Introduction to Arts Film and Film Studies. “Is Film an Art?” “Is film an art?” - a...

Introduction to Arts

Film and Film Studies

“Is Film an Art?”

• “Is film an art?” - a frequently asked question

Reasons• Film started as a mechanical recording of reality.

Technological rather than aesthetic and artistic.

“Is Film an Art?”• Films - a form of mass

entertainment. Sensational, vulgar, commercial, tasteless, plebeian …

• A new conception of art which is free from class and cultural binds

• The scope of art widens • Changes in attitudes over

the time• Art is no longer Art with the

capital A.


• Transformation of attitudes towards arts• Art does not have to be aesthetic (beautiful).• Bernini’s Trevi Fountains sculpture and Marcel

Duchamp’s Fountain


• Technology itself can be a medium of art• Claude’ landscape painting with temples• Vladimir Tatlin’s Monument to the Third

International


• Constructivism (Russia) – an artistic and architectural philosophy in which industrial and practical products are considered as works of art.

• Influenced Bauhaus (Germany) and De Stijl (Holland)


• Mechanical representation can be art• Photography• James Abbott’s Mrs. McNeil Whistler and Robert

Mapple Thorpe’s Portrait


• Art does not have to be precious and aristocratic.• Materials of art• Gold mosaics (St. Theodora in Ravenna) and

Robert Rauschenberg’s Monogram


• Artistic subject or motif does not have to be noble or aristocratic.

• Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I (anonymous) and Andy Warhol’s images of Marilyn Monroe


• Art can rely on popular cultural form;

art can be pop• John Everett Millet’s Ophelia and Roy

Lichtenstein’s pop art (comic strips)

Film as Total Art• Every artistic medium and every artistic form

found in film • Literature: verbal – fiction - narrative• Fine art: visual - painting, sculpture,

photography, design – shape, image, colour • Architecture: visual - building, decoration –

design, shape, weight• Music: sound (visual) – song, instrumental,

opera, musical • Theatre (verbal, visual, sound) – performance

Film and Literature

• Every film tells a story- Film is based on a script. Some scripts are based on literary work – fiction and non-fiction.

• J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the film, Harry Potter

Literature – written workMovie script – written work

Film and Drawing

• Elements of fine art in film

- Production design: sets, costume, composition, visual effects

• Story boards in Alfred Hitchcock’s Birds

• Frames must be composed like a painting• In Luchino Visconti’s La terra trema each frame

is constructed like a piece of painting.• Symmetrical composition; illusion of depth,

composed of foreground, middle ground and background, and linear perspective.

Film and Painting

Triangular composition in painting

Triangular composition in cinema, La Terrra trema

Film and Painting

Linear perspectives in paintings

Perspectival composition in cinema, La Terra trema

Film and Painting

• In La terra trema, a young man is holding his younger brother like Madonna is carrying her young Jesus.

• Painterly composition

Michelangelo’s Pieta and Roberto Rossellini’s Rome Open City

Film and Painting

• Sets are designed being inspired by or imitating a painting- Production design: sets, visual effects

• Building in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis modeled after Brueghel’s painting of Tower of Babel.

Film and Art Design

• Art designer (production designer) designs sets by employing visual imagination similar to painters and architect, and often creates them in collaboration with artists, engineers, carpenters and other art assistants

Film and Art Design (Gare du Nord) by Alexandre Trauner

Film and Art Design (Les Visiteurs du soir) by Alexandre Trauner

Film and Art Design (Les Enfants du paradis) by Alexandre Trauner

Film and Design

• Eiko Ishioka, designer, art director• Designs costumes and sets for various films• Best known for her costume design for Paul

Schrader’s Mishima, Bram Storker’s Dracula, The Cell and Beijing Olympic’s Opening Ceremony

Film and Design

• Sarsem Singh’s The Fall (2006) with costumes designed by Eiko Ishioka

Film and Design

• Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula (1992)

Film and Design

• Sets, costumes, make-ups, wigs and props were meticulously recreated in the styles of the Risorgimento (Re-unification) period (19th C) in Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard (1963)

Film and Architecture

• Set is designed after existing architecture or originally designed.

• Mayan pyramid and the headquarter building of Tyrell Corporation in Ridley Scott’s Blader Runner


• G.W. Griffith’s spectacle, Intolerance designed by Griffith with the help of Walter L. Hall.

• Huge set of City of Babylon was created modeling after historical buildings and edifices.


• Classic, neoclassic, and neo-gothic architecture inspired Intolerance

• Il Vittoriano at Piazza Venezia in Rome


• In Kurosawa Akira’s Rashomon, the first and last scenes take place under the impressive, half-ruined gate, which is reconstructed modeling after various existing gates such as Hozomon, Kaminarimon and Ninomon of the Edo Castle.


• Hozomon of Sensoji Temple, Asakusa, Tokyo


• Otemon of the Edo Castle

Film and Music

• Music and sound effects became an essential part of the film since the introduction of sound in 1928

• Joseph Losey’s Don Giovanni is a film version of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s opera and designed by Alexandre Trauner.

Film and Music

• Musical is one of the most important film genres

• Consisted of multiple forms of arts, music, song and dance

• Stanley Donen, Singin’ in the Rain

How is cinema different from other forms of arts?

• Film is a mechanical and industrial product.

mechanical technologies - camera, light, film stock, sound recorder, film processing, editing, sound mixing, CG, projector


Lighting set up in location shooting

How is cinema different from

other forms of arts?

Recording equipment: sound recorder and microphones


A camera on a dolly


• François Truffaut’s Day for Night is about filmmaking Meet Pamela

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-O3FOwJQdY


• industrial - production, distribution and exhibition, advertisementProduction companies, studios, distributors, and exhibitors, advertise agents - investment


• Film is collaborative art • producer, director, scriptwriter,

cinematographer, production designer, set designer, costume designer, editor, music composer, recording engineer, actor

What is cinema?

• How is film different from other forms of art?• LITERATURE AND FILM• The crucially important element of both is

narrative, but film has visual images and sound.• FINE ART AND FILM• Both are visual but film can tell much more

complicated stories without relying on the knowledge of the spectator.

What is cinema?

• A painting can tell a story but not complicated one. It depends on a separate text which tells the story.

• Leonardo Davinci, The Last Supper which relies on The Old Testament

What is cinema?

• John Everett Milais’ Ophelia

What is cinema?• Music and film share sound but the latter

combines it with visuals and words.• Drama/opera/musical are similar to film, but

the latter can tell more complicated stories more realistically.

• Film does not have to rely on words, the essence of the theatre, which is the major difference between film and the theatre.

• Film can tell stories through images and sounds.

What is cinema?

• Pure cinema (Alfred Hitchcock) – stories must be told with no or few words by using camera, editing, music and sound, which is impossible in any other medium of arts.

What is cinema?

• Fritz Lang’s M • The film is about crimes committed by a serial

child-killer. Stories are partly told through images and sounds. We do not see the killer but hears the tune he whistle and his casual conversation with a girl. M 3.00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihDwCKWdt0c

What is cinema?

• Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo• A former cop who suffers from acrophobia cannot

save a woman from committing suicide. Vertigo prevents him to climb up the stairs fast enough.

What is cinema?• Nearly 30 minutes

robbery sequence is told only through sounds and images without words.

• Sounds and images tell a lot about actions.

• Suspense created better without words

• Jean-Pierre Le Cercle rouge(1970)

What is cinema?

• Louis Malle’s Ascenseur pour l’echafaud

• Thriller about a married woman and her lover who almost succeed in getting rid of her husband in a supposedly perfect crime, but he commits a vital mistake.

• A story is told through images and sound.

What is cinema?

• What is cinema good at• Cinema can tell stories through not one medium -

words, images, sounds, but all these media.

What is cinema?

• What disadvantages does cinema has?• Those media must be skillfully combined.

Special talents excelling in more than one areas and controlling every aspect and stage of filmmaking are required . The importance of film director.

What is cinema?• Cinema as investment and commodity.• Cost - Return• Entertainment, commercial values required.• Is cinema a commercial product or art?• Three kinds:

1. Commercial products - Hollywood and large commercial production companies2. Artistic products - works of independent producers and directors, works made with public support3. Both

What is film studies?

• What film studies does.• Analysis of artistic elements involved - narrative,

visual, plastic, and sound element (literary, visual art, sculptural, architectural, and musical element)

• Analysis of industrial and commercial aspects.• Explore what a film shows - its theme, motif, and

background• Explore how that is shown - narrative, visual,

sound and other technique

What is film studies?• Analysis of technique:• Narrative technique - how to tell a story• Sound technique• - sound editing and mixing• Visual technique

- camera (choice of lens, filter and camera, positioning, movement, angle), lighting, colour arrangement- design (set, prop, costume)- performance - editing

Essay Title

• Watch a film and analyse its non-verbal elements. In your analysis you must find in what ways those non-verbal elements contribute to the development of stories and atmosphere.

Introduction to Arts Film and Film Studies. “Is Film an Art?” “Is film an art?” - a...

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