Popular Cinema readings summary

The first reading I started with was Justin Wyatt’s A Critical Redefinition: The Concept of High Concept. The reading opened with a discussion of the classic 1978 musical Grease, which for me was a good sign of a promising reading. As it went on to compare the critically-canned but wildly popular Grease with the critical success but commercial failure of the 1979 musical All That Jazz, I was expecting a high concept to be defined as something similar to high culture, the difference between high and low culture being something we discussed way back in week one. However, as the reading points out with the following quote from Richard Shickel, high concept is almost the opposite of high culture: “What the phrase really means is that the concept is so low it can be summarized and sold on the basis of a single sentence.”

Wyatt’s discussion of what this means for popular cinema is fascinating. He describes how the high concept film is not only a part of popular cinema through its attempts to market and gain popularity for the film (the concept is itself the ‘pitch’ to the audience), but also in terms of how it plays on stardom (“Clint Eastwood stars in . . .”) and repetition and variation (“It’s Titanic meets Star Wars!”)

I then moved on to Ethan Alter’s chapter on Jaws in Film Firsts. He starts by discussing the logistics of the production of Jaws, discussing how technical and location difficulties lead not only to the shoot taking three times as long as expected, but also lead to Jaws himself – the huge mechanical shark that stars in the film – featuring less often due to the sheer effort required to operate him. Funnily enough, Alter contends, this concession on the film-makers’ part was actually a happy accident, as the infrequency of Jaws’ appearances on screen creates the sense of suspense that makes the film so enjoyable.

This sense of suspense seemed to extend to the film’s marketing as well. According to Alter, the tripled production time created a big lead-up to the film’s release that allowed the distributors time to construct a monster marketing campaign (from unheard-of amounts of money on TV advertising to extensive merchandising), and allowed audiences to get excited about the film and read the book.

The last reading was Noel King’s New Hollywood. King started by harking back to our topic of week eight, the new Hollywood style. He described the way in which America adopted art house cinema and, to a degree, turned its back on traditional narrative conventions. However, King also points out (in a way that is particularly relevant to the popular cinema concept of repetition and variation) the way in which even new Hollywood art house films contained references to other films, particularly stylistic and aesthetic references to European art house films.

King then goes on to also discuss the concept of high concept cinema, even quoting Wyatt in his analysis of Grease and All That Jazz. He contextualises it in the era of the blockbuster; in the ’70s and ’80s, Hollywood was showing a preference for films that cost a lot but, when subjected to intense marketing campaigns generated huge profits in return. He brings up the idea of repetition and variation again in this section when discussing the way Star Wars appealed to a mass audience through its adoption of a wide range of conventions, from the Western genre to more specific textual references.

Framing New York City

Seeing as I’m still in the Big Apple this week (well actually I’m sitting at home writing this in advance but you get my drift) I thought I’d do a post on five famous frames that are particularly relevant to New York City.

1. Planet of the Apes (1968, Franklin J Schaffner)

While I haven’t seen Planet of the Apes, I don’t think you have to to be able to recognise this shot. The central premise of Planet of the Apes is that a man goes on a space mission, only to find his ship out of control and leading him to a planet where apes rule. As the film goes on, we slowly learn (SPOILER ALERT!) that he has in fact travelled not in space but in time to a future where apes rule the earth. This classic shot of iconic New York landmark the statue of liberty shows at the end of the film finally reveals the dark truth both to the audience and the protagonist, who falls on his knees in despair.

1a. The Simpsons parody of Planet of the Apes: Homer works it out

Sorry, had to put it in.

2. King Kong (1933, Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack)

Again, do you have to have seen this film to know the image? The fearsome ape (what is it with New York and killer apes?) grabs Ann Darrow and climbs up to the top of the empire state building, all while being shot at by fighter planes. Is it any wonder Roger Ebert gave this four stars?

3. Taxi Driver (1976, Martin Scorsese)

With the yellow cab, the classic Scorsese/De Niro pairing and the gritty, urban violence could this film be set anywhere else?

3a. The Simpsons parody of Taxi Driver

Can you tell I’m a fan?

4. Wall Street (1987, Oliver Stone)

Not the first or last film to be set in New York’s world-famous finance district, but perhaps the most memorable, if only for that famous line, “Greed is Good.” A gorgeous shot at the end here shows us New York under a dim, depressing haze. Hopefully I’ll have better weather.

5. Ghostbusters (1984, Ivan Reitman)

Who could forget the Stay Puft man terrorising New York City to the tunes of Ray Parker Jr? Perhaps the oddest of characters to make it into the cult cinema canon (no, wait, I’m sure there are weirder ones!), the Ghostbusters resided and did their honourable work in an old fire brigade station in the heart of New York. With that in mind, this ought to put you in an empire state of mind:

Off the frame

As I mentioned in my last post, brief three was due last week and it was all about planning what we were going to do for project brief four, and seeing as I’m heading off to the Big Apple this week, I’ve already gotten started.

As I mentioned in my last post, in my research for project brief two (an essay in which I chose to discuss the similarities/differences between cinematic and visual art) I found that most cinema theorists seemed to think that film had inherited certain limitations from visual art. For example, the difficulty of being bound by a rectangular frame, or the need to use compositional techniques to create the impression of depth on a flat surface.

It seemed to me that these problems were all dependent on the idea of ‘the frame’; that rectangular, flat surface through which we see a film. But what if it didn’t have to be that way? What if a film was round, or curved?

Thus came about my idea for project brief four. I intend to create a multi-screen film, with the screens being exhibited at different depths and angles, to break down our existing conception of the frame. (For more detail on my approach, take a look at my project proposal which I have attached to this post as a pdf.)

So with that in mind and my first overseas trip looming very close (I’m actually writing this post ahead of time so by the time you read it I’ll be in New York City, baby!), I decided to get started on filming straight away. I managed to rope in my two good friends and excellent actors Xavier and Lucy and last Friday we filmed just about every shot of the film.

THing1

 

I have to say, it certainly made it a lot harder filming for a multi-screen project. I had two cameras, so for most scenes that required multiple shots I was able to film them simultaneously, saving time and ensuring that the continuity between shots would be consistent. However, it was difficult to get out of the mindset of typical film storytelling; I kept forgetting that I was not filming a shot-reverse-shot sequence and that I would therefore have no cover for issues (if an actor forgot a line, I could not rely on cutting away to a reaction shot as both the actor and the reaction shot would be on screen).

Thingo2thing3

 

(Bear in mind when you’re looking at these that they will be displayed at different depths so the effect will be a little clearer).

Despite the difficulties, I thought overall it was a pretty successful shoot and I’m looking forward to getting into the edit suite and seeing it all come together.

Project brief three

This week was d-day (that’s due-day in uni speak) for project brief three, the spoken and written proposal for our project brief four. The constraints for project brief four are pretty wide; we just have to create some sort of media product that explores a concept relating to the frame that we’ve discussed in class.

Thursday we had the chance to watch each other’s presentations. There were some really interesting concepts being explored, most of which seemed to be inspired by students’ work and research for project brief two, the essay. (Not judging, by the way, because that’s exactly what I did.)

For example, a lot of students who had chosen to discuss colour and Wong Kar Wai’s In the Mood for Love in their essay seemed to want to explore colour. And by a lot, I mean a lot. But that’s okay, because they were all really unique and interesting. For example, Jerome decided to look at the impact of colour on emotion by creating a series of shots in which the action was the same but the colour was different. Jeremy similarly intends to look at colour, but, inspired by Shaun of the Dead, wants to use colour to link thematic elements of the frame.

Others were exploring different aspects of the frame. For example, Sandy wanted to explore the importance of frame rates, looking at films such as Mad Max and The Hobbit. Daniel wanted to look at video quality as well, adopting the style of Park Chang-kyong’s Night Fishing and using his iPhone to create a film.

As for mine, as I said, I was also inspired by my essay, and focused on what I’d learnt about the similarities between cinematic and visual art. It occurred to me that the way most theorists characterised these similarities was as limitations, so I decided to see if I could break down these limitations through re-conceptualising the frame. I don’t want to say too much yet; I’ve already done some filming so I’ll upload a post next week reviewing the shoot.

I know it’s a little bit of a short post today, but that’s because I’ve had a very dramatic day on my first RMITv set as First Assistant Director. Let’s just say that if you got evacuated from building 80 today for a fire, well . . . we may have had something to do with it.

Popular Cinema reflection

As a long-term fan of the ’70s sitcom M*A*S*H* I was pretty keen to see our text this week, the original 1970 Robert Altman film of the same name. I have to say, I wasn’t a huge fan of it: it’s grainy, hard to hear, and consists of a plot barely strung together by very thin causal links. For all of these reasons, it was a good film to use as the basis of our discussion of new Hollywood.

We’ve spent the last couple of weeks talking about the Hollywood studio system of the early 20th century, when just about all Hollywood films were produced, distributed and exhibited by the big five (and little three) production studios. This meant that most films (most, we noted in the seminar, is an important word here to avoid generalisations) adhered to a similar narrative style of having a psychologically well-defined protagonist with clear and apparent goals.

However, from the 1940s Hollywood began to change. The antitrust laws from the US government came into effect, forcing the break-up of the major studios in a bid to create more industry competition. Television was invented in the 1950s and became wildly popular, creating a cheap and convenient alternative to cinema. Furthermore, the increased importing of European and Asian films (as opposed to exporting of American films, limited due to WWII) opened American film-makers’ eyes to a new, authorial, creative style of cinema that, in the era of ’50s beatniks and ’60s hippies, answered a growing demand from a counter-cultural audience.

As a result, Hollywood saw the rise of ‘art house cinema’. In one of our readings for this week, Bordwell defines art house by its intention to subvert the classical Hollywood conventions of neatly constructed characters and linear causality in plots. Where classical cinema prefers the stereotypes of hard-boiled detective, pretty blonde, young rascal, or even more generally good and evil, art house muddles them up to create hybrids and characters whose motivations are ambiguous. Where traditionally Hollywood had liked easy-to-follow plots with a sense of resolution, art house suggested this didn’t have to be the case.

M*A*S*H* certainly exemplifies these attributes of the art house style, which became popular (and profitable) in Hollywood in the ’60s and ’70s. The protagonists (note the plural, as the film bucks against Hollywood’s desire for one or two starring roles) are by turns heroic and hateful, and the film aestheticallyis grainy and hard to hear. In fact, Altman specifically used multiple audio tracks to create overlapping sound that he thought was more true to real-world conversation.

This provides a good segue to mention the most valuable part of the discussion for me, which was the idea of realism in art house cinema. To me, Bordwell’s references to realism were somewhat confusing as he seemed to suggest a double meaning of the term. In class, we discussed the idea that art house’s often unsatisfying resolutions and ambiguous characters were realistic in their attempt to more closely mimic the real world; and yet, perhaps we could describe classic Hollywood as being the more realistic style as art house often employs a surreal aesthetic with the intention of confusing the viewer (for example, Antonioni’s hauntingly still and unrevealing shots in L’Avventura or the indistinguishable dark, alien sets of Under the Skin).

OTF reflection

Sorry for the late post folks; there’s no uni this week so I thought I’d stretch out my posts a bit, but I know you loyal fans would have been hanging out for this one!

Last week’s classes were all about the ‘exploded’ frame, looking at non-traditional cinema such as 3D and mobile technologies. I was fascinated to learn that 3D imagery was being experimented with as far back as the invention of cinema, with film’s founding fathers the Lumiere brothers trying to construct a 3D version of their camera. The 3D effect is created through filming with two cameras at once, mimicking the behaviour of the human eyes to create depth. However, nowadays it’s an effect that can also be created in post-production.

3D has been widely available since the ’50s, but as Dan pointed out, we’re currently experiencing a boom period in terms of its popularity. Not only are big blockbusters now regularly shown in 3D, there’s a whole range of TVs with 3D capability now as well. Which I think is a really interesting point to think about. Why hasn’t this caught on? Why don’t we all have 3D TVs?

In 2013, Ted Kritsonis wrote about the death of 3D TV in the online journal Digital Trends. He cites a wide variety of reasons for why 3D TV – heavily marketed in 2010-11 – never took off, including the cumbersome and pricy glasses, the inconvenience of having to watch TV from a single angle, and the lack of 3D content being broadcast (over the past few years, BBC and ESPN have both axed proposed 3D digital channels and although Netflix does have some 3D streaming, it is very limited).

A technology that has been more popular that we also discussed in ‘the exploded frame’ is mobile cinematography. As media students, it would be hard for even the most hard-headed of film purists among our class to deny the value of having devices so close at hand that have, these days, relatively high-quality filmic capabilities. Not only are mobile phones being used to document everyday life, they’ve started to become recognised as a potential medium for high-art cinema. For example, on Tuesday we watched Night Fishing by Korean brothers Park Chan-kyong and Park Chan-wook.

It’s a fascinating film. I can’t say necessarily that I enjoyed it, but I think I could appreciate it from a film-making perspective. I have to say though that I didn’t think it was particularly revolutionary in terms of mobile cinema. To me, one of the reasons the film is so engaging to watch is that it maintains typical film-style cinematography; although the picture quality is lower, there is little difference made by the use of the iPhone camera. To me, this film could have been made on a regular camera to mostly the same effect, so while I enjoyed it, I didn’t find it revelatory in terms of pushing the limits of cinematography.

However, it’s still an interesting demonstration of how mobile technology is gaining wider popularity and recognition in the field of cinema. Dan told us that he had been chosen to be a judge of a mobile cinema competition run by the Mobile Innovation Network Aotearoa, to be held at RMIT in November; I might have to go and have a look.