How the Relation of the Camera to the Real is Problematized in “The Thin Blue Line” and “Yuki Yukite Shingun” Documentary films can include every type of discourse about the real world. The accomplishments of nonfiction film are derived from more than the stereotypical edited interview segment, and recently have been a totality that is useful as much for showing reality as it is for expressing the creative visions of its director. It is possible for the most extrinsic implications to be presented in a way that reflects individual systemics and personal expression. The innovation of a nonfiction work can legitimize many techniques that were previously unused and will ultimately provide countless new ways of exploring social and historical issues. The examination of these issues using different visual styles leads to the methodical questioning of the degree of truth that surrounds each individual style. For nonfiction cinema, the epistemological virtue exists within the relation of what is filmed and what truly is real. In an inspection of The Thin Blue Line and Yuki Yukite Shingun, the relation between the camera and the real is problematized by both films’ intentional reversal of presentational truths, the awareness of the camera, the staging or reenacting of real events with actors, and the addition of graphical or aural stylistic elements. The Thin Blue Line was directed by Errol Morris in 1988. It is the retelling of a story of two men that meet by chance in Dallas, one of whom later kills a police officer. The facts are chronicled through a series of interview segments and supplemented by various reenactments, striking visual images, and a repetitive, captivating musical accompaniment. The images presen... ... middle of paper ... ...ing of real events with actors, and the addition of graphical or aural stylistic elements. As presented in The Thin Blue Line and Yuki Yukite Shingun, these elements are important to the originality of their overall films and have the effect of problematizing the relation between the camera and what is real. Sources Cited Bruzzi, Stella. New Documentary: A Critical Introduction. New York, NY: Routledge Publishing, 2000. MacDonald, Scott. A Critical Cinema 3: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1998. Plantinga, Carl R. Rhetoric and Representation in Nonfiction Film. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Renov, Michael. Theorizing Documentary. New York, NY: Routledge Publishing, 1993. Ruoff, Kenneth. Filming at the Margins: The Documentaries of Hara Kazuo. Iconics 16 (Spring 1993): 115-126.
...lly has a critic. To strengthen the arguments and persuade viewers to their side of the debate, film makers tend to present only one side of the story. Specific placement of an object, the choice of words and the selection of scenes are possible elements that could be woven into documentaries to shape viewers’ perspectives on certain issues. Fat Head is a great case in point, which is likely to convert some public opinion about the ideology of healthy eating. Documentaries may contain biases that mislead the viewers; presenting ‘facts’ but perhaps not revealing the entire picture. Therefore, in a sense, documentaries can be truthful, but also fallacious. It is imperative to evaluate the techniques used in documentaries, in order to distinguish readily from what is fantasy. It could be concluded that Fat Head and Super Size Me are two version of the same reality.
I now look at film in a new light. I don’t just look at the surface. I dig deeper and watch for everything.
As stated by _____, humans seem to have an odd and very salient fascination with the open body which initiates the desire of viewing horror films. The first person camera work of the horror films Friday the 13th and the Blair Witch Project convey the intimacy between the characters and the audience, allowing each individual to identify with the characters of the film in some way. Not only is the audience enabled to experience the horror first-hand, but they are allowed to satisfy their curiosity through the medium of movies.
takes place in the 40s, following two men who are nearly opposites trying to survive together.
Most of the time films which overturn human form or behavior and make of them something unusual mostly depend on their visual ...
Crewdson has led us into his fantasy world, engrossed by the beautiful lighting and fantastical scenes. His photographs keep viewers constantly thinking, questing the truth. He challenges the conventional way of operating by using every imaginable kind of production technique in a single “frozen” moment while still trying to capture the “prefect” image. It’s these cinematic details that make his images even more persuasive. This photograph was never captured in real -life, but it has qualities that pitch the human eye to its own reality.
Mise en scene is a French theatrical term meaning “placing on stage,” or more accurately, the arrangement of all visual elements of a theatrical production within a given playing area or stage. The exact area of a playing area or stage is contained by the proscenium arch, which encloses the stage in a picture frame of sorts. However, the acting area is more ambiguous and acts with more fluidity by reaching out into the auditorium and audience. Whatever the margins of the stage may be, mise en scene is a three dimensional continuation of the space an audience occupies consisting of depth, width, and height. No matter how hard one tries to create a separate dimension from the audience, it is in vain as the audience always relates itself to the staging area. Mise en scene in movies is slightly more complicated than that of an actual theater, as it is a compilation of the visual principles of live theater in the form of a painting, hence the term “motion picture.” A filmmaker arranges objects and people within a given three-dimensional area as a stage director would. However, once it is photographed, the three-dimensional planes arranged by the director are flattened to a two-dimensional image of the real thing. This eliminates the third dimension from the film while it is still occupied by the audience, giving a movie the semblance of an audience in an art gallery. This being so, mis en scene in movies is therefore analogous to the art of painting in that an image of formal patterns and shapes is presented on a flat surface and is enclosed within a frame with the addition of that image having the ability to move freely within its confines. A thorough mise en scene evaluation can be an analysis of the way things are place on stage in...
Surely the foundations of reality have not always been so heavily emphasized in Hollywood in years past. Looking to motion pictures such as Casablanca, The Sound of Music, Clint Eastwood Western’s, Indiana Jones, and James Bond 007 (a handful of famous films), we do find questions posed and important scenarios of life brought to the screen. However, such movies were...
Being mimetic is to be practicing mimesis or imitating the real world through art. This is the purest intent of documentaries as they are created with the purpose of documenting the world as it is believed to be. In the process of showing the world, filmmakers encounter barriers of what they cannot show due to technological limitations. In these moments, recreation and imitation are used to mimic what we normally could not see. Examples of this are best seen in documentaries of the human body, outer space, or history where the camera is incapable of capturing the desired image and tools such as animations, reenactments, and camera manipulation are used. Therefore, documentaries are of the mimetic genre for the reasons given above. An example of a documentary that we watched in class whose creator was said to be attributed to the “‘mimetic faculty’, the human ‘gift of seeing resemblances’”(Turvey 29) is Walter Benjamin’s Man with a Movie Camera.
story tells of a man who is driven to murder by the combination of a
“It is unjust for photographers of mass media to create unrealistic edits of human bodies for the consideration of viewers' psyches.”
1980. Warner Bros. Directed by Stanley Kubrick. Music by Wendy Carlos and Rcachel Elkind. Cinematography by John Alcott. Editing by Ray Lovejoy. With Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd.
In this essay I will be analysing the use of cinematography in two films, using Peeping Tom (1960) directed by Michael Powell and Psycho (1960) directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The reason why I choose these two films is because although they are from the same genre, and from the same period, the methods both films use are similar and at the same time completely different.
Rendering Cinema as visual equipment being perfected to satisfy and provoke male desires. (Smelik, 1999)
2. Nichols, Bill. ‘Documentary Modes of Representation (The Observational Mode).’ Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary. Bloomington & Indianapolis; Indiana University Press. 1991. 38-44