Authors: David Bordwell,Kristin Thompson
B0041VYHGW EBOK (198 page)
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The Way Hollywood Tells It: Story and Style in Modern Movies.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006.
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Black American Cinema.
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American Film Distribution: The Changing Marketplace.
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Spike Lee Interviews.
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Goodwin, Michael, and Naomi Wise.
On the Edge: The Life and Times of Francis Coppola.
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American Independent Cinema.
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Levy, Emmanuel.
Cinema of Outsiders: The Rise of American Independent Film.
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The New American Cinema.
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Steven Spielberg: A Biography.
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Robert Altman: Jumping off the Cliff.
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Contemporary Hollywood Cinema.
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Chicanos and Film: Representation and Resistance.
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Redefining Black Film.
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Thompson, Kristin.
The Frodo Franchise: The Lord of the Rings and Modern Hollywood.
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———.
Storytelling in the New Hollywood: Understanding Classical Narrative Technique.
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The Hong Kong Filmography, 1977–1997.
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The Cinema of Hong Kong: History, Arts, Identity.
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Most of the films mentioned in this chapter are available on DVD. (
Rome Open City
was issued under its original American release title,
Open City.
) Kino Video (
www.kino.com
) and Image Entertainment (
www.image-entertainment.com
) have brought out many older classics.
Some collections of early films offer an easy way to get a quick overview of a period, filmmaker, or genre. For a brief introduction to the period up to 1913,
Landmarks of Early Film
(1 disc, Image Entertainment) offers 40 shorts.
Edison: The Invention of the Movies
(4 discs, Kino Video and the Museum of Modern Art) collects 140 films from the Thomas A. Edison Company, including
The Great Train Robbery.
It contains interviews with film historians and archivists, as well as program notes and documents.
The Movies Begin: A Treasury of Early Cinema 1894–1913
(5 discs, Kino Video) gathers 133 films arranged thematically: Volume 1, “
The Great Train Robbery
and Other Primary works”; Volume 2, “The European Pioneers” (including films by the Lumières and early British filmmakers); Volume 3, “Experimentation and Discovery” (mostly early British and French films); Volume 4, “The Magic of Méliès”; and Volume 5, “Comedy, Spectacle and New Horizons.”
Slapstick Encyclopedia
(5 discs, Image Entertainment) surveys the golden age of comedy shorts—the 1910s and early 1920s.
The Harold Lloyd Comedy Collection
(7 discs, New Line) provides an extensive program of films with one of the masters of silent comedy, as well as a disc of bonus material.
A broad range of types of films is collected in
Treasures from American Film Archives: 50 Preserved Films
(4 discs),
More Treasures from American Film Archives, 1894–1931
(3 discs, Image Entertainment), and
Treasures III: Social Issues in American Film 1900–1934
(4 discs, Image Entertainment). These include documentaries, home movies, animation, experimental cinema, and fiction films such as D. W. Griffith’s 1911 one-reeler
The Lonedale Operator
(illustrating his command of early intercutting), Cecil B. De Mille’s The
Godless Girl
(1928), and Ernst Lubitsch’s masterpiece of classical continuity filmmaking,
Lady Windermere’s Fan
(1925). Each boxed set includes a book of detailed program notes.
Film Art
”
We have written several entries on film archives and the restoration and exhibition of older movies. See “American (movie) madness,” at
www.davidbordwell.net/blog/?p=2326
, on the commercial value of those movies to DVD release, on what restoration involves, and on Sony/Columbia’s restoration program—specifically, its rejuvenation of Frank Capra’s early 1930s classic,
American Madness.
Turner Classic Movies has been a major force for the restoration and exhibition of older films, and we salute it in “From Hollywood to Atlanta to us,” at
www.davidbordwell.net/blog/?p=335
.
We sum up trends in moviemaking during 2006 in “An appetite for artifice,” at
www.davidbordwell.net/blog/?p=237
.
We also occasionally write about historically important films. On a British wartime tale, see “Cavalcanti + Ealing = a little-known gem,” at
www.davidbordwell.net/blog/?p=2303
. On Béla Tarr’s
Satan’s Tango,
see “TANGO marathon,” at
www.davidbordwell.net/blog/?p=31
.
When we attend film festivals, we often comment on a wide range of modern films from all over the world. You can find information on films we’ve seen at festivals in Vancouver, Hong Kong, Bologna, and other places by going to the “Festivals” tag on our blog:
www.davidbordwell.net/blog/?cat=9
.
abstract form
A type of filmic organization in which the parts relate to one another through repetition and variation of such visual qualities as shape, color, rhythm, and direction of movement.
Academy ratio
The standardized shape of the film frame established by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In the original ratio, the frame was 1⅓ times as wide as it was high (1.33:1); later the width was normalized at 1.85 times the height (1.85:1).
aerial perspective
A cue for suggesting depth in the image by presenting objects in the distance less distinctly than those in the foreground.
anamorphic lens
A lens for making widescreen films using regular
Academy ratio
frame size. The camera lens takes in a wide field of view and squeezes it onto the frame, and a similar projector lens unsqueezes the image onto a wide theater screen.
angle of framing
The position of the frame in relation to the subject it shows: above it, looking down (a high angle); horizontal, on the same level (a straight-on angle); below it, looking up (a low angle). Also called camera angle.
animation
Any process whereby artificial movement is created by photographing a series of drawings, objects, or computer images one by one. Small changes in position, recorded frame by frame, create the illusion of movement.
(
cel animation
)
aspect ratio
The relationship of the frame’s width to its height. The standard
Academy ratio
is currently 1.85:1.
associational form
A type of organization in which the film’s parts are juxtaposed to suggest similarities, contrasts, concepts, emotions, and expressive qualities.
asynchronous sound
Sound that is not matched temporally with the movements occurring in the image, as when dialogue is out of synchronization with lip movements.
auteur
The presumed or actual author of a film, usually identified as the director. Also sometimes used in an evaluative sense to distinguish good filmmakers (
auteurs
) from bad ones.
axis of action
In the
continuity editing
system, the imaginary line that passes from side to side through the main actors, defining the spatial relations of all the elements of the scene as being to the right or left. The camera is not supposed to cross the axis at a cut and thus reverse those spatial relations. Also called the 180° line.
(
180° system
.)
backlighting
Illumination cast onto the figures in the scene from the side opposite the camera, usually creating a thin outline of highlighting on those figures.
boom
A pole upon which a microphone can be suspended above the scene being filmed and that is used to change the microphone’s position as the action shifts.
camera angle
angle of framing
.
canted framing
A view in which the frame is not level; either the right or the left side is lower than the other, causing objects in the scene to appear slanted out of an upright position.
categorical form
A type of filmic organization in which the parts treat distinct subsets of a topic. For example, a film about the United States might be organized into 50 parts, each devoted to a state.
cel animation
Animation that uses a series of drawings on pieces of celluloid, called
cels
for short. Slight changes between the drawings combine to create an illusion of movement.
CGI
Computer-generated imagery: using digital software systems to create figures, settings, or other material in the frame.
cheat cut
In the
continuity editing
system, a cut that presents continuous time from shot to shot but that mismatches the positions of figures or objects.
cinematography
A general term for all the manipulations of the film strip by the camera in the shooting phase and by the laboratory in the developing phase.
close-up
A framing in which the scale of the object shown is relatively large; most commonly, a person’s head seen from the neck up, or an object of a comparable size that fills most of the screen.
closure
The degree to which the ending of a narrative film reveals the effects of all the causal events and resolves (or “closes off”) all lines of action.
continuity editing
A system of cutting to maintain continuous and clear narrative action. Continuity editing relies on matching screen direction, position, and temporal relations from shot to shot. For specific techniques of continuity editing,
axis of action
,
crosscutting
,
cut-in
,
establishing shot
,
eyeline match
,
match on action
,
reestablishing shot
,
screen direction
,
shot/reverse shot
.
contrast
In cinematography, the difference between the brightest and darkest areas within the frame.
crane shot
A shot with a change in framing accomplished by placing the camera above the subject and moving through the air in any direction.
crosscutting
Editing that alternates shots of two or more lines of action occurring in different places, usually simultaneously.
cut
(1) In filmmaking, the joining of two strips of film together with a splice. (2) In the finished film, an instantaneous change from one framing to another.
jump cut
.
cut-in
An instantaneous shift from a distant framing to a closer view of some portion of the same space.
deep focus
A use of the camera lens and lighting that keeps objects in both close and distant planes in sharp focus.
deep space
An arrangement of mise-en-scene elements so that there is a considerable distance between the plane closest to the camera and the one farthest away. Any or all of these planes may be in focus.
shallow space
.