![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
ENG 335 - Class Notes
English 335 - Postwar Global Film
Class Notes, 2008.04.29
============
NOTE: Take Home Midterm due THURSDAY!
============
Finishing up talking about Sembène and West African Cinema
Xala, cont.
Sembène was known for his adherence to and disruption of traditional film techniques. He frequently violated the 180° Rule.
"The 180-Degree Rule"
A rule in film making to help orient the audience in dialogue scenes.
(Wikipedia article, YouTube example)
The camera may be put anywhere along one side of a 180° line, but only along one side. This creates a consistent sense of space for the audience, because characters are always facing the same way each shot.
In a classical shot/reverse shot setup, using this technique keeps the viewers from getting disoriented.
It can also function as a way of putting the viewer "in" the scene, as a silent participant. Film historian Kaja Silverman calls this a "Suture," in that it stitches the viewer into the process of the unfolding story.
Sembène frequently breaks this style, keeping the viewer at a distance.
Xala also utilizes non-diagetic music throughout, which only becomes diagetic at the very end, when you learn that the ever-present beggars are the ones playing the music, and they have been responsible for the Xala all along.
Diagetic sound is sound that is part of the universe that the characters inhabit. If they can hear the sound, like music, then it is diagetic. If it's sound they cannot hear, but exists only for the viewer, then it is non-diagetic.
==========
THE FRENCH NEW WAVE
==========
1950s France
These films were something new in France.
They broke the rules of French commercial cinema.
In 1959, at the Cannes Film Festival, François Truffaut won awards for "The 400 Blows," and the French New Wave was underway.
Factors in the emergence of the French New Wave (FNW):
1. Auteur Theory & Bazin
2. The emerging French counterculture
3. Production methods
4. Infrastructure & support
1. Auteur Theory
This theory, a hallmark of the FNW, is that the director of a motion picture is the author of the film.
(Not everyone agrees with this, ex. screenwriter is arguably as much an author as the director).
André Bazin: Film theorist and critic, founded the magazine "Cahiers du cinéma"
Bazin is considered a "father figure" of the FNW.
Came from an Italian Neorealism background, and was a proponent of Neorealism.
Had a close working relationship with Truffaut, and influenced him.
Said that a director writes the film like a novelist.
Class Notes, 2008.04.29
============
NOTE: Take Home Midterm due THURSDAY!
============
Finishing up talking about Sembène and West African Cinema
Xala, cont.
Sembène was known for his adherence to and disruption of traditional film techniques. He frequently violated the 180° Rule.
"The 180-Degree Rule"
A rule in film making to help orient the audience in dialogue scenes.
(Wikipedia article, YouTube example)
The camera may be put anywhere along one side of a 180° line, but only along one side. This creates a consistent sense of space for the audience, because characters are always facing the same way each shot.
In a classical shot/reverse shot setup, using this technique keeps the viewers from getting disoriented.
It can also function as a way of putting the viewer "in" the scene, as a silent participant. Film historian Kaja Silverman calls this a "Suture," in that it stitches the viewer into the process of the unfolding story.
Sembène frequently breaks this style, keeping the viewer at a distance.
Xala also utilizes non-diagetic music throughout, which only becomes diagetic at the very end, when you learn that the ever-present beggars are the ones playing the music, and they have been responsible for the Xala all along.
Diagetic sound is sound that is part of the universe that the characters inhabit. If they can hear the sound, like music, then it is diagetic. If it's sound they cannot hear, but exists only for the viewer, then it is non-diagetic.
==========
THE FRENCH NEW WAVE
==========
1950s France
These films were something new in France.
They broke the rules of French commercial cinema.
In 1959, at the Cannes Film Festival, François Truffaut won awards for "The 400 Blows," and the French New Wave was underway.
Factors in the emergence of the French New Wave (FNW):
1. Auteur Theory & Bazin
2. The emerging French counterculture
3. Production methods
4. Infrastructure & support
1. Auteur Theory
This theory, a hallmark of the FNW, is that the director of a motion picture is the author of the film.
(Not everyone agrees with this, ex. screenwriter is arguably as much an author as the director).
André Bazin: Film theorist and critic, founded the magazine "Cahiers du cinéma"
Bazin is considered a "father figure" of the FNW.
Came from an Italian Neorealism background, and was a proponent of Neorealism.
Had a close working relationship with Truffaut, and influenced him.
Said that a director writes the film like a novelist.