It means that camera is pen and the director is the author of the film. Film itself is an expression. Film is not just entertainments; it is the thoughts of director, although it is abstract. The films are unique and there are significant and character in the films. Moreover, Francois Truffaut emphasized on mise-en-scene of a film.
And that’s why film form can shape an audience’s experience. The movies audiences always have certain expectations on the film that they are going to see. These expectations usually affected by the film form techniques which had used since film form is capable of delivering messages to the audiences. When a scene use a close-up shot, it can isolate and emphasize specific details. Also, different camera angles and moving camera impart help the film to express and act in a particular way.
The events may be arranged chronologically or nonchronologically and may be factual, fictional, or a blend of the two. (262) Together with narrative, form is another technique often used to narrate so as to attract audiences’ attention. Just as William H. Phillips says: Structure, which some scholars and theorists call form, refers to the parts of a text and their arrangement. In a fictional film, the selection and order of events help viewers comprehend the story and strongly influence how they respond…Fictional structure (characters, goals, and conflicts); some functions of beginnings, middles, endings; combination of different brief stories (plotlines) into a larger, more complex story. (264) Classical narrative form is commonly known as linear narrative which refers to stories told in a single line with logical order and ends with an assured conclusion, usually seen in traditional Hollywood films.
Von Trier was known to be more consistent as a director than he was with his visual style. The very fact that he played a pioneer of the Dogme 95 cinematic movement is illustrative of von Trier’s adaptability as a filmmaker, but also that he treats film not as a strict and fixed form of expression but rather as a form of art-making, one that could be shaped according to the changing times. What I think is most impressive about von Trier as a director are the themes that he explores in his films and the ways in which he seeks to express these themes. While he is greatly influenced by many of the philosophies held by filmmakers and non-filmmakers alike, it is the way in which he applies them which is can be described as being “authentic”. Indeed, the idea of authenticity is very important to von Trier.
When discussing a film, audiences will recall its story line or characters to exemplify what the film was about. With an audience so focused on narration, a film’s structure is not decided on lightly. According to Luhr and Lehman, because a film’s narrative is crucial to its success, directors “have mastered a long-established and highly profitable tradition of narrative filmmaking- the classical Hollywood style” (29). The classical Hollywood style of narration requires that a film’s “plot should have a clear forward direction” (Luhr, Lehman 29). Every event should lead cleanly into the next to join in a unified whole.
Spearheading the first of these groups was the figure of Sergei Eisenstein, whose film-making and theoretical essays in the 1920’s established a conception of the role of the cinema as a primarily aesthetic one. According to Eisenstein, a film’s aesthetic value depended on its ability to transform reality and in his films this usually took the form of montage. [2] In opposition to Eisenstein were the impressionists and surrealists. They also believed the main function of the cinema to be aesthetic, but thought that the camera itself was enough to render ordinary objects sublime. Their emphasis on cinema as a visual medium meant that they regarded narrative in many cases as an obstacle that had to be overcome.
However, a film is a created work of art and if you look more deeply into the film, there are many ways you can read it. ________________________________________ ________________________________________ Like all texts, film can be read in more ways than just the literal one. When studying film, we can draw upon ideas which will enable the viewer to analyse the sub-text of the film. Cinema studies concepts concentrate on the codes, implied ideas and allusions in a text. ________________________________________ ________________________________________ Concepts for Reading a Film • Try applying the following concepts to the film.
Film Theory Münsterberg and Arnheim: Theoretical Interpretations of Sound in Cinema Separated by an entire generation, the cinematic premises of Hugo Münsterberg and Rudolf Arnheim lay the primary structural foundation for understanding how and why film affects the human mind so profoundly and differently from all preceding art forms. Although these theoreticians have made their own respective contributions to the core assumptions of film theory, their analyses converge in the particular lens through which they choose to assess the phenomenon: the psychoanalytic paradigm. From this perspective, Münsterberg and Arnheim are able to fully dissect film’s facets and explain their construction as well as their consequences on the viewer. How these aspects combine with one another forms the crux of film’s effect on the human brain, thus expanding the ontology of the medium beyond the sum of its immediate parts and into the realm of its perceptual impact. It is from this vantage point that one needs to assess all characteristics of film, including the development of sound.
Theory into Practice Theories of Montage: Russian Formalism, Kuleshhov, Pudovkin, Eisenstein, Czech Structuralism: “Montage is the foundation of cinematography.” (Kuleshov) Discuss. By Ben Hoy-‐Slot ontage is a theory. It is one that is tied into many aspects of filmmaking, but most prominently those of editing and cinematography. It is a technique that has been exploited to dramatic and remarkable cinematic effect by some of cinema’s most recognised and worshipped auteurs, including Eisenstein, Kuleshov and Pudovkin. Kuleshov’s statement, as it appears in the title for this essay, clearly attempts to define what cinematography is through the means of ‘montage’.
Analyzing Documentary Films 1. Genre – a common definition of the documentary is that it is a film which collects its material in the real world but which presents this material seen from a personal angle or perspective. The documentary is an art form, and not just a media that registers the truth about a given material. In other words, a documentary will always be an adaption of reality. There are different types of documentaries e.g.