Christian Metz’s theories are key significant way of dismantling film as an art form. Metz was a film theorist that incorporated the Lacaan Mirror theory, applying it to the role that film plays on it spectators. The theories key points help dismantle the way that an audience perceives film, and the way that film is able to appeal to an audience in particular ways. One specific film that incorporated various points of Metz’s theory, is Francis Ford Coppolla’s The Conversation (1972). The film is able to incorporated several points, incorporated by Metz’s in his work on “The Imaginary Signifier”.
Auteurism is the method of analyzing films based on the director’s work. A key element of Auteur theory is the notion of the “camera-pen”. This is the idea that directors should wield their cameras like writers use their pens and not be hindered by traditional storytelling. Truffaut and the members of the Cahiers recognized that moviemaking was an industrial process. However, they proposed an ideal to strive for, the director should use the commercial apparatus the way a writer uses a pen and, through the mise en scene, imprint their vision on the work.
In other words, the medium of film itself is placed under inspection, so rather than only experiencing the subjectivity of its author, the subjectivity of cinema in general is made apparent. Corrigan relates self-refraction in cinema to the same mode in pre-existing media in the introduction to his chapter, by referring to the mode as “art through art… (that extends) “back through many centuries of literature and visual representation and forward into film history” (181). The difference Corrigan points out is the tendancy for self-refractive essay films to “aim at where aesthetic experience unwinds at the intersection of public and private life” (198). The self-refractive essayistic mode of filmmaking is a
Scotty’s melancholia and alarming fixation with Madeline becomes evident when he later meets Judy who holds an uncanny resemblance to his late affection. The profound visual style of Vertigo aesthetically creates suspense and an eerie, yet alluring ambiance, placing you subconsciously within the realm of the film. The thematic concerns include power, male dominance and erogenous obsession, clarifying why its reception encounters feminist issues regarding the objectification of women within the film and ideas of women being willingly controlled by men to look and do as the male pleases. These concerns will be discussed further whilst analysing two broader elements of visual style: colour and framing. Hitchcock himself stated ‘the story was of less importance to me than the over-all visual impact on screen,’ (Wollen, 1997, pp.
Editing techniques and careful scene development have the potential to elicit strong emotional responses in the viewer – a crucial aspect in converting someone’s preconceived beliefs to those of your own. The director of Battleship Potemkin accomplishes his goal of garnering support for the Russian revolution through the inclusion of a graphic massacre of ordinary women and children citizens by the hands of the ruling Russian forces. This scene in question was the massacre at the Odessa steps. In this scene the director uses rapid camera changes to convey a sense of fast paced action and fighting coupled with gruesome images of blood stained steps and people. In addition to these, the director utilizes some elements of montage by stitching together difference scenes; one showing a baby carriage carrying a baby rolling down the steps out of control after its mother is shown dying at the hands of the Russian regime.
The director shows this by the sounds and angles of the camera during scenes and by the way many people talk at once shows the differences of life between the city and the peacefulness of Samuels home. The close up on Samuel’s face during the murder with the expression of terrified face with a wide open eyes and the tension of the music shows us the corruption of his innocence and the conflict with the world around him there is also another evidence when he tells Eli that he would only kill the bad man. Schaefer, McFee and Fergie go to the Amish world looking for john book they are faced with many obstacles. When thewy first enter arrive at the farm, the soundtrack and the close up view on the guns are there to remind us the violence and show us that that is the only way they could keep their corruption. The gun fires between John Book and McFee are there to represent the violence and even earlier in the film at the parking area, the guns are used as a symbol of thriller and crime.
The type of unclearness that is shown in the film leads to confusion that frustrates the audience itself. But the Director’s symbolism works that a plot couldn’t do. For example, there is more confusion in the way Maria’s son cut all his hair off out of nowhere and shove it to the maid’s mouth, that type of action describes the son’s motivation of what he is going to do. Basically what Denis does is to describe the character’s motivation and their historical events from the beginning to build suspension. We all know that the film was somehow confusing, but the Director Denis has her own approach to portray the climax to the audience.
[1] The various critical methodologies which have evolved around film are principally to do with a film’s provenance. And, as Matthew Sweet reminds us, “the history of film criticism has created its own orthodoxies.” [2] Like a piece of art, a film’s value is directly attributable to the signature in the corner of the frame. However, if it is possible to accept in principle that film is a collaborative venture where does that leave the screenwriter in terms of the attributing of a single cinematic signature? The case for Robert Towne as cinematic auteur lies in those tropes which mark his particular style of authorship – a consistency of dramatic elements as well as a special talent for writing the kind of dialogue that actors love to speak. A survey of his work demonstrates the kind of themes and qualities that compare with those characteristics normally attributed to auteur directors and here qualify as a
The oral prose gives insight to the Portland, Oregon audience of the sexual myths regarding Asian men. In a satirical form, he is able to juxtapose the perspectives of women from different nations vying for the Asian man’s phallus, who Sia proclaims in an over-the-top manner, is “hung like horses”. By expressing his masculinity in this form of artful activism, he plays on the irony of this reversal and intentionally attacks the men of other races for their lack of proportion. His pathos is further established in the film when Sia is interviewed at his hotel room; abstract pictures of himself and his future family are the first indicator of deep roots that hegemonic masculinity has planted into the poet. Sia explains that all of his self-portraits are of him looking “white” and continues on
He also saw hallucinations in the form of people and things that weren't really there. He saw an imaginary best friend who frequently followed him around with a little girl, and he saw FBI agents chasing him and shooting guns at him. To coincide with these people, he saw government facilities and offices in his personal office at work and in his backyard shed. Negative symptoms in contrast, "usually indicate the absence or insufficiency of normal behavior" and "include emotional and social withdrawal, apathy, and poverty of speech or thought" (Durand & Barlow, 2010). The one big negative symptom that was present for Nash in A Beautiful Mind was his social withdrawal.