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Kristin here\u2014<\/p>\n
We\u2019re coming up on the third anniversary of our blog\u2019s debut in cyberspace. In previous years, as a new school season starts, I\u2019ve written up a summary of entries that might prove useful to teachers using our textbook, Film Art: An Introduction<\/em>. By now, \u201cObservations on Film Art\u201d has accumulated almost 290 entries, adding up to an enormous amount of verbiage and images. We realize that it\u2019s a real chore to search it for relevant entries. That chore will only get harder as we post new pieces.<\/p>\n To help teachers, we\u2019re innovating a feature in the ninth edition of Film Art<\/em>, due out in December. We\u2019ve sifted the entire set of entries and matched relevant ones to specific passages. You\u2019ll find brief descriptions, titles, and URLs for those entries in the margins beside the text.<\/p>\n That doesn\u2019t mean that the \u201cIs there a blog in this class?\u201d series will end. Three years go by between editions of Film Art<\/em>, so we\u2019ll keep updating. For the 2007 entry, go here<\/a>, and here<\/a> for the one from 2008.<\/p>\n Most of our entries include links to other online sources for alternative information and opinions.<\/p>\n General entries<\/strong><\/p>\n Looking for a classic film to show your students? In \u201cClass of 1960,\u201d<\/a> David discusses eight that he programmed for a Belgian summer school. He also describes the work of the master Japanese filmmaker, Shimizu Hiroshi, now being rediscovered on DVD, in \u201cPierced by poetry.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cSlumdogged by the past\u201d<\/a> takes such a broad look at the play with \u201cforms and formulas drawn from across film history” in Slumdog Millionaire <\/em>that the entry might be used in conjunction with several chapters. The discussion of the film\u2019s narrative structure, stylistic choices, genre conventions, and ideology draws upon many concepts and terms used in Film Art<\/em>.<\/p>\n Chapter 1 Film Art and Filmmaking<\/strong><\/p>\n The questions asked in \u201cHas 3-D already failed?\u201d<\/a> are going to remain relevant for years. This entry looks at issues that reflect how the film industry introduces new technology. Students most likely have their own opinions on this particular subject and might find learning about the historical background intriguing.<\/p>\n A little-known aspect of filmmaking, free military assistance to commercial productions, is discussed in \u201cYour tax dollars at work for Michael Bay.\u201d<\/a> For some big action films, the savings can be considerable.<\/p>\n Jacques Tati is one of our favorite filmmakers, as the examples in Film Art<\/em> show. We discuss his little-known but important collaborator, artist and designer Jacques Lagrange, in \u201cLa main droite de M. Hulot.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n DVD supplements can be handy for teaching\u2014if they\u2019re substantive. We offer more recommendations for meaty ones in \u201cBeyond praise 2: More DVD supplements that really tell you something.\u201d<\/a> (For the earlier round, see here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n In the section on exhibition, you can send students to see some beautiful pictures of a restored movie palace in \u201cA tale of 2\u2014make that 1 and 1\/3\u2014screens.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n At the end of the chapter, we complain about what showing films on television can do to their images. \u201cBugs: The secret history\u201d<\/a> tackles another annoyance: the superimposed logos that intrude into TV screenings, as well as their more charming ancestors, the little logos inserted into silent-film scenes for copyright purposes.<\/p>\n Chapter 2 The Significance of Film Form<\/strong><\/p>\n A film’s title can give us clues to its subject and themes\u2014or baffle us. We consider the various kinds in \u201cTitle wave.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Chapter 3 Narrative as a Formal System<\/strong><\/p>\n Flashbacks are a key concept in this chapter, particularly with Citizen Kane<\/em> serving as our major example. In \u201cGrandmaster flashback,\u201d<\/a> we go into depth concerning the rise of the flashback-based film in the 1920s and 1930s, dwelling particularly on The Power and the Glory<\/em>, a film that influenced Welles. For advanced students, this entry could provide contextual background as a lead-in or follow-up to viewing Kane<\/em>.<\/p>\n Some students find it difficult to grasp the chapter’s distinctions between perceptual and mental subjectivity. We\u2019ve modified that section slightly for the new edition. Our entry \u201cCategorical coherence: A closer look at character subjectivity\u201d<\/a> goes more deeply into the subject than space allows in Film Art<\/em>, adding some examples that may help clarify this concept.<\/p>\n \u201cArchie types meet archetypes\u201d<\/a> is an analysis of comic books rather than film, but it discusses narrative tactics very similar to the \u201cwhat if\u201d plots we write about in the \u201cCloser Look\u201d box, \u201cPlaying Games with Story Time.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNow leaving from platform 1\u201d<\/a> examines the phenomenon of \u201ctransmedia storytelling,\u201d where a film or series of films may have continuations of their narratives in videogames, novels, and other formats. This entry is challenging, but advanced students might enjoy it, and again, this phenomenon is one that some of them will have encountered already.<\/p>\n The new edition of Film Art<\/em> has added a \u201cCloser Look\u201d box on credits sequences and how they often relate to the narrative. In \u201cColor, shape, movement … and talk\u201d<\/a> we give some background about Saul Bass. Some of the illustrations will be familiar, since the blog entry inspired the new box.<\/p>\n Chapter 4 The Shot: Mise-en-scene<\/strong><\/p>\n Teachers always want more material on acting. \u201cActing up\u201d<\/a> offers some discussion and examples, as well as links to useful online pieces by other authors.<\/p>\n Acting includes staging, and we examine some ways filmmakers place actors in the frame, including in depth, to guide the viewer\u2019s eye in \u201cGradations of emphasis, starring Glenn Ford.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Our entry \u201cCoraline, cornered\u201d<\/a> provides some fascinating examples of depth cues. Quite apart from the fact that the film was made in 3D, it uses differences in perspective to contrast the two worlds between which the heroine moves.<\/p>\n Chapter 6 The Relation of Shot to Shot: Editing<\/strong><\/p>\n One standard function of continuity cutting is to show us shots of characters reacting to what\u2019s going on in the scene. In \u201cThey\u2019re looking for us,\u201d <\/a>we argue that characters\u2019 expressions and gestures can cue how we\u2019re supposed to react.<\/p>\n Chapter 8 Summary: Style as a Formal System<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cSearching for surprises, and frites,\u201d<\/a> illustrates many striking stylistic moments from films of the 1910s era.<\/p>\n \u201cNiceties: how classical filmmaking can be at once simple and precise\u201d<\/a> examines motifs of framing, gesture, and screen direction in The Prestige<\/em>. (The ninth edition of Film Art<\/em> uses The Prestige<\/em> as its major example of sound techniques. \u201cNiceties\u201d could form a follow-up.)<\/p>\n Chapter 10 Documentary, Experimental, and Animated Films<\/strong><\/p>\n Nina Paley\u2019s computer-animated feature Sita Sings the Blues<\/em> demonstrates how visually striking and imaginative an essentially home-made film can be. Students can download and watch Sita<\/em> for free on the film\u2019s official site<\/a>. \u201cTake my film, please\u201d<\/a> is the transcript of an onstage Q&A I conducted with the filmmaker after a festival screening. Her unusual decision to give the film away in order to publicize and later make money from it also relates to do-it-yourself filmmaking and distribution as mentioned in Chapter 1.<\/p>\n The new edition uses Waltz with Bashir<\/em> as an example of an animated documentary. For more discussion on the boundary between fiction and documentary in animation, see \u201cShowing what can\u2019t be filmed.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Chapter 11 Film Criticism: Sample Analyses<\/strong><\/p>\n We offer some thoughts on the nature and history of movie criticism in \u201cLove isn\u2019t all you need.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201c(50) Days of summer (movies), Part 2\u201d<\/a> is a discussion of three films from the 2009 summer season: The Taking of Pelham 123, Public Enemies,<\/em> and Inglourious Basterds<\/em>. The analysis of the first two is relatively brief, but the discussion of the Tarantino film goes into detail concerning narrative, style, and genre conventions. It could be used as an example of a critical essay or in relation to Chapters 3, 8, and 9.<\/p>\n Chapter 12 Film Art and Film History<\/strong><\/p>\n New collections of historically important films are increasingly appearing on DVD. We review a collection of Lotte Reiniger\u2019s silhouette animated films and one of Belgian experimental movies in \u201cForgotten but not gone: more archival gems on DVD\u201d<\/a> (both also useful for Chapter 10). There\u2019s also a lengthy version of Gance\u2019s La roue<\/em>. That film provided a few of our illustrations in Film Art<\/em>, and it belongs to the French Impressionist movement chronicled here. \u201cAn old-fashioned, sentimental avant-garde film\u201d<\/a> provides information on the restored print and comments on Gance\u2019s place in history.<\/p>\n Douglas Fairbanks\u2019 career before he went over to swashbuckling epics is too little known. In \u201cHis majesty the American, reaching for the moon\u201d<\/a> we review that early career on the occasion of the release of a new DVD set with a group of his comic features, films that skillfully used the emerging classical Hollywood style to hilarious effect.<\/p>\n \u201cPreserving two masters\u201d<\/a> details the good work of the Munich Filmmuseum in releasing two DVDs of restored prints. One is a longer version of the still incomplete 1922 Ernst Lubitsch epic Das Weib des Pharao<\/em>, the second a disc containing the complete surviving work of Walther Ruttmann up to Melodie der Welt<\/em>. That includes his abstract animated films and the classic Berlin<\/em>.<\/p>\n Our blog avoids 10-best lists at the end of each year. Instead, we\u2019ve fallen into an annual habit of listing the 10 best films of 90 years ago. Last year it was \u201cThe 10 best films of the year … 1918.\u201d <\/a>Stay tuned for our 1919 list.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the 80s, stupid\u201d<\/a> examines the attractions of a decade usually thought of as less productive of significant films than the 1970s had been. The entry proved surprisingly controversial. It could be used in conjunction with the New Hollywood part of this chapter.<\/p>\n Chapter 12 ends with a section on Hong Kong cinema. \u201cHappy birthday, Film Workshop!\u201d<\/a> updates it and comments on Tsui Hark\u2019s career.<\/p>\n In March of this year, the third edition of our other McGraw-Hill textbook, Film History: An Introduction<\/em>, appeared. In “Around the world in 750 pages,”<\/a> we discuss the state of film-historical studies in the late 1980s, when we set out to write the book, as well as how we went about researching and organizing it. About a year ago, David added an essay, “Doing Film History,”<\/a> to his website. Among other insights, this essay might help students better grasp why people think watching old movies is worthwhile!<\/p>\n By the way, once our web czarina Meg gets back from the Toronto Film Festival, we\u2019ll be asking her to change the name of the blog from \u201cObservations on film art and Film Art\u201d to the simpler \u201cObservations on Film Art.\u201d When we started out, we thought we needed to signal that the blog would be about both matters relating directly to the textbook and those that lie outside its scope. We think that\u2019s pretty well established by now, so we\u2019re simplifying our title.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kristin here\u2014 We\u2019re coming up on the third anniversary of our blog\u2019s debut in cyberspace. In previous years, as a new school season starts, I\u2019ve written up a summary of entries that might prove useful to teachers using our textbook, Film Art: An Introduction. 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