hello all,

if people are missing the jenkins essay for next from the course pack, please take the time to read an earlier draft posted to the following web address:

http://web.mit.edu/cms/People/henry3/starwars.html

Poly Day

Jonah Takalua is a year 8 student at Summer Heights High. He is celebrating his culture by participating in 'Poly Day'. Fiske's discussion about "subcultural reading of a television program", reminded me of Jonah. He discusses how sometimes an underrepresented group identifies with a character that is most similar to them (p. 70). Maybe someone from Tonga, living in Australia, identifies with Jonah. Or maybe, even someone whose not Tongan and not living in Australia, identifies with Jonah Takalua.

Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstien, the "father of montage" editing, is well-known for this scene in his 1926 release Battleship Potemkin.

The baby carriage scene is such a classic that even modern-day filmmakers have

attempted to mimic it. In the 1987 film The Untouchables, Brian de Palma

remade the scene in attempt to pay homage to Eisenstein.

"An Aesthetic of Reality: Neorealism"

An Occurrence at Owl creek I think is a wonderfully aesthetically created film. The director uses natural mise-en-scene to convey a deeper meaning of what we clearly see on the surface. This film even brings into question, what exactly is reality and is purposely distorted trough time and space.

-Wade Wilson




LikeTelevision Embed Movies and TV Shows

"An Aesthetic of Reality: Neorealism"

As discussed in class, the title of the reading, An Aesthetic of Reality, contradicts itself. It is a manipulation of reality. With that, it was shown by the Italian cinema that you can use several components in film to make a real story look and feel to the audience very real, even though it’s a film and its not a real situation happening and being caught on film, instead it's a recreation of it. The modern TV show that comes to my mind that I believe similarly takes this concept and runs with it is, Curb Your Enthusiasm. This show is a show in which the actors are not given a script, are told very little about the episode they are shooting, and have to improv. Doing this, I believe, is what gives the show the realistic feel that it has. I love how the reactions of the cast seem genuine and not contrived. The way the show is shot also makes it look like you are following Larry David around in his everyday life. I also love how situations that happen in this show (similar to Seinfeld) are situations have occurred in Larry David's real life.

This video is a short, ‘on the set’ look into the new season. The cast explains how they really have no clue what the episode is about while the filming happens, and so on. The purpose of me posting this video so you can see the effort gone into making this show have the realness that it does:


This next video goes deeper into the 'behind the scenes' of the show. When I watched this it excited me for the upcoming season and made me love the show even more. Knowing the effort they put into making the show ‘real’ makes me appreciate it that much more.:

Monica Barrios

PAPER ONE PROMPTS

Hi all,

Here are some quick ideas on possible topics to consider for your first paper:

1.) Account for the difference in opinion on the topic of mass culture in W. Benjamin's "Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" and either Adorno's chapter in "The Dialectic of Enlightenment" ("The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception) or "On the Fetish-character of Music and the Regression of Listening." Consider each writer's opinions on the possibilities for a mass cultural art, the effect on viewers, etc. Be specific in tracing the contrasts of two and the reasoning behind the differences. You can use any TV/ film text to help illuminate arguments.

2.) Compare W. Benjamin's discussion of the proper use of art in the age of mechanical reproduction (and the dangers of its misuse) and its effect on viewers with Peter Wollen's characterization of counter cinema forty years later in "Godard and Counter Cinema: Vent d'Est." You can use any TV / film text to help elucidate the contrast.

3.) Adorno spent a lot of time trying to understand and critique the use of propaganda. Eisenstein's early film works and writings were in essence concerned with propaganda. Knowing what we know of each thinker, how would each respond to the other's works. In other words what is the Adorn-ic criticism of Eisenstein and what is the Eisensteinian criticism of Adorno. Bring in as many outside works of each as is necessary. Be careful to avoid simple political oppositions and, instead, consider more fully each thinker's understanding of film and film viewership.

4.) Contrast Eisenstein's "A Dialectical Approach to Film Form" with any number of the director's later (post-1930) writings. How and why did his ideas concerning montage and spectatorship evolve?

5.) In his discussion of film aesthetics Bazin sought for support / examples from the other arts. A particularly counterintuitive case is the author's defense of theater on film ("Theater and Cinema" [parts one and two]). How can this discussion be reconciled with the critic's theories as established in "An aesthetic of reality" and "The Ontology of the Photographic Image"?

6.) On a certain level JL Baudry and his contemporaries (Christian Metz, Stephen Heath, etc.) were critics of film and film practices that "center" the viewer. However, Bazin in his characterization of cinematic realism -- the bete noire of apparatus theory -- was making similar claims about the ideal function of cinema. In what way were apparatus theorists expanding on the ideas of Bazin and how were they moving beyond them?

7.) What can we learn / take from apparatus theory in a post-cinema, post-feminist age in which many of the supporting struts to their claims of dominant ideology in film and film viewership have been cast aside -- what is still vital and interesting in these theories? Give lots of examples.

8.) What are the possibilities for a cinematic pleasure outside of dominant ideology afforded for by Laura Mulvey? Explain and give lots of examples.

These are just my initial ideas -- may have more as time goes on. Email for any needed clarification. Also if you have a different idea that you may feel is appropriate, email it too me and I'll give it a once over.

I'll talk a little more about this is class, but my expectations concerning the paper are basically the following:

1.) you must have a central thesis / argument guiding everything addressed in the paper
2.) paper must be 5-7 pages
3.) paper must BE SPECIFIC -- don't make reference to "the part in Bazin where he talks about..." or "the part in "Potempkin" where..." -- instead quote / paraphrase / explicate / expand / clarify AT LENGTH
4.) paper must use at least one academic source not included in coursepack (many prompts have recommendations -- ask me if you need more)
5.) papers must cite in an "academic" fashion

more questions? email, or we can all talk later

Andre Bazin " An Aesthetic of Reality: Neorealism” p.20

Rossellini's Open City is set in Rome during Nazi occupation. It shows how “the Italian cinema was noted for its concern with actual day-to-day events”. Pina, the pregnant heroine of the film, is killed. Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell, authors of the book Film History, believe that Pina’s death shocks viewers and “suggests that in real life – as opposed to the movies –good people may die pointlessly”. (Film History, p.365)

"An Aesthetic of Reality: Neorealism": Paisa - Shows the Reality of Italian Cinema

This image gives me a real feeling of the time and location of the movie, Paisa, discussed in the reading, "An Aesthitic of reality: Neorealism."

Rossellini tells us, in succession, six stories of the Italian Liberation. One part of the six stories includes the realism of the second world war in Europe.

Rossellini is not over-dramatizing. 35% of the housing in Western Europe was destroyed in the Second World War. While this may seem unimaginable to us, it is the reality that the Italians and other Europeans lived. And again, we have a chance for a surprisingly intimate encounter between an American GI, a black American GI - played by a non-actor , by the way, an American that Rossellini found in Italy at the time of the filming - and a young boy.

The black American GI is an MP, and the kid's a young hustler. The American GI is, in some ways, a shabby stereotype. In our more politically sensitive age, and from our side of the Atlantic, we don't like image of a drunken American soldier, particularly a drunken black American soldier. Here Rossellini is accurately reflecting the stereotypes many held, but he's also trying to counteract them.

Dialectic Approach to Film Form - Requiem for a Dream

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tknWiGf7kes

If you go to 6:05 of the clip in the link above, there's about a 6 second mini-montage from the film

Requiem for a Dream (Aronofsky, 2000) which I think is a good illustration of what Eisenstein

discussed in his montage theory. Specifically, on p. 60 he states, "The differentiation in montage-pieces

lies in their lack of existence as single units. Each piece can evoke no more than a certain association."

Each of the abstract images, the dilating pupil, the lighter, the interior of the veins, etc, come together to

establish the feeling of "getting high," rather than explicitly stating that the protagonists are getting high.

Jose Guerrero