Film Studies Seven: Stars

This week in class I studied the stars in film, how they come to have meaning throughout the public and how their personalities reflect through the lifestyles they live.

Johnny Depp was a main talking point throughout the class, the characters he plays and how audiences throughout the world manage to easily identify with this star.  Studying Pirates Of The Caribbean and Edward Scissorhands shows there is definitely an on-going theme with the characters he plays, besides the rogue pirates or strange/unique individuals there is a child-like, fun loving nature about his personality which shines through his character traits.  There is also a cross-gender admiration for him even in a non-attractive way, which evolves his performance fluidity.  An unstoppable joy seems to be a key feature in Johnny’s character no matter what situation his character seems to be in.

Mila Kunis is an actress who has risen to stardom and to a celebrity status within the past few years.  She had been in a number of films during the start of her career, some major roles as well as minor; however it is believed that her first shoot to fame was during That 70s Show.  Today, she is well known for her skills as a voice actor on Family Guy.  Kunis is a definite sex symbol across the world as she has been ranked as the “Sexiest Woman Alive” by Esquire whilst remaining in the top ten women of many other magazines.  She is seen in the public eye as an object of desire:

“Images have to be made.  Stars are produced by the media industries, film stars by Hollywood (or its equivalent in other countries) in the first instance, but then also by other agencies with which Hollywood is connected in varying ways and with varying degrees of influence.  Hollywood not only controlled the stars’ films but their promotion, their pin-ups and glamour portraits, press releases and to a larger extent the fan clubs”.

Kunis and her lifestyle are becoming more and more influenced by Hollywood and how she is expected to be viewed by the public eye.  Her appealing appearance seems have a great reliance on her star image and her success in her career.  As Hollywood and other relating franchises are creating these idols for the public to be basing themselves on it could leave one wondering if this is having any effect on these stars’ personalities and drive to continue with this sort of career/lifestyle. Three main aspects which are seen key factors or a stars’ image and how successful they are depend on their sexuality, ethnicity and their sexual identity.  

“Many critics have criticized Mulvey’s tendency to neglect the pleasure of female spectatorship.  As should be clear, she suggests that spectators are addressed as though they were male, and that, as a consequence, women are only in a position either to assume an identification with the male protagonist or else identify with the position of passive sexual object”.

As these types of figures are being constructed, the majority of the time it is solely for the consumer, it could be thought that these idols are strategically made for profit, possibly due to the clothing, cosmetics or fragrance that these types of people would flaunt to the public. The acting side to her career is viewed by two different meanings; one being the knowledge of roles she has successfully established on film and the “stage-managed” public appearances Kunis is seen in (talk shows, award shows and magazine shoots).

It is rather troublesome to relate with a stars’ personal lifestyle outside of film and behind closed doors unless you are somehow affiliated with the star in a personal level.  Many people try to establish as much knowledge as possible about a star through the characters they play in film and how they generally act, attributing to their generic personality:

“As a result, recent psychoanalytic film theory has seen a move away from the assumption that the spectator only identifies with a single narrative figure, and towards the claim that he or she engages in a more complex identification with the overall narrative.  It has developed a theory of fantasy which suggests that any narrative provides the spectator with multiple and shifting points of identification…Desire, then, is played through the progression of the narrative, with the spectator seemingly within the scene, occupying many and various associations with the stars”.

Fans who idolise and adore these film stars tend to form an obsessive and seemingly incessant relationship between them, this has indeed become more popular and is seen a lot more in recent years within the public.  More so with reality television “celebrities” as fans make it their goal to represent and act like them, which merely seems foolish.  The public form a metaphorical bond with these film stars, giving them the idea that these stars are an acquaintance to them.  This evolves their desire and attraction to them as the narrative gives a false connection between the viewer and the stars’ character.

“Fetishism also figures in the spectator’s relationship to the star.  For psychoanalysis, fetishism originates in the child’s Oedipal anxieties when it perceives the sign of sexual difference as the mother’s symbolic castration.  This situation is supposed to result in ‘splitting of belief’, the child unconsciously knows that the mother lacks the phallus, but fetishizes other objects so that they will compensate for that lack.  These objects acquire ‘magical’ qualities for the child who is then able to disavow the mother’s castrated state”.

This cinematic image and the image this creates through film also seems to function in a similar process of fetishism contradiction, as if the viewer is blocking out reality and fully believing in themselves that the portrayed character is a living being.  Knowing that these characters are completely fictional, subconsciously, they are ensuring that they are in fact, reality. 

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References:

Richard Dyer, Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars And Society, (New York, St. Martin's Press, 1986)

Paul McDonald, 'Star Studies', in Joanne Hollows and Mark Jancovich, eds., Approaches to Popular Film, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995)

Film Studies Four - The Male Gaze

This week our film studies class revolved around the subject of the male gaze, looking into the portrayal of gender in film and how it is informed by the author.  I have noticed this technique in a wide variety of film genres which work very effectively when trying to captivate a viewer into a story or situation.  The gaze attracts the viewer whether they are male or female, seducing them with the use of images and sound.  An example of this is from a film we were shown in class entitled, Gilda.

The scene reveals two male characters walking towards a room where the viewer hears a woman singing with a soft heavenly voice.  Immediately the viewer is hypnotized and transported into the scene, intrigued.  When Gilda is introduced to the scene for the first time, Jonny’s facial expression, silent and paralysed, tells the viewer that he is mesmerized by her beauty.  It can also be seen that Gilda is aware of her natural beauty and this is expressed thoroughly to the viewer with the way she flirtatiously addresses Jonny in this scene:

“I want all the hired help to approve of me”.

Gilda expresses this desire directly into Jonny’s eyes, as if she is speaking directly to him instead of referring to the public in the casino.  Further evidence of these emotions are when the two gentlemen leave the room and a close-up of Gilda’s facial expression transforms to a more calmer and neutral state, as if the cute charm and interesting personality was solely for Jonny – as if she is thinking about what she has done.

“A beautiful face, is the most beautiful of sights.  There is a legend who invented the close-up in order to capture it in greater detail.  The simplest close up is also the most moving”

I feel that the author portrays the character of Gilda very well as it attracts me into the film with the use of images and sound whilst making me curious as to how these character’s relationships will unfold.  The use of close-ups in this scene is very powerful.

Over the last few decades women have become more independent, intelligent and rather superior to the male gender:

“One might reach the conclusion that women have escaped the sphere of production only to be absorbed the more entirely by the sphere of consumption, to be captivated by the immediacy of the commodity world no less than men are transfixed by the immediacy of profit…Women mirror the injustice masculine society has inflicted on them – they become increasingly like commodities”.

Adorno compares the two sexes with their desires, and rather, clichéd aspects of the gender’s personality.  Women desire men to lust over them and to be gazed upon as beautiful whilst men desire wealth and power in the world.  I find it fascinating and effective that he uses the term “consumed” by the viewer because this metaphorical term really describes men’s lust and attraction to the female form, as if it is a requirement in everyday life and they have transformed themselves into an asset.

A section of the reading that I completely agreed with spoke about the Miss World competition and how it affects women:

“Their condition is the condition of all women, born to be defined by their physical attributes, born to give birth, or if born pretty, born lucky; a condition which makes it possible and acceptable, within the bourgeois ethic, for girls to parade, silent and smiling, to be judged on the merits of their figures and faces”.

Miss World Competition can only be viewed as a positive process through the male gaze. Feminist thoughts from the 1970s forced women to reassess their position within the world, with many choosing to reject the objectifying view of patriarchy. These Miss World competitions effectively reduce women to their physical features, ignoring their intellectual merits entirely.

Women who take part in these competitions accentuate their visual aesthetic in order to capture the attention of the viewer. “Now I’m looking for the ideal man to marry,” a statement from Miss Grenada, exemplifies the material gain which the majority of these women wish to achieve through the performativity of their aesthetic beauty. In an especially feminist stance, one could argue that women play upon the vulnerability and consuming nature of the male gaze in order to achieve their goals. Modern women seem to monopolise the patriarchal gaze to their advantage whilst superficially appearing to submit to established gender normativity.

   

Mulvey distinguishes two approaches in which cinema produces pleasure, both representing psychological desire of the feminine form.  The first is in relation to scopophilia, pleasure acquired from subjecting someone to one’s gaze whilst the second is identification with the character in question.

A great example of this monopolisation is Jessica Rabbit from the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, a human cartoon character who is perceived as one of the sexiest female characters in animation history. The scene shown in class exemplified the female form of Jessica, emphasising her hourglass figure and showing us the reaction of the male crowd who are captivated by her. Jessica uses her sexuality to bribe Eddie’s character by flaunting her femininity; guiding her walk using her chest and her long legs, pressing herself up against Eddie and looking in her hand mirror a lot. 

Her performativity and mystique is what is so alluring to Eddie and he is utterly captivated. This shows the viewer that she is fully aware of her beautiful attributes and it fascinates the viewer to ponder what is going to happen next.  I believe that the author portrays Jessica Rabbit’s character perfectly in this scene alone as she is knowingly performing to her male audience in a pretence of submitting to the male gaze whereas in reality she is exploiting this male weakness to her own advantage.

The use of the male gaze in film is a very effective technique and I consider it to be crucial due to the way the author characterizes individuals in their pieces of work, which helps the viewer understand the personalities and general attributes of characters.  I feel that imagery and sound play vital roles in the success of these techniques and they harmonize with each other to help create a great character which encapsulates the audience.

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References:

Laura Mulvey, Visual And Other Pleasures, (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1989)

Laura Mulvey, Fetishism And Curiosity, (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1996)

Week Three: Genre

This week in class we focused on the different types of movie genres there are in film and movies today.  Three distinguished critics in film genre are Andre Bazin, Robert Warshow and Lawrence Alloway.  Although they are share the belief that “genres carried an intrinsic or significance, but each adopted a different way of thinking about this”.

Out of these three individuals, Bazin was in fact the more well-known “Pioneer” and I found that his views on the popularity of the Western-type movies with certain countries fascinating:

“What can there possibly be to interest Arabs, Hindus, Latins, Germans or Anglo-Saxon, among whom the western has had an uninterrupted success, about evocations of the birth of the United States of America, the struggle between Buffalo Bill and the Indians, the laying down of the railroad, of the Civil War!”. (Hutchings, 1995, p.61).

Bazin believes that there must be more to the succession of these films, other than the typical formal qualities – setting, objects and scenarios.  Like Bazin, I also believe that there is more to the genre of Western films other than the usual widespread landscape, men galloping on horses, gunfights and railroad chase scenes.  Westerns formal attributes are “simply signs or symbols of its profound reality, namely the myth”.  This mythical quality is in relation to the austere landscapes that these films are set in.

I chose to study the genre of slasher-horrors this week.  I watched Halloween and Scream and found both very similar in their own unique way.  Halloween is said to be one of the very first “true slasher-horror” films, changing the genre of horror movies at its time.

Re-watching this movie I noticed a few key features that make it successful.  The repetition of the “Mike Myers” tune always makes you suspect that he is close by or in hiding, watching one of his victims.  

I found myself extremely anticipated throughout the whole film and almost on the edge of my seat waiting to see him jump out at someone – especially moments where there is dead silence (pardon the pun).  Most of the action scenes in the films have the music going a lot faster which makes you anticipate him more.  I found myself gripped while noticing all of these key points in the movie and my heart racing to find out what happens.

Scream is viewed as a “slasher”; however, this film almost turned horror movies on its head as it is a parody towards all the cliché moments in this genre of movies.  I feel this was a good move as at this stage in movies, horrors from this category were becoming tiresome and far too predictable.  This is why I really enjoyed Scream when I first saw it.

Watching a clip near the beginning of the movie has a huge amount of well used clichés – alone in the house and the phone rings, locking doors and barricading the entry points, being watched while on the phone, falling over and being chased. This comes under Alloway's term of "iconography", which is analysing generic indentities in films:

"In this way we can indicate typical patterns of recurrence and change in popular films which can be traced better in terms of 'iconography' than in terms of individual creativity.  Indeed, the personal contribution of many directors can only be seen fully after typical iconographical elements have been identified".

This is true, especially in Scream, with the high amount of well known clichés and iconographical scenes which are almost "in-your-face" to the audience who can instantly relate to these types of scenes from previous viewed films.

I found it quite amusing that the main character is stroking the kitchen knife while discussing the movie “Halloween” to the caller (never mind the fact that she has no idea who it was and she was having a deep conversation with them!)

Although these movies are eighteen years apart from one another, they both portray the same qualities and ideas that make them a great movie within the genre of horror.

The questions that I have been thinking are, what makes a good slasher movie? Why does people love these types of movies and why are they so successful?

The majority of these styles of movies are very similar: main character in a calm and happy environment – usually a party scene, something then happens to disrupt the calm atmosphere (someone is killed), other characters are involved into the plot/friends of the main character, the problem the characters face is resolved (killed dies/captured) and the atmosphere fades back into a calm and relaxed state.  

However, horrors nowadays are sometimes quite different, where all of the characters are killed or there is some form of flip in the plot near the end.

In my opinion, I feel that these horrors are very successful as viewers like to pay into a cinema to be scared in a fantasy environment where they know themselves that they cannot be harmed.  I find myself in the cinema laughing at myself the fact that I am almost jumping out of the seat when there’s a “jumpy” moment in a horror.  

Most horrors nowadays – Paranormal Activity, Drag Me To Hell, Insidious, Sinister – all use these huge jumping moments to engage with the viewers and make them feel that they are there in the scene to make it more believable.

I really believe that this is what makes these movies extremely successful and what makes people want to pay into the cinema from hearing how scary it is from friends or by even watching the adverts on television.

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References:

Hutchings, P., 1995. Genre Theory and Criticism in Joanne Hollows and Mark Jancovich, eds., Approaches to Popular Film. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Week Two: Editing

I rather enjoyed the editing lecture this week in class as when I am working on my pieces of animation; the editing process is a major and, in my opinion, is the most important part of the outcome of an animation.

I learned that editing a film divides it up into three key stages; a beginning, middle and an end.  I also learned that movies are actually like a language with the way they are constructed and portrayed to the viewer.  They are almost like coherent "sentences" that are being spoon fed to the viewer. I became more familiar with bridges within films (Dissolves, Wipes and Fades).  These are placed in film where a change of environment is taking place within a story; a Wipe is usually used as a "meanwhile..." to show other characters in another place and Fades are usually to show a change of time - normally the next day.

Cross cutting was also a main thing to take away from the class this week as it is a major factor for me, especially when I am drawing out storyboards and wondering who/what to cut to next:

"Cross cutting is the kind of narrative cinema with which we are most familiar tends to occur between characters or locations whose relationship is already clear (or will shortly be so).  By indicating simultaneity, cross cutting also functions to stabilize rather than problematize a film's representation of time.  It should thus be distinguished from parallel editing, in which alternating sequences of action do not share a temporal framework but rather, belong to distant periods of narrative or symbolic connections the spectator is required to explore". - (Andrew Dix, Beginning of Film Studies, Manchester University Press, 2008, p.54)

I agree here with Dix as cross cutting in a sequence allows us to show the reader exactly what we need to convey within a film and not have to worry about the "in-betweens" - unnecessary information which has nothing to do with the narrative, which could overload and confuse the viewer.

We were shown a Spanish film which was entitled, "Le Notti Di Cabiria", which I found fascinating.  The clip we were shown in class involved a woman walking through a small wooded area and into a street, which was populated by a mass of people playing musical instruments.  The woman seemed sceptical and nervous in front of the crowd at first, then eased herself into the music and began to smile and dance herself.  I found this scene very well constructed as the music ascended with the woman's mood and emotion.

I learned quite a lot about continuity editing within a piece of film and to "cheat" by fooling the human eye.  A line from "The Art of Cinema" by Bordwell and Thompson inspired me:

"The purpose was to tell a story coherently and clearly, to map out the chain of character's actions and in an undistracting way"

Basically, camera cuts are positioned so skilfully within a film that the viewer doesn't sub-consciously notice. These kinds of cuts are usually placed in action scenes in films or when a character is talking or doing some form of action with another object.

We were told about the "Kuleshov Effect" in filming and I completely agree with this terminology.  This effect is that each shot is a chunk of information, almost like a building block.  When each of these building blocks is placed together, they form a specific film layout.  Each of these blocks derises its meaning around the other blocks (it has an effect on blocks around it).  If one single block is moved or changed it could have an effect on the entire film as a whole.

Although the Kuleshov Effect is effective in film, Noel Carroll argues that is does not correspond to the typical structure of POV editing:

"For the standard POV editing uses the character's face to give us information of emotional state with respect to what the character sees.  That is, the character's face is not, as standard versions of the Kuleshov experiment claim, emotionally amorphous, merely waiting emotive shaping from ensuing shots". (1996: 130).

This is true for The Nightmare Before Christmas, as the character of Jack Skellington has an immense amount of emotion in the film and it is shown and expressed to the viewer in incredible detail - mostly through face-on shots and for long pauses, to almost "cement" this these feeling into the viewer - to engage them more and bring them into the film world. 

I chose this film to study as a short five minute piece.  I studied specifically on the three minute sequence where Jack sings the "What's This?" song:

Immediately in this scene we have matching in the action as Jack burst out from under the snow to represent his massive lanky posture as the camera is almost looking straight up at him.  The camera has a lot of the camera cuts that I mentioned earlier from "Bordwell and Thompson" while Jack is singing and moving around Christmas Town.  

In this three minute piece there are so many camera cuts and cross cutting, however, it more or less goes unnoticed due to the style of editing and the way the cuts go along with the song and the movements of Jack.  

There is eyeline matching with Jack and the children while they are sleeping in bed and indeed the cuts from Jack's face to his face in another shot - like a 180 degree rule.  The sound editing would have been major in this scene alone, and of course the entire film, considering every sound that it heard is post-production.  

I feel that the sound flows ridiculously well whether it being the sound of Jack in the snow, touching objects around him or his lip sync with him singing.  

In my opinion, sound syncing is one of the most difficult parts of sound editing and I believe that this scene flows very fluently and there is not anything that I would change if I had a say.

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References:

Andrew Dix, Beginning of Film Studies, Manchester University Press, 2008.

Valerie Orpen, Film Editing: The Art of the Expressive (London: Wallflower, 2003).

Week One: Auterism

As I had missed the first week of class, catching back up with what I had missed was an issue. After a couple of days of reading the lecture notes and watching the clips that were shown in class, I was back up to speed.  I watched some of the clips from movies by David Lynch (Blue Velvet, Inland Empire and Wild at Heart) and understood how they are identifiable as Lynch movies over anyone else.

Prior to this class, I have never involved myself with the film studies side of things, after reading some of the notes given out I managed to get to terms with the idea and gradually obtain a good grasp with the terminology.

"This ungainly portmanteau word is the term which regularly describes the best-known conception of authorship".

Michael Foulcalt states that the term "author" is in effect when an individual actually expresses their very own and original concepts in many different ways of expression.

I fully agree with Foulcalt's views as I feel that an author/director's work becomes fully theirs in every way and completely unique in comparison to anything else that anyone would ever create or compose.  

He also goes on to say that he doesn't want to focus solely on an individual author/director and study their persona but wants to study how these people became "individualized" in today's culture and looked upon in such a high standard, idolized almost.

"I shall not offer here a socio-historical analysis of the author's persona. Certainly it would be worth examining how the author became individualized in a culture like ours, what status he has been given, at what moment studies of authenticity and attribution began, in what kind of system valorization the author was involved, at what point we began to recount the lives of authors rather than of heroes and how this fundamental category of the "man-and-his-work criticism" began".

I thoroughly agree with Foulcalt's opinions as it is wondered how an author or director becomes so popular within the world of film and how much of an impact one individual's work has on so many people.

An individual that I would say is, without a doubt, Auter is Tim Burton.  Everything Burton works within always has his own personal feel, design and style implemented into it.  I see him as a huge inspiration to my own designs and storytelling, especially in the stop-motion movies he has directed as I am massively interested in this field of animation.  His style and personal take on characters is extremely unique; whenever you see a type of character/scenery, you know for a fact it is a Tim Burton original.

Whenever I see a movie being released that is directed by Tim Burton, I would definitely go and see it.  this also strengthens Foulcalt's previous statements.  Two movies that Burton directed that I have studied within the past week are Alice in Wonderland and Frankenweenie.

Although these two movies are completely different medias, Burton's style still shines through and you can tell that they are of his design due to the style and world that they characters are living within.

Foulcalt talks quite a lot about the "Author Function" and it made me think about Burton and his movies.  Foulcalt talks how we all see directors and authors as being "outside of history" almost and that we specifically search for movies and pieces of work by searching via author, rather than the movie itself or the year etc.  

To be honest, I search by author most of the time, specifically Burton, as I enjoy his dark quirky-themed movies.  As I fully agree with Foulcalt in this respect, I do not see why this would be a negative aspect of an author.

By reading over these notes I have gained a great insight about the auter theory and Foulcalt's bold opinions.  

I have also learned about the difference and lossage between an author and his character's (when a character speaks, is it simply how they are feeling at that precise moment or is it merely what the author is thinking and wanting to portray to the viewer?)

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References:

Foulcalt. M., 1984. What is an Author? in Paul Rabinow (ed.) The Foulcalt Reader. New York: Pantheon Books.

Barthes, R., 1977. The Death of the Author in Barthes' Image, Music, Text. Glasgow: Fontana.