Lecture 13 Beyond the Feature Film

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Lecture 13Beyond the Feature Film
Bowling For Columbine (2002) Directed by Michael
Moore

• Professor Michael Green

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Previous Lecture

• Style
• Authorship
• Some Notable Auteurs

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This Lecture

• Documentary Film
• Experimental Film
• Animated Film

Waking Life (2001) Directed by Richard Linklater
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Documentary Film
The Fog of War (2003) Directed by Errol Morris
Lecture 13 Part I
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Distinguishing Types of Film

• We commonly distinguish documentary from fiction,
  experimental films from mainstream fare, and
  animation from live-action filmmaking.
• Though the lines between each kind of form are
  often blurry.

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Making Assumptions

• In each case, we make assumptions about how the
  material to be filmed was chosen or arranged, how
  the filming was done, and how the filmmakers
  intended the finished work to affect the viewer.

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What is a Documentary?

• A documentary usually comes identified as such
  by its title, publicity, press coverage, word of
  mouth, and subject matter.
• The label leads us to expect that the persons,
  places and events shown to us exist and that the
  information presented about them will be
  trustworthy.

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Facts About the World

• Every doc. aims to present facts about the world,
  but the ways in which this can be done are as
  varied as for fiction films.

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Recording Events Vs. Staging

• In some cases the filmmakers are able to record
  events as they actually occur.
• But the documentary may convey information in
  other ways as well through charts, maps and
  other visual aids, or through staging.

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Subjective Choice

• Sometimes events are staged to recreate an
  approximation of what might have happened, and
  sometimes filmmakers just let their subjects
  talk. Either way, the finished product is the
  result of subjective choice.

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Reliability Varies

• Both viewers and filmmakers regard some staging
  as legitimate in a documentary if the staging
  serves the larger purpose of presenting
  information.
• Regardless of the details of the production,
  documentaries ask us to assume that they present
  trustworthy info. about their topic.
• Still, documentaries many not prove reliable.
  Throughout film history, many documentaries have
  been challenged as inaccurate.

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Functions of Documentaries

• A documentary may
• Take a stand
• State an opinion,
• Advocate a solution to a problem
• Do all three simultaneously
• Documentaries often use rhetoric to persuade an
  audience.
• Documentaries marshal evidence, and put forth the
  evidence as being factual and reliable even if
  it is partisan or biased.

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Example
An Inconvenient Truth (2006) Directed by Davis
Guggenheim
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Types of Documentary

• Like fiction films, documentaries have their own
  genres. They include
• The compilation film, produced by assembling
  images from archival sources (Ken Burns).
• Direct-cinema or cinema-vérité, which records an
  ongoing event as it happens, with minimal
  interference from the filmmaker.
• The nature documentary (PBS, Discovery)
• The portrait documentary (History Channel, AE).
• The synthetic documentary, which mixes forms.

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Blurring Fact and Fiction

• As you might expect, filmmakers have sometimes
  sought to blur the lines separating documentary
  and fiction. Mitchell Blocks No Lies is an
  example.
• Mockumentaries such as This is Spinal Tap, are
  another blurred form. They imitate the
  conventions of documentaries but do not try to
  fool people into thinking they portray actuality.
• JFK and Forrest Gump are other examples.

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Types of Documentary Form

• Most documentaries are organized as narratives,
  just as fiction films are.
• Categorical form is 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.
• Rhetorical form is a type of filmic organization
  in which the parts create and support an argument
  The Thin Blue Line.

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Categorical Form

• If a documentary filmmaker wants to convey some
  information about the world to audiences,
  categories and sub-categories may provide the
  basis for organization.
• In categorical form, the patterns of development
  will usually be simple. The challenge of the
  filmmaker often is to keep things interesting for
  the viewer.

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Mixing the Form

• Many documentaries are a mix of categorical and
  rhetorical form, providing a wealth of
  information and than making an ideological point
  about it.
• Watch the clip from The Celluloid Closet

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Rhetorical Form

• With rhetorical form, the filmmaker presents a
  persuasive argument. The goal in such a film is
  to persuade the audience to adopt an opinion
  about the subject matter and perhaps to act on
  that opinion.

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Errol Morris

• Errol Morris is a prominent documentarian
• The Fog of War (2003)
• Mr. Death The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter
  Jr. (1999)
• Fast, Cheap and Out of Control (1997)
• A Brief History of Time (1991)
• The Thin Blue Line (1988)
• Gates of Heaven (1978)

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The Fog of War (2003)

• About Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense
  during the Vietnam War.
• Won the Oscar for Best Documentary.
• Mixes a number of documentary techniques
  including compilation and portrait and is a
  mixture of both the categorical and the
  rhetorical forms.
• Watch the clip from The Fog of War.

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Experimental Film
Koyaanisquati (1982) Directed by Godfrey Reggio
Lecture 13 Part II
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Non-Conformist Film

• Another type of film is willfully non-conformist.
  In opposition to dominant, or mainstream cinema,
  some films set out to challenge orthodox notions
  of what a movie can show and how it can show it.
• These filmmakers work independently of the studio
  system, and often they work alone.
• Their films are hard to classify, but often they
  are called experimental or avant-garde.

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The Purpose of Experimental Film

• Experimental films are made for many reasons.
  The filmmaker may wish to express personal
  experiences or viewpoints in ways that would seem
  eccentric in a mainstream context.
• The filmmaker may also wish to explore some
  possibilities of the medium itself.
• Experimental films often have no story, and try
  to create poetic images.
• Watch the clip from Koyaanisquati (1982)

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Experimental Film in the Mainstream

• Impossible to define in capsule formula,
  avant-garde cinema is recognizable by its efforts
  at self-expression or experimentation outside the
  mainstream.
• Yet the boundary lines can be breached.
  Techniques associated with the avant-garde have
  been deployed in feature films, music videos and
  other forms by Michel Gondry, Derek Jarman and
  others.

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Abstract Experimental Form

• When we watch a film that tells a story, or
  surveys categories, or makes an argument, we
  often pay little attention to the pictorial
  qualities of the shots.
• Yet it is possible to organize an entire movie
  around colors, shapes, sizes and movements and
  rhythm in the images. This is known as abstract
  form and movies in this form are usually
  organized in theme and variations.

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Andy Warhol

• Andy Warhol was a mid-twentieth century artist
  who was a central figure in the movement known as
  pop art.
• He was also an experimental filmmaker who made
  more than sixty films.
• He experimented with both form and content and
  tried to push the boundaries.
• Watch the clip from Andy Warhol A Documentary
  Film.

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Animated Film
Wallace and Gromit in the Curse of the
Were-Rabbit (2005) Directed by Steve Box
Lecture 13 Part III
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The Animated Film

• Most fiction and documentary films photograph
  people and objects in full-sized,
  three-dimensional spaces. As we have seen, the
  standard shooting speed for such live-action
  filmmaking is typically 24 frames per second.
• Animated films are distinguished from live-action
  films by the unusual kinds of work done at the
  production stage.

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One Frame at a Time

• Instead of continuously filming an ongoing action
  in real time, animators create a series of images
  by shooting one frame at a time. Between the
  exposure of each frame, the animator changes the
  subject being filmed.
• When projected, the images create illusory motion
  comparable to live-action.

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Drawn Animation

• The most familiar type of animation is drawn
  animation. From almost the start of the cinema,
  animators drew and photographed long series of
  cartoon images.

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Drawn Animation

• During the 1910s, studio animators introduced
  clear rectangular sheets of celluloid called
  cels.
• The cel process allowed animators to save time
  and spilt up the labor among assembly lines of
  people drawing, coloring, photographing, etc.
• Watch the clip.

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Modern Animation

• This system, with a few additional labor-saving
  techniques, is still in use today, though 3-D
  computer technology is increasingly used for
  Hollywood animated features.
• The process is usually split between full
  animation and limited animation.
• Cut-outs involve two-dimensional images. South
  Park employs this deliberately crude look.

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Clay Animation

• Although clay animation has been used since the
  early years of the 20th century, it has grown
  enormously in popularity since the mid-1970s.
• Nick Parks Wallace and Gromit series contain
  extraordinarily complex lighting and camera
  movements.
• Watch the clip.

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Computer Imaging

• Computer imaging has revolutionized animation.
  On a mundane level, the computer can perform the
  repetitive tasks of making the many slightly
  altered images needed to give a sense of
  movement. On a creative level, computer
  animation can open up whole new worlds, as weve
  seen with the Pixar films such as Finding Nemo,
  Wall-E and Up.
• Watch the clip.

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End of Lesson 14

• Next Lecture
• Adaptation