Viewing Films and Taking Notes
Below are several suggestions/tips for what to look for when watching a film:http://www.wwnorton.com/college/film/movies3/writingaboutmovies.aspx
*Don't take you eyes off the screen while you're taking notes.
*Figure out who the main character(s) are, what his/her goal is, and how he/she accomplishes it or not=conflicts.
*How does it open? How does it end?
*Make notes succinct and make rough sketches of sequences, shots, scenes to return to later.
*Make a note of the time of each important shot. For instance, write 09:43 so you can ask questions in class or re-watch that sequence at home.
*Write down any quotes from the film that you found interesting, moving, important, symbolic, etc. Remember all films begin with a story/screenplay.
*Organize your notes by the film's plot or narrative system. Try to break the film down by scenes, locations, time, character, etc. Plot vs. Story. Depth vs Range.
*Talk about it with others. What film did it remind you? Why? How? Formulate ideas. What did you like about it? What didn't you like? How did you feel? Why? How did the film look? What is it about? What does the film say about people? life? love? truth? the world? the universe? Figure out what you know, what you don't know, and what you still need to know. Is it knowable?
*WHO? WHAT? WHY? WHEN? WHERE? HOW? Tie these questions to elements and terms. For example, When was voice-over used? Why? How? or Where did flashback occur? What did we learn? About Whom?
*Who made it? When? Genre? What does it say about society? Values? What can learn about history? culture? politics? psychology?
**See specific elements for the unit you are studying such as editing, cinematography, genre, etc.
Printable Version Below:
questions_for_filmstudies.doc | |
File Size: | 90 kb |
File Type: | doc |
viewing_films_and_taking_notes.docx | |
File Size: | 194 kb |
File Type: | docx |
film_studies_course_outline.doc | |
File Size: | 50 kb |
File Type: | doc |
attendance_tardy_policies.doc | |
File Size: | 27 kb |
File Type: | doc |
electronic_devices2010.doc | |
File Size: | 23 kb |
File Type: | doc |
varieurdiscipline.doc | |
File Size: | 53 kb |
File Type: | doc |
visual_arts_standards.pdf | |
File Size: | 534 kb |
File Type: |
100movies.pdf | |
File Size: | 741 kb |
File Type: |
movies400.pdf | |
File Size: | 78 kb |
File Type: |
quotes100.pdf | |
File Size: | 132 kb |
File Type: |
http://www.filmeducation.org/resources/film_library/getfilms.php?id=A
SEE LINK ABOVE for STUDY GUIDES FOR FILMS WE WILL WATCH THIS YEAR
http://abcusdcerritoshsfilmstudies.weebly.com/index.html
SEE MORE RESOURCES FOR FILM STUDIES AT THE LINK ABOVE
History of Academy Awards and a list of ALL films nominated for each category. You will need to use this list to choose films for your homework. CLICK HERE
What is Film Studies? Can I major in Film Studies in College?
http://www.collegeboard.com/csearch/majors_careers/profiles/majors/50.0601.html
Textbook websites with outlines, worksheets, practice tests, extra credit, and terms (SEE STUDENT EDITION AND CHAPTERS MENTIONED IN CLASS FOR FILMART, ART OF WATCHING FILM, AMERICAN CINEMA, and LOOKING AT MOVIES):
THE MCGRAW-HILL SITES BELOW ARE FOR FILMART, American Cinema, and THE ART OF WATCHING FILMS. THE NORTON SITES ARE FOR LOOKING AT MOVIES:
http://ewhighered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0073535079/information_center_view0/feature_summary.html
http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0073535060/information_center_view0/
http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072886277/information_center_view0/
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/film/movies3/
THIS SITE IS FOR LOOKING AT MOVIES 3rd EDITION above and 4th Edition below.
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/film/movies4/
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/film/movies/welcome.asp
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/film/movies2/ch/01/
THIS SITE above is for LOOKING AT MOVIES 2ND edition
http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/
Student Packets on Art Direction, Visual Effects, Cinematography, Music/Sound/Editing, Screenwriting, Animation, Costume, Make-up, Documentaries, and More:
http://www.oscars.org/education-outreach/teachersguide/index.html
Glossary with Terms, Questions, and Film Clips:
filmterms.ppt | |
File Size: | 2669 kb |
File Type: | ppt |
ifc_glossary.pdf | |
File Size: | 314 kb |
File Type: |
1502filmnotes.pdf | |
File Size: | 62 kb |
File Type: |
questions_for_filmstudies.doc | |
File Size: | 90 kb |
File Type: | doc |
MORE SITES FOR RESOURCES:
http://awardsdatabase.oscars.org/ampas_awards/BasicSearchInput.jsp
http://classes.yale.edu/film-analysis/
http://understandingfilm.wetpaint.com/
http://www.filmsite.org/filmterms.html
http://www.imdb.com/glossary/A
More Class Websites:
jmarzofilmstudies.blogspot.com
http://abcusdcerritoshsfilmstudies.weebly.com/
Article on How to Read a Film:
Prof. Michael Goldberg
Some suggestions on "how to read a film"
The film critic Christian Metz has written "A film is difficult to explain because it is easy to understand." We are used to sitting back in the dark and viewing a film uncritically; indeed, most Hollywood films are constructed to render “invisible” the carefully constructed nature of the medium. Further, because a film is constructed of visual, aural, and linguistic components that are manipulated in numerous ways, it is a challenge to take apart the totality of the film experience and to interpret how that experience was assembled.
Below you will find brief explanations of ways to analyze the language of film. While this list is not comprehensive, it does contain a lot of information. If film interpretation is new to you, you will not be able to keep track of all these elements while viewing the film—this is an acquired skill. Concentrate at first on a few things that seem to offer the most opportunity for critical reading.
If viewing the film only once, try to take notes in shorthand while watching the film. Arrows can be used to note camera angle and camera movement; quick sketches can be used to note shot composition and elements of mise-en-scene. As soon as possible after viewing the film, write out your impressions of the film, noting the most important elements. If you will be writing on the film and will be seeing it again, take minimal notes the first time through (although do note important scenes you will want to return to) but still maintain a critical distance.
When analyzing a film as a historical document, keep in mind the film's contemporary audiences or authors. Your own personal reaction to the film may serve as a starting point, but you need to convert these impressions into historical analysis—how are you different and similar to the historical audiences/authors? What has changed and what has stayed the same? Remember too the technological changes that have taken place, and keep in mind what audiences would have expected, and how film makers used the technology at their disposal. It is especially important to consider substantial changes in the manner of presentation if you will only be watching the film on a television. Also, be aware that most Hollywood films made after the early 1950s have an "aspect ratio" (height and width ratio) different from television screens. Most video tapes of these films have been altered by the "pan and scan" method which dramatically changes elements such as shot composition and camera movement. Video tapes that are "widescreen" preserve the correct aspect ratio. Most DVDs now come in both "standard" (altered) or "widescreen" (check the writing on the disk) or only in the correct aspect ratio, and most laser disks use the correct aspect ratio. If possible, find a format that has not altered the aspect ratio.
MEANING
Some suggestions on "how to read a film"
The film critic Christian Metz has written "A film is difficult to explain because it is easy to understand." We are used to sitting back in the dark and viewing a film uncritically; indeed, most Hollywood films are constructed to render “invisible” the carefully constructed nature of the medium. Further, because a film is constructed of visual, aural, and linguistic components that are manipulated in numerous ways, it is a challenge to take apart the totality of the film experience and to interpret how that experience was assembled.
Below you will find brief explanations of ways to analyze the language of film. While this list is not comprehensive, it does contain a lot of information. If film interpretation is new to you, you will not be able to keep track of all these elements while viewing the film—this is an acquired skill. Concentrate at first on a few things that seem to offer the most opportunity for critical reading.
If viewing the film only once, try to take notes in shorthand while watching the film. Arrows can be used to note camera angle and camera movement; quick sketches can be used to note shot composition and elements of mise-en-scene. As soon as possible after viewing the film, write out your impressions of the film, noting the most important elements. If you will be writing on the film and will be seeing it again, take minimal notes the first time through (although do note important scenes you will want to return to) but still maintain a critical distance.
When analyzing a film as a historical document, keep in mind the film's contemporary audiences or authors. Your own personal reaction to the film may serve as a starting point, but you need to convert these impressions into historical analysis—how are you different and similar to the historical audiences/authors? What has changed and what has stayed the same? Remember too the technological changes that have taken place, and keep in mind what audiences would have expected, and how film makers used the technology at their disposal. It is especially important to consider substantial changes in the manner of presentation if you will only be watching the film on a television. Also, be aware that most Hollywood films made after the early 1950s have an "aspect ratio" (height and width ratio) different from television screens. Most video tapes of these films have been altered by the "pan and scan" method which dramatically changes elements such as shot composition and camera movement. Video tapes that are "widescreen" preserve the correct aspect ratio. Most DVDs now come in both "standard" (altered) or "widescreen" (check the writing on the disk) or only in the correct aspect ratio, and most laser disks use the correct aspect ratio. If possible, find a format that has not altered the aspect ratio.
MEANING
- Themes/tropes—The broad ideas and allusions (themes) that are established by repetition of technical and linguistic means (tropes) throughout the film (such as alienation, power and control, transcendence through romantic achievement, etc.)
- Intent/Message—Sometimes, as with a film like JFK (the Kennedy assassination was the result of a massive government conspiracy) or Wayne's World (adolescence is a goofy time that provides plenty of laughs), this is obvious. (Just because the message is obvious, doesn't mean that the film is simple, or that there is not a contradictory subtext). Sometimes, however, the filmmakers aren't sure of their message, or the intended message becomes clouded along the way. At other times, the filmmakers (principally the producer, director, actors and actresses) are at odds over the intent. At other times, the film makers intend one message and many in the audience interpret the film differently.)
- Metaphor and metonymy/symbolism—Similar to literary interpretation, only consider all aspects of the film—linguistic, visual, aural. Metaphors are elements that represent something different from their explicit meaning (for example, the rose petals in American Beauty). Metonyms are elements that are similar or the same (for example, in the final scene of The Grapes of Wrath, Tom Joad represents the lonely battle of activists and Ma represents the resilience of "the people"; or when a part of the whole—such as a close-up of a woman's leg—represents women as sexual objects). Metaphors and metonyms only gain relevance if they are repeated in significant ways or connected with the larger meaning of the film. (Avoid simplistic equations such as the white table symbolizes A; the high angle shot of a character symbolized B).
- Subtext—The often numerous messages a film conveys beneath the surface; sometimes intended, often unintended, and sometimes conveying a different or contradictory message than the intended message. Look especially for ironies, contradictions, interesting juxtapositions, or if something initially doesn't seem to “make sense.” Subtext is usually developed through the use of figurative elements like metaphor and metonymy.
- Title/opening credits—Titles are chosen carefully—consider alternatives and why this title was chosen; consider ambiguities in the title (“His Girl Friday,” a film with a strong, independent female protagonist). The opening credits establish a tone, and often are used to foreshadow events, themes, or metaphors—pay careful attention from the beginning.
- Story/Plot/Narrative—The narrative provides the basic structure by which a feature film is understood. (Most documentaries also have narratives.) The narrative consists of the story and the plot. The story consists of all of the information conveyed by the film (either directly or by inference) assembled in chronological order to communicate the overall sense of what occurred in the film. The diegesis is the entire world of the story. A film's diegesis may have a different logic than the "real" world, but as long as their is proper motivation (see below) it will make sense to the viewer. Diegetic elements are found explicitly or implicitly in the world of the story; non- or extra-diegetic elements (the soundtrack, the title, a voice-over, an audience's expectations of a star's persona) are outside the story. The plot provides the cause and effect relations that cue the audience and create suspense, surprise, and fulfill expectations. While dialogue provides a good deal of information, pay attention to all the other audio and visual clues that convey information about the narrative.. In considering the narrative structure, note whether the film follows a standard chronological narrative or not and how time is used. What are the key moments and how are they established? What are the climaxes and anticlimaxes? How far ahead is the audience in understanding what is happening to the characters than the characters themselves are? What propels the story forward? What is the pace of the narrative? How do earlier parts of the narrative set up later parts? Where are the key emotive moments when the audience is frightened, enraged, enraptured, feeling vindicated, etc., and how has the narrative helped to establish these feelings? Note when there is a change of knowledge (when characters or the audience become aware of new information) which shifts the hierarchy of knowledge (the relative amount of knowledge characters and the audience have). Does the narrative have a coherent unity, or does it leave the audience feeling unfulfilled or confused? (Sometimes the latter is the mark of an unsuccessful film; sometimes its either an intentional effect to challenge the easy "Hollywood ending" or else the result of the mixed intentions of the various authors.)
- Motivation—"Justification given in the film for the presence of an element. This may appeal to the viewer's knowledge of the real world, to genre conventions, to narrative causality, or to a stylistic pattern within the film." (Bordwell, Thompson) Failure to provide proper motivation challenges the sense of "cinematic realism" in a film. (If a character's personal motivation is explained in a film as a reason for his/her action, that falls under "narrative causality." Do not confuse character motivation as revealed through narrative with your own expectations you bring to the film. Characters are not real people, and do not make choices outside of what is conveyed narratively.) Hollywood films tend to stress perfectly motivated narratives so that every element has a purpose. Discovering the underlying motivation of the narrative often helps explain why audience expectations are fulfilled (or if poorly motivated, unfulfilled.) For example, in the Western Unforgiven, the close-up, eerily lighted shot of Morgan Freeman's/Ned's scars from whipping by Gene Hackman/Little Bill motivates Clint Eastwood's/William Money's slaughter of Hackman and various townsfolk. The shot thus cues the audience's desire for revenge through violence (note the metonymic symbolism of the scarred black body and the whip), despite the supposedly anti-violent theme of the film. Extended definition: click here.
- Motif—The repetition of an element in ways that acquire symbolic meaning for the element. An motif can be a technical feature (a shot angle, a lighting set up), a sound or piece of dialogue or music, or an object.
- Parallelism—Two or more scenes that are similar to each other but which gain meaning because of their differences.
- Characterization—Who are the central characters? How are minor characters used? Are characters thinly or fully drawn, and why? Who in the audience is meant to relate to which characters, and what sort of emotion (fear, pleasure, anxiety) are audience members meant to feel because of this identification? Is there a clear or ambivalent hero or villain? What values do the characters represent, and do they change during the film? Are the characters meant to play a particular “type” and do they play against type at any time?
- Point of view—Is the film in general told from a particular character's point of view, or is it “objective”? Is the film's perspective primarily intellectual or emotional, visionary or “realistic”? Within the film, is a particular shot viewed from a character's point of view ("subjective shot"), and how does the camera technically reinforce the point of view? Who is the audience meant to be focusing on at a particular moment?
- Setting and sets—is the scene shot in a studio sound stage or “on location”? How is the setting integrated into the action, both the larger background and particular props? How is the setting used in composing the shot (verticals and horizantals, windows and doors, the ever popular slats of shades, mirrors, etc.)? How do particular settings (vast mountain ranges, cluttered urban setting) function as signs in order to convey narrative and ideological information? How are colors used?
- Acting style—more obviously mannered (“classical”); intense and psychologically driven (“method”); less affectations and more “natural”? Do particular actors have their own recognizable style or type, and how do the filmmakers use the audience's expectations, either by reaffirming or challenging these expectations? What expectations do "stars" bring to their roles? Do they fulfill or challenge these expectations (playing against type)?
- Costumes (or lack thereof)—note contrasts between characters, changes within film; use of colors. This also includes physiques, hair styles, etc.
- Lighting— Key Light: main lighting, usually placed at a 45 degree angle between camera and subject. Fill Light: Auxiliary lights, usually from the side of the subject, that softens or eliminates shadows and illuminates areas not covered by the Key Light. High Key Lighting is when all the lights are on (typical of musicals and comedies); Low Key Lighting is when one or more of the fill lighting is eliminated, creating more opportunity for shadows. High contrast lighting refers to sharp contrast between light and dark; low contrast refers to shades of gray. Hard lighting creates a harsh light; soft lighting creates a muted, usually more forgiving lighting. "Hard" characters often get hard lighting, and visa versa. Highlighting or spotlighting: pencil-thin beams of light used to illuminate certain parts of a subject, often eyes or other facial features. Backlighting: placing the main source of light behind the subject, silhouetting it, and directing the light toward the camera. Toplighting: lighting from above. Lighting and camera angle are the key means of creating shadows and shadings in black and white films, which are important elements of the overall mise en scene when conveying meaning. All of the above terms are bipolar, when in fact many lighting setups lie somewhere in between.
- Diffuser/Filter: A gelatin plate that is placed in front of light to change the effect. (Whether to cast a shadow or soften the light, for instance.)
- Tone—bright, sharp colors; grainy and black and white: hazy? If black and white when color was available, why would the film makers make this choice?
- Film speed—slow or fast motion used? film speed reversed?
- Camera Angle—The angle at which the camera is pointed at the subject: low (shot from below), high (shot from above), or eye-level (includes extreme low and high angle shots). This creates the angle of vision—the point of view—for the audience, and is often used to establish character's level of power and control (high angle shots can make character seem diminished), but there are many other uses as well.
- Tracking, Panning, and Tilt—Tracking shot moves the camera either sideways or in and out. The camera can be mounted on a "dolly," "handheld" to create a jerkier effect, mounted on a crane and moved in all directions within a limited range, or in a helicopter, train, car, plane, etc. for other effects. Panning swings the camera horizontally, tilt swigs it vertically. These effects are often used simultaneously.
- Angle of View/lens—The angle of the shot created by the lens. A wide angle lens presents broad views of subjects, and makes possible a large depth of field (many planes of action) as well as a deep focus shot. A normal lens (35 mm) can only focus on one plane at a time. A telephoto lens has a very narrow angle of views which acts like a telescope to focus faraway subjects and flattens the view.
- Focus—"Shallow focus" uses sharp focus on the characters or things in one area of the shot and soft (blurred) focus in the rest. "Deep focus" brings out the detail in all areas of the shot. "Focus In" gradually "zooms" in on the subject, "focus out" gradually "zooms" out (these are known as “focus pulls”). Rack focus is an extremely fast focus pull that changes focus from one image/character to another by changing the focus to a different plane.
- Shot distance—Full shot, three-quarters shot, mid- or half-shot, close-up and extreme close-up for shots of bodies; (extreme) long-shot, mid-shot, (extreme) close-up to describe more general. Can be used to create sense of isolation (extreme long shot of character in a desert) or great pain, anger or joy (extreme close-up of character's face). Choice of lens (see above) can create strange effects (wide angle close up extends and distorts image at the edges, like a funhouse mirror; telephoto lens used in long shots flatten distances and putting background out of focus.
- Frame—the border that contains the image. Can be “open” (with characters moving in and out); “moving” (using focus, tracking, panning); “canted” (at odd angles, unbalanced shot composition).
- Shot composition—The relation of the elements of mise-en-scene to the frame. Small frames used with close-ups can create sense of claustrophobia, often enhanced by the set (low ceilings, numerous props and furnishings) and lighting. The set can also be used to frame the shot in other ways (lamps, flags, etc. on either side; a bed out-of-focus at the bottom of the frame) as can characters (as signs of intimidation, marginality, support, etc.) These types of shots are unbalanced. Look also for shots that are perfectly symmetrical.
- Editing pace—within a sequence, from long takes (the opening credits of The Graduate) to “accelerated montage” (the chase scene of Bullit); within the film in general, to establish overall tone. Since the “natural” state of a Hollywood film movement, long takes coupled with a still camera can be used to increase intensity of a shot, make the audience uncomfortable, etc.
- Establishing shot—Initial shot in a scene that establishes location, characters, and purpose of the scene.
- Shot/counter shot—standard device used during dialogue between two characters; often starts with a “two-shot” of the two characters, then moves back and forth. Combined with camera angle, shot distance, and pace to establish point of view. Note when this standard device is not used, and for what purpose. Note when the person speaking is not viewed, or only back is viewed.
- Reaction shot—Quick cut to pick up character's reaction to an event. Lack of reaction shot when it seems logical should be noted.
- Jump Cut—A cut that occurs within a scene (rather than between scenes) that removes part of a shot. This shot is often done for effect by making the cut obvious and disrupting the invisible editing of Hollywood style.
- Freeze Frame—A freeze shot, which is achieved by printing a single frame many times in succession to give the illusion of a still photograph.
- Crosscutting—A shot inserted in a scene to show action happening elsewhere at the same time.
- Cutaway—A cut within a shot to a location that links the action of the shot and condenses time (for example, a reaction shot of a woman watching a man climb some stairs, cutting out a flight in between the shots).
- Match Cut—A cut in which two shots are linked by visual, aural, or metaphorical parallelism.
- Scenes—An end of a scene is usually marked by a number of possible devices, including fade-ins and fade-outs (which may include a quick cut or a fade to black—note the length of time the blackout is maintained, which often implies significance of preceding scene, or else a long passage of time); wipe (a line moves across the screen, usually used in older films); dissolve (a new shot briefly superimposed on an old shot), often used to express continuity or connections (for example, the “stump scene” in Shane).
- Sequence—A series of scenes that fit together narratively or representationally
- Accelerated montage—a series of quick cuts that relate a variety of shots from different locations into a coherent story or
- Dialogue—Is it overlapping, mumbled, very soft or loud?
- Sound effects—both the effects themselves (a doorbell ringing) and the manipulation of the sound (stereo effects which move sounds across the sound spectrum, or balance sounds on one side or the other; filtering and manipulating sounds).
- Score—the background music used throughout the film. The score often maintains and manipulates a similar theme at various times (especially in older films), and is often used in relation to the narrative structure. Particular motifs or themes may be used in relation to particular characters.
- Sound Bridge—Connects scenes or sequences by a sound that continues through the visual transition.
- Directsound refers to sound that is recorded at the time the scene is shot (usually dialogue, although audio inserts are possible. All audio inserts would be post-synchronous sound.).
- Postsychronous sound refers to sound that is recorded and placed on the film audio track after the scene is shot (virtually all scores). Most non-dialogue sounds are inserted after production (for example, footsteps), as well as a fair amount of dialogue that is either inserted when characters are not shown speaking onscreen, or simply pasted over sections that the are deemed to need improvement.
- Diegetic sound is heard within the film's diegesis (dialogue, a shot from a gun on screen).
- Off-screensound appears within the film's diegesis but not within the frame (extending off-screen space).
- Non-diegetic sound is heard outside of the film's diegesis (such as film scores and voice-overs). A pop song that seems to be part of a the soundtrack but is found to be coming from, say, a car radio, is a diagetic sound and is an element worth noting.
- Simultaneous sound is heard at the same time the action happens on screen.
- Non-simultaneous sound is heard before or after the action happens on-screen
- David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art, 6th Ed. (McGraw-Hill)
- Monaco, James. How to Read a Film: The Art, Technology, Language, History, and Theory of Film and Media. Revised Edition (Oxford U. Press: 1981).
- Stephen Prince, Movies and Meaning: An Introduction to Film
- Corrigan, Timothy. A Short Guide to Writing About Film. Second Edition (HarperCollins: 1994)
Other Survival Tips (Notes on Opening Credits):
What to Watch For
The Whole Film
Film Art emphasizes that to appreciate a movie you have to consider it as a whole. Some parts may be intriguing in themselves, but the film operates as a total system, and any part gains its full meaning in that context. This is why we introduce the concepts of overall form (Part Two) and style (Part Three). Whether you're watching a film for diversion or for deeper understanding, as part of an evening's entertainment or as a class assignment, you'll appreciate the film most fully if you have an overall sense of how it's put together. This means developing the habit of thinking of any part, no matter how small, in relation to the rest of the film.
For example, two lines of dialogue from Jerry Maguire have entered everyday American English. "Show me the money!" has become a cliché, while "You complete me" has been parodied in comedy skits. Taken by themselves, they are easy to mock. In the overall film, however, they play complicated roles. "Show me the money!" is at first an amusing line that Rod Tidwell uses to make Jerry swear he'll serve as a good agent for him. Rod wants to amass money to keep his family secure in the years when he can no longer play football. This is a businesslike attitude, but we've already seen that one side of Jerry doesn't want the sports business to be wholly about money. He has glimpsed the possibility of actually serving his clients as friends. So even though Jerry agrees to help Rod get a bigger paycheck, we can anticipate a conflict coming up. As the plot develops, Rod will learn that his search for bigger paychecks demands that he think not only of himself and his family but his team.
"You complete me" first appears when Jerry and Dorothy have quit the firm they work for and watch a loving deaf-mute couple signs to each other. Dorothy knows American Sign Language and can interpret their gestures–a piece of knowledge that tells us that she's a sympathetic person. More generally, the line works as a summation of both Dorothy's and Jerry's situations. She is moved by his "mission statement," which shows that her idealism finds an outlet in his dream of a personalized sports agency. Jerry, on the other hand, must come to understand what Dorothy offers him. He loves her son and she has bolstered his confidence, but he is not ready to love her fully. Dorothy guides him toward becoming, in her words, "the man he almost is." By the end of the film, when he declares, "You complete me" in front of a room full of women with unhappy relationships, he admits that he needs her to fulfil the best side of himself. As with "Show me the money!" the line gains its deepest meaning in the overall development of the plot.
The overall context of a movie can make any element significant. Consider credit sequences. (See "A Closer Look," pp. 98-99.) At a minimum, credits can set a mood, like an overture in an opera or stage musical. The thunderous, looming title credit of Terminator 2: Judgment Day is stamped in flame-licked steel plates that slowly enlarge while metallic percussion hammers out a frantic pulse. The shot evokes the flames of nuclear war, the danger of physical action, a battle against machines, and the film's concern with humanizing its cyborg. By contrast, as we point out in Film Art (p. 431), the candy box title cards of Meet Me in St. Louis evoke nostalgia for cozy family life at the turn of the last century. For Se7en, David Fincher wanted to set up anxiety in the spectator from the start, especially since the villain appears rather late in the film, so he commissioned graphic designer Kyle Cooper to create fast-cut, scratch-and-burn credits which suggest mutilation and madness.
At the Very Start: Logos and Opening Credits
Most theatrical motion pictures begin in a standardized way. First are the logos identifying the distributor and the production company. The major distributors have logos known around the world–the Paramount mountain, the MGM lion, Columbia's Lady Liberty, the Warner Bros. shield, the Universal globe, and the enormous futuristic letters of Twentieth Century Fox. The production company responsible for the film also tries to present a vivid, memorable image, as when Spielberg's Amblin Company recycles the silhouette of the bicycle against the moon from ET. In addition, an introductory logo can play a formal, stylistic, or thematic role in the film. The Paramount peak dissolves into a real mountain at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and in the opening of The Matrix the Warner Brothers shield loses its bright blue and yellow tones and becomes a gloomy circuit-board green suitable for the cyberspace adventure which follows.
Until the 1950s, a feature film followed a set format: lengthy credits at the very start, a "The End" title at the close, often followed by a shot listing cast members and their roles. In the 1950s, some films began to have "precredits" sequences, one or two scenes which whetted the viewer's interest before the opening credits. Later filmmakers hit upon one strategy that's still common: Start the plot immediately but present the credits superimposed over the action we see, as in Jerry Maguire. Likewise, few films today include a "The End" title, since a long fade-out and a surge of music are enough to suggest that the plot has finished.
For many decades the credits listed were quite selective. Nearly all of the hundreds of workers who participated in making the film were long-term studio employees, and so they went uncredited. When studios became chiefly distribution companies in the 1960s and 1970s, all workers, from stars down to carpenters and grips, became freelance workers, and they were able to negotiate a credit line. Now everyone who works on the movie, in any capacity, must be credited by name. As a result, a new format arose. The opening credits (also called the "main title") lists key personnel: main stars, screenwriters, cinematographer, composer, special-effects creators, editors, producers, and–last by tradition–director. The full credits (or "end title") rolls at the film's conclusion, almost always in small white type on a black background. For the major participants, the size, sequence, and placement of the credits are negotiated contractually.
Credits can also anticipate motifs that will arise in the film's story. Several of Hitchcock's films had credits designed by Saul Bass, who had a genius for finding a graphic design to epitomize aspects of the film. Bass created the spiraling opening imagery of Vertigo, which introduces the motif of vision (an enlarged eye) and the hero's fear of falling (the sinister tower). Bass filled the opening frames of North by Northwest with crosshatched parallels, which first evoke latitude and longitude lines (this movie will be about traveling) and then become the grid of a New York City skyscraper's facade. Bass's simpler horizontal credits for Psycho, blocks of white zipping on and offscreen against a black background, anticipate the window blinds and the highway line markers of the film's first part.
Kyle Cooper's credits for Mission Impossible also anticipate upcoming action, sandwiching names among a flurry of images that will be seen later in the film, all introducing key elements of treachery and romance. (It's as if the credits sequence became a trailer for the movie.) The stick-figure cartoons opening Catch Me If You Can highlight motifs of pursuit and flirtation, and the whole sequence evokes the 1960s, when the film's action takes place and when such animated credits were common.
Similarly, end credits can participate in the overall film's development. Just as opening credits may unfold during a scene, the film's epilogue may appear as closing credits are rolling. Silence of theLambs holds the audience through all its final credits by presenting a lengthy shot of Hannibal Lecter pursuing the doctor who once had charge of him, and both fade into a crowd, suggesting that the doctor will be Lecter's next victim. The closing titles of Armageddon are wedged into home-video-style footage of the young couple's wedding, a scene which brings the plot to a close. A Bug's Life charmed audiences with its final credits, which parodied the "NG" ("No Good," or blooper) shots that used to accompany comedies.
And some filmmakers cunningly add material after the final credits, as if rewarding devoted viewers who didn't rush for the exit. Airplane! was one of the first films to save a gag for the very end of the credits, a device exploited by John Hughes in several later films. Takeshi Kitano, by contrast, adds a lyrical landscape shot to the final credits for Sonatine, softening the harshness of the plot's conclusion. Each part of a film, even its very first or very last moments, can contribute to its overall effect.
Where to Watch
The Theater Experience
Part of the pleasure of movies is the very experience of going out to a movie theater. "I like to stand in line like everyone else," says Steven Spielberg, "because that creates anticipation. Buying the popcorn and the soft drinks heightens the anticipation." The presence of other moviegoers can also make a weak movie enjoyable. "If the audience likes it and you don't," Spielberg points out, "they'll encourage you to see beyond your own prejudices and enjoy it more than you would if you saw it alone." Comedies particularly benefit from a large audience. Watched alone in one's living room, There's Something about Mary can seem sluggish, but when seen with a crowd it can elicit virtually nonstop laughter.
For much of film history, the feature was only one part of the show. The feature was accompanied by newsreels, scientific films, comedy shorts (with stars like the Three Stooges and the Little Rascals), cartoons, and even live acts. In the 1930s, American theaters held contests and giveaways, sometimes interrupting the movie for a stage show. Television changed all that by providing news, cartoons, variety shows, quiz programs, and educational documentaries for free. By the 1970s, theatrical movies were accompanied by very few extras. There might be local advertisements, commercials for national brands like Coca-Cola, and a brief introductory film promoting the exhibition chain to which the theater belonged. There would, however, always be short films announcing other features playing in town or soon to arrive. Audiences call these "coming attractions" or "previews," while the industry calls them "trailers" (because they used to "trail" the feature).
Today producing a trailer for a mainstream Hollywood release can cost half a million dollars. Why is this a good investment? Because trailers are central to marketing the film. They target people who have already shown themselves to be moviegoers. The trailer can also be aimed directly at certain tastes, so that a trailer for an upcoming horror release can accompany a horror movie. Very often, exhibitors are obliged to show a trailer for a film from the distributor that supplied the feature. The Artisan company piggybacked several trailers onto the prints of The Blair Witch Project, so that film's success helped promote upcoming Artisan releases.
There are two kinds of trailers. One is called a "teaser" because it is very short—perhaps only thirty seconds—and gives the audience merely a hint about the film. There might be a few shots, atmospheric music, and the film's logo, as well as its official website's URL. Some teasers include specially shot footage that won't appear in the film, as did South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut. Teasers, which are most common for U.S. summer releases, may appear several months before the film opens.
The standard trailer runs two to three minutes. Even though it is usually cut very fast, it tries to give a fuller sense of the film than a teaser does. It identifies the stars, points up the genre the film belongs to, and sketches story lines. Sometimes trailers supply too much: Many moviegoers complain that trailers now give away important plot twists.
Trailers are assembled out of alternative takes from the shooting stage, so they usually don't show exactly the shots you'll see in the finished film. Sometimes a trailer's images and lines of dialogue don't end up in the film as released, because last-minute changes have altered them. Music, one of the last elements of postproduction, is seldom fully represented in the trailer, which may use generic background music, some easily available classics (Carmina Burana and Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings are favorites), or tracks from earlier movies (Alien and The Thin Red Line frequently show up). Similarly, since most special-effects shots are finished quite late in the production, a trailer may lack many of the film's visual splendors.
Trailers intensify the anticipation that Spielberg identifies as so central to the moviegoing experience. Star Wars fans attended Meet Joe Black again and again just to watch the trailer for The Phantom Menace, so the trailer helped Meet Joe Black's business. George Lucas, knowing that some fans would try to buy or steal the trailer, insisted that theaters that didn't return the trailers wouldn't be shipped the feature! The expansion of the Internet has allowed film companies to run trailers on their websites, sometimes also allowing fans to download them. Specialized websites, such as iTunes Movie Trailers and Comingsoon.net feature hundreds of trailers, and most appear on YouTube as well.
This strategy of intensifying audience buzz has been taken a step further by Andy and Larry Wachowski. They created Animatrix, a series of custom-designed shorts released on the Net before the premiere of The Matrix Reloaded. These shorts, gathered into a DVD with other material, would create another piece of collectible merchandise promoting the movie.
Home Video
Film Art discusses the differences between film on film and film on video versions (pp. 21-23). There's little to add here, but we can make some recommendations:
DVDs offer not only superior sound and image quality; they also provide information that can enhance our knowledge of how films are made. It's now routine for DVDs to include extra materials: trailers, posters, backgrounds on stars and directors, music videos, and "Making-of" promotional shorts. Some add voice-over tracks in which participants talk about how a scene was shot or cut. Animated films or films using computer-generated special effects often add material showing, step-by-step, how the final imagery was achieve.
The Matrix and Fight Club were among early bonus-laden discs, but they have since been joined by Monsters Inc., Minority Report, and perhaps the all-time champ, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. This multi-disk set included not only outtakes but also extra footage shot by many cameras, enabling viewers to review the choices made by the editors. DVD versions of less prestigious films can also provide valuable background information. Barbet Schroeder's audio commentary on Murder by Numbers takes the viewer through production rather carefully, discussing shooting out of continuity and explaining how decisions about framing were constrained by the lighting and setting. (For more recommendations of useful DVD supplements, see the "Beyond praise" and "Beyond Praise 2: DVD supplements that really tell you something" series on our blog, Observations on Film Art, as well as the DVD recommendations at the end of each chapter of Film Art.)
Thanks to movie channels on cable and satellite television, viewers can gain further insights into the filmmaking process. Apart from one-off specials and documentaries, two channels regularly supply in-depth background on filmmaking. The Independent Film Channel's series With the Filmmaker documents a director's work on a project, while each episode of the Sundance Channel's Anatomy of a Scene dissects a single sequence, comparing the inputs provided by various members of the creative team.
Movies on the Internet
Some films have been available on the Internet since the late 1990s, but the corner was turned in 1999 with a rush of innovations. Short downloadable movies became available on ifilm and atomfilms; Sightsound.com provided the first rentable digital feature (the independent π); fans posted pirated copies of The Phantom Menace and The Matrix; and the first film was produced for Internet distribution (The Quantum Project). By 2003, hundreds of pirated movie copies were available for download, and major distributors were still working out a business plan to distribute films via broadband net access. In 2008, Netflix made unlimited downloads available to its customers, though these required a special box to be shown on a TV set. Increasingly TV monitors, Blu-ray players, and game consoles will contain built-in connectivity. Yet a movie consumes 4-8 gigabytes of data, and the ability to download DVD-quality video depends on the speed of a consumer's internet connection.
Still, some commentators, such as critic Roger Ebert, predict that movies via the Internet will create a new level of exhibition. A studio might choose to release a film simultaneously to theaters and to the Net, offering Net access for a lower price—a bit like publishing both paperback and hardcover versions of a novel at the same time. A viewer who saw the film on the Net and liked it might well decide to go see it in a theater for the full experience. Many independent films are already released to theaters and on the internet on the same day. Some marginal films are released only to the Net, the way some books are published only in paperback. In any case, films made for the Net or released via the Net will still have those qualities of form, style, and theme displayed in theatrical films.
Local Film Culture
Don't become so dependent on suburban multiplexes, home video, and your modem that you neglect to look around your community. Many cities and towns, as well as college campuses, have a stimulating local film culture. It takes no more than a glance at a newspaper or website to discover exciting cinema activities taking place around you.
Student groups. Student government, academic departments, or interest groups enrich campuses with films and visiting speakers. Alumni or alumnae who have found success in the film industry may return to talk about their work. If your campus doesn't have a group bringing the films you want to see, why not start one?
Museums and art centers often have continuing film programs, usually screening on weekends. Many of these institutions have become world-famous for giving audiences access to hard-to-see cinema. The Film Center at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, for instance, has a tradition of screening films from Hong Kong and Iran. The Institute for Contemporary Art in London plays host to extraordinary programs of experimental cinema. Toronto's Cinémathèque Ontario, Philadelphia's Museum of Contemporary Art, Harvard's Film Archive, the American Cinémathèque of Los Angeles, the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, London's National Film Theatre of the British Film Institute—these and many other centers provide viewers a feast of films and filmmakers.
Festivals. You may not be able to jet into Sundance (late January), Cannes (mid-May), or Venice (late August), but internationally there are thousands of other annual showcases of unusual filmmaking, and some probably take place near you. Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Miami, Austin, Seattle, Fort Lauderdale, and many other North American cities hold large annual festivals. So do cities in England (London, Cambridge, Sheffield, Manchester), Scotland (Edinburgh), Ireland (Dublin, Cork), New Zealand (Auckland, Wellington), and Australia (Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney). Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America host dozens of festivals. Many cities are also getting into the act. You can attend festivals in Charleston, South Carolina; Bradford, U.K.; Athens, Georgia; Indianapolis, Indiana; Calgary, Canada; Darlinghurst, Australia; Maitland, Florida; and Madison, Wisconsin.
Festivals often focus on a theme or genre. There are festivals devoted to animation, fantasy and science fiction, film noir ("Shots in the Dark" in Nottingham, U.K.), Asian culture, African culture, first-time directors, gay and lesbian life, documentaries, the environment, human rights, experimental film, and film restoration. There's even a festival for films rejected by other festivals (The Rough and Ruined Film Festival, held in Amsterdam, Vancouver, and Minneapolis every summer). Whatever your film tastes, there are probably festivals addressing them.
Film festivals carry the excitement of moviegoing to a high pitch. Audiences are enthusiastic, often cheering brand-new releases or recent restorations. Filmmakers show up to answer questions, and most are approachable. Innumerable friendships have been forged while standing on line for a late-night festival screening.
You can learn about festivals you might visit from Adam Langer's Film Festival Guide (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 1998) and Chris Gore's Ultimate Film Festival Survival Guide 3rd ed. (Los Angeles: Lone Eagle, 2004). For information on festival dates in your neighborhood, search "film festival lists" or "film festival listings."
The best single source of information about world film culture—festivals, archives, awards, books, film schools, and national cinemas—is the annual International Film Guide, edited by Peter Cowie and published annually by Wallflower press.
How to Watch
Developing Memory and Taking Notes
Film Art is devoted to showing you what to watch for in a film, but if you intend to write about a movie, you will want to watch with particular concentration. One strategy is to start to develop a film memory. Some people are naturally endowed with an ability to recall lines of dialogue, but anyone can increase what she or he retains from experiencing a movie. You can decide to notice certain aspects of film technique.
For example, once you decide to watch for patterns of color in the set design and cinematography of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, you will note that locales are differentiated. Cinematographer Andrew Lesnie and his team manipulated the images digitally to create vivid contrasts. The idyllic world of the Shire was filmed in a lush rural setting, but in post-production the filmmakers boosted the yellow-green tones to create a spring-like look. That look disappears abruptly in the night forest, lit with harsh blue light, as the hobbits are attacked by Black Riders. The orange of the flames in Bilbo Baggins' fireplace in early scenes differs from the slightly green hue added to the fire in the threatening Prancing Pony inn. The arrival in Rivendell introduces a more autumnal look, while the Fellowship's failed attempt to pass over the mountains takes place in blindingly white snow. Immediately after that, the group enters the gloomy Mines of Moria. Lesnie and director Peter Jackson have explained that they tried to suggest the terror of the place by bleaching out the faces' flesh tones to create an almost corpselike look. You can trace such patterns and contrasts through the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy. As digital technology simplifies post-production treatment of footage, more films will make use of such motivic manipulations of color.
Some people say that watching for technique distracts them from the story, and it is true that many movies try not to call attention to their style. But you can learn to watch for both technique and story. It's multitasking, like driving a car while carrying on a conversation. It just takes practice.
Still, at any moment a lot is going on in a movie; it's hard to watch for everything at once. That's why it's good to concentrate on certain elements. In addition, if you want to study a movie, either for writing or just in order to deepen your understanding, you'll want to watch it several times. We all know how the movies we love reveal unexpected pleasures on repeated viewings. A scene you didn't much care for becomes a new favorite after you understand what purposes it serves. Subtleties of plot or performance stand out when you know what's coming up next.
Repeated viewings are essential if you plan to write about the film, and so is note taking. Because movies are dense with all kinds of visual and sonic information, notes help you recall key points. How do you take notes? If you're watching the film on video, no problem; you can stop, reverse, and replay as much as you like. Sometimes, though, you'll have to write during a screening. Here you shouldn't aim for perfect penmanship, since you're the only person who'll have to decipher your scratches. Try writing without dropping your eyes from the screen; you'll be surprised how legible the results can be. You may want to use a light-tipped pen (available in office supply stores), which casts a small beam on the page to guide your writing without disturbing others.
But, you're probably asking, if I can't capture everything, what do I take notes on? That depends on your writing project, which is the subject of the next section of this manual.
The Whole Film
Film Art emphasizes that to appreciate a movie you have to consider it as a whole. Some parts may be intriguing in themselves, but the film operates as a total system, and any part gains its full meaning in that context. This is why we introduce the concepts of overall form (Part Two) and style (Part Three). Whether you're watching a film for diversion or for deeper understanding, as part of an evening's entertainment or as a class assignment, you'll appreciate the film most fully if you have an overall sense of how it's put together. This means developing the habit of thinking of any part, no matter how small, in relation to the rest of the film.
For example, two lines of dialogue from Jerry Maguire have entered everyday American English. "Show me the money!" has become a cliché, while "You complete me" has been parodied in comedy skits. Taken by themselves, they are easy to mock. In the overall film, however, they play complicated roles. "Show me the money!" is at first an amusing line that Rod Tidwell uses to make Jerry swear he'll serve as a good agent for him. Rod wants to amass money to keep his family secure in the years when he can no longer play football. This is a businesslike attitude, but we've already seen that one side of Jerry doesn't want the sports business to be wholly about money. He has glimpsed the possibility of actually serving his clients as friends. So even though Jerry agrees to help Rod get a bigger paycheck, we can anticipate a conflict coming up. As the plot develops, Rod will learn that his search for bigger paychecks demands that he think not only of himself and his family but his team.
"You complete me" first appears when Jerry and Dorothy have quit the firm they work for and watch a loving deaf-mute couple signs to each other. Dorothy knows American Sign Language and can interpret their gestures–a piece of knowledge that tells us that she's a sympathetic person. More generally, the line works as a summation of both Dorothy's and Jerry's situations. She is moved by his "mission statement," which shows that her idealism finds an outlet in his dream of a personalized sports agency. Jerry, on the other hand, must come to understand what Dorothy offers him. He loves her son and she has bolstered his confidence, but he is not ready to love her fully. Dorothy guides him toward becoming, in her words, "the man he almost is." By the end of the film, when he declares, "You complete me" in front of a room full of women with unhappy relationships, he admits that he needs her to fulfil the best side of himself. As with "Show me the money!" the line gains its deepest meaning in the overall development of the plot.
The overall context of a movie can make any element significant. Consider credit sequences. (See "A Closer Look," pp. 98-99.) At a minimum, credits can set a mood, like an overture in an opera or stage musical. The thunderous, looming title credit of Terminator 2: Judgment Day is stamped in flame-licked steel plates that slowly enlarge while metallic percussion hammers out a frantic pulse. The shot evokes the flames of nuclear war, the danger of physical action, a battle against machines, and the film's concern with humanizing its cyborg. By contrast, as we point out in Film Art (p. 431), the candy box title cards of Meet Me in St. Louis evoke nostalgia for cozy family life at the turn of the last century. For Se7en, David Fincher wanted to set up anxiety in the spectator from the start, especially since the villain appears rather late in the film, so he commissioned graphic designer Kyle Cooper to create fast-cut, scratch-and-burn credits which suggest mutilation and madness.
At the Very Start: Logos and Opening Credits
Most theatrical motion pictures begin in a standardized way. First are the logos identifying the distributor and the production company. The major distributors have logos known around the world–the Paramount mountain, the MGM lion, Columbia's Lady Liberty, the Warner Bros. shield, the Universal globe, and the enormous futuristic letters of Twentieth Century Fox. The production company responsible for the film also tries to present a vivid, memorable image, as when Spielberg's Amblin Company recycles the silhouette of the bicycle against the moon from ET. In addition, an introductory logo can play a formal, stylistic, or thematic role in the film. The Paramount peak dissolves into a real mountain at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and in the opening of The Matrix the Warner Brothers shield loses its bright blue and yellow tones and becomes a gloomy circuit-board green suitable for the cyberspace adventure which follows.
Until the 1950s, a feature film followed a set format: lengthy credits at the very start, a "The End" title at the close, often followed by a shot listing cast members and their roles. In the 1950s, some films began to have "precredits" sequences, one or two scenes which whetted the viewer's interest before the opening credits. Later filmmakers hit upon one strategy that's still common: Start the plot immediately but present the credits superimposed over the action we see, as in Jerry Maguire. Likewise, few films today include a "The End" title, since a long fade-out and a surge of music are enough to suggest that the plot has finished.
For many decades the credits listed were quite selective. Nearly all of the hundreds of workers who participated in making the film were long-term studio employees, and so they went uncredited. When studios became chiefly distribution companies in the 1960s and 1970s, all workers, from stars down to carpenters and grips, became freelance workers, and they were able to negotiate a credit line. Now everyone who works on the movie, in any capacity, must be credited by name. As a result, a new format arose. The opening credits (also called the "main title") lists key personnel: main stars, screenwriters, cinematographer, composer, special-effects creators, editors, producers, and–last by tradition–director. The full credits (or "end title") rolls at the film's conclusion, almost always in small white type on a black background. For the major participants, the size, sequence, and placement of the credits are negotiated contractually.
Credits can also anticipate motifs that will arise in the film's story. Several of Hitchcock's films had credits designed by Saul Bass, who had a genius for finding a graphic design to epitomize aspects of the film. Bass created the spiraling opening imagery of Vertigo, which introduces the motif of vision (an enlarged eye) and the hero's fear of falling (the sinister tower). Bass filled the opening frames of North by Northwest with crosshatched parallels, which first evoke latitude and longitude lines (this movie will be about traveling) and then become the grid of a New York City skyscraper's facade. Bass's simpler horizontal credits for Psycho, blocks of white zipping on and offscreen against a black background, anticipate the window blinds and the highway line markers of the film's first part.
Kyle Cooper's credits for Mission Impossible also anticipate upcoming action, sandwiching names among a flurry of images that will be seen later in the film, all introducing key elements of treachery and romance. (It's as if the credits sequence became a trailer for the movie.) The stick-figure cartoons opening Catch Me If You Can highlight motifs of pursuit and flirtation, and the whole sequence evokes the 1960s, when the film's action takes place and when such animated credits were common.
Similarly, end credits can participate in the overall film's development. Just as opening credits may unfold during a scene, the film's epilogue may appear as closing credits are rolling. Silence of theLambs holds the audience through all its final credits by presenting a lengthy shot of Hannibal Lecter pursuing the doctor who once had charge of him, and both fade into a crowd, suggesting that the doctor will be Lecter's next victim. The closing titles of Armageddon are wedged into home-video-style footage of the young couple's wedding, a scene which brings the plot to a close. A Bug's Life charmed audiences with its final credits, which parodied the "NG" ("No Good," or blooper) shots that used to accompany comedies.
And some filmmakers cunningly add material after the final credits, as if rewarding devoted viewers who didn't rush for the exit. Airplane! was one of the first films to save a gag for the very end of the credits, a device exploited by John Hughes in several later films. Takeshi Kitano, by contrast, adds a lyrical landscape shot to the final credits for Sonatine, softening the harshness of the plot's conclusion. Each part of a film, even its very first or very last moments, can contribute to its overall effect.
Where to Watch
The Theater Experience
Part of the pleasure of movies is the very experience of going out to a movie theater. "I like to stand in line like everyone else," says Steven Spielberg, "because that creates anticipation. Buying the popcorn and the soft drinks heightens the anticipation." The presence of other moviegoers can also make a weak movie enjoyable. "If the audience likes it and you don't," Spielberg points out, "they'll encourage you to see beyond your own prejudices and enjoy it more than you would if you saw it alone." Comedies particularly benefit from a large audience. Watched alone in one's living room, There's Something about Mary can seem sluggish, but when seen with a crowd it can elicit virtually nonstop laughter.
For much of film history, the feature was only one part of the show. The feature was accompanied by newsreels, scientific films, comedy shorts (with stars like the Three Stooges and the Little Rascals), cartoons, and even live acts. In the 1930s, American theaters held contests and giveaways, sometimes interrupting the movie for a stage show. Television changed all that by providing news, cartoons, variety shows, quiz programs, and educational documentaries for free. By the 1970s, theatrical movies were accompanied by very few extras. There might be local advertisements, commercials for national brands like Coca-Cola, and a brief introductory film promoting the exhibition chain to which the theater belonged. There would, however, always be short films announcing other features playing in town or soon to arrive. Audiences call these "coming attractions" or "previews," while the industry calls them "trailers" (because they used to "trail" the feature).
Today producing a trailer for a mainstream Hollywood release can cost half a million dollars. Why is this a good investment? Because trailers are central to marketing the film. They target people who have already shown themselves to be moviegoers. The trailer can also be aimed directly at certain tastes, so that a trailer for an upcoming horror release can accompany a horror movie. Very often, exhibitors are obliged to show a trailer for a film from the distributor that supplied the feature. The Artisan company piggybacked several trailers onto the prints of The Blair Witch Project, so that film's success helped promote upcoming Artisan releases.
There are two kinds of trailers. One is called a "teaser" because it is very short—perhaps only thirty seconds—and gives the audience merely a hint about the film. There might be a few shots, atmospheric music, and the film's logo, as well as its official website's URL. Some teasers include specially shot footage that won't appear in the film, as did South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut. Teasers, which are most common for U.S. summer releases, may appear several months before the film opens.
The standard trailer runs two to three minutes. Even though it is usually cut very fast, it tries to give a fuller sense of the film than a teaser does. It identifies the stars, points up the genre the film belongs to, and sketches story lines. Sometimes trailers supply too much: Many moviegoers complain that trailers now give away important plot twists.
Trailers are assembled out of alternative takes from the shooting stage, so they usually don't show exactly the shots you'll see in the finished film. Sometimes a trailer's images and lines of dialogue don't end up in the film as released, because last-minute changes have altered them. Music, one of the last elements of postproduction, is seldom fully represented in the trailer, which may use generic background music, some easily available classics (Carmina Burana and Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings are favorites), or tracks from earlier movies (Alien and The Thin Red Line frequently show up). Similarly, since most special-effects shots are finished quite late in the production, a trailer may lack many of the film's visual splendors.
Trailers intensify the anticipation that Spielberg identifies as so central to the moviegoing experience. Star Wars fans attended Meet Joe Black again and again just to watch the trailer for The Phantom Menace, so the trailer helped Meet Joe Black's business. George Lucas, knowing that some fans would try to buy or steal the trailer, insisted that theaters that didn't return the trailers wouldn't be shipped the feature! The expansion of the Internet has allowed film companies to run trailers on their websites, sometimes also allowing fans to download them. Specialized websites, such as iTunes Movie Trailers and Comingsoon.net feature hundreds of trailers, and most appear on YouTube as well.
This strategy of intensifying audience buzz has been taken a step further by Andy and Larry Wachowski. They created Animatrix, a series of custom-designed shorts released on the Net before the premiere of The Matrix Reloaded. These shorts, gathered into a DVD with other material, would create another piece of collectible merchandise promoting the movie.
Home Video
Film Art discusses the differences between film on film and film on video versions (pp. 21-23). There's little to add here, but we can make some recommendations:
- When renting, buying, or downloading a video version of a film made since the early 1950s, avoid "fullscreen" versions, which are typically "panned and scanned" to eliminate parts of the widescreen image. Opt instead for the letterboxed video version, which should be identified (usually as "widescreen") on the box. If an opening title declares, "This version has been formatted to fit your TV," you will not be seeing a letterboxed version.
- Some North American video rental chains, notably Blockbuster, often refuse to carry a film unless producers supply a version that eliminates sexual or violent material that was in the theatrical release. These softer versions are usually not labeled as such and may significantly alter dialogue, music, and the images. They aren't reliable for purposes of film study, and even for casual viewing you should search out the original theatrical version.
- A film on video may be available in a "director's cut." Both it and the original release are valid versions of the movie. The original was what audiences saw at the time, and so it has historical significance, but the director's cut is what the filmmaker would have preferred us to see. In some cases, as in Blade Runner, the differences can be substantial. If you are writing about the film, try to see both versions and specify in your piece which one you're concentrating on. Unhappily, it's not always possible to see both versions; for example, with Last of the Mohicans, the director's cut has replaced the theatrical version.
- Keep in mind as you watch a video version that it is pictorially quite different from the original theatrical film. As a rule, color and lighting will be significantly brighter than in the film print. Gray or muted color schemes will look more saturated. Shadow areas will tend to go solid black, whereas in the original film they will darken gradually. Reds may flare. On DVDs and especially Blu-Ray discs, edges may be overly sharp and soft textures may acquire a harder look. DVDs also may create digital artifacts, such as "tiling" during fast action or blooming purples within areas of solid black. Video versions obtaining from the internet, unless they are "DVD quality," may be low-resolution copies that are not suitable for analysis.
- If at all possible, try to see the film on the theater screen before seeing it on video!
DVDs offer not only superior sound and image quality; they also provide information that can enhance our knowledge of how films are made. It's now routine for DVDs to include extra materials: trailers, posters, backgrounds on stars and directors, music videos, and "Making-of" promotional shorts. Some add voice-over tracks in which participants talk about how a scene was shot or cut. Animated films or films using computer-generated special effects often add material showing, step-by-step, how the final imagery was achieve.
The Matrix and Fight Club were among early bonus-laden discs, but they have since been joined by Monsters Inc., Minority Report, and perhaps the all-time champ, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. This multi-disk set included not only outtakes but also extra footage shot by many cameras, enabling viewers to review the choices made by the editors. DVD versions of less prestigious films can also provide valuable background information. Barbet Schroeder's audio commentary on Murder by Numbers takes the viewer through production rather carefully, discussing shooting out of continuity and explaining how decisions about framing were constrained by the lighting and setting. (For more recommendations of useful DVD supplements, see the "Beyond praise" and "Beyond Praise 2: DVD supplements that really tell you something" series on our blog, Observations on Film Art, as well as the DVD recommendations at the end of each chapter of Film Art.)
Thanks to movie channels on cable and satellite television, viewers can gain further insights into the filmmaking process. Apart from one-off specials and documentaries, two channels regularly supply in-depth background on filmmaking. The Independent Film Channel's series With the Filmmaker documents a director's work on a project, while each episode of the Sundance Channel's Anatomy of a Scene dissects a single sequence, comparing the inputs provided by various members of the creative team.
Movies on the Internet
Some films have been available on the Internet since the late 1990s, but the corner was turned in 1999 with a rush of innovations. Short downloadable movies became available on ifilm and atomfilms; Sightsound.com provided the first rentable digital feature (the independent π); fans posted pirated copies of The Phantom Menace and The Matrix; and the first film was produced for Internet distribution (The Quantum Project). By 2003, hundreds of pirated movie copies were available for download, and major distributors were still working out a business plan to distribute films via broadband net access. In 2008, Netflix made unlimited downloads available to its customers, though these required a special box to be shown on a TV set. Increasingly TV monitors, Blu-ray players, and game consoles will contain built-in connectivity. Yet a movie consumes 4-8 gigabytes of data, and the ability to download DVD-quality video depends on the speed of a consumer's internet connection.
Still, some commentators, such as critic Roger Ebert, predict that movies via the Internet will create a new level of exhibition. A studio might choose to release a film simultaneously to theaters and to the Net, offering Net access for a lower price—a bit like publishing both paperback and hardcover versions of a novel at the same time. A viewer who saw the film on the Net and liked it might well decide to go see it in a theater for the full experience. Many independent films are already released to theaters and on the internet on the same day. Some marginal films are released only to the Net, the way some books are published only in paperback. In any case, films made for the Net or released via the Net will still have those qualities of form, style, and theme displayed in theatrical films.
Local Film Culture
Don't become so dependent on suburban multiplexes, home video, and your modem that you neglect to look around your community. Many cities and towns, as well as college campuses, have a stimulating local film culture. It takes no more than a glance at a newspaper or website to discover exciting cinema activities taking place around you.
Student groups. Student government, academic departments, or interest groups enrich campuses with films and visiting speakers. Alumni or alumnae who have found success in the film industry may return to talk about their work. If your campus doesn't have a group bringing the films you want to see, why not start one?
Museums and art centers often have continuing film programs, usually screening on weekends. Many of these institutions have become world-famous for giving audiences access to hard-to-see cinema. The Film Center at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, for instance, has a tradition of screening films from Hong Kong and Iran. The Institute for Contemporary Art in London plays host to extraordinary programs of experimental cinema. Toronto's Cinémathèque Ontario, Philadelphia's Museum of Contemporary Art, Harvard's Film Archive, the American Cinémathèque of Los Angeles, the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, London's National Film Theatre of the British Film Institute—these and many other centers provide viewers a feast of films and filmmakers.
Festivals. You may not be able to jet into Sundance (late January), Cannes (mid-May), or Venice (late August), but internationally there are thousands of other annual showcases of unusual filmmaking, and some probably take place near you. Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Miami, Austin, Seattle, Fort Lauderdale, and many other North American cities hold large annual festivals. So do cities in England (London, Cambridge, Sheffield, Manchester), Scotland (Edinburgh), Ireland (Dublin, Cork), New Zealand (Auckland, Wellington), and Australia (Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney). Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America host dozens of festivals. Many cities are also getting into the act. You can attend festivals in Charleston, South Carolina; Bradford, U.K.; Athens, Georgia; Indianapolis, Indiana; Calgary, Canada; Darlinghurst, Australia; Maitland, Florida; and Madison, Wisconsin.
Festivals often focus on a theme or genre. There are festivals devoted to animation, fantasy and science fiction, film noir ("Shots in the Dark" in Nottingham, U.K.), Asian culture, African culture, first-time directors, gay and lesbian life, documentaries, the environment, human rights, experimental film, and film restoration. There's even a festival for films rejected by other festivals (The Rough and Ruined Film Festival, held in Amsterdam, Vancouver, and Minneapolis every summer). Whatever your film tastes, there are probably festivals addressing them.
Film festivals carry the excitement of moviegoing to a high pitch. Audiences are enthusiastic, often cheering brand-new releases or recent restorations. Filmmakers show up to answer questions, and most are approachable. Innumerable friendships have been forged while standing on line for a late-night festival screening.
You can learn about festivals you might visit from Adam Langer's Film Festival Guide (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 1998) and Chris Gore's Ultimate Film Festival Survival Guide 3rd ed. (Los Angeles: Lone Eagle, 2004). For information on festival dates in your neighborhood, search "film festival lists" or "film festival listings."
The best single source of information about world film culture—festivals, archives, awards, books, film schools, and national cinemas—is the annual International Film Guide, edited by Peter Cowie and published annually by Wallflower press.
How to Watch
Developing Memory and Taking Notes
Film Art is devoted to showing you what to watch for in a film, but if you intend to write about a movie, you will want to watch with particular concentration. One strategy is to start to develop a film memory. Some people are naturally endowed with an ability to recall lines of dialogue, but anyone can increase what she or he retains from experiencing a movie. You can decide to notice certain aspects of film technique.
For example, once you decide to watch for patterns of color in the set design and cinematography of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, you will note that locales are differentiated. Cinematographer Andrew Lesnie and his team manipulated the images digitally to create vivid contrasts. The idyllic world of the Shire was filmed in a lush rural setting, but in post-production the filmmakers boosted the yellow-green tones to create a spring-like look. That look disappears abruptly in the night forest, lit with harsh blue light, as the hobbits are attacked by Black Riders. The orange of the flames in Bilbo Baggins' fireplace in early scenes differs from the slightly green hue added to the fire in the threatening Prancing Pony inn. The arrival in Rivendell introduces a more autumnal look, while the Fellowship's failed attempt to pass over the mountains takes place in blindingly white snow. Immediately after that, the group enters the gloomy Mines of Moria. Lesnie and director Peter Jackson have explained that they tried to suggest the terror of the place by bleaching out the faces' flesh tones to create an almost corpselike look. You can trace such patterns and contrasts through the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy. As digital technology simplifies post-production treatment of footage, more films will make use of such motivic manipulations of color.
Some people say that watching for technique distracts them from the story, and it is true that many movies try not to call attention to their style. But you can learn to watch for both technique and story. It's multitasking, like driving a car while carrying on a conversation. It just takes practice.
Still, at any moment a lot is going on in a movie; it's hard to watch for everything at once. That's why it's good to concentrate on certain elements. In addition, if you want to study a movie, either for writing or just in order to deepen your understanding, you'll want to watch it several times. We all know how the movies we love reveal unexpected pleasures on repeated viewings. A scene you didn't much care for becomes a new favorite after you understand what purposes it serves. Subtleties of plot or performance stand out when you know what's coming up next.
Repeated viewings are essential if you plan to write about the film, and so is note taking. Because movies are dense with all kinds of visual and sonic information, notes help you recall key points. How do you take notes? If you're watching the film on video, no problem; you can stop, reverse, and replay as much as you like. Sometimes, though, you'll have to write during a screening. Here you shouldn't aim for perfect penmanship, since you're the only person who'll have to decipher your scratches. Try writing without dropping your eyes from the screen; you'll be surprised how legible the results can be. You may want to use a light-tipped pen (available in office supply stores), which casts a small beam on the page to guide your writing without disturbing others.
But, you're probably asking, if I can't capture everything, what do I take notes on? That depends on your writing project, which is the subject of the next section of this manual.
More from FilmArt and David Bordwell:
The Screening Report
A screening report usually runs one to two double-spaced pages. Your purpose here is to demonstrate a general familiarity with the film and to show that you understand its relevance to a course topic. You should think of writing two to five paragraphs that explore a single aspect of the film, using examples from your notes.
For instance, suppose that the course is currently studying film genre, and the assignment asks you to submit a screening report pointing out aspects of Halloween that make it typical of the horror film. In a page or two, you can develop only two or three main points, so you should select what is most central to the reading, lectures, and discussions in the course at that point. Suppose that the course has focused on genre conventions. You could then pick out three aspects of Halloween that rely on horror conventions. You might focus on the nature of the monster, the structure of the plot, and the treatment of the female protagonist.
For each of these points you could develop a solid paragraph. Michael Myers, the slasher-figure, might seem to be a mortal man, but he is unstoppable by knives, bullets, and a two-story fall. He seems to fit the definition of a monster as a creature with powers not explainable by ordinary science. Your paragraph could make these points and supply instances of scenes where Michael takes on monstrous invulnerability. Another paragraph might be devoted to plot structure. Like many horror films, Halloween builds its plot around the monster's stalking and killing several characters; here, each of Michael's assaults replays the night he murdered his sister after she had sex with a local boy. This brings up the genre convention of punishing sexually active characters, a common element of 1980s horror (parodied in Scream and its follow-ups). A final paragraph could be devoted to the teenage Laurie, who seems to be a special target of Michael's stalking. Unlike her pals, Laurie is not sexually promiscuous, and she genuinely cares about the children she baby-sits for. As in many horror films (King Kong, Nosferatu), the pure beauty attracts the monster but also plays a role in his downfall.
The thrust of your screening report is descriptive. Instead of developing an original argument, you're showing how the assigned film is relevant to issues being examined in the course. By drawing on clear, powerful examples from your notes, your report can demonstrate not only that you've watched the film with understanding but also that you are actively engaging with the broader ideas in class. The same skill at relating aspects of the movie to issues in the course will be helpful for you in writing essay examination answers.
Key Questions for a Screening Report
The Film Review
The screening report tends to be mainly descriptive, although you may be asked to express an opinion about what is interesting or valuable about the movie. The film review makes evaluation far more central. It is essentially a judgment about the quality of the movie, backed up with enough information to indicate that your judgment is based on good reasons. If you write for a campus newspaper or an online publication, your review will be devoted to a film currently playing in theatres, so you become a consumer adviser, trying to indicate whether the movie is worth buying a ticket for. "I look at films," says Los Angeles Times reviewer Kenneth Turan, "and I provide a point of view on them, for people who are trying to figure out if they want to see the movie or not" (Projections 10, ed. Mike Figgis [London: Faber and Faber, 2000], p. 61).
Professional reviewers like Turan are commonly known as film critics—a term which implies their commitment to making judgments. Yet even though many readers think that film critics are too tough on the movies they see, film criticism isn't devoted to finding fault. The best reviews aren't simply thumbs-up-thumbs-down opinions. For one thing, a good review avoids extreme judgments ("a thoroughly bad movie," "a flawless film"). Most good films aren't perfect, and many weak films have some good points. The sensitive critic tries to take both pluses and minuses into account.
Moreover, most critics recognize that not all readers have the same tastes. One reader might find Titanic thrillingly romantic, but another might find it slushy. So the review might offer something like this: "If you like shameless wallowing in old-fashioned rich-girl-poor-boy romance, you'll love Titanic. For me, a little schmaltz goes a long way."
This acknowledges that the reviewer is aware that the reader might actually enjoy the film that's about to be judged harshly. Readers quickly sense a critic's preferences and tend to follow critics whose tastes they trust to be like their own.
The film review is a genre of journalistic writing, and it depends on certain conventions. There must a brief plot synopsis, suggesting the main conflicts and character developments. Typically, however, the reviewer doesn't divulge the ending. The main characters' names are followed by actor's names in parentheses:
Neo (Keanu Reeves) follows Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) down the rabbit hole into an adventure that calls the very existence of our world into question. (The Matrix) Reviewers are also expected to mention striking aspects of the film: impressive sets or costumes, notable visual qualities such as color design or editing or music, and, above all, acting. Comments on these matters can be given separately or woven into the synopsis ("The hacker Neo, played by Keanu Reeves with his usual unflappably dazed look…."). Reviewers also compare the film at hand with other films that belong to the same genre, which are made by the same filmmaker, or which raise similar thematic issues. This convention demands that the critic be familiar with a wide range of films and some film history.
Perhaps the biggest constraint is brevity. The typical film review runs two to five pages, double-spaced–not a lot of room to develop a complex judgment of a movie. Newspaper critics labor under very tight space restrictions, although magazine critics tend to have more chance to develop their ideas. Many of the most famous film critics, such as Graham Greene in the 1930s and André Bazin and François Truffaut in the 1940s and 1950s, wrote for weekly and monthly publications.
The best reviewers excel as writers. They render their opinions in short, memorable strokes. They devise arresting openings and pointed wrap-ups. To give the flavor of a movie, they aim at vivid descriptions. In a few words they can evoke the look and sound, even the emotional overtones, of a movie. Here is Dwight Macdonald on L'Avventura:
The sound track is a miracle. Instead of relying on "mood music," Antonioni uses everyday sounds, modulating and blending them to get his effects: the wash of waves, dogs barking, trains groaning and clicking along, the harsh confused sounds of a crowd, the panting breath of lovers. In the visit to the deserted town near Noto, silence prevails, punctuated finally by the slamming of the car doors as the baffled searchers drive away. (On Movies [Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969], p. 333)
When a critic wants to point out the defects in a movie, there is no room for a lengthy demolition job. A crisp killer line serves best, as when Pauline Kael's appraises Robert DeNiro's quiet, expressionless acting:
"He could be a potato, except that he's thoroughly absorbed in the process of doing nothing" (Taking It All In [New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, 1984], p. 241).
The reviewer may cultivate a highly personal style. Manny Farber is one of the most distinctive voices in English-language film criticism, mixing tough-guy cynicism with an eye for precise visuals:
There is a half-minute bit in Twelve Angry Men in which the halo-wearing minority vote on the jury, a pinch-faced architect (Henry Fonda), is seen carefully drying each fingernail with a bathroom towel. It is a sharply effective, stalling-for-time type of adverse detailing, showing the jury's one sensitive, thoughtful figure to be unusually prissy. Unfortunately, this mild debunking of the hero is a coldly achieved detail that sits on the surface of the film, unexplored and unimportant. (Negative Space: Manny Farber on the Movies [New York: Da Capo, 1998], p. 122).
Macdonald, Kael, Farber, Andrew Sarris, Phillip Lopate, Vernon Young, and other critics have published collections of their film reviews, and these are worth studying as pieces of careful writing. To get a sense of current reviewing practice, you can examine reviews by Todd McCarthy (Variety), J. Hoberman (The Village Voice), Armond White (The New York Press), A. O. Scott (The New York Times), Richard Corliss (Time), Roger Ebert (The Chicago Sun-Times in print and online at rogerebert.com), Michael Wilmington (online at Movie City News), Jonathan Rosenbaum (now retired, but whose reviews for The Chicago Reader and other publications are available on his website, JonathanRosenbaum.com), Manohla Dargis (New York Times), Lisa Schwartzbaum (Entertainment Weekly), Geoff Andrew (Time Out, London), and Philip French (The Observer, London). Some publications file reviews on their websites. Longer reviews are published in Film Comment and Cineaste (New York), Film Quarterly (Berkeley), Sight & Sound (London), Cinema Papers (Victoria, Australia), 24 Images (Montreal), and CinemaScope (Toronto).
The growth of blogging has meant that many reviews appear only online. Some of the most respected bloggers reviewing films are Jim Emerson at his Scanners site and Dennis Cozzalio at Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule.
Setting up your own review blog might seem an attractive way to get writing practice and draw attention to your work. Be aware, though, that there are thousands of reviewers making their work available online, and most receive only a few visits a day. One alternative is to join a website or a blog that posts reviews written by its members. The biggest such site is Rotten Tomatoes. This site also provides news and links to many reviews of individual titles, both from professionals and amateurs. Key Questions for a Film Review
A screening report usually runs one to two double-spaced pages. Your purpose here is to demonstrate a general familiarity with the film and to show that you understand its relevance to a course topic. You should think of writing two to five paragraphs that explore a single aspect of the film, using examples from your notes.
For instance, suppose that the course is currently studying film genre, and the assignment asks you to submit a screening report pointing out aspects of Halloween that make it typical of the horror film. In a page or two, you can develop only two or three main points, so you should select what is most central to the reading, lectures, and discussions in the course at that point. Suppose that the course has focused on genre conventions. You could then pick out three aspects of Halloween that rely on horror conventions. You might focus on the nature of the monster, the structure of the plot, and the treatment of the female protagonist.
For each of these points you could develop a solid paragraph. Michael Myers, the slasher-figure, might seem to be a mortal man, but he is unstoppable by knives, bullets, and a two-story fall. He seems to fit the definition of a monster as a creature with powers not explainable by ordinary science. Your paragraph could make these points and supply instances of scenes where Michael takes on monstrous invulnerability. Another paragraph might be devoted to plot structure. Like many horror films, Halloween builds its plot around the monster's stalking and killing several characters; here, each of Michael's assaults replays the night he murdered his sister after she had sex with a local boy. This brings up the genre convention of punishing sexually active characters, a common element of 1980s horror (parodied in Scream and its follow-ups). A final paragraph could be devoted to the teenage Laurie, who seems to be a special target of Michael's stalking. Unlike her pals, Laurie is not sexually promiscuous, and she genuinely cares about the children she baby-sits for. As in many horror films (King Kong, Nosferatu), the pure beauty attracts the monster but also plays a role in his downfall.
The thrust of your screening report is descriptive. Instead of developing an original argument, you're showing how the assigned film is relevant to issues being examined in the course. By drawing on clear, powerful examples from your notes, your report can demonstrate not only that you've watched the film with understanding but also that you are actively engaging with the broader ideas in class. The same skill at relating aspects of the movie to issues in the course will be helpful for you in writing essay examination answers.
Key Questions for a Screening Report
- Have you shown how the film is relevant to issues explored in the course or the specific assignment?
- Have you displayed your familiarity with the whole film?
- Have you confined yourself to one, two, or at most three aspects of the film, each one developed in a paragraph or two?
- Have you drawn concrete examples from the film–shots, lines of dialogue, elements of plot or characterization–which support the aspects you've picked out?
The Film Review
The screening report tends to be mainly descriptive, although you may be asked to express an opinion about what is interesting or valuable about the movie. The film review makes evaluation far more central. It is essentially a judgment about the quality of the movie, backed up with enough information to indicate that your judgment is based on good reasons. If you write for a campus newspaper or an online publication, your review will be devoted to a film currently playing in theatres, so you become a consumer adviser, trying to indicate whether the movie is worth buying a ticket for. "I look at films," says Los Angeles Times reviewer Kenneth Turan, "and I provide a point of view on them, for people who are trying to figure out if they want to see the movie or not" (Projections 10, ed. Mike Figgis [London: Faber and Faber, 2000], p. 61).
Professional reviewers like Turan are commonly known as film critics—a term which implies their commitment to making judgments. Yet even though many readers think that film critics are too tough on the movies they see, film criticism isn't devoted to finding fault. The best reviews aren't simply thumbs-up-thumbs-down opinions. For one thing, a good review avoids extreme judgments ("a thoroughly bad movie," "a flawless film"). Most good films aren't perfect, and many weak films have some good points. The sensitive critic tries to take both pluses and minuses into account.
Moreover, most critics recognize that not all readers have the same tastes. One reader might find Titanic thrillingly romantic, but another might find it slushy. So the review might offer something like this: "If you like shameless wallowing in old-fashioned rich-girl-poor-boy romance, you'll love Titanic. For me, a little schmaltz goes a long way."
This acknowledges that the reviewer is aware that the reader might actually enjoy the film that's about to be judged harshly. Readers quickly sense a critic's preferences and tend to follow critics whose tastes they trust to be like their own.
The film review is a genre of journalistic writing, and it depends on certain conventions. There must a brief plot synopsis, suggesting the main conflicts and character developments. Typically, however, the reviewer doesn't divulge the ending. The main characters' names are followed by actor's names in parentheses:
Neo (Keanu Reeves) follows Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) down the rabbit hole into an adventure that calls the very existence of our world into question. (The Matrix) Reviewers are also expected to mention striking aspects of the film: impressive sets or costumes, notable visual qualities such as color design or editing or music, and, above all, acting. Comments on these matters can be given separately or woven into the synopsis ("The hacker Neo, played by Keanu Reeves with his usual unflappably dazed look…."). Reviewers also compare the film at hand with other films that belong to the same genre, which are made by the same filmmaker, or which raise similar thematic issues. This convention demands that the critic be familiar with a wide range of films and some film history.
Perhaps the biggest constraint is brevity. The typical film review runs two to five pages, double-spaced–not a lot of room to develop a complex judgment of a movie. Newspaper critics labor under very tight space restrictions, although magazine critics tend to have more chance to develop their ideas. Many of the most famous film critics, such as Graham Greene in the 1930s and André Bazin and François Truffaut in the 1940s and 1950s, wrote for weekly and monthly publications.
The best reviewers excel as writers. They render their opinions in short, memorable strokes. They devise arresting openings and pointed wrap-ups. To give the flavor of a movie, they aim at vivid descriptions. In a few words they can evoke the look and sound, even the emotional overtones, of a movie. Here is Dwight Macdonald on L'Avventura:
The sound track is a miracle. Instead of relying on "mood music," Antonioni uses everyday sounds, modulating and blending them to get his effects: the wash of waves, dogs barking, trains groaning and clicking along, the harsh confused sounds of a crowd, the panting breath of lovers. In the visit to the deserted town near Noto, silence prevails, punctuated finally by the slamming of the car doors as the baffled searchers drive away. (On Movies [Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969], p. 333)
When a critic wants to point out the defects in a movie, there is no room for a lengthy demolition job. A crisp killer line serves best, as when Pauline Kael's appraises Robert DeNiro's quiet, expressionless acting:
"He could be a potato, except that he's thoroughly absorbed in the process of doing nothing" (Taking It All In [New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, 1984], p. 241).
The reviewer may cultivate a highly personal style. Manny Farber is one of the most distinctive voices in English-language film criticism, mixing tough-guy cynicism with an eye for precise visuals:
There is a half-minute bit in Twelve Angry Men in which the halo-wearing minority vote on the jury, a pinch-faced architect (Henry Fonda), is seen carefully drying each fingernail with a bathroom towel. It is a sharply effective, stalling-for-time type of adverse detailing, showing the jury's one sensitive, thoughtful figure to be unusually prissy. Unfortunately, this mild debunking of the hero is a coldly achieved detail that sits on the surface of the film, unexplored and unimportant. (Negative Space: Manny Farber on the Movies [New York: Da Capo, 1998], p. 122).
Macdonald, Kael, Farber, Andrew Sarris, Phillip Lopate, Vernon Young, and other critics have published collections of their film reviews, and these are worth studying as pieces of careful writing. To get a sense of current reviewing practice, you can examine reviews by Todd McCarthy (Variety), J. Hoberman (The Village Voice), Armond White (The New York Press), A. O. Scott (The New York Times), Richard Corliss (Time), Roger Ebert (The Chicago Sun-Times in print and online at rogerebert.com), Michael Wilmington (online at Movie City News), Jonathan Rosenbaum (now retired, but whose reviews for The Chicago Reader and other publications are available on his website, JonathanRosenbaum.com), Manohla Dargis (New York Times), Lisa Schwartzbaum (Entertainment Weekly), Geoff Andrew (Time Out, London), and Philip French (The Observer, London). Some publications file reviews on their websites. Longer reviews are published in Film Comment and Cineaste (New York), Film Quarterly (Berkeley), Sight & Sound (London), Cinema Papers (Victoria, Australia), 24 Images (Montreal), and CinemaScope (Toronto).
The growth of blogging has meant that many reviews appear only online. Some of the most respected bloggers reviewing films are Jim Emerson at his Scanners site and Dennis Cozzalio at Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule.
Setting up your own review blog might seem an attractive way to get writing practice and draw attention to your work. Be aware, though, that there are thousands of reviewers making their work available online, and most receive only a few visits a day. One alternative is to join a website or a blog that posts reviews written by its members. The biggest such site is Rotten Tomatoes. This site also provides news and links to many reviews of individual titles, both from professionals and amateurs. Key Questions for a Film Review
- Have you somewhere clearly indicated your judgment of the film's quality?
- Have you provided a brief plot synopsis?
- Have you mentioned specific elements of the film which support your judgment? Have you described these quickly and vividly, using concrete language and metaphors?
- Have you qualified your judgment by balancing positive and negative aspects of the film?
- Have you begun the review with an attention-grabbing opening? Have you concluded it with a striking sentence?