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Classical hollywood cinema and new hollywood cinema
Classical hollywood cinema and new hollywood cinema
Classical hollywood cinema and new hollywood cinema
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1- Classical Hollywood Cinema in transition (a+b)
Casablanca can be considered a prime example of Classical Hollywood Cinema due to many of the film’s goals, its narration, style, sounds, visuals, and subject matters. Looking first to the goals of the film, Polan claims in her essay, “Casablanca comes closest to for many fans to embodying Hollywood cinema in its classic moment insofar as we imagine this classic cinema to encapsulate a certain high level of achievement in escapist entertainment and story telling accomplishment” (Polan 343). The film’s goals fit with the time’s wartime ideals and achievements, and coincide with topics that many people are very interested in. In this way Casablanca is able to uphold its reputation as an example
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of Classical Hollywood Cinema. Casablanca’s style also coincides with these elements to a certain extent. Casablanca is styled in such a way that it portrays a place where people can escape to. Ilsa and Rick are constantly escaping to Casablanca, but people at the end also escape Casablanca. This is styled throughout the film by the fine nature of everything in the shots, as well as the composition focusing on characters dressed in fine materials, drinking and having a good time. However, the style of the composition also focuses in on character’s faces when they need to express emotion, which appeals to people living during the time of Classical Hollywood Cinema. Casablanca’s attitude towards relationships and love ties into this as well. Another element to Casablanca’s style is the style of shots that are used to relay the action in the film. Polan uses a great example of the use of a montage to show the series of arrests at the beginning of the film. “Here, the montage appears to tell us, are examples of the sorts of shady figures that people the town. But suddenly, out of this series of anonymous anecdotes of ongoing police arrests, one suspect looks off screen left and then dashes off in that direction, the camera pivoting to follow him as he moves past his potential captors” (Polan 345). This montage brings action into the film, and styles it in such a way that the audience follows, and is linked to the suspicious nature of the plot from the beginning. Because this occurs at the start of the film, the audience knows that in these montage situations throughout, the element of suspense will be present and danger is ensured. The sounds and visuals of Casablanca are well known and clearly linked to being a part of Classical Hollywood Cinema. Polan states that even at the beginning “the film guides into its fictional world by gliding into it: music that plays over shots, dissolves that blend one shot into the next and thereby smooth over the transitions, and cuts that maintain screen directions and match action between shots” (Polan 344). Music is a large part of Casablanca that is seen in the film. Even when the characters are not playing it, as Polan states, the music is playing as scenes are playing out, and the shots are coated by this music to set the mood for the audience. The mood in Casablanca is supposed to seem happy, but this music alludes to the façade that is the safety of Casablanca, and leads the audience to still remain suspicious and keep up with the suspense of the story. All of these elements work together “to construct a faultless narrative flow that pulls the spectator in” (Polan 344). Because these elements pull the spectator in, they also affect the audience with the emotions intended from the music, and the focus from the shots as well. The subject matter of Casablanca also coincides with Classical Hollywood Cinema because it revolves around romance and the war which interested people during that time.
However, the subject matter also refers to the “potential limits” Polan discusses in his essay. Casablanca is an overall very accurate depiction of Classical Hollywood Cinema, but it also has subject matter and elements that make it a more modern story, unique from others of its type. Polan explains that although Casablanca remains the prime example of Classical Hollywood Cinema, “Casablanca announces the more-than-partial irrelevance of romance to the new present and future needs of a world that is growing up” (Polan 357). Casablanca no longer follows the stereotype that the characters will easily just fall in love and there will be a happy ending. Rather, the subject matter of Casablanca keeps the audience guessing for the duration of the film. In fact, the audience is even unable to make a clear moral judgment on which man in the film Ilsa should end up with (Polan 353). This complex subject matter is “giving in to suspicion about love and romantic commitment” (Polan 353) which Polan also discusses was a thought that began to dominate in the times of
war. Casablanca is a prime example of Classical Hollywood Cinema, however it also has elements that add a modern twist, and ensure audiences much more than they’re expecting. 2- Film Terms Composition is the entire frame of the image in the scene. This basically means that it frames everything in order to portray meaning through different compositions. Cinematic elements from the mise-en-scene are compiled within this frame, and directors can create the composition in certain ways to focus their characters in a certain light, or to add meaning in some other way. For example, in There Will Be Blood, when the actors are all down mining for oil, the shot is composed of simply the oil mine, which is very dark and muddy. Viewers see only this mine in the frame, and it is very focused on the actors and their actions. This composition builds suspense as it’s darkness mystifies viewers, and because of the composition this darkness is really all that is seen. Close-up shots are shots that are very focused on the subject of the scene. Often the character or subject of the shot is large and dominates a lot of the space, and essentially the focus is on that subject. An example of a close-up shot is also seen in There Will Be Blood after the son goes deaf from the accident. The shot moves from the father shaking the son, into the son’s face as the sound fades out. This fading leaves one to look directly into the son’s face as the shot becomes very close up. The purpose of this is to read the boy’s emotion, and see his confusion as the deafness takes over. Close-up shots are effective at conveying emotions like these because they focus in on one subject, and make it one of the only things viewers can see. A frame within a frame is the set up of a frame where there are elements in the composition that work to create another frame. This can be made up of anything, but the frame within the frame works to add focus and concentration on one part of the frame. An example of a frame within a frame is in Casablanca, when the main character is looking out of a window to see the man following them. The focus shifts to where they are looking, and this man is in the frame, but also within the frame are many walls that work to frame the man. They are slanted and shifty, so they insinuate that the man is trying to be hidden, therefore the frame within a frame technique ensures this. A high angle shot is when the camera films the scene from a high angle. This type of angle often makes the subjects in the scene farther away, because the audience sees them from the high angle rather than something closer up. This type of angle was used when the son is involved in the blinding accident in There Will Be Blood. This angle is used to leave some mystery as to exactly what happened to the boy, but the audience is able to witness the entirety of the encounter. Tracking shots move throughout the entire action of the scene, so they are moving with the subjects in most cases. This happens in many scenes in movies, especially when the goal of the scene is to follow the action so the audience can see the entirety of the encounter. This seems to happen typically in chase scenes in movies. It also occurs in There Will Be Blood when the camera follows the son, at the very end, to the Dad’s wife with his desk. The audience is unaware of where he is going, but follows as the camera shot also does. Lastly, non diegetic sounds are sounds in films that don’t come from the characters themselves. So sound effects, or background music that is intended to put the audience in a certain mood. In the beginning of There Will Be Blood, when the main character is mining for oil (one of the only scenes in which he is in a mine) there is suspenseful music playing in the background. It’s the beginning of the movie, so the audience doesn’t fully grasp what is going on. The music leads into a somewhat dark story, so it helps to build suspense. 3- Film Analysis of Fargo This scene from Fargo includes many film techniques. Three interesting techniques are the composition of the scene, the acting of the scene, and the distance of the scene. The composition in the scene from Fargo is a very informative technique. The director makes multiple uses of composition, especially in instances of symmetry. The scene is symmetric when the car is speeding through the fog, down the center of the shot. This composition shows the fog and dim lighting, and that only. It should the car driving straight down the center, going pretty quickly ensuring a fast arrival to its destination. The director uses this effect and the symmetry of it to ensure what the audience is looking at. He uses composition symmetry again before Margie leaves. The frame that captures the inside of her house has two sides, which are asymmetrical. This asymmetrical view forces the audience to look at Margie start her car, while her husband sits silently, unmoving, as he eats his breakfast. The director’s composition also involves a lot of organization. Looking back again to the scene with the house and Margie starting her car, the frame is organized so the audience sees both sides of the house equally, just with different views. It cuts the frame into two, but focuses the energy more on the half with the moving character, Margie. Acting and choreography is another important film technique that enhances the scene from Fargo. Margie as an actress is very blunt and plain. She stomps around and seems very simple. This is seen in the way she walks, especially as she somewhat tromps through the snow. This is exaggerated through her walk, and the audience is well aware of it at this point in the scene. She’s a character actor, who plays the part of Margie especially well. The acting and choreography of the scene guide the audience’s attention because of the noise in her walk, and her way of speaking. As an audience member one becomes focused on Margie’s life with her husband, and hardly any attention is paid at all to the husband or her fellow investigator. The shots also follow Margie, as she leaves the house, her car speeding down the road, and her actions as she looks through the dead bodies. Her choreography holds the camera attention, which keeps the audience very interested in her actions. She is positioned as the base subject in all of the frames, if her car driving down the road is included. Lastly a third film technique that enhances this scene from Fargo is the distance changes in the shots. The camera constantly changes distances to enhance different details possibly important to the original story line. Initially the camera is not focused very closely on Margie an her husband, but as the scene progresses the distance from the camera closes in. As soon as Margie arrives at the crime scene, the camera is already a little bit closer and showing more detail about her outfit, and it captures her partner as well. This shot is also interesting because it focuses on the characters due to the colors. All of the snow and fog is light and white, while the bodies and the characters are in dark colors. The distance becomes especially close when Margie is in close contact with the dead bodies on the snow. This shot gives a close look at Margie, and the shot reads her emotion even though it does not reveal what she is seeing. The audience is able to look into her eyes and see her face, while in many of the scenes previously it was focused more on her as a whole being. The distance comes in close again when Margie reveals she’s pregnant from the comment about the morning sickness. The frame stops on her, with the distance relatively close, and then shifts again as she finishes her point and the next character begins to speak.
This is an extremely basic concept that is impossible to miss. Implicit meaning in a film is an idea that isn’t directly expressed but still should be understood by the viewers that are watching. Implicit meaning in Casablanca: In Michael Crutiz’s Casablanca (1943) we see that the characters are trying to outrun their pasts.
In the essay “Beautiful Friendship: Masculinity & Nationalism in Casablanca”, Peter Kunze lavishly explains the magnificence of Michael Curtiz’s 1942 film Casablanca. Kunze focuses on how the movie not only highlights an exchange of relationships, but how the film has an underlying meaning between these relationships. He also implies that there is a more complex meaning behind every character in regards to their gender, economic, and social roles. The overall thesis of his reading is “the patriarchal ideology underlying the narrative commodifies Ilsa, leading Rick to exchange her with other men in an act of friendship and solidarity as well as to dissuade any perception of queerness between the strong male friendships in the narrative” (Kunze
One can gather that socialism was on the rise and supported by many of the working class. From the co-op in The Crime of Monsieur Lange to the Communist party’s support of Madame Nozière, public opinion was shifting away from supporting a patriarchal society. What was once taboo became more popular topics of discussion, such as the pornography in Baptiste’s possession, Estelle’s miscarriage of Batala’s child, fathers taking their daughters’ innocence, and ousting men of unnecessary power. A film, while not necessarily factual, focuses on culture and values. Cinema is an art form that reflects what the directors and actors, and by extension, the general public, believe.
Beginning the mid 1920s, Hollywood’s ostensibly all-powerful film studios controlled the American film industry, creating a period of film history now recognized as “Classical Hollywood”. Distinguished by a practical, workmanlike, “invisible” method of filmmaking- whose purpose was to demand as little attention to the camera as possible, Classical Hollywood cinema supported undeviating storylines (with the occasional flashback being an exception), an observance of a the three act structure, frontality, and visibly identified goals for the “hero” to work toward and well-defined conflict/story resolution, most commonly illustrated with the employment of the “happy ending”. Studios understood precisely what an audience desired, and accommodated their wants and needs, resulting in films that were generally all the same, starring similar (sometimes the same) actors, crafted in a similar manner. It became the principal style throughout the western world against which all other styles were judged. While there have been some deviations and experiments with the format in the past 50 plus ye...
Robert B. Ray categorizes Casablanca as "the most typical" American film. Ray uses Casablanca as a tutor text for what he calls the formal paradigm of Classical Hollywood as well as the thematic paradigm that addresses the conflict between isolationism and communitarian participation. The film is typical in its appropriation of an official hero Laszlo, who stands for the civilizing values of home and community, and an outlaw hero Rick, who stands for individu...
...o survive and flee the inevitable evil. With World War II raging, viewers in the United States could feel the fear and anxieties as well as compassion for the characters. Although some movies can be rewritten to obtain a better effect over the viewers, Casablanca cannot be redone. The mere fact that the evil of the day was a reality of the time prevents this movie from ever having the same effect on the audience.
The film Casablanca will always remain an American classic. American people critiqued it as a high quality film over a time period, defining a classic and still today Casablanca remains a top American movie. Michael Curtiz, the director, shows World War II on the home front, using the setting to transfer the view point. The famous and popular Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Paul Henreid play the complex love triangle that leads the film to the stories purpose and theme. Casablanca illustrates liberal criticism through a hometown war rebellion setting, the nationalistic view points, and true love’s tribulations.
Classical Hollywood movies are important to the film making. They have set a guide and standards to be followed by filmmakers to come. Making films is not only a business but an art. It reflects the directors and writers imagination of what the film should be. Classical Hollywood films encompass many formal elements. One such film that encompasses these elements is the film Casablanca. IT is a classical Hollywood film because it uses the formal elements in a way to convey its message and has been critically acclaimed for generations.
The many debates about art cinema versus classical cinema have been going around for a while. The mainstream Hollywood classical film and the art cinema are frequently presented as opposites. In one, the style of the film is bland, while the other seeks to center its focus on the visual becoming central as narrative unity. Throughout the movie directed by Stanley Kubrick called 2001: A Space Odyssey, we see that this film can be classified as an art film. On the other hand, it can also be seen as classical film. Even though these two are the complete opposite and they contradict themselves, they are both apparent in the film.
In 1982, the journalist Chuck Ross, in an experiment for Film Comment, mailed the script of Casablanca to 217 agencies under a different title and under a different authorship name. Although many rejected it for external reasons, eighty-one agencies read it and of those, fifty-three did not recognize it as the classic. But here’s the cherry on top: forty-one agencies criticized the iconic, Oscar-winning script with harsh words. One wrote, “Story line is thin. Too much
The characters, settings, soundtrack, wardrobes, and musical numbers all reflect a more classical feel, bringing the romance of older films into the modern world. The attitudes and personalities are even partially classic with being set on their passions as opposed to fitting into today’s world. What makes this classical-modern mix so special is that it has never been done before. The older films have political issues of underappreciated and recognized, driven women, and are relatable to modern day audiences. Modern films are dry, repetitive, and predictable, lacking in style and creativity, despite filmmakers having access to larger audiences and resources. So by taking the classical style of older films and putting it with a modern mindset and in a today’s world, a wonderful film is
... movie stars like royalty or mythical gods and goddesses, viewing the drama between great archetypal characters in a personal psychic realm. By considering the statements made and their societal impact from a Marxist perspective, Benjamin’s method is highly effective, as it does not simply consider art in terms of pure aesthetics anymore, but considers art’s place in a society capable of mechanically reproducing and endlessly duplicating film, photography, and digital art. His qualm with losing the aura and mystique of an original work is negated by the cult of movie stars, the adoration of fame, the incorporation of soundtracks which embody a particular time period, cinematographic allusions, and time-capsule-like qualities of a film such as Basquiat, a 90s tribute to the 80s, produced both as a part of and resulting from the art movements and trends it addresses.
In this essay the following will be discussed; the change from the age of classical Hollywood film making to the new Hollywood era, the influence of European film making in American films from Martin Scorsese and how the film Taxi Driver shows the innovative and fresh techniques of this ‘New Hollywood Cinema’.
The postmodern cinema emerged in the 80s and 90s as a powerfully creative force in Hollywood film-making, helping to form the historic convergence of technology, media culture and consumerism. Departing from the modernist cultural tradition grounded in the faith in historical progress, the norms of industrial society and the Enlightenment, the postmodern film is defined by its disjointed narratives, images of chaos, random violence, a dark view of the human state, death of the hero and the emphasis on technique over content. The postmodernist film accomplishes that by acquiring forms and styles from the traditional methods and mixing them together or decorating them. Thus, the postmodern film challenges the “modern” and the modernist cinema along with its inclinations. It also attempts to transform the mainstream conventions of characterization, narrative and suppresses the audience suspension of disbelief. The postmodern cinema often rejects modernist conventions by manipulating and maneuvering with conventions such as space, time and story-telling. Furthermore, it rejects the traditional “grand-narratives” and totalizing forms such as war, history, love and utopian visions of reality. Instead, it is heavily aimed to create constructed fictions and subjective idealisms.
Classic narrative cinema is what Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson (The classic Hollywood Cinema, Columbia University press 1985) 1, calls “an excessively obvious cinema”1 in which cinematic style serves to explain and not to obscure the narrative. In this way it is made up of motivated events that lead the spectator to its inevitable conclusion. It causes the spectator to have an emotional investment in this conclusion coming to pass which in turn makes the predictable the most desirable outcome. The films are structured to create an atmosphere of verisimilitude, which is to give a perception of reality. On closer inspection it they are often far from realistic in a social sense but possibly portray a realism desired by the patriarchal and family value orientated society of the time. I feel that it is often the black and white representation of good and evil that creates such an atmosphere of predic...