Transcript Lecture 13 Beyond the Feature Film Professor Michael Green Directed by Michael Moore

Lecture 13
Beyond the Feature Film
Bowling For Columbine (2002)
Directed by Michael Moore
Professor Michael Green
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Previous Lecture
• Style
• Authorship
• Some Notable
Auteurs
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This Lecture
• Documentary
Film
• Experimental
Film
• Animated Film
Waking Life (2001)
Directed by Richard Linklater
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Documentary Film
The Fog of War (2003)
Directed by Errol Morris
Lecture 13: Part I
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Distinguishing Types of Film
• We commonly
distinguish documentary
from fiction,
experimental films from
mainstream fare, and
animation from liveaction filmmaking.
• Though the lines
between each kind of
form are often blurry.
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Making Assumptions
• In each case, we
make assumptions
about how the
material to be filmed
was chosen or
arranged, how the
filming was done,
and how the
filmmakers intended
the finished work to
affect the viewer.
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What is a Documentary?
• A documentary usually comes identified as
such – by its title, publicity, press coverage,
word of mouth, and subject matter.
• The label leads us to expect that the
persons, places and events shown to us
exist and that the information presented
about them will be trustworthy.
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“Facts” About the World
• Every doc.
aims to
present facts
about the
world, but the
ways in which
this can be
done are as
varied as for
fiction films.
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Recording Events Vs. Staging
• In some cases the
filmmakers are able
to record events as
they actually occur.
• But the documentary
may convey
information in other
ways as well –
through charts, maps
and other visual aids,
or through staging.
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Subjective Choice
• Sometimes events are
staged to recreate an
approximation of what
might have happened,
and sometimes
filmmakers just let
their subjects talk.
Either way, the
finished product is the
result of subjective
choice.
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Reliability Varies
• Both viewers and filmmakers regard some
staging as legitimate in a documentary if the
staging serves the larger purpose of
presenting information.
• Regardless of the details of the production,
documentaries ask us to assume that they
present trustworthy info. about their topic.
• Still, documentaries many not prove reliable.
Throughout film history, many documentaries
have been challenged as inaccurate.
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Functions of Documentaries
• A documentary may:
– Take a stand
– State an opinion,
– Advocate a solution to a problem
– Do all three simultaneously
• Documentaries often use rhetoric to
persuade an audience.
• Documentaries marshal evidence, and put
forth the evidence as being factual and
reliable – even if it is partisan or biased.
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Example
An Inconvenient Truth (2006)
Directed by Davis Guggenheim
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Types of Documentary
• Like fiction films, documentaries have their
own genres. They include:
– The compilation film, produced by assembling
images from archival sources (Ken Burns).
– Direct-cinema or cinema-vérité, which records
an ongoing event as it happens, with minimal
interference from the filmmaker.
– The nature documentary (PBS, Discovery)
– The portrait documentary (History Channel,
A&E).
– The synthetic documentary, which mixes
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forms.
Blurring Fact and Fiction
• As you might expect, filmmakers have
sometimes sought to blur the lines
separating documentary and fiction.
Mitchell Block’s No Lies is an example.
• Mockumentaries such as This is Spinal
Tap, are another blurred form. They imitate
the conventions of documentaries but do
not try to fool people into thinking they
portray actuality.
• JFK and Forrest Gump are other examples.
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Types of Documentary Form
• Most documentaries are organized as
narratives, just as fiction films are.
• Categorical form is a type of filmic
organization in which the parts treat distinct
subsets of a topic. For example, a film
about the United States might be organized
into 50 parts, each devoted to a state.
• Rhetorical form is a type of filmic
organization in which the parts create and
support an argument – The Thin Blue Line.
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Categorical Form
• If a documentary filmmaker wants to convey
some information about the world to
audiences, categories and sub-categories
may provide the basis for organization.
• In categorical form, the patterns of
development will usually be simple. The
challenge of the filmmaker often is to keep
things interesting for the viewer.
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Mixing the Form
• Many documentaries
are a mix of
categorical and
rhetorical form,
providing a wealth of
information and than
making an
ideological point
about it.
– Watch the clip from
The Celluloid Closet
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Rhetorical Form
• With rhetorical form,
the filmmaker
presents a persuasive
argument. The goal
in such a film is to
persuade the
audience to adopt an
opinion about the
subject matter and
perhaps to act on that
opinion.
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Errol Morris
• Errol Morris is a prominent
documentarian:
– The Fog of War (2003)
– Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall
of Fred A. Leuchter Jr. (1999)
– Fast, Cheap and Out of
Control (1997)
– A Brief History of Time (1991)
– The Thin Blue Line (1988)
– Gates of Heaven (1978)
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The Fog of War (2003)
• About Robert McNamara, the Secretary of
Defense during the Vietnam War.
• Won the Oscar for Best Documentary.
• Mixes a number of documentary techniques
including compilation and portrait and is a
mixture of both the categorical and the
rhetorical forms.
– Watch the clip from The Fog of War.
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Experimental Film
Koyaanisquati (1982)
Directed by Godfrey Reggio
Lecture 13: Part II
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Non-Conformist Film
• Another type of film is willfully non-conformist.
In opposition to dominant, or mainstream
cinema, some films set out to challenge
orthodox notions of what a movie can show
and how it can show it.
• These filmmakers work independently of the
studio system, and often they work alone.
• Their films are hard to classify, but often they
are called experimental or avant-garde.
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The Purpose of Experimental Film
•
Experimental films are made for many
reasons. The filmmaker may wish to
express personal experiences or
viewpoints in ways that would seem
eccentric in a mainstream context.
The filmmaker may also wish to explore
some possibilities of the medium itself.
Experimental films often have no story,
and try to create poetic images.
•
•
–
Watch the clip from Koyaanisquati (1982)
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Experimental Film in the
Mainstream
•
•
Impossible to define in capsule formula,
avant-garde cinema is recognizable by its
efforts at self-expression or
experimentation outside the mainstream.
Yet the boundary lines can be breached.
Techniques associated with the avantgarde have been deployed in feature films,
music videos and other forms by Michel
Gondry, Derek Jarman and others.
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Abstract Experimental Form
•
•
When we watch a film that tells a story,
or surveys categories, or makes an
argument, we often pay little attention to
the pictorial qualities of the shots.
Yet it is possible to organize an entire
movie around colors, shapes, sizes and
movements and rhythm in the images.
This is known as abstract form and
movies in this form are usually organized
in theme and variations.
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Andy Warhol
•
Andy Warhol was a mid-twentieth century
artist who was a central figure in the
movement known as pop art.
He was also an experimental filmmaker
who made more than sixty films.
He experimented with both form and
content and tried to push the boundaries.
•
•
–
Watch the clip from Andy Warhol: A
Documentary Film.
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Animated Film
Wallace and Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)
Directed by Steve Box
Lecture 13: Part III
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The Animated Film
•
•
Most fiction and documentary films
photograph people and objects in fullsized, three-dimensional spaces. As we
have seen, the standard shooting speed
for such live-action filmmaking is typically
24 frames per second.
Animated films are distinguished from liveaction films by the unusual kinds of work
done at the production stage.
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One Frame at a Time
•
•
Instead of continuously filming an
ongoing action in real time, animators
create a series of images by shooting one
frame at a time. Between the exposure of
each frame, the animator changes the
subject being filmed.
When projected, the images create
illusory motion comparable to live-action.
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Drawn Animation
•
The most familiar
type of animation
is drawn
animation. From
almost the start of
the cinema,
animators drew
and photographed
long series of
cartoon images.
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Drawn Animation
•
During the 1910s, studio animators
introduced clear rectangular sheets of
celluloid called cels.
The cel process allowed animators to
save time and spilt up the labor among
assembly lines of people drawing,
coloring, photographing, etc.
•
–
Watch the clip.
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Modern Animation
•
•
•
This system, with a few additional laborsaving techniques, is still in use today,
though 3-D computer technology is
increasingly used for Hollywood
animated features.
The process is usually split between full
animation and limited animation.
Cut-outs involve two-dimensional
images. South Park employs this
deliberately crude look.
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Clay Animation
•
Although clay animation has been used
since the early years of the 20th century, it
has grown enormously in popularity since
the mid-1970s.
Nick Park’s Wallace and Gromit series
contain extraordinarily complex lighting and
camera movements.
•
–
Watch the clip.
Computer Imaging
•
Computer imaging has revolutionized
animation. On a mundane level, the
computer can perform the repetitive tasks
of making the many slightly altered images
needed to give a sense of movement. On
a creative level, computer animation can
open up whole new worlds, as we’ve seen
with the Pixar films such as Finding Nemo,
Wall-E and Up.
–
Watch the clip.
End of Lesson 14
Next Lecture:
Adaptation
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