CHAPTER TWO – The Invisible Art. Contrary to Pudovkin, surely it must be the directors vision that is the foundation of film art. The theory that a director is the person who controls the creative feel of the film originates from the auteur theory. François Truffaut and Andrè Bazin were the first to coin the word auteur, which is the French word for author. Bazin states that “today we can say at last that the director writes the film” [Murphet, J. and Rainford, L (2003)]. The primary belief of the theory is that directors will use mise-en-scene, also known as production design to bring their vision to life. There are some directors who are known to have the auteur style, which Bazin describes as “choosing personal factor in artistic creation …show more content…
Examples of these films are The African Queen (1951), The Exorcist (1974), Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), The Blues Brothers (1980) and Blade Runner (1982). A great example of this is Apocalypse Now (1979). The entire film took a whole two years to edit. While filming, Francis Ford Coppola faced issues such as drug abuse among the cast and crew, mental and physical breakdowns, tropical diseases and typhoons. The lead actor Martin Sheen, had a heart attack on set and Coppola himself suffered a nervous breakdown. The raw footage was in such a state that it needed four editors and a whole year just to sort out the picture editing, and then another year to sort out the sound. The four editors were Richard Marks, Walter Murch, Gerald B. Greenberg and Lisa Fruchtman. In his book, In the Blink of an Eye: a perspective of film editing (2001), Walter Murch explains that “no single take was the same as any other” [Murch, W. (2001)]. There were over 230 hours of film which was equivalent to having “a ratio of ninety-five to one. That is to say, ninety-five “unseen” minutes for every minute that found its way into the product. By comparison, the average ratio for theatrical features is around twenty to one.” [Murch, W. (2001)] Murch explains that the hardest part of editing Apocalypse Now (1979), was not only cutting down the enormous amount of footage, but to link the scenes together. This explains why there are so many …show more content…
Cinematographers for example believe that the camera is the very essence of film “you make the movie through the cinematography – it sounds quite a simple idea, but it was like a huge revelation to me” [Wood, J. (2005)]. However, as Murch evidenced in editing Apocalypse Now (1979), the cinematographer would not want all his shots to be seen, and one of the key responsibilities of the editor is to get rid of the bad bits. On the other hand, actors and actress also believe that they have the fundamental role in cinema. Actress Bette Davis sates “acting should be bigger than life” [Davis., B (2016)]. However in his book, In the Blink of an Eye: a perspective of film editing (2001) Walter Murch explains how an editor is “the actor’s actor, in that your responsibility is to take the most interesting moments from all the performances and find ways to make them hang together in a way that enhances and clarifies everything even further” [Murch, W.
In the film industry, there are directors who merely take someone else’s vision and express it in their own way on film, then there are those who take their own visions and use any means necessary to express their visions on film. The latter of these two types of directors are called auteurs. Not only do auteurs write the scripts from elements that they know and love in life, but they direct, produce, and sometimes act in their films as well. Three prime examples of these auteurs are: Kevin Smith, Spike Lee and Alfred Hitchcock.
What makes a producer’s style unique? How does a producer’s style distinguish itself from others’ styles? In Tim Burton’s imaginative productions, Alice in Wonderland, Edward Scissorhands, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, one is able to identify Burton’s distinct style when peeling back the layers of his films. Summarizing these films, in Alice in Wonderland, a young woman is transported to the mystical wonderland, where she must defeat the forces of evil along with a journey of self-discovery. Next, in Edward Scissorhands, an unfinished project is discovered and integrated into the everyday lives of people in a nearby suburban town. The film shows how Edward, an unfinished man, tries to live an ordinary life and make deal with his attraction towards Kim. Finally, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a story of a boy from an impoverished family who has come upon the chance to visit Mr. Wonka’s candy factory. In these three films, Burton’s cinematic style can be depicted through his frequent use of front and back lighting and low angles to show the opposing forces between good a...
...eflects the director’s personal creative vision, as if they were the primary ‘auteur’ – which is the French word for author. As far as the law goes, any film that is produced is treated as a work of art, and the auteur, as the creator of the film, is the original copyright holder. This theory has influenced film criticism since the early 1950’s, when it was originally advocated for by the film director and critic, Francois Truffaut, through a certain type of film analysis. Auteur theory itself was developed a few years later in the US through the writings of The Village Voice critic, Andrew Sarris.
To fully understand the relationship between a filmmaker and a composer, it is helpful to take a closer look at the filmmaker’s position towards music in film in general; these can of course differ substantially from one director to another. It seems, one must think, that the complete narrative and emotive potential of film music is not yet fully recognized and appreciated in many film produc...
His direction of the actors was executed extremely well. He knew exactly what he wanted from them, and did not give up until it was as he had expected. Some of his setbacks in Apocalypse Now support this opinion. He wanted every part to be performed perfectly.
(or some footage has been actualized), the composer is shown an unpolished "rough cut" of
” … an auteur is able to maintain a consistency of style and theme by working against the constraints of the Hollywood mode of production.” – Warren Buckland (2008)
With this short but very interesting and informative class I have just scratched the surface of the what it takes to make a full fleged film. It takes much more than I had presumed to make a movie in Hollywood. The number of people that it takes to make a minute of a movie let alone the entire movie was astonishing to me. There are many things that it takes to start making a movie but without an idea of some sort there is no movie to be made.
His auteur status arose from the distinctive visual style and individualistic visions evident in his films. Apart from directing, Wong Kar-wai also writes the screenplays for his own films. That gives him almost complete control over the entire film production and reinforces his authorship. He is famous for shooting without scripts, improvising the narrative as he shoots the films. With all his films being labelled as independent art-house and in contrast to the many commercial Hong Kong products, Wong Kar-wai stands apart from other directors (Stokes 186).
As an audience, we become involved in the plot not through learning about characters’ backgrounds and traits. Instead, we learn information at the same time through the mechanics of the plot and editing. We are made to work to understand the workings of the plot. As we watch the film unfold, the editing takes the along for the ride rather than watching from a distance. the audience and characters sweat together as surprises arise in the well-thought out plan and the way the movie ...
In the anime, Attack on Titan, the director is able to create and blend different master plots: vengeance by visual editing that places flashbacks at important moments inside the story and camera angles; hero’s quest by visual cuts and transitions from different character points of view; underdog by changing camera angles. Finally, but not least temptation through the use of sound editing with actions scenery and coloring. Narrative elements used by the director inside a film can change the master plot at any critical moment inside a story, elaborating a different story that can vary depending on our way of interpreting and analyzing the world around us. The director may have a general message that he wants to convey through narrative elements as it was previously stated, but we as the audience have the last word in what the film represents even though we obtain the main idea through the manipulation of the narrative elements used by the director.
“Entertainment has to come hand in hand with a little bit of medicine, some people go to the movies to be reminded that everything’s okay. I don’t make those kinds of movies. That, to me, is a lie. Everything’s not okay.” - David Fincher. David Fincher is the director that I am choosing to homage for a number of reasons. I personally find his movies to be some of the deepest, most well made, and beautiful films in recent memory. However it is Fincher’s take on story telling and filmmaking in general that causes me to admire his films so much. This quote exemplifies that, and is something that I whole-heartedly agree with. I am and have always been extremely opinionated and open about my views on the world and I believe that artists have a responsibility to do what they can with their art to help improve the culture that they are helping to create. In this paper I will try to outline exactly how Fincher creates the masterpieces that he does and what I can take from that and apply to my films.
Auteur, a word originating in France in the 1940’s is a director who is the major creative force in producing a film. Auteur translates from author in French meaning the director has the same impact to a film as a writer does to a book. An auteur was not something looked at seriously until attention was brought to in the film magazine Cahiers Du Cinéma, written by André Bazin and Jacques Doniol-Valroze. Other film makers and critics such as François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard and Claude Chabrol all included and wrote their own articles on what an auteur is. Film critic Alexandre Astrucs thought of the principle camera stylo, which is the idea that a director uses a camera in the same way an author uses a pen.
Film editing by definition is part of the creative postproduction process of filmmaking. In today’s modern world, film has made use of advanced digital technology to help with the editing. The editor or editors are usually given a complete compilation of all the footage. These various separate shots that can be regarded as ‘ raw’ footage. Their task is to create a finished motion picture through combining and selecting shots and putting them into a coherent sequence of events. Whenever we are viewing a film it is extremely difficult to consciously perceive all the editing that has been undertaken. Every single time there is a change from one image to another, this is an edit. For editors, it could be a possible annoyance or perhaps a blessing that critics and the audience never specifically point out the editor’s contribution. However it must be noted that film editors aren’t the only ones that will contribute to a films editing.
The development of editing - Editing - actor, film, voice, cinema, scene, story. 2014. The development of editing - Editing - actor, film, voice, cinema, scene, story. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Criticism-Ideology/Editing-THE-DEVELOPMENT-OF-EDITING.html#ixzz2sNiIEQqt. [Accessed 10 February 2014].