#4 - READING ABOUT FILM: CRITICAL THEORIES AND METHODS

The File Experience:  An Introduction (Second Edition)


Chapter 7:  (pgs. 224-269)


"Parallel plots refer to the implied simultaneity of or connection between two different plot lines, usually with their intersection at one or more points (pg. 250)."


          There are parallel plot time lines going on in the movie The Social Network (2010).  For example, when Mark Zuckerberg, a highly intelligent and socially awkward under class man at Harvard, was rejected by a girl he liked who liked guys that "rowed" and belonged to the Finals Clubs, Mark creates a website for guys to go on to rate the "hotness" of girls at Harvard.  He got so many hits, he shut down the Harvard mainframe computer.  After hearing about this Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, two handsome twin brothers who were upper class man at Harvard and who were also successful "rowers" and members of the Finals Club, all the things Mark Zuckerberg wasn't, but wanted to be, heard about Mark's success in crashing Harvard's computer system with an overload of Internet hits, they asked him to help them create an exclusive social network for Harvard students only.  Mark liked their idea so much that while they were waiting to hear if he was interested in working with them, he began creating what would later be called Facebook, the most successful social networking website on the Internet. 

          As the movie progresses, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss see how successful Mark Zuckerberg's website is, they decide to file a lawsuit claiming that he had stolen their idea.  Meanwhile, Mark had created a company with some of his friends.  His best friend Eduardo was the CFO of the company.  He put up the first $1,000 to get the company started.  Throughout the movie, as money is needed, Eduardo continues to come up with money to keep the company going. 

          There is a side plot line where Eduardo Saverin files a lawsuit against Mark Zuckerberg because he is double crossed and the percentage of his share in the company was reduced to 2% without his knowledge.  Eduardo realizes how much money is at stake and since he put up the initial money to start the company, he feels that he should have a larger share in the company.  Mark justifies his actions by telling Eduardo that he was not getting them the advertisers they needed.  He said that he had found someone else who could do the job.  That is when Eduardo had enough and files suit.  This is going on at the same time that the other law suit is happening.  As the movie progresses, we the movie goers, get to see more than one plot line going on at the same time.  It was interesting to see how things get resolved in the end.  Mark Zuckerberg settles with the Winklevoss twins for $65,000,000.00 and he settled with Eduardo for an undisclosed amount.  At the time, it must have seemed like such a huge sum of money.  But, since Mark Zuckerberg is now worth billions of dollars, what at first seemed like a lot of money is really just a drop in the proverbial bucket.

"Multiple narratives are found in films that use several different narrative perspectives for a single story or for different stories in a movie that loosely fits these perspectives together (pg. 258)."

          In The Social Network (2010) Eduardo Saverin, Mark Zuckerberg's best friend, shares narration with him throughout the movie.  Whenever the story relates to him and his story, Eduardo narrates.  When the actual character narrates their own story, it helps the movie goer to better relate to that character.  You start to see things from their point of view.  It helps the story develop depth and it becomes multi-dimensional and, therefore, more interesting.  At first, I did not think I would like this movie.  However, I was pleasantly surprised at how the actors were able to really give substance and relatability to the characters they portrayed.  I think the movie was well written and socially relevant along with being surprisingly entertaining.        

Chapter 13:  (pgs. 485-494)


 "Any system of communication substitutes signs for objects, and such naming is more than a natural process (pg. 486)."


          In the movie Inception (2010), the spinning top was a symbol of significance.  The first significance attached to the top was the connection of the main character, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, to his children in the story.  The second significance was that this object was his only way back to them.  I found this symbol to be a very powerful visual effect and an example of semiotics used by the director, Christopher Nolan, in the making of this film.  


Am I awake or am I dreaming?


          Sometimes, when you are in a dream state it is as if you are in a movie.  Similarly, when you are conscious while watching a movie, you can be so lost in the story that you are in a dream-like state.  For example, in the movie Inception (2010), it is hard to tell if you are watching the characters while they are dreaming or watching them when they are awake.  The dream sequences are set up in such a way that you begin to question your ability to recognize the perceived reality while watching this film.  Especially at the end, you are sure that he made it out and that he finally got to go home.  But did he really?  Did the top keep spinning, indicating that he was still dreaming? Or did it fall, indicating that he was, in fact, awake?  I think they should have a sequel to that movie.  I would like to find out what happened to him in the end. 


"The human subject relates to pictures in a particularly powerful way rooted in one of the earliest images to leave an impression on us, our own reflection in the mirror (pg. 490)."


          While watching a movie, people have a way of convincing themselves that an image on the movie screen is real.  Even though, intellectually, they know it is an illusion.  We have all identified with characters in a movie for one reason or another.  Because of the way that movies are filmed, we often are seeing the world through the eyes of one or more of the characters in a movie.  It is easy to get lost in that character's world.  Also, we see a lot of ourselves in many of the characters we see on the silver screen.  Many of our own characteristics are reflected back to us through them.  Sometimes you can be watching a movie and you could swear that the movie was made just for you.  I feel that way about the movie The Lovely Bones (2009).  There were so many similarities in that movie to my own life.  I feel personally connected to that movie.  The visual imagery in that movie hit me like a ton of bricks.  I was deeply affected by the symbols used to tell the story in that movie.


"The novel, the distinctive middle-class cultural form of the nineteenth century, gave the hero psychological and realistic field of action.  The novels basic narrative form is adopted by motion pictures, just as many famous novels were adapted for the screen (pg. 488)."


          While a novel can tell a story over hundreds of pages, a movie, on the other hand, only has a few hours to tell its story.  Film makers have a lot of information to convey to the audience in a short period of time.  It takes a skilled storyteller to be able to accomplish this ominous task. 



                                                                                              Work Cited

"The Social Network (2010) - IMDb." The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 26
                     Feb.  2011.  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1285016/.

"Inception (2010) - IMDb." The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 26 Feb. 2011.

                        http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1375666/.

"The Lovely Bones (2009) - IMDb." The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 26 Feb.
                  2011. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0380510/.

# 2 & 3 - READING AND WRITING ABOUT FILM/WRITING A FILM ESSAY

The File Experience:  An Introduction (Second Edition)

Chapter 13:  (pgs. 454-473)

"As a comparative method, the employment of genre in film theory is influenced by literary approaches dating back to Aristotle's Poetics.  However, the contemporary use of the term often refers less to the category of the aesthetic than to mass-produced cultural artifacts as distinguished from works of art (pg 469)."

          Most people when they hear the word "genre," when referring to films, think of a particular category of films that they are partial to.  For example, a "slasher film," a "horror movie," or a "chic flick."  By putting films in categories, the viewer will go into one of these movies with a preconceived notion of what they can expect based on that genre.  By having this prior knowledge and expectation, the film makers have to work hard to satisfy certain criteria in the film in order to meet viewer expectations.

"The theory of film authorship, or auteur theory, holds that a film bears the creative imprint of one individual, usually the director, whether or not it is considered a great work of art (pg. 464)."

         Alfred Hitchcock is a good example.  He was really good at self promotion.  The way he would introduce a film at the beginning or the way he would show up in a cameo role.  He became easily recognizable and relatable to his films.  Unless a director has made a name for him/herself, most directors of films go relatively unnoticed.  If the audience is familiar with a particular director, such as the director of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows:  Part 1 (2010), David Yates, they then know what to expect if they have seen any of his prior films.

          Because today's moviegoers are more sophisticated and knowledgeable, many films are advertised based on the merits of a particular director.  Also, because directors are individuals, they bring with them to the film-making process their own personal views.  They are influenced by their upbringing, religious beliefs, morals and values, along with their political point of view, just to name a few.

"While we might be able to designate a single film as a western, it is only because we have seen westerns before.  This repetition of formulas leads to a complicated intertextuality, the dependence of one text on other texts for its full meaning (pg. 471)."

          Our prior knowledge about a particular genre gives us the intertextuality needed to recognize which genre category a film fits into.  Film makers rely on the use of formulas when meeting the criteria for a particular genre.  The meaning placed on a film is determined by the prior experience of its audience.

Chapter 13:  (pgs. 473-505)

"The poststructuralist concern with spectatorship and subjectivity remains abstract if spectatorship is generalized and the nature of subjectivity is not questioned (pg. 492)."

          Women have historically been objectified in film.  Women have also been portrayed as the weaker sex.  They have been sexualized in pornography since film making began.  This sexualization of women has also trickled down to negatively impact our young girls.  Little girls are made to feel that they are not valued if they are not thin and pretty.  Even the clothes they sell for young girls is inappropriate for their ages.  Little six, seven, and eight-year old girls are wearing padded bras.   Even the dolls they play with have breasts.  The whole, "I want to grow up to look like Barbie thing is ridiculous."  We are setting our little girls up for a lifetime of pain.  Striving to achieve that illusive perfection.

          Many leading ladies of the past, if they were of strong character, often suffered because of those very qualities.  After WWII, women had left the home to go out and work to support the war efforts.  When they came back to their "real lives," they were dissatisfied.  The movie industry reflected these feelings back to its female audiences.  Women in movies began to explore their options in life.  Women began to see that they had a choice.  The female characters being portrayed in the movies could step out of the box that society had placed them in. 

          The feminist movement of the 1960's and 1970's really opened people's eyes.  In the movies, female characters played by women like Sally Fields in Norma Rae (1979) and more recently by Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich (2000).  These women saw and injustice being done and they took it upon themselves to make it right.  These strong leading female characters have had a big impact on many women who can identify with them, or would like to, including myself.

"Many predict that digital media will soon replace film stock (pg. 502)."

          With the ever-changing advancements in technology being employed in the movie-making industry today, the way in which movies are viewed and critiqued will also change.  Because many movies are being produced digitally, most images are no longer being recorded on actual film.  Images recorded on film have a different quality than images that are recorded digitally.  Recording movies digitally is great for film preservation, but by not using actual film, the "art" of film making has lost something.  Digital editing is much easier than actually splicing film together, as was done in the past.  No one knows where technology will take the movie-making industry, but it will be interesting to see what people once thought to be impossible to do in films is now coming to fruition.  Take James Cameron's movie Avitar (2009) for instance.  The visuals in that movie were incredible.  As a moviegoer, it seems the possibilities are endless.

Writing a Film Essay: Observation, Arguments, Research, and Analysis

Chapter 14:  (pgs 506-519)

"The subject matter of a film is the material that directly or indirectly comprises the film.  Whereas, the meaning is the interpretation a writer discovers within the material (pg. 509)."

          In the movie, The Book of Eli (2010), the subject matter is the destruction and chaos that ensues in a post-apocalyptic world.  The director's use of black and white images is impactful and ominous.  It represents a cold barren world were all beauty has been stripped away.  The characters are forced to revert to using their primal instincts just to survive another day.  The not knowing what is coming next or what is around the next corner in this foreign world is so unsettling.  Security, as we know it, has vanished.  Humanity is lost in a world without hope.  Or has it?

"The meanings a writer finds in a film are not simply personal and arbitrary, film can mean whatever one chooses to make it mean, and useful and insightful writing always balances opinion and critical objectivity (509)."

          On the other hand, the meaning of the story in the film The Book of Eli (2010), is hope for humanity.  In this film, the main character stands as a beacon of hope in what has become a hopeless world.  Eli has walked the earth for thirty years with one mission.  He is driven by his faith and his belief that humanity can and will survive.  He feels that he was singled out by GOD and given the awesome responsibility of delivering the only King James Bible left to the West.  When the actual Bible is taken from him, we learn that his vision comes from within because we find out that he is blind.  Because he had been reading the Bible for the past thirty years, (using a Braille version of the Bible) he was able to memorize the entire book.  Eli dictated the Bible verbatim to a man that transcribed it by hand.  The Bible was finally able to be reprinted.  Eli was able to complete his mission and then died in peace.  He made the ultimate sacrifice for humanity.  In the end, Salara, the girl who escaped her captors and began to travel with him, became a believer and she set off to find her home and spread "The Word."

          At first, I did not like this movie because of the violence.  But, as the movie progressed, I realized that the violence was necessary in order to tell the whole story and get to the true meaning of this film.  In the end, I really liked this movie.  It gave me hope.

"Note taking, an essential part of writing about film, stimulates critical thinking and generates precise and productive observations (pg. 513)."

          In order to write about a film, it is essential to take good notes.  The notes can be used as evidence to support a particular argument you want to defend.  Describing what you see while watching a movie is critical to making good observations.  Detailing settings, shot and descriptions of characters and their behavior is really important in this process.  Take notes about the camera angle or the type of lens being used.  Take notes about the type of shots being used.  For instance, a long shot, a close up or a medium shot.  Pay careful attention to the music and the sound effects being used.  The music is very important.  It sets the mood.  When analyzing a film, if you view the movie once all the way through, then watch it again and take notes, then watch it for a third time to see if you left something out or pick up on something you may have overlooked.  After taking notes, more detail can be added later.  Make comments about key scene or motives of certain characters.  Not only write what the movie is about, but what is the meaning being conveyed.

Chapter 14:  (pgs. 519-526)

"Perhaps the most important element in a good analytical essay is the thesis statement, a short statement (often a single statement) that succinctly describes the interpretation and argument (pg 519)."

          A thesis statement is something that has to be proven with evidence.  It is a clear and concise statement of your particular perspective on a film you have chosen to write about.  You need t0 state why this statement is important and reference its importance in the analysis of film.  Make the statement interesting so as to peak the reader's interest.  As you start to write about your topic, you will learn new information that may take you in another direction.  One that you had not anticipated.

"A completed first draft of an essay is not a completed essay.  The final stage in writing about film requires at least one revision of the paper with special attention to manuscript format and proof reading (pg. 526)."

         You will start out with a rough draft.  If you put it aside for a while and come back to it later, you may see things that need to be refined or changed.  Follow the proper format (MLA) for writing the paper.  Make sure to cite your sources.  Proofreading is a very important step in preparing your final draft.   It always helps to have another person read your work.