

Movies are always both a private and a pub- lic affair. Since the beginning of film history, the power of the movies has derived in part from viewers’ personal and sometimes idio- syncratic responses to a particular film and in part from the social and cultural contexts that surround their experience of that film. Early viewers of the Lumière brothers’ Train Arriving at a Station (1894) were rumored to have fled their seats to avoid the train’s oncoming rush; new interpretations of such first-encounter stories suggest that view- ers attended the screening precisely for a visceral entertainment not found in their normal social lives [Figure I.5]. In a more contemporary example, some individuals reacted on a personal level to Avatar (2009), breathlessly absorbed in a love story that harks back to Romeo and Juliet and over- whelmed by breathtaking visual movements that re-create the experience of amusement park rides. Other viewers dismissed the film because it offered what they saw as a sim- plistic political parable about corporate greed, terror, and exploitation far out of line with contemporary realities, disguising its bland characters and predictable story with jazzy special effects [Figure I.6].

While certain approaches in film studies look first at a film’s formal con- struction or at the historical background of its production, The Film Experience begins with an emphasis on movie spectators and how individuals respond to films. Our different viewing experiences determine how we understand the mov- ies, and, ultimately, how we think about a particular movie — why it excites or disappoints us. The significance of movies, in short, may lie not primarily in how they are made but rather in how we, as viewers, engage with and respond to them. As movie spectators, we are not passive audiences who simply absorb what we see on the screen. We respond actively to films, often in terms of our different ages, backgrounds, educational levels, interests, and geographi- cal locations. It is the richness and complexities of these fac- tors that make film viewing and film study a profound cultural experience. In short, our engage- ment with a movie goes beyond determining whether we like or dislike it. As active viewers, we

I.5 Poster for public screening of early films by the Lumière brothers. This poster shows the short comic sketch L’Arroseur arrosé (The Waterer Watered, 1895). In the advertisement, the audience’s reaction shows the novelty of the experience, which is as important as the image onscreen. Courtesy Photofest

I.6 Avatar (2009). Many viewers responded favorably to Sigourney Weaver’s strong female character in the film; others joined an Internet campaign against the film’s depiction of smoking.

02_COR_6354_Intro_001-017.indd 9 8/14/14 8:22 PM

P A R T 1 Cultural Contexts: Watching, Studying, and Making Movies10

engage with a film in energetic and dynamic ways that The Film Experience aims to encourage and direct.

Our reactions are not only personal but also have important public and social dimensions. For instance, when Precious was released, many viewers were predisposed to appreciate it because of critics’ reviews and word-of-mouth praise that followed the film’s appearances at the Sundance and Cannes film festivals. As the film continued to play in wider release, its numerous Academy Award nominations and subsequent awards for best supporting actress and best adapted screenplay also influenced audiences’ curiosity about it and their reac- tions to it. In a dramatic move, Oprah Winfrey, who came on board as one of the film’s executive producers, energetically endorsed Precious on her television show. All the while, buzz about the film spread via Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites, as well as through the entertainment media and daily con- versations. The film touched a cultural nerve in a twenty-first-century American society still struggling with issues of racial inequality, the economic despera- tion of an urban underclass, sexual abuse, and body image. Precious arrived at the right time for many reasons, becoming an unexpected social barometer and provocation for audiences concerned about these issues. Discussions of the film’s dramatic images and events thus connected emotional responses with wider social dynamics.

At the intersection of these personal and public experiences, each of us has developed different tastes — cultural, emotional, intellectual, and social preferences or interests — that influence our expectations and lead us to like or dislike particu- lar movies. Some tastes vary little from person to person; most people prefer good characters to bad ones and justice served to justice foiled. Yet many tastes in mov- ies are unique products of our experiential circumstances or experiential histories. Experiential circumstances are the material conditions that define our identity at a certain time and in a certain place, such as our age, gender, race, linguistic and socioeconomic background, and the part of the country or world in which we live. For example, children are drawn to animated features with cuddly creatures and happy resolutions, whereas older adults have more patience for complicated plotlines or films with subtitles.

Experiential histories, such as our education, relationships, travels, and even the other films we have seen, are the personal and social encounters through which we have developed our identities over time. These histories help determine

individual as well as cultural tastes. For example, a World War II veteran, because of his experiential history, might have a particular taste for WWII films [Figure I.7], ranging from such sentimental favorites as Mrs. Miniver (1942) to the harder- hitting dramas Saving Private Ryan (1998) and Flags of Our Fathers (2006). An audience’s taste in films is often tied to historical events, drawing viewers to see films about lived-through experiences such as the Watergate scandal depicted in Oliver Stone’s Nixon (1995) or the Sep- tember 11 terrorist attacks on the United States dramatized in Stone’s World Trade Center (2006).

But experiential influences are not limited to history. American college students may be drawn to Wes Ander- son’s Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) as fans

I.7 Saving Private Ryan (1998). Steven Spielberg’s hard-hitting film was hailed by veter- ans as a realistic depiction of what American combat troops encountered during the invasion of Normandy. Veterans with experiential histories in combat might be drawn to war films as presentations of or homages to their experiences.

02_COR_6354_Intro_001-017.indd 10 8/14/14 8:22 PM

11

of the director’s debut film Rushmore (1998) or because they read Roald Dahl’s books as children. Big-screen adaptations, when an artistic work such as a book, television show, or musical is turned into a film, attract the fans from the original medium. For example, Dream- girls (2006) might attract African Ameri- can audiences familiar with the history of Motown music, Broadway fans familiar with the original musical, or fans eager to see pop star Beyoncé in a dramatic role [Figure I.8].

Our experiential circumstances and histories may predispose us to certain tastes and responses, but these are acti- vated when we actually watch a film by two psychological processes that come into play simultaneously: identification and cognition.

Identification, the complex process through which we empathize with or project feeling onto a character or an action, is commonly associated with our emotional responses. Both adolescent and adult viewers can respond empa- thetically to the portrayal of the social electricity and physical awkwardness of teenage sexuality in American Graffiti (1973), The Breakfast Club (1985), or Superbad (2007), though different generations might find the music of one movie or the fashions of another more resonant, and male viewers are likely to relate more easily — or uneasily — to the high school boys at the center of Superbad than are female viewers [Figure I.9]. Each of us may identify with dif- ferent minor characters (such as the nerd Brian or the prom queen Claire in The Breakfast Club), but the success of a film often depends on eliciting audience identification with one or two of the main characters (such as Curt and Steve, the two boys who are about to leave for college in American Graffiti). Identification is sustained as the main characters face conflict and choices. Using another example, while watching the musical An American in Paris (1951) [Figure I.10], one viewer may instantly relate to the carefree excitement of the opening scenes by identifying with the street life of the artistic Montmartre neighborhood where she had lived as a college student. Another viewer who has never been to Paris may participate vicariously because the film so effectively re-creates an atmo- sphere of romance with which he can identify. Sometimes our preference for a particular film genre aids — or detracts from — the process of identification. Viewers who favor the adrenaline rush of horror films may have less interest and enthusiasm when faced with the bright colors and romantic plotlines associated with American musicals of the 1940s and 1950s.

Cognition, or the aspects of com- prehension that make up our rational reactions and thought processes, also con- tributes to our pleasure in watching mov- ies. At the most basic cognitive level, we process visual and auditory information indicating motion, the passing of time,

I.8 Dreamgirls (2006). Musical adaptations often draw their fan base from audiences familiar with the Broadway productions or the pop singers, like Beyoncé Knowles, featured in the cast.

V I E W I N g C U E What types of films do you identify with most closely? Are they from a particular country or era or particu- lar genres? Do they feature certain stars or a particular approach to music or settings?

I.9 Superbad (2007). In this Judd Apatow production, the main characters are two male ado- lescents who spend most of the movie in search of booze to impress girls. Gender identification is an important, though not necessarily predictable, aspect of the viewer’s experience of the film.

Studying Film: Culture and Experience I N T R O D U C T I O N

02_COR_6354_Intro_001-017.indd 11 8/14/14 8:22 PM

P A R T 1 Cultural Contexts: Watching, Studying, and Making Movies12

and space as we watch movies. At another level, we bring assumptions about a given location or setting to most films, we expect events to change or progress in a certain way, and we measure characters against similar char- acters encountered elsewhere. Thus watching a movie is not only an emotional experience that involves identifying through processes of participation and empathy but also a cognitive process that involves the intellectual activities of comparison and comprehension. Engaged by our emotional identification with the ter- rors or triumphs of Russell Crowe’s character in Gladiator (2000), for example, we also find ourselves engaged cognitively with other aspects of the film [Figure I.11]. We recog- nize and distinguish the Rome in the movie through particular visual cues — the Colosseum and other Roman monuments — known perhaps from studies in world history, pictures, or other movies. We expect we will know who will win the battles and fights because of

what we’ve learned about such skirmishes, but that knowledge won’t necessarily prepare us for the extreme and graphic violence depicted in the film. Because of other experiences, we arrive at the film with certain assumptions about Roman tyrants and heroes, and we appreciate and understand characters like the emperor Commodus or the gladiator Maximus as they successfully balance our expectations with surprises.

Even as we are drawn to and bond with places, actions, and characters in films, we must sometimes reconsider how those ways of identifying develop and change as part of our intellectual or cognitive development. Indeed, this process of cognitive realignment and reconsideration determines to a large degree our reaction to a movie. In The Bridges of Madison County (1995), for example, Clint Eastwood, best known for playing physically tough and intimidating characters, plays a reflective and sensitive lover, Robert Kincaid. Viewers familiar with East- wood’s other roles who expect to see the same type of character played out in The Bridges of Madison County must reconsider what had attracted them to that star,

as well as assess how those expecta- tions have been complicated and are now challenging their understanding of The Bridges of Madison County. Does this shift suggest that the film is about a human depth discovered within older masculinity or about the maturing of that masculinity through the encounter with an equally strong woman (Meryl Streep as Francesca Johnson)? Whether we are able to engage in that process and find the realignment convincing will lay the foundation for our response to the movie. Thus what we like or dis- like at the movies often relates to the simultaneous and evolving processes of identification and cognition.

I.11 Gladiator (2000). Viewers cognitively process historical knowledge, narrative recogni- tion, and their own visceral responses when watching historical scenes such as the ones seen in Gladiator.

I.10 An American in Paris (1951). The setting of a film may be a source of identification.

02_COR_6354_Intro_001-017.indd 12 8/14/14 8:22 PM

FORM IN

ACTION

13

The processes of identification and cognition that underlie how viewers interact with films contribute to the breadth of films pro- duced and the different ways they are understood and enjoyed. Some films elicit identification through action, special effects, or stars, while other films produce more cognitive relationships with their audiences through their analysis of current events or by creating witty and ironic perspectives on characters or their circumstances.

Hollywood blockbusters like Fast & Furious 6 (2013) attract large audiences who expect to be entertained by action, spectacle, and special effects without having to think too deeply about plot, char- acter, or realism [Figure I.12a]. Ponyo (2008), a Japanese-made, Japanese-language animated fantasy about a surprising friendship, was released in the United States with well-known actors voicing the characters in English [Figure I.12b]. This family-friendly offering nev- ertheless captivated plenty of anime enthusiasts as well as adults dazzled by its visual daring. The documentary Client 9 (2010) is an engrossing dissection of former New York governor Eliot Spitzer’s fall from power as well as an indictment of corporate greed. Its emphasis on contemporary American politics and its exploration of prostitution and corruption undoubtedly shaped its appeal while upping the ante on its perceived importance [Figure I.12c]. Indepen- dently produced films like Juno (2007), which deals in a humorous and sassy way with teen pregnancy, may appeal to a wealthier, more urban demographic comfortable with ironic, irreverent depictions of social problems [Figure I.12d].

Identification, Cognition, and

Film Variety

I.12a

I.12d

I.12c

I.12b

FORM IN ACTION bedfordstmartins.com/filmexperience

To watch a clip from Juno showing identification, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

02_COR_6354_Intro_001-017.indd 13 8/14/14 8:22 PM

http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/filmexperience
A particularly rich period of cinema flourished after World War II and lasted until the 1970s. Often designated in groups of “new waves,” filmmakers from different coun- tries shared two common postwar interests: (1) the use of film as an expression of one’s artistic vision — commonly referred to as “auteurist” cinema — and (2) a break from the polished look of industry films of the times. The first and most influential new wave cinema occurred in France. Known as the French New Wave, these filmmakers were

14

generally characterized by experimenting with new cin- ematic styles, searching for more honest forms of realism, and often creating more dynamic and active rapports with their audiences. As a consequence, audiences were com- monly asked to understand and identify with these films in innovative and sometimes disconcerting ways.

One of the most important films in the birth of the French New Wave was François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (1959), which is a realistic portrayal of a rebellious adoles- cent named Antoine Doinel whose search for identity on the streets of Paris is saturated with questions about sexuality, authority, family, economics, and education.

Like the protagonist of the film, Truffaut was himself both a bad boy and a writer, in both cases known for “rais- ing hell” — which is an idiomatic translation of the film’s French title, Les quatre cents coups. Frequently acknowl- edged as a sign of “auteurist” cinema in which a film rep- resents the filmmaker’s personal vision, this close relation between that protagonist and the director’s own life pro- vides a foundation for a sympathetic identification between the filmmaker, his main character, and the viewer [Fig­ ure I.13]. Truffaut’s own youth, like that of Doinel, was that of a troubled truant and sometime thief ultimately redeemed by the cinema. Like Antoine, he was weaned on the cinema, and as a teenager he started his own cine-club, the Film Addicts Club. Shortly after this, he enlisted in the army, but after another of many “escapes” from various institutions, he was released because of an “unstable character.”

Eventually Truffaut found a surrogate father figure in the great film scholar (and co-founder of the journal Cahiers du cinéma) André Bazin, to whom The 400 Blows is dedicated in its credits and to whom Truffaut’s parents even gave legal guardian rights. That Truffaut quickly be- came one of the most vociferous and controversial writers about film of the 1950s and was recognized as the primary scholar and archivist for Cahiers du cinéma extends this autobiographical or auteurist reading of the film to a larger cultural and historical understanding, in which audiences of the 1950s were confronted with film experiences that

FILM IN FOCUS

157010

157010

The 400 Blows: An Auteur’s Film Experience ( 1959 )

See also: Le Beau Serge (1958); Breathless (1960); Elevator to the Gallows (1958)

FILM IN FOCUS bedfordstmartins.com /filmexperience

To watch a clip from The 400 Blows, see the Film Experience LaunchPad.

I.13 François Truffaut. The director is closely identified with the French New Wave. The Kobal Collection/Art Resource, NY

02_COR_6354_Intro_001-017.indd 14 8/14/14 8:22 PM

http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/filmexperience
http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/filmexperience
15

asked them to see and comprehend films in historically in- formed, challenging, and, in many cases, rebellious ways.

This autobiographical and historical dimension of the film also points to a way of reading and understanding The 400 Blows in terms of its distinctive look. The film relies extensively on location shooting across Truffaut’s Paris to create a world that seems true to life as it is lived, not as it is portrayed in glossy, studio-produced films. The style of the film — its use of a discontinuous editing style and lightweight, handheld camera equipment — produces a sense of freshness, energy, and immediacy that call attention to a new kind of filmmaking and new ways of viewing for the audience.

Focusing this realism further, the main character of the film, Antoine Doinel, is played by Jean-Pierre Léaud, a young teenager with no acting experience who brings an unrehearsed energy to the character of a young boy constantly confronting a seemingly endless variety of authority figures and institutions — schoolteachers, par- ents, police — bent on controlling him. The gritty street realism and the naive energy of the actors that underpin this production are the essence of what the film aims to communicate. Considering how viewers respond to this realism and Doinel — with sympathy, understanding, alienation, or confusion — is just one of the many paths into the experience of this landmark film.

As another layer in the viewer’s encounter with The 400 Blows and an understanding of it, Truffaut inserts a self-conscious awareness of movie history into the film. During the longer sequence when Antoine and René skip school and make a quick trip to the cinema, for example, Antoine climbs aboard the spinning carnival ride called

the “Rotor” [Figure I.14]. For film historians especially, the scene becomes an unmistakable metaphor for the cinema itself, as the ride resembles that nineteenth-century precursor of the cinema, the zoetrope, and contains a historical reference to the paternity of Alfred Hitchcock (specifically the climactic carousel sequence in Strangers on a Train [1951]). More important, perhaps, Truffaut’s cameo presence in this scene relates historical refer- ences such as this both to Antoine’s story and to the liberating power of the cinema. The rollicking celebration of movement is not just a vehicle for narrative but also the expression of energy and delight, both Antoine’s and the filmmaker’s. Antoine and René’s wild ramble as they play hooky through the streets of Paris highlights the unpredictable realism of the film’s aesthetic but simulta- neously visually liberates the characters and the images from conventional laws of nature and cinematic realism.

Like those other stylistic innovations, the film’s fa- mous last shot — a track to a freeze frame of the young Antoine’s face [Figure I.15] — can also be seen as a use of style to pose a cognitive dilemma, and to open up culturally embedded processes of interpretation. This unusually long track (lasting more than eighty seconds) of the fleeing Antoine usually unsettles first-time viewers, particularly since his goal or destination is unclear. This cognitive provoca- tion continues when his face looks directly at the camera, perhaps as a question or perhaps as a confrontation. What is he thinking? What are we meant to understand happens next? The film leaves these questions unanswered, and we as viewers must reflect back on the boy’s story and bring our individual experiential circumstances and histories to bear in our response.

I.14 The 400 Blows (1959). The carnival ride is a metaphor recalling the disorienting, exhilarating machinery of film.

I.15 The 400 Blows (1959). The film ends with a famous, ambiguous freeze frame in which Jean-Pierre Léaud as Antoine Doinel gazes directly at the camera.

Studying Film: Culture and Experience I N T R O D U C T I O N

02_COR_6354_Intro_001-017.indd 15 8/14/14 8:22 PM

P A R T 1 Cultural Contexts: Watching, Studying, and Making Movies16

The Film Experience

What a movie looks and sounds like is of course at the heart of any film experience, and much of The Film Experience is devoted to exploring in detail those many visual, audio, narrative, and formal features and forces that we see on the many screens around us. But it is viewers who ultimately process those images and sounds — in different and diverse ways that bring meaning to film culture and to their lives. The cinematic complexities of Citizen Kane (1941), for example, are technically the same for each person, but they provoke different responses in every viewer [Figure I.16]. Hardly a typical viewer, newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst reacted nega- tively to the film and claimed it to be an inflammatory portrait of himself, refusing to allow his papers to carry ads for it. In the 1950s, French writers and filmmakers hailed the film as evidence of the power of the filmmaker to create a personal vision of the world. In recent decades, the film’s consistent ranking at or near the top of critics’ polls has influenced increased viewing of Citizen Kane, thus illustrating how viewers respond to both the movie and its perceived place in film history. With any film, some viewers may find importance in the technological or economic features; others may highlight the aesthetic or formal innovations; and still others may emphasize a film’s historical or social significance as its most meaningful quality. The same film, in fact, could lead different moviegoers to any one of these (or other) critical pathways,

and it is less a question of which is the most important way to engage the film than one of which provides the most productive encounter for each individual viewer.

Viewers’ experiences of the movies — their shared expe- riences of film culture as well as their individual interpreta- tions guided by identification and cognition — are the starting point of The Film Experience. Part 1 examines how processes and patterns of production, distribution, and exhibition present a film in particular ways, creating social contexts in which audiences encounter the movies. Part 2 presents the four formal systems that structure films — mise-en-scène, cinematography, editing, and sound — showing how view- ers derive meaning from familiar as well as innovative forms and patterns. Part 3 introduces and analyzes the primary modes through which viewers’ encounters with the movies are shaped: narrative, nonfiction, and experimental organizations as well as genres. Part 4 offers critical per- spectives on film, including an overview of film history, an account of major questions and positions in film theory, and a guide to writing a film essay.

The Film Experience encourages readers to choose and explore tactically different pathways into a film. This is not to say that studying film allows a movie to mean anything one wants; indeed, this book insists on a precise understanding of film forms, practices, and terminologies. Rather, having the tools and awareness to measure how and why a film engages us and provokes us in many different ways ultimately makes clear how rich and exciting films and film cultures are and, at the same time, how important and rewarding it is to think carefully, accurately, and rigorously about both.

Critical and scholarly interest in the movies is an outcome of — and an input into — the values and ideas that permeate our social and cultural lives. Not only are cultural

I.16 Citizen Kane (1941). Even canonized films offer multiple entryways and the possibility of various responses for careful viewers. Courtesy Everett Collection

02_COR_6354_Intro_001-017.indd 16 8/14/14 8:22 PM

17

Viewing movies is more complex than it at first seems. As fans and students of the movies, most of us experience films from a variety of personal and cultural positions and angles. Like Alvy Singer in Annie Hall, we may be pas- sionate about films and about how and when we watch them. As with François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows, a film may ask us to identify on a personal level with the characters and action and challenge us to see in new ways. Our histories, circumstances, and tastes may draw us to different films for differ- ent reasons: one person may be especially fascinated with the technological maneuvers of Inception or Avatar, while others may be drawn to the music of Dreamgirls or the history lessons of Gladiator. In some cases, we primarily identify with the film and its characters, as when teenagers view The Break- fast Club; in others, our experience may be more of cognitive or intellectual engagement, as when we reflect on a documentary such as Client 9. In most every case, it can be rewarding and exciting to examine how and why we view and respond to movies in certain ways, and this kind of reflection can lead to the pleasure of thinking about, studying, and debating our film expe- riences. Try out the goals of this chapter on the next film you are watching:

■ How would you describe the film culture that situates you today? How does it position you to enjoy certain films or kinds of films?

■ What kinds of tastes, histories, and circumstances would lead certain viewers to a film like Inception? Or a film like Fruitvale Station?

■ Describe two different viewing positions for a big summer movie like Man of Steel — one that is primarily about identification and another that has a more cognitive engagement with the film. Try to be specific.

■ Make the case for studying a war film like Saving Private Ryan. How might that film be “studied,” and how would that activity add to both the understanding and the enjoyment of that film?

Activity Choose a good review or critical essay about a recent film and carefully read it to analyze the various ways that the writer engaged with that particular film. Do his or her judgments reveal specific tastes, backgrounds, or a cultural con- text that informs or even prejudices his or her observations? Are there moments in the review when the writer seems to identify with certain characters and actions on an emotional or psychological level? Are there other evaluations that suggest cognitive considerations about how that movie compares with similar films?

C O N C E P T S A T W O R K

Studying Film: Culture and Experience I N T R O D U C T I O N

values and ideas reflected in the films and media that surround us, in other words, but values and ideas are generated by films as well. Both inside and outside the class- room, movies engage us, and we them. Public debates about violence in the movies, the crossover of movie stars into positions of political power, and the technological and economic shifts that have led to widespread participation in moving image pro- duction, as well as the vigorous marketing of new formats and playback devices, are only some of the constant reminders of how movies spread throughout the fabric of our everyday experiences. To think seriously about film and to study it carefully is therefore to take charge of one of the most influential forces in our lives. Expanding our knowledge of the cinema — from its formal grammar to its genres to its historical movements — connects our everyday knowledge to the wider sociocultural patterns and questions that shape our lives.

02_COR_6354_Intro_001-017.indd 17 8/14/14 8:22 PM

03_COR_6354_01_018-059.indd 18 8/14/14 8:26 PM

1 chapter

In 2012, Joss Whedon directed two very different kinds of films, The Avengers, a big-budget action film about comic-book superheroes, and Much Ado about Nothing, a contemporary adaptation of Shakespeare’s romantic comedy. The pro- duction, distribution, and exhibition of the two films illustrate how films, even by the same director, can be shaped by extremely different institutional histories.

With an estimated production budget of $220 million, The Avengers took advantage of the digital and technological tools available to a young director mak- ing a rapid transition from television to blockbuster movie culture. The film was converted to 3-D and broadly distributed by Walt Disney Pictures to major markets around the world in April 2012. It was nominated for a range of awards and attracted devoted followers of comics fans, sci-fi buffs, and a massive youth audience.

Despite Whedon’s claim that both films demonstrate his fascination with complex characters in complex social environments, Much Ado traveled a very different road from production to exhibition. Besides a shooting location in his own home and a schedule that lasted only twelve days, the film features an entourage of actors who worked with Whedon on his TV productions. The film’s promotion focused on its com- bination of the director of The Avengers with a daring adaptation of Shakespeare. As expected, the film appeared primarily in art-house cinemas. More so than The Avengers, however, it may have a future in college film courses on Shakespeare and film.

As these two disparate films suggest, film production, distribution, and exhibition shape our encounters with movies, and these aspects of film are in turn shaped by how movies are received by audiences.

Encountering Film From Preproduction to Exhibition

19 Top: THE AVENGERS © Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection. Bottom: Bellwether Pictures/The Kobal Collection

03_COR_6354_01_018-059.indd 19 8/14/14 8:27 PM

K E Y O B J E C T I V E S

20

Whether we follow movie news or not, we know that a great deal has taken place before we as viewers experience a film. The varied practices that go into moviemaking are not only artistic and commercial, they are cultural and social, and they anticipate the moment of viewing at which meaning and value are generated. Understanding the process that takes a film from an idea to its final form not only deepens an appreciation for film form and the labor and craft of filmmakers but also reveals ways that culture and society influence filmmaking itself.

This chapter describes the process of production as well as the fate of a fin- ished film as it is distributed, promoted, and exhibited. Such extra-filmic processes, which describe events that precede, surround, or follow the actual images we watch on the big screen, television monitor, or other device, are inseparable from the film experience.

As viewers, where and when we see a movie shapes our response, enjoyment, and understanding as much as do the form and content of the film itself. The film experience now encompasses ever smaller viewing devices (from computers to iPads and smartphones), changing social environments (from IMAX to home theaters), and multiple cultural activities designed to promote interest in individual films (reading about films, directors, and stars; playing video games; watching special DVD editions; or connecting to social media that support a film franchise). Waiting in line with friends for a midnight premiere and half-watching an edited in-flight movie are significantly different experiences that lead to different forms of appreciation and understanding. Overall, it is helpful to think of production and reception as a cycle rather than a one-way process: what goes into making and circulating a film anticipates the moment of viewing, and viewing tastes and habits influence film production and dissemination.