Week 16 Questions Mumblecore

1. What has been the ongoing relationship between so-called mumblecore filmmakers and the South By Southwest (SXSW) Festival in Austin, TX.

 

South by Southwest seems to have taken a liking to programming “mumblecore” films.  South by Southwest seems to be the first festival for a lot of the filmmakers.  Most of the filmmakers act in each other’s films.  2005 was a breakout year for mumblecore, which is now being called a movement by critics and some of the filmmakers.

 

2. Broadly speaking, what characteristics define mumblecore?

 

Not all mumblecore movies are alike but the majority are directed by twenty something year olds.  It is a bunch of young kids making low-budget films on DV.  The acting is typically very naturalistic and sometimes improv, like Hannah Takes the Stairs.  Scripts are usually drawn up and full but only used as a blueprint.  Directors seem to act in each other’s films.  Most of the actors are non-professional actors.  The movement stands behind sincere youth making sincere movies.  The camerawork is usually handheld with a cinema-verite feel.  Most of the actors are white and educated searching for artistic endeavors.  Almost always constant is the message of communication.  The only rule is “no jerks.”

 

 

3. What have been the most common charges against mumblecore?

People are upset that these filmmakers would spend so much time on issues that are so much.  Many people at Q&A complain about the stories being too everyday.  The audience accuses the directors of being pretentious.  The directors feel like their personal stories are the ones they can tell most completely.

 

4. How has the internet affected the DIY distribution of mumblecore films?

Distribution deals aren’t necessary for these filmmakers.  They are self-distributing their films.  Many garbage distribution companies are trying to buy the big mumblecore films for around 15,000 dollars.  Filmmakers have started selling it on personal website and have sold thousands.  Nerve.com told Swanberg that his movies are slowly starting to sell over time.  These films can be sold on the imternet without a theatrical release.

 

5. What have been some of the negative consequences of the mumblecore label?

 

I think that most of the films that are label together through the movement are seen as being all the same.  Once you have seen one of them you have seen them all.  They are all low-budget films shoot on DV of miserable white kids talking. Bujalski explains that a lot of the films are alike and some are extremely difficult to decipher or sit through, but the little things that make them different is where the magic lies.

Week 15 Questions

1. Despite its use of improvisation, how is Gummo different from “execution dependent” screenplays such as Stranger than Paradise?

 

Most filmmakers that try to work in this type of dependent form depend on editing to create a coherent piece but Gummo exploits the editing.  He also exploits spontaneous and serendipitous events that can occur during filming.  The screenplay is actually extremely detailed.  Korine knows what tone, emotion, look, and sound he need from every scene.

 

2.  According to Murphy, what function does the “nonsense” included in the dialogue serve in the film as a whole?

 

Unlike in the film Kids, where the dialogue was long and tended to ramble, Gummo is quick and spontaneous.  It is nonsensical to make it feel real in way a kid would talk.  It is more like poetic realism than Kids.

 

3.  What specific connections does Murphy make between Gummo and New American Cinema (including Beat films)? How did Korine respond to associations made between his work and underground film?

 

The production company, Fine Line, pushed the film as an autuerist film by a 23 year old that was in touch with youth culture.  They stressed that he was a complete original.  Murphy discusses his influence of Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon and the amphetamine-inspired, non-linear approach to narrative syntax by Christopher Maclaine (San Francisco Beat poet).  Gummo is an experimental narrative and is compared to European art film and the films we discussed in 227, Dogma 95.  The improvisation in the film is compared to New American Cinema director John Cassavettes who made the films Shadows and Faces.  Korine did the most brilliant thing in my opinion by denying underground art culture.  He pushed away from New American Cinema and Underground by claiming to be a completely commercial filmmaker.  He makes “Harmony” films for him and not to promote anything but the stories he creates and the world he wants to bring to life. 

 

4.  Besides as a filmmaker, how has Korine participated in alternative urban youth culture?

 

Korine is an urban artist by writing a novel, produced fanzines, and done installations in major art galleries.  He has ties to the art scene on the Lower East Side of NYC.  Korine debuted a video documentary on street magician David Blaine at a major museum exhibition entitled “Beautiful Losers:  Contemporary Art and Street Culture.”

 

5.  What are the parallels between Radiohead’s In Rainbows experiment and the digital distribution of the documentary 10 MPH? Why did the 10 MPH filmmakers choose the .m4v format?

 

Radiohead directly distributed their newest album In Rainbows through their website where the customer paid as much or a little as they wanted for a downloaded file of the album.  For 80 dollars, the customer could buy a record kit of the album that was much better quality.  The band was very established with a large audience before doing this.  The band plans on releasing the album on CD in Europe and the U.S.  The documentary 10MPH is very similar but not as lucrative.  Apple would not get behind a small independent doc the way they would for In Rainbows.  The DVD of the doc good be purchased on-line or downloaded through their website.  The creators and directors (same people) had to design a file that would work through itunes and for transnational purchases worked through the server e-junkie.com for credit card purchases.  Final Cut Pro’s 2 was used to compress the 92 minute doc in .m4v format that is smaller enough to work directly on your ipod or quicktime video.

Week 14 response

1. How is a $10 million dollar gross for an independent film typically broken up before the producers receive their share? How much goes to the following entities / categories?

 

Exhibitors:  Major studios usually collect around 50 percent of the gross and a strong independent will be able to collect between 35 percent and 45 per cent.  The sums received by the distributor from the theatrical exploitation of the film is called the rentals. 10 million dollar profit.

 

Distribution Rentals:  According to the author, if the distributor collects 40 percent of the 10 million dollar movie from the theaters, the producer has to split up a 4 million dollar profit.

 

Distributor’s Fee: The rentals will be first and take around 30 percent.  The higher the profit the higher the rental so higher the fee.  After the fee is collected, the cost of distribution and marketing are reimbursed.  Takes 30 per cent, so subtract $1.33 leaving only $2.66 million.

 

Prints and Advertising:  This is everything after the film.  All the trailers, flyers, and comforts needed in promoting the film.  This could take 100 percent of what is left.  Costs around $3 million dollars.

 

Payout (financiers, director, stars): The financer will usually recoup the cost of the film, plus the money from a fixed deal or interest.  $0 dollars left to spread.

 

Producer’s Net Profit: Possibly half the profit will go to financier and the rest will be divided among the producer, director, and the talent.  -$333,000.

2. In terms of a return on investment, what is far more important than the potential box-office success of a film? What role does the “sales agent” play?

 

I believe Schamus is talking about investors, the deal-making success of the movie’s producer with whom you are working with.  The success is measured by the amount of money the producer can get up front from the various distributors around the world in forms of advances and minimum guarantees against the producer’s.  So producer has to secure guaranteed money before the film is released.  The investor and the producer share the profits.  The sales agency is the company that will special in the licensing of the independent film and collecting on contracts.  Most of the time, the sales agent will advance to the producer a portion of the film’s budget as a way of securing sales rights to the title.  The agents go into the marketplace and conduct business arrangements (sometimes on finished films or at the package stage) and close deals in each territory and making collections on the money owed.  The agency’s fee can be quite small if they have no hand in financing the film because they are putting up no advance.  If they put money into they have tons of leverage with the producers and can have fees of close to 25 percent.

 

3. What are some of the expenses associated with the Cannes Film Festival (or any festival, for that matter)?  Unreal and almost not worth it.  Cannes requires that you send in two prints of the completed film, one subtitled in French.  You have to pay the lab, translator, a subtitling service, and shipping and customs to get the prints to France.  The festival only covers 3 nights hotel for the director, but the festival lasts for two weeks so expect to pay for a room for an extra 5 nights.  If you plan on bringing your stars, producers, and entourage expect another 200 to 400 hundred dollars a night per room.  Food is extremely expensive, especially when eating out every meal.  Press packets and stills for the press members will become expensive.  Then you have to pay to send them.  The scheduling is so chaotic that a publicist is in order.  You have to pay the market section of the festival to replay your film another two times so that all the right distributors can get a look if they missed the original showing.  After press and advertising, it can cost up to $150,000.

 

 

4. What costs are associated with the “delivery” of the film to a distributor?

When a distributor buys a film from a film festival they need both the physical elements from which release prints can be struck, supporting legal clearances and publicity materials needed for the cinema release.  The total cost to get from the original negative to the check-print stage is about $45,000.  This process is necessary because the splices on your negative can come undone at anytime and it is irreplaceable.  You have to get the 16mm blown up to 35mm, which costs about $35,000.  You have to technical clean up your location sound recording and replace many of the actual sound effects.  Have every little sound placed on a separate track.  Then you have to create master tapes to transform sound into image and then back into sound.  All this will cost about $40,000.  The cost of transferring the film to a master video is about $25,000.  The distributor might make you buy errors and omissions insurance.  It can cost up to $300 to $500 thousand dollars delivering a no budget film to a distributor.

 

J.J. Murphy’s Book page 25-45

2. What are some of the connections between Stranger than Paradise with the New American Cinema, including Shadows?

 

I think that Stranger than Paradise has the connection of ambivalence that displayed in Shadows.  The characters are not very clear.  The audience has to watch and cannot predict what a character will say or how they will act.  Shadows was a film comprised of aspiring non-professional actors.  The film was most improvised.  The characters Ben and Lelia adds that element of unpredictability to the narrative.  The film is not familiar because the narrative is built around subtly in its characters and not the story that they are living.  “In terms of motivation, they remain open to the possibility of the moment instead of being constrained by defined character traits.  As a result, their personal identities remain very much in flux.”

Questions on Independent Cinema Screenwriting and Independent Black Cinema

According to Murphy, what are the two major faults of the traditional screenwriting manuals in their treatment of independent cinema?

 

Murphy says an awful lot about the 3 act structure and the downfalls of Hollywood structure that is preached over and over in screenwriting manuals.  I believe his first fault in traditional screenwriting manuals that he explains is that the formulas are believed to generate salable Hollywood projects.  By plugging into a formula, the movie script that fit in the formula have a great chance of being successful economically.  The second fault with the manuals is that all the preaching of formulas puts the independent screenwriting in a position of writing within the formula but having the mindset of not following the rules if it seems creatively sound.

 

 

Why did the filmmakers of the "LA Rebellion / Los Angeles School" (including Charles Burnett) reject traditional Hollywood production values?

 

The LA rebellion was a way for independent black filmmakers to reject Hollywood production values because of the way Hollywood had portrayed the black race.  Schools like UCLA produced black television through athletes like Jim Brown.  Hollywood believed that independent black filmmakers were technically inadequate which turns out to not be true.  The independent black filmmakers had mastered the technical aspects of Hollywood filmmaking and chose to reject it.  Lott says that the alternative style of the LA school aimed to politicize the question of technical competence.

 

 

According to Ed Guerrero, what were the three phases of the black image in Hollywood films?

 

The three phases of the black image in Hollywood films started as early as 1918.  The first phase was a pre-blaxploitation era, during which a mainstream image of black accodationism and submissiveness prevailed.  The black people basically conformed to the demands of the white people.  Next, there a blaxploitation era of resistance and co-optation dominated by black action films employing strategic reversals of mainstream ideology.  I believe this phase to be the time of Shaft, which was parodied by the movie Undercover Brother in certain themes.  The final phase is filmmaking practices of both black independents and blaxploitation era filmmakers slowly moving together into a new black cinema.  I believe this is talking about some black films being politic and others being for entertainment like Big Mommas House.

 

What are the two distinct notions of "guerrilla cinema" exemplified by Spike Lee and Bill Gunn?

 

Spike Lee’s notion of guerrilla cinema is that independent black cinema sphere is really a stepping-stone into the Hollywood industry.  Lee is the leader of a new generation of black filmmakers in Hollywood.  On the other hand, filmmakers like Bill Gunn have use guerrilla cinema as a way of contestation.  The example of how Hollywood hired him to make a black horror film and instead he made two consciously political black films that were never released theatrically but constantly play at film festivals.  Lee has found a way to fit into the Hollywood system and still get his message across with movies such as He Got Game and Do The Right Thing.

Week 12 Reading Questions

What were the average shot lengths (ASLs) for the following periods?

 

The 1920s was a period of fast cutting, averaging four to six seconds per shot, but sound changed everything.  Between 1930 and 1960, most feature films averaged shot lengths of 8 to 11 seconds and contained between three hundred and seven hundred shots.  Things started speeding up in the mid-1960s.  The average shot length was between 6 and 8 seconds.  About ¾ of the films had an ASL of between 5 to 8 seconds.  The 1968 film Head had an amazing ASL of 2.7 seconds.  Mainstream films of the 1980s average shot lengths between 5 to 7 seconds.  By the century’s end the ASL of a typical mainstream film in any genre would average between 3 to 6 seconds.

 

 

How has faster editing in Hollywood affected the other elements of film style?

 

Films are cut at places where it was considered taboo to do before.  Today’s filmmakers feel no hesitation to cut in the middle of a camera movement.  Pans and tracks are usually interrupted by cuts today.  Whiplash pans and jerky reframing are in sometimes used in the editing process.  Rack focusing can shift a shot’s composition as crisply as a cut can.  Filmmakers are making cuts throughout the film to keep it fresh and full of energy.

 

 

 

Why are establishing shots less necessary in intensified continuity?

 

Cuts during dialogue scenes are more common to reinforce the 180-degree rule.  Spatial relations have to be tightened if cutting back and forth in dialogue scenes take place.  The shorter the shot length the more exact the angles have to be.  By keeping the shots shorter, including less or shorter establishing shots, the editor has to play by the rules of classical Hollywood to ensure a tight film.

 

How were wide angle (short) lenses used after 1970?

 

 

Wide angel lenses were used for characteristic distorting effects like bulging on the frame edges, exaggerating distances between foreground and background.  Filmmakers using wide-screen formats commonly resorted to the wide-angle lens to provide looming close-ups, expansive establishing shots, views inside cramped quarters, and medium shots with strong foreground-background interplay.  In the 1980s and 1990s, action film directors used the lens with packed compositions and tight camera movements.  Some directors use short lens for caricatural comedy.  Often used in T.V.

 

 

How were telephoto (long) lenses used after 1970?

 

 

Long Lenses magnifies distant action.  Typically for shooting ecterior scenes, telephoto lenses can be used for interior scenes to save time.  Multiple-camera shooting became more popular in the 1970s with T.V., directors used long lenses to keep cameras out of each other’s range.  The long lens create a documentary immediacy or a stylized flattening, making characters appear to walk or run in place.  Dr. Berliner used Mike Nichols The Graduate for his example, Dustin Hoffman is running down the street and it feels like he is going nowhere.  The long-focus lens became an all-purpose took, available to frame close-ups, medium shots, over-the-shoulder shot, and even establishing shots.  Milos Forman and Robert Altman were likely to use the telephoto lenses for nearly every setup.

Annotated Working Bibliography

Work Citied

 

Jones, Kent.  “A Niche of One’s Own.”  Film Comment September/October 2004:  39-41.  Academic Search Premier.  EBSCO.  University of North Carolina at Wilmington, Wilmington, NC.  30 October 2008 <www.ebsco.com>

 

-This article focuses mostly on the stylistic techniques and emotions in the film George Washington.  There is a small segment on the popularity with its run on the film festival circuit.

 

Koehler, Robert.  “David Gordon Green.”  Daily Variety January 17, 2001:  2.  Academic Search Premier.  EBSCO.  University of North Carolina at Wilmington, Wilmington, NC.  30 October 2008 <www.ebsco.com>

 

-Green discusses the beginning of his filmmaking career in an interview.  Green talks about debuting George Washington at Berlin International Film Festival, after being reject from Sundance.

 

Shirkani, K.D.  “George Takes The Gold.”  Daily Variety June 14, 2000:  12.  Academic Search Premier.  EBSCO.  University of North Carolina at Wilmington, Wilmington, NC.  30 October 2008 <www.ebsco.com>

 

-Green’s George Washington was picked up by Cowboy Booking and Antidote Films’ merger Code Red.  Film was seen at Cannes Film Festival and bought by Code Red.

 

 

Industry Report Question

I plan on writing my paper on the distribution of George Washington, specifically how George Washington went from being an unknown film made by a film time director to being picked up by a distributor and being put on criterion collection.

Week 11 Reading Questions

While Die Hard is considered the ultimate “whammo” movie, how much of it is actually taken up by “whammos”? What takes up the rest of the movie?

 

Before reading this I believed that Die Hard was all action and no story but I am wrong.  Bordwell shows from his research that only 53 minutes of the movie shows intense physical action.  This leaves 73 minutes for the movie to build a story.  As Bordwell sees it of male bonding, suspense, inventive insult, fumbling cops, fatally arrogant FBI agents, meddling TV reporters, puzzlers about the gang’s aims, parallels between business and crime, the fate of his watch, redemption, and the mending of a battered marriage.  Bordwell states that there are not any explosions or incredible action for the first 17 minutes.  Combat comes at intervals of 2 to 10 minutes.  I am really surprised by this study because I usually just watch the Die Hard movies for the whammos but I guess there is more.

 

What does Bordwell mean by “genre ecology,” and how does he characterize the current range of genres in Hollywood.

 

Bordwell means that many new B-film genres were being made into A-films by ambitious directors.  The genres were developing from being unappreciated to the new way in for young directors.  The A-list directors were making popular period pieces and literature movies like David Lean’s Dr. Zhivago.  Genre movies like crime films (film noirs), space westerns like star wars, action movies, and horror films like the exorcist were becoming popular with young directors like Brian De Palma, Spielberg, and Bordwell argues even Scorsese.

 

What does Bordwell mean by “worldmaking,” and how does it affect the narrative design of individual films?

 

I believe that Bordwell is terming the obsession of a lot of the post-classical directors like George Lucas, Ridley Scott, and Stanley Kubrick.  Their obsession was creating worlds within the movie.  What I mean by that is the directors new obsession with creating sets that were well thought out in every detail.  Bordwell discusses Lucas’ decision to create all the clothes and sets from scratch to add layers to Stars Wars.  He knew that Star Wars had the potential to be great but need to be extremely detailed to create a full world or it would be seen as a B-film.  I believe it was a way for new directors to show their intelligence when it came to making films.  They wanted their films and their careers to be taken very seriously.

 

What specific reasons does Bordwell propose for the rise and fall of contemporary genres?

 

Bordwell believes that the viewers across the entire world became more interested in complex stories.  They wanted movies that were more multi-dimensional and intricate.  This allowed movies with interweaving stories and worldmaking films to flourish.  Bordwell discusses movies such as Lord of the Rings and Pulp Fiction.

 

What do Bordwell and Thompson mean by the claim that some films are “maximally classical”? What films do they have in mind?

 

Bordwell discusses how some films in Hollywood are more classical then they have to be in terms of motifs and structure.  He believes that the Hollywood system has inexhaustible potential.  Motifs in the movie Groundhog Day make keep the viewers attention and help carry the movie.

 

Respond to this quote from a screenwriter in relation to ideas and concepts we have been discussing in this course: “It really is not necessary for everything in the movie to be understandable my every member in the audience. It’s only necessary to make sure that everything in the movie can be understood.”

 

I have no idea what this means but if you asked me outside of class so I wasn’t on the spot I would probably say that it is important for the world of the movie to have enough clues to make hints in the movie make sense to the average viewer.  I think that whatever you get out of the movie the first time is what is supposed to be conveyed and whatever I find later is kind of like gravy for me.  They are the personal touches of directors.  In the classical Hollywood system, it isn’t necessarily important everyone understands the movie but that the majority do and will be able to explain it, making the viewer that didn’t understand want to go back and watch for the clues they missed.

Mini-Majors Bordwell

Who were the mini-majors of 1980s?

Universal, Columbia, and United Artists were the mini-majors during the Classical Hollywood period.  In the 1980s, the mini-majors were Miramax, New Line Cinema, and Orion.  The companies usually had pretty good funding but were not enough to compete with the majors.

Week 10 Questions

What are the five conditions that gave rise to the New Hollywood (here defined as post-1975)?

 

Elsaesser believe that the first condition is a new generation of directors (Scorsese, Coppola, Film School Generation), second is a new marketing strategies that centered on the blockbuster as a large distribution and exhibition concept.  The third concept is a new media ownership and management styles in the film industry.  The fourth is the new technologies of sound and image reproduction.  This is ranging from digitized special effects to Dobly sound.  Finally, the last condition is the new delivery systems in marketing.  High Concept filmmaking became the norm.

 

What does Elsaesser mean by New Hollywood being defined either as “the different as same” or “the same as different.” (p. 193)

 

The New Hollywood Movie Brats were in some ways just being different in the same ways that the directors before them were.  Some directors were borrowing shots and scenarios from European directors, such as Penn borrowing from Truffaut, and directors showing strong influence from previous directors with a heavy influence coming from French New Wave.  That is how they were being the same as different.  Some were being different as the same, as some directors, such as Coppola were isolating themselves as previous directors had done.  I believe that some directors needed their independence and others believed it the way to become a mad genius.  Howard Hawks and Orson Welles definitely were brilliant men, they both suffered from isolation and almost went insane by constantly battling themselves.  Many of the greats believed that great art comes from being self-destructive.  Coppola turned away from the spotlight much like Welles did.  He was being different from his fellow movie brats but doing nothing original.

 

How is the sound/image relationship in horror films fundamentally different than other classical genres?

 

In classical Hollywood genres other than horror, the viewer relates when sound is matched to an image.  But horror films use sound without image to heighten and build characters and emotion.  The book talks about how the jungle has many sounds that make it sound errie.  The viewer relates to the sound of the jungle to a “monster in the swamp” style horror film.  The monster is nowhere to be seen but it is heard, making it more dramatic because what is heard but not seen is much more terrifying than what is seen and heard.  Sometimes, directors will play with the relations of sound and image,  For example, In 2001:  A Space Odyssey, when a man in a space suit has his cord ripped and he starts falling into space with no hope of making it back to ship, Kubrick uses dead silence at a time when most people would be screaming for dear life.  Elsaesser elaborates on how the director can keep the monster or suspense out of the diegetic world and then create a masterful non-diegetic world.  On page 196, he states, “Thus, the horror film’s generic device of braking the neat synchronization of sound and image by keeping the sources of sound invisible and off0screen also helps destabilize the primacy of the diegetic story world over the extra-diegetic or non-diegetic world.”

 

Elsaesser argues that unlike in Europe, where ruptures in realism were found in art-cinema, in Hollywood ruptures in realism were found in “minor genres and debased modes.” What genre in particular is he talking about? In what ways do you find ruptures in realism in this genre?

 

I believe that Elsaesser is talking about the ability of a director to play with spatial relations and time structure.  Keeping the film coherent enough to follow, but also confuse them enough to keep them on edge and guessing.  The raptures are things like having the monster in a horror film heard but not seen.  The director keeps the monster off-screen longer because it builds suspense and allows the audiences emotions to run frantically.  One example of this is Jaws, Spielberg keeps the sharks out of the picture most of the film.  We seen shadows and are manipulated by suspenseful music and our emotions/thought process.  We assume the worst we nothing is shown.  Of course I also heard that Spielberg wanted to shown the shark more but it kept sinking.

 

 

Elsaesser suggests that the film is a palimpsest for 100 years of film history. Why does he also conclude that the vampire film “qualifies as at once prototypical for movie history and for postmodernity.”? [Hint: see my recap of metaphors above.]

 

The name Dracula is so rich in tradition when it comes to film that it marks itself as a genre film of horror.  It is just another amazing version of a film that has been done one way or another by countless directors over the years, not always called Dracula.  It started 1922 as Nosferatu by F.W. Murnau.  The movies alludes to so many incredible art pieces and literary classics that it represents the history of cinema and the arts.  The author mentions how in this version, Dracula goes on a trip to learn about a new invention, the cinematograph.  “What more fitting, then, than the idea that Dracula should seduce Mina at the movies, illustrating how a vampire film qualifies as at once prototypical for movie history and for postmodernity.”  With the blend of calling attention to film and the classic arts, Dracula is both a prototypical film for movie history and also postermodernity.

Week 9 blogs on Bordwell

After reading Bordwell’s explanation of Thompson’s model of classical story structure (35-42), ask any remaining questions you may have about the model.

 

Is implying that not all Hollywood films fit the structure but the ones with sufficient detail do?  He explains how Big Trouble is short and therefore lacking enough detail to make it a quality film.  Bordwell writes, “Big Trouble just lacks plot material in the middle and final stretches.”

 

How do films with multiple protagonists work within the model?

 

Typically, the film will focus on one protagonist to bring the film’s focus back to a central theme, fitting back into the model developed by Bordwell.

“Multiple-protagonist plots may bend their storylines to fit the four-part structure, but the fate of one of two characters is likely to dominate.”

An example of this is the movie Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), where four men are shown barely holding on to their jobs but two men become central to the structure.  Bordwell writes, “When one or two protagonists are highlighted out of several, the four-part structure tends to be calibrated around their goals.”

 

List and briefly describe the narrational tactics discussed in the section “Tightening the Plot” (starting on p. 43).

-Appointments as a form of foreshadowing.

When objects that appear random in the beginning need to come back into play at a certain place in the screenplay.  George Cukor was very successful with this craft of foreshadowing.  If this is used here then we need to plant it here.

-Repeated Object or line of dialogue

When something is used once and then repeated or done again to invoke a certain feeling in the audience.  Something that is typically funny or warm that will allow the audience a sense of familiarity. e.g. When Rick says “Here’s looking at you” in Casablance, he says it once when Bergman is crying and they make up.  He uses it to comfort her in her time of need.  At the end when she is getting on the plane but does not want to leave Bogart behind, he says it once more to show that things will work out for her.

Motifs

-Little things that remind the audience and the characters of something important when they are not expecting it.  Touchstones are recurring objects that remind us of the story world before it was plunged into disorder.  Twitches are objects that symbolize the character’s internal conflict.  For example, the angel-wing fabric in Cast Away serves Chuck Nolan as a Touchstone, while the Wilson soccer ball is more of a Twitch.

 

-Deadlines

Strengthens the suspense and purpose of the protagonist.

What does Bordwell mean by his claim that Hollywood narratives have “passages of overtness balanced with less self-conscious ones” (p. 50)?

 

I think it means that the tactics directors use to tighten the plots are surround by less oblivious tactics in scenes to strengthen the plot.  Bordwell writes, “Given the sturdy framework of character aims and psychological change (often no more than learning to be a nicer person), the classical film seeks to give each scene a propulsive interest.  The result is a stable, powerful body of conventions shaping virtually every film.  My favorite quote Bordwell uses in this article comes from Nicholas Kazan, “you want every character to learn something…Hollywood is sustained on the illusion that human beings are capable of change.”

1.) How did directors like Arthur Penn and Sidney Lumet come over from television when the market was flooded with established directors in a time when television was competing with film?

-I think I am wrong about television and film competing.  I see two teams staring at each other, yelling like gangs in west side story.  Maybe the directors were seen as having the ability to be efficient and weren't as expensive as established film directors.

2.) How could one bad movie force Coppola to sell of his production company? 

-I don't understand how Coppola modeled his company after Corman's and then failed.  I don't understand how they could be similar if Corman made low-budget movies he allowed film students to direct, and Coppola produced movies like The Godfather. After producing such hits as The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, wouldn't the company have established itself as a major contender.  Wouldn't he have the support of other major producers.

3.)  Did all films that wanted to be shown in theaters across America have to go through the ratings system?  Did some producers and directors protest the rating their films were given?  

-I don't know if directors and producers have any say after it had been submitted.  It must not have mattered if Midnight Cowboy that had an X rating won an academy award for best picture.

Week 7 responses

How was the saturation booking and marketing of Jaws different than other Universal films (or earlier blockbusters such as The Godfather)? 

They bought television spots on the three prime time networks.  They all targeted different demographics.  Jaws ended up having the largest television campaign.  With the marketing of the book and the buzz that was created, Universal had the film open in theaters all over the country, straying away from just releasing to the major cities like L.A. and New York.

 

 

 Name three ways in which the publishers of the book and the producers of the film worked together to promote Jaws. How did they know that their logo for Jaws was successful? [Include names/companies in your answer.]

 

1.) The producers under Universal, Zanuck and Brown helped exhibitors push the release of the book even though it did not mean any advances financially for them.  They wanted to hype the book to hype the movie.  Zanuck would go on to produce the movie Sweeney Todd by Tim Burton but that is not important.

 

2.) The author of the book Peter Benchley was having the book published by Bantam books at the same time that Universal was producing the film.  They encouraged Benchley to do a lot of interviews on talk show knowing that talk would turn to movie hype.

 

3.)  Universal planned on releasing the film within months of the paper release of the book.  Zanuck/ Brown and Bantam books all worked on the logo together so that the movie and the book could be thought of together.  They knew they were successful when they showed and two thousand people waited in the rain to see it.

 

What is “blind bidding”? Why did exhibitors object to the proposed blind bidding for Jaws? Why was the blind bidding for Jaws called off?

 

Blind bidding allows exhibitors to big on film to show in theaters that they have not seen yet.  The Justice Department regulates and has rules on how to and how many films an exhibitor can blind bid on.  Universal was asking an exorbitant amount of money for a film that no one had even seen yet.  Exhibitors had no idea if the film was any good but they knew it had potential to flop leaving them out to dry and broke.  There were extreme charges just to show the film.  After a sneak preview that ensured a successful logo for Zanuck/Brown and Bantam books, the Justice Department called off the bidding because some exhibitors had the unfair advantage of seeing the film.

Robert Altman and Nashville

Sawhill was an NYU film student in 1975, thus a product of the film culture that emerged in the late 1960s / early 1970s. Respond to his opinion of post-1975 American film culture (part 3, "A Cinema of Information.") Do you agree or disagree with his assumptions, observations, and conclusions?

 

Sawhill discusses being at the theater on opening day for Nashville and seeing Altman, running up to him and asking him for an autograph, treating him like a god.  He describes films by people like Altman and The Godfather by Coppola as an art that gives the viewer everything they could ever need.  He criticizes the baby-boomers coming in and taking control.  He ridicules them and refers to them as businessmen.  He rubs me the wrong way with this, he makes it seem like the filmmakers pre-baby boomers perfected cinema and then the young hungry businessmen moved in, kicked Altman out, sent him to New York to direct plays and then to France, as untalented and believes they just try to duplicate what has already been done.  All the techniques used by Altman became the norm and he was booted out.  He says that now he has fallen out of love with movie going.  I was confused how he made post-1975 Hollywood seem like young power kicking out the old and trying to make an easy penny by standing on the shoulders of the great men that came before them.  In class, I thought we discussed how it has always been like that.

 

 

What does Sawhill suggest are the functions of the recurring “wires, phones, intercoms, cameras, mikes, speakers” throughout the film? [Note: Read the whole article before responding, don't just look for this list of devices in the article.]

 

 

Altman uses these objects to show that all the people in Nashville are always recording themselves.  Trying to create themselves then let their own personalities form.  Altman makes the people of Nashville look pretentious and fake (which had many of the resident furious, thinking the film would be a testament).  The author went to Nashville a few years after the film was released and found that Altman was not that far off.  He describes Nashville with a long quote, “Altman treats Nashville as a provincial New York or Hollywood, as one of the places where the culture manufactures its image of itself (this is Nashville in the early stages of getting slick and L.A.-ified). Altman shows us the image, and what goes into creating and sustaining it. He cuts between public functions and private domestic scenes; he shoots in studios and theaters, from onstage and from behind control booths. We gather that this is a culture that believes that its self-image accounts, or ought to account, for everything. And its image of itself is cheerful, upbeat, carefree: "It don't worry me," people sing.”  The aspect of all the recording objects makes the people look lost in their own environment.  Altman plays with pop culture and the world’s madness associated with the spotlight of celebrity.  Everyone wants to be a celebrity and then blames the world when they don’t find any.  Sawhill writes, “With its profusion of wires, recording and communication devices, its mirrors and reflections and its concern with language, playacting, time and revelation.”

 

Which of Altman’s stylistic techniques does Sawhill associate with "inclusiveness"?

 

One of Altman’s great techniques was to use more than one camera, this way the actors couldn’t play for the camera, not knowing which shot would be edited and used in the film…brilliant but expensive.  Sawhill writes, “The sound systems he developed with the sound engineers Jim Webb and Chris McLaughlin let him record and present more ambient and minor-character noise than we'd been used to. With his cinematographers -- during this period, usually Vilmos Zsigmond and, here, Paul Lohmann -- Altman used multiple cameras and lighted entire environments, not just individual shots. This gave his actors an unusual freedom of movement; it also meant that, since they often didn't know from which direction they were being filmed, or which angle was likely to be used in the final cut, they couldn't play to a camera.”  The article talks about the beauty Altman had with shaping his actresses, some of the article made me wonder if he was sleeping with all of them.  The author describes the brilliance in the acting by stating, “The stages and studios of "Nashville" are full of professionals, but the stars themselves are near-amateurs, or very skilled at playing near-amateurs. Someone who really connects (like the Ronee Blakley character) can be a lightning rod for our frustrations.”

Week 5 Questions

How were young filmmakers in the late 1960s and early 1970s different from previous generations of filmmakers in terms of the following: how they broke into commercial filmmaking, how their films were financed, and who was in charge of the studios?

 

 

-It was almost impossible to break into the Hollywood film industry in the 1950s.  It was dominated by huge directors like Wyler and Hawks.  The younger generation started pushing things with films like Bonnie Clyde, which was produced by its 29 year old star Warren Beatty.  The Graduate is another film that did well, it was directed by a then 34 year old Mike Nichols.  In 1967, The Graduate earned 32 million dollars, becoming the movie of the decade and earning Nichols an academy award for best director.  The major studios were producing large budget movies at the time, many of which started to flop.  With the success of Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate, the studios began to hire younger producers and directors to try and connect to a younger audience.  This allowed great movies like Stanley Kubrick’s A Space Odyssey to be made.  Most of the major studios were being bought out.  Dennis Hopper’s Eazy Rider established the thought of turning Independent movies of young directors into blockbusters.  The auteur theory began to spend through film schools like USC and UCLA.  Producer Roger Corman began to find talented directors out of film school.  Studios started producing low-budget movies and almost always making their money back.  By a direct result of overproduction, every studio except 20^th Century Fox, Disney, and Columbia had been taken over by major conglomerates. 

 

 

Give examples of how Coppola’s Zoetrope Studios was similar and different from Roger Corman and American International Pictures.

 

-Both Zoetrope Studios and Corman’s AIP were studios that tried to produce movies that would appeal to the “youth culture.”  Coppola admits that he modeled Zoetrope Studios directly after Corman’s American International Pictures.  Coppola started producing his friend’s films such as George Lucas first feature, THX-1138.  The biggest difference between the two companies was Coppola’s desire to produce larger films.  He produced huge epics like Apocalypse Now.  Coppola was the sole owner of Zoetrope Studios.  After the movie One From the Heart, Coppola was almost bankrupt.  The highly stylized musical was expensive and did not do well at the box office.  In 1984, Coppola was forced to sell Zoetrope Studios.

Week 4 Questions

Week 4 Questions

What is meant by ³modernist² in the passage: ³Critics engaged with a
self-declared ŒNew American Cinema¹ exemplified by the work of writers and
directors such as Jonas Mekas, Kenneth Anger, and John Cassavetes, certain
aspects of which constituted, according to David Bordwell, a conscious
Œmodernist¹ break with Hollywood classicism²? [The answer is not in the
passage; I¹m asking you to look up ³modernism² and ³modernist² if you are
not familiar with the term as you should be doing for any unfamiliar terms.


I really like this question because it isn't straight out of the reading.
You do the reading a formulate your own opinion and then look for
information to support it.  Modernism is a term used when describing a
cultural change in Western society primarily in the issues of art.  It is a
constant reform of the ideas of what is impossible.  It is built upon the
idea that man can create, improve, and reshape art.  Cassavetes believed in
this reform and found a way to make beautiful movies without conforming to
the traditional system.  He knew that the time is always now and you have to
keep trying to knew things and attacking the common practice as old and
boring.  Kenneth Anger attacked the traditional medium by shocking America
with his controversial movies.

What was Kael¹s critique of art cinema and the New American Cinema, and why
was Bonnie and Clyde ³the most excitingly American American movie² at the
time?

Kael describes the difference between art cinema as taking a story and
making it beautiful versus a documentary style narrative that tells the
story as it was remembered.  "He now focused his attention on the issue of
historical accuracy as well.  Any errors, he said, might exist in the small
details, but not in the big ones."  Critics loved the movie and started
comparing it to John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath.  Some believed in summed up
the 1930s in desperate America.  Other critics wanted to smash the movie.
It made two people look like superstars while going around murdering people
and robbing banks.  It scarred the critics and their perception of the two
bandits.  Kael states, "that when a movie so clearly conceived as a new
version of a legend is attacked as historically inaccurate, it's because it
shakes people a little."  And, "only food movies..provoke attacks."


p. 32-34: What were some of the causes and consequences of the shift from
the Production Code to the Ratings System?

The decision was made in November 1968 to change to a rating system.  It was
provoked by two Supreme Court decisions upholding the rights of local
governments to prevent children being exposed to books or movies considered
suitable only for adults, the MPA introduced ratings in an attempt to
circumvent a flood of state and municipal legislation establishing local
schemes for film classification. As a consequence, independent distributors
were briefly able to gain wider access to the domestic exhibition market,
taking a 30 per cent share of it in 1970.  Exhibitors declared that they
would not play X rated movies and some newspapers refused to advertise them.
"The constraints were, however, different in nature,  Designed as a means of
labeling movies according to the degree of explicitness in their
representation of sex, violence or language, the rating system became a
marketing device, inciting such representations up to the limits of the
permissible."

377 Week 3 questions on the underground and warhol

Why was the Charles Theater important for the development of “underground film” in New York City?

 

The Charles became an independent filmmakers paradise.  It started the Filmmakers Festival, which brought young high school drop out Ron Rice into the spotlight.  The Charles started the famous midnight showings of indie movies.  The audiences went crazy.  The audience would hoot, holler, and sometimes boo.  Jonas Mekas pushed to make it a theater where New York’s finest up and coming experimental filmmakers could showcase their work.  Tickets were only 95 cents a seat.  The Charles allowed the work of young artist to be shown for a reason price.  You didn’t have to have a big name to have your work shown.  The Charles became a theater with no limits.  The wildest films were shown and the church-like audiences loved it.

 

Which underground films encountered legal problems in 1964, and why?

 

Mike Getz was arrested and found guilty by a jury of all women for showing an obscene film, Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising.  It shows brief moments of male frontal nudity.  The film had only shown a week before he was arrested.  The other film to have legal problems was Flaming Creatures.  “On Monday, March 3, two detectives from the district attorney’s office broke up a screening of Flaming Creatures- ‘It was hot enough to burn up the screen,’ one would tell the press- impounding the film, some Normal Love rushes, and Warhol’s Normal love ‘newsreel,’ along with the theater’s projector and screen.”

 

The Chelsea Girls Question

 

Warhol is similar with Luis Bunuel because they both would find themselves making controversial films and being without a strong source of funding.  “The problem of financing has at one time of another limited, or completely curtailed, the work of such masters as Griffith, von Stroheim, Flaherty, Bunuel, and Orsen Welles.”  Mussman goes on to state, “The Chelsea Girls bears a rese,blance to L’AGE D’OR or SCARFACE specifically in terms of violence which is already manifest within the human psyche.”

 

Mussman discusses how Hitchcock’s manipulative films tell the viewer what to see and how to feel.  “His audience, “unlike Hitchcock’s for instance, is not being manipulated toward a calculated end, but rather is free to establish a line of communication with what is being shown on the screen or not.  Warhol’s cinema affords the spectator and open-ended response.

 

Realism is the greatest comparison of the works of Warhol and Godard.  Mussman describes, “Warhol’s direct approach has been has been in the air for some time, from the Italian Neo-Realist films coming out of documentary to Godard’s recent work.”   Both directors were not commercial artists.

Week One Questions for 377

What was Gilbert Seldes's main critique of Hollywood in his book, "The Great Audience"?

-Hollywood was marketing towards the younger generation.  After doing research, Hollywood’s numbers showed that people in there twenties were going to the cinemas more than there targeted audience.  They were targeting the wrong age group by trying to attract even younger children.

 

Why did Pauline Kael predict that Hollywood would lose favor with audiences, and why did Ezra Goodman declare the "end of Hollywood" in 1961?

-Pauline Kael predicted that Hollywood would lose favor because the audience wanted something more modern like television.  The audience wanted something with a sense of urgency to produce with was offered by television.

Ezra Goodman believed that TV would become too competitive for Hollywood films. It had become the primary outlet for audiovisual entertainment at the time.

 

Why was Richard Dyer McCann optimistic about the future of the American cinema in 1962?

 

-He argued that films had been given a new position by being free of self-censorship and was working away from being assembly line like productions.  Films were going to become a way of critiquing social issues and becoming more specialized.

 

By:  Brad Richardson