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Preface x
P art one
Introduction to
Film Analysis 1
1 Introduction 3
Cinema: A Confluence of Artistry, Industry,
and Technology 4
How This Book is Organized 6
Technical Tips 8
2 An Approach to Film Analysis 9
Understanding Audience Expectations 10
Expectations and Modes of Organization 11
Expectations about Genres, Stars, and Directors 13
The Orchestration of Detail 14
Motifs 15
Parallels 16
Details and Structure 18
Parallels and Structure 18
Turning Points 18
Repetition and Non-chronological Structure 19
Creating Meaning Through the World Beyond
the Film 20
Historical Events and Cultural Attitudes 20
Stars and Public Figures as References 21
Intertextual References 22
Meaningful References with Objects 26
The Goal of Film Analysis: Articulating Meaning 26
The Importance of Developing Interpretive Claims 30
Summary 30
Film Analysis: Reading Significant Details 31
The Orchestration of Detail in Pan’s Labyrinth 31
3 Writing About Film 37
Getting Started 38
Keeping a Film Journal 38
Formulating a Thesis 38
Managing Verb Tense 39
Four Types of Writing About Film 39
The Scene Analysis Paper 39
“The Divided Human Spirit in Fritz Lang’s The Big
Heat” 41
The Film Analysis 43
“The Anxieties of Modernity in Steamboat Bill Jr.” 44
The Research Paper 46
“The New Vampire as Sympathetic Gothic Heroine in Tomas Alfredson’s Let The Right One In” 49
Conducting Archival Research 57
The Popular Review 58
“Aliens as Apartheid Metaphor in District 9” 59
Part Two
Film Analysis 63
4 Narrative Form 65
Defining Narrative 66
Framing the Fictional World: Diegetic and Non-diegetic Elements 67
Within the Diegesis: Selecting and Organizing Events 69
Narrative Structure 70
Alternatives to Conventional Narrative Structure 72
Techniques in Practice: Narrative Structure in Stagecoach 74
Variations on Narrative Conventions: Beyond Structure 77
Perspective and Meaning 78
Character Subjectivity 80
Techniques in Practice: Noticing Shifts in Narration 82
Summary 84
Film Analysis: Analyzing Narrative Structure 85
5 Mise en Scène 91
Setting 93
Describing Setting: Visual and Spatial Attributes 95
The Functions of Setting 96
The Human Figure 97
Casting 97
Techniques in Practice: Same Film, Different Settings 97
Techniques in Practice: Same Setting, Different Film 98
Acting Style 101
Acting Brechtian: Distancing the Audience 103
Actors’ Bodies: Figure Placement 104
Techniques in Practice: Figure Placement in Citizen Kane 104
Actors’ Bodies: Costumes and Props 106
Actors’ Bodies: Makeup 107
Lighting 109
Composition 114
Balance and Symmetry 114
Lines and Diagonals 115
Foreground and Background 117
Light and Dark 118
Color 118
Two Approaches to Mise en Scène 121
The Frame in Two Dimensions: Mise en Scène
in German Expressionism 121
Combining Mise en Scène and Camerawork: The Frame
in Three Dimensions in French Poetic Realism 122
Summary 124
Film Analysis: The Functions of Space 126
Spatial Oppositions in Thelma & Louise 126
6 Cinematography 129
The Camera in Time and Space 133
Creating Meaning in Time: The Shot 133
Altering Time: Slow and Fast Motion 134
The Camera and Space: Height, Angle, and Shot Distance 138
Camera Height 138
Camera Angle 139
Camera Distance 141
Camera Movement: Exploring Space 144
Horizontal and Vertical Movement 144
Movement in Three Dimensions 145
Lenses and Filters: The Frame in Depth 148
The Visual Characteristics of Lenses: Depth of Field
and Focal Length 148
Techniques in Practice: Patterns of Camera Placement
and Movement 150
The Zoom Lens 153
Combining Camera Movement and Lens Movement 154
Through the Lens: Filters and Diffusers 155
Film Stock 157
Characteristics of Film Stock 157
Techniques in Practice: Lenses and the Creation
of Space 157
Light and Exposure 163
Film Stock and Color 163
Wide Film and Widescreen Formats 168
Stereoscopic 3D: Then and Now 169
Processing Film Stock 171
Special Visual Effects 171
Manipulating the Image on the Set 173
Creating Scene Transitions, Titles, and Credits:
The Optical Printer 175
Optical and Digital Compositing: Assembling the
Elements of the Shot 176
Performance Capture 177
Computer-Generated Images 178
Adding and Subtracting Frames 179
Digital Cinema: Post-Production 179
Digital Cinematography and Film Style 180
Summary 182
Film Analysis: Cinematography as a Storytelling Device 184
Entrapment and Escape in Ratcatcher 184
7 Editing 191
The Attributes of Editing: Creating Meaning Through Collage, Tempo, and Timing 193
Joining Images: A Collage of Graphic Qualities 193
Tempo 195
Shot Length 195
Shot Transitions 196
Adjusting the Timing of Shot Transitions 198
Techniques in Practice: Using Contrasting Imagery
and Timing to Romanticize the Outlaws in
Bonnie and Clyde 199
Story-Centered Editing and the Construction of Meaning 201
Editing and Time 201
Condensing and Expanding Time 202
Suggesting the Simultaneity of Events 203
Arranging the Order of Events 204
Editing and Space 205
Shot/Reverse Shot 206
Eyeline Match 208
Cutting to Emphasize Group Dynamics 209
Cutaways 209
Beyond Narrative: Creating Meaning Outside the Story 210
Continuity Editing: Conventional Patterns and
“Bending the Rules” 210
Continuity and Space 211
Continuity and Chronology 212
“Breaking the Rules”: The French New Wave
and its Influence 215
Associational Editing: Editing and Metaphor 217
Soviet Montage 217
Summary 221
Techniques in Practice: Soviet Montage Aesthetics in
The Godfather 222
Film Analysis: Classical Editing 224
Editing in Notorious 224
8 Sound 227
Film Sound: A Brief History 228
Critical Debates over Film Sound 230
Freeing Sound from Image 233
The Relationship Between Sound and Image 234
Emphasizing the Contrast Between Onscreen and Offscreen Space 235
Emphasizing the Difference Between Objective
Images and Subjective Sounds 236
Emphasizing the Difference Between Diegetic Details
and Non-diegetic Sound 236
Emphasizing the Difference Between Image Time
and Sound Time 237
Emphasizing Differences in Image Mood and
Sound Mood 238
Three Components of Film Sound 239
Dialogue 239
Text and Subtext 239
Volume 239
Pitch 240
Speech Characteristics 240
Acoustic Qualities 242
Addressing the Audience: the Voice-over 243
Sound Effects 245
Functions of Sound Effects 245
Characteristics of Sound Effects 247
Techniques in Practice: The Human Voice as Aural Object 248
Techniques in Practice: Sound Effects and the
Construction of Class in Days of Heaven 253
Music 255
Functions of Film Music 255
Five Characteristics of Film Music 258
Techniques in Practice: Bernard Herrmann’s Score
and Travis Bickle’s Troubled Masculinity in
Taxi Driver 265
Summary 267
Film Analysis: The Human Voice and Sound Effects 269
Sound in No Country for Old Men: A Tradition
of Violence 269
9 Alternatives to Narrative Fiction Film:
Documentary and Avant-garde Films 275
Three Modes of Filmmaking: A Comparison 276
Documentary Film: “The Creative Treatment of Actuality” 279
Narrative Documentaries 281
Documentary Form 282
Voice of Authority 283
Talking Heads and Director—Participant 283
Direct Cinema and Cinéma Vérité 285
Self-reflexive Documentary 286
The Mockumentary 287
Two Theoretical Questions 288
Documentary Spectatorship 288
Ethics and Ethnography 290
Avant-garde Film 291
Surrealist Cinema 292
Abstract Film 294
The City Symphony 295
Techniques in Practice: Interpreting Abstract Films 295
Structuralist Film 299
The Compilation Film 299
Conducting Research on Documentary and Avant-garde Films: Locating Sources 300
Summary 301
Film Analysis: Interpreting Avant-garde Films 303
Analyzing Meshes of the Afternoon 303
Part Three
Cinema and Culture 307
10 Film and Ideology 309
Ideology and Film Analysis 311
The Institutional Enforcement of Ideology:
The Production Code and the Anti-Communist Witch Hunts 314
Anti-Communist Witch Hunts and Hollywood Cinema 316
Ideology and Film Spectatorship 318
Topics in Ideological Criticism 322
Racial Ideology and American Cinema 322
Gender and Cinema 327
Sexuality and Cinema 332
Disability and Cinema 336
11 Social Context and Film Style:
National, International, and
Transnational Cinema 343
Hollywood’s Industrial Context: The Studio System
as Dream Factory 344
Classical Style 344
Economic Practice and Hollywood Convention 345
American Values and Hollywood Style 347
Hollywood Conquers the World? 349
International Art Cinema 350
The Industry and Ideology of “Art” 352
Italian Neorealism 354
Third Cinema 355
Fourth Cinema 357
National and Transnational Cinemas 359
12 Film Stardom as a
Cultural Phenomenon 365
Stars and the Movie Industry 367
The Dynamics of Performance 369
The Star Persona 371
Stardom and Ideology 375
Stars and Subcultures 377
Fan Culture 379
13 Genre 381
What Makes a Genre? 382
Major American Genres 388
The Western 388
Film Noir and the Hard-boiled Detective Film 392
The Action Film 393
The Science Fiction Film 396
The Musical 398
Using Genre to Interpret Films 401
Genre Film and Aesthetic Appeal: Cliché or Strategic Repetition? 401
Genre and the Status Quo 402
Genres as Culturally Responsive Artifacts 403
Genre and Film Authorship 404
14 Film Authorship 407
The Idea of the Auteur: From Cahiers du Cinéma
to the Sarris—Kael Debate 408
Auteur as Marketing Strategy: Old and New Hollywood 410
Studio-era Auteurs: Welles and Hitchcock 411
Blockbuster Auteurs: Spielberg and Lucas 413
Using the Auteur Approach to Interpret and Evaluate Films 413
The Auteur and the Consistency Thesis 414
The Life and Work of an Auteur: Studying Biographical Influence 417
Auteurs and Anomalies: Studying Aberrational Films 418
Auteurs and Ancestors: The Question of Influence 421
15 Cinema as Industry: Economics
and Technology 429
The Changing Structure of the Film Industry 431
From Oligopolies to Conglomerates 431
Horizontal Integration: Merchandise and Games 432
Globalization 433
Industry Labor Practices 434
Outsourcing 434
Star Compensation 435
Runaway Productions 435
Creative Centralization 436
Films as Products 437
The Blockbuster 437
The High Concept Film 437
New Modes of Marketing 438
Independent Film Culture 439
Two Independent Institutions: Sundance and Miramax 440
Film and the New Technology 442
The Rise of the DVD and Blu-ray 445
Film and Digital Technologies 446
Glossary 451
Bibliography 458
Index 463
Picture Credits 468
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