Cinema Theory

907 Words2 Pages

1.

The theories of the window and frame had its origins in the schools of formalism and realism. Both schools main objective was to amplify the prestige of film. During that era of film was an upstart sideshow attraction, high class form of entertainment was the theater and the visual art forms of paintings and statues. Both schools saw cinema as a way of looking a through an aperture but keeping the audience at a distance from the subject on the screen. Whether looking through at frame or looking through a window the audience would be viewing the subject matter but they would only be able to absorb it. That’s where the similarities end the formalist lead by theorist Sergei Eisenstein saw film as frame and would create shock in an attempt to provoke or raise consciousness. Sergei Eisenstein would create what he wanted to the audience to see in his films. For example in the Battleship Potemkin Eisenstein wanted to address the situation with Russia and he created the situation in his film to incite a revolution by creating chaos. The realism school lead by André Bazin saw cinema as window. To Bazin a spectator would be apart of the film as more of a witness more than just a spectator. In the movie Rear Window Jefferies was witness to his neighbor wife murder while looking through window because while looking through a window what one sees is real.

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Sergei Eisenstein expresses that “an attraction is any aggressive moment in theater” (Sergei Eisenstein Montage of Attraction). So the attraction in cinema is based on what the spectator wants to see and what they expect to see but , it’s also moment in a film the invoke a reaction whether it be physical or cognitive. Depending on the film genre the audience enters the atrium wit...

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... the rain or sees ominous clouds that usually mean something bad is coming or a storm is on the horizon. Iconic signs usually resemble what they stand for like avatar for one Farmville or Mobsters account. All three signs are prevalent in cinematic image they each have there own niche but they work together seamlessly to create the cinematic image. A take for example the beginning of the Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock 1960) Janet Leigh laying in her bra on the bed the Janet Leigh was icon of beauty and sexuality during that era. The characters Marion Crane and Sam Loomis were in an Arizona knowing that is in the southwest one first thought is that it must be hot and the sand must be everywhere those are indexical signs. The Cheap hotel was is a symbolic sign that both Crane and Loomis are doing something wrong or hey are to poor to go to a high class establishment.

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