Compare the visions
of industrial and factory work presented in the
Gilbreth motion study viewed in class, Vertov’s The Man with the
Movie Camera, and
Chaplin’s Modern Times. How
does each film present this kind of labor? As heroic? As dehumanizing?
As humanity harnessing the power of machines? As humanity subordinated
to machines? Or as a more complex combination of these perspectives? Is
Chaplin’s tramp a hero or a victim in Modern
Times?
How does cinema
function in the Gilbreth clip, the Vertov film, and Modern Times? Does the camera
stand apart from the machines that swallow up Chaplin or that Vertov’s
worker uses? Or are the camera and the projector machines like any
other?
Chaplin literally
waves the red flag in Modern Times (during the
demonstration scene). How would you characterize the political beliefs
expressed in the film? How is the film’s presentation of modern
technology related to its politics? Is the film purely a product of the
Depression, or is it also making broader claims that transcend the
historical era when the film was produced?
Think about the
Soviet filmmakers whose films or writing we’ve
encountered. How would you compare and contrast the political
orientations of Chaplin and these various Soviet films and filmmakers?
Eisenstein places film within a much large theory of history, with the
collision of images in montage the equivalent of forces clashing in
history. Does Chaplin also place film within a much larger historical
and philosophical context? What are the important reference points in
that philosophy?
Chaplin is often
compared to Buster Keaton, probably the most famous
silent film comedian other than Chaplin. If you’ve seen any films by
Keaton, think about the similarities and differences between the kind
of comedy, especially physical comedy, performed by the two actors.
Think especially about their relationship to the camera and to editing.
To what extent are their performances the product of editing and other
tricks made possible by cinema? Or are their performances essentially
the same as they’d be on stage, with the camera just another observer
in the audience?
Chaplin made Modern Times
after a five-year hiatus, and one of the reasons cited for his refusal
to make films in the early 1930s was his unwillingness to make sound
films, despite the fact that the industry had already largely converted
to sound production and exhibition. (His 1931 film City Lights is completely silent.)
What strategies does Chaplin use to introduce sound in Modern Times? Does he appear to
embrace this new technology and attempt to exploit all the
possibilities of sound cinema? Or does he seem reluctant to work in
sound? What moments of the film are particularly important when
evaluating Chaplin’s approach to sound? How is the film’s stance toward
sound technology related to the film’s overall vision of industrial
machinery and technological progress in modern times?
This film was
produced at a moment when the “city film” or “city
symphony” became an important form of documentary. (The most famous of
these films is Walther Ruttmann’s Berlin,
Symphony of a Great City,
whose
opening
sequence
we’ll
see in class.) In what ways is The Man
with the Movie Camera a
documentary? What elements does is
share with other documentaries? What do we learn about the cities
(Moscow, Kiev, Odessa, and others) where Vertov shot footage for the
film? How does the film present that basic information? Does the space
revealed in the film seem coherent and logical or jumbled and
confusing? Why? What editing and other filmmaking strategies make the
space appear to fit together or crumble apart?
What are the
differences between the approach to filmmaking (especially
editing) displayed in Vertov’s film and the theories outlined in the
reading from Eisenstein? If you’ve seen a film by Eisenstein (e.g., The Battleship
Potemkin), how would
you compare and contrast the two men as filmmakers, as theorists, and
as bearers of a political message?
How does the
presence of the camera and cameraman in Vertov’s work
affect the theoretical and political dimensions of the film? In other
words, does the fact that the tools and the people involved in making a
film are everywhere in The Man with
the Movie Camera
(including in the title) change how we receive
the film itself? Does this reflexivity make the story more or less
engrossing? More or less moving? More or less realistic? Imagine a film
about a particular time and place without the reflexivity of Vertov’s
film and without some of the rhetorical bombast. What would the film
gain and lose in the process of toning it down?
The film returns
repeatedly to images of people fused with cameras and
people interacting with cameras. What is the relationship between human
beings and the cinematic apparatus in The
Man with the Movie Camera?
The
film begin with Anna walking out of a villa and
onto a street, where she joins her father and a worker who discuss the
rapid
changes in the built and natural environment of their time. “Soon this
poor
villa will be smothered,” says the father. “To think there were woods
here
once,” says the worker. “Yes, there’s nowhere to run” is the father’s
final
response. In the distant background we see a dome, and as the father
and Anna
discuss her upcoming island getaway, we see newly built apartments on
the side
of the road. What does this setting have to do with the rest of the
film? Why
begin a picture in this context when most of the rest of the story
unfolds on
rugged Sicilian islands and in isolated villages? Does the film’s
movement from
a space characterized by modern buildings to an island littered with
ancient
ruins or from a construction site to a landscape of rocks and sea help
frame
the situation of these characters?
In a conventional
story with this setup — you can
probably think of several examples yourselves, but if not, recall for a
moment
the TV series Green Acres and its
classic theme song — modern, urban types escape to a simpler, more
natural, more “primitive”
life in the countryside and discover a more authentic, less alienated
existence
away from the city. Is that what happens in this film? What do the
characters
learn about themselves and each other when they make these transitions
from one
category of space to another? Is there a space outside of modernity for
them to
escape to, or is there nowhere to run?
On the most
obvious level, the film’s title, which
could be translated as “The Adventure,” seems to have little connection
to the
film. L’Avventura is about as
far from an adventure film as possible, and its
poor initial reception — the film won a Special Jury Prize at the
Cannes Film
Festival but was also jeered wildly by the audience at Cannes and
panned by many
reviewers — was largely due to complaints that audiences and critics
were
spending two hours watching a film in which nothing happens. What is
the
relationship between the title and the film? Is it ironic, or is there
really
an adventure taking place? The Italian word “avventura” could also be
translated
at “a brief love affair,” and it appears one time in the screenplay
with that
connotation. Is this a light film about a series of flings? If so, why
are the
affairs so burdened with anxiety and even terror?
Think about the
acting style and more precisely the
facial expressions of Claudia (played by Monica Vitti). In conventional
movie
acting the face, especially when viewed in close-up, is a key avenue
into the
psychology of a character. “Round,” authentic, believable characters
convince
us of their emotional and intellectual depth by showing us what they
think and
feel. Is Claudia a recognizable and intelligible character in this
sense? Do we
learn with any precision what she’s thinking and feeling by looking at
her
face? If so, what? If not, what, if anything, does she communicate
instead?
Poor Anna. She
disappears on an island, and within a
few days she’s almost completely forgotten by her best friend, her
fiancé, and
the film. We never do learn what happened to her, and even if she’s not
a
particularly likeable character, people should care a little more about
her
fate. But in L’Avventura she
just vanishes. What does this bizarre hole in the
film’s plot say about its vision of humanity and/or modernity? When she
begins
her affair with Sandro, Claudia says, “How can it be that it takes so
little
time to change, to forget?” What other examples of this rapid change
and
immediate amnesia do we see in the film?
Some background
information on the film and its context.… Shanghai was
the fifth largest city in the world in the early 1930s, and it
supported a vibrant and cosmopolitan cultural scene. Parts of the city
were occupied by foreign powers, contributing to this cosmopolitan
atmosphere, but also establishing the city as a symbol of China’s
vulnerability and suffering in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Shanghai was also the home of the Chinese film industry, and between
1920 (roughly the year domestic features are first produced) and 1937
(the year Japanese bombing of Shanghai sent many of the leading
directors, actors, and craftspeople into exile, either in Hong Kong or
the Communist camp at Yan’an), about 200 production companies made
thousands of films. Those films both adopted the “global vernacular”
that Hansen writes about and produced a noticeable Shanghai style, a
local variation on those global trends. The star of Goddess, Ruan Lingyu, was probably
the most famous actress in the Chinese film industry before her suicide
in 1935 at the age of 24. She frequently portrayed suffering and
oppressed women, whose tragedy has often been interpreted as an
embodiment of China’s misery at the time.
The Hansen essay on
Shanghai silent cinema places Goddess in the context of worldwide
trends in film in the 1920s and 1930s. Which elements of Goddess seem easier to connect to
these global currents? The genre? The editing style? The studio sets?
The acting? The role of the star? Which elements seem to resist this
attempt to think about film as a globalized medium?
Although most of
the film was shot in the studio, it includes a number
of shots that show important landmarks in Shanghai (e.g., an enormous
downtown department store). What do we learn about the city from those
shots? What aspects of urban life are the focus of that location
shooting?
Think about the
number of shots that show the city juxtaposed in some
way with Ruan Lingyu. Which theorists help us understand that attempt
to link the image of this female star and the city of Shanghai? How do
we interpret those shots in terms of gender? Do these shots suggest
that Ruan Lingyu reigns over the city? That she’s a product of that
particular environment? That she’s excluded from the promise of the
city?
To what extent is Goddess a
“realist” film? How are you defining “realism” in this context? The
film focuses on the details of the main character’s everyday life, and
it’s located not in an idealized environment but on the gritty streets
of this city. Is that enough to make a film “realist”?
To what extent is Goddess a
melodrama? How are you defining “melodrama” in this context? Do the
melodramatic elements of the film contradict the moments of realism?
What is the relationship between the clear social consciousness of the
film and the tear-jerking plot, the heightened emotion of the acting,
and the odd coincidences (why does the boss always walk in when the
prostitute is hiding her money)?
Bicycle
Thieves is
often considered one of the masterpieces of Italian neorealism, and
Bazin refers to De Sica often when defining cinematic realism. In your
own viewing experience, which elements of the narrative seemed
realistic? Which elements of the filmmaking style seemed to accentuate
that realism? Which seemed to detract from that appearance of reality?
What definition of “realism” are you explicitly or implicitly adopting
when you define the film or particular moments in the film as “realist”?
Which elements of Bicycle Thieves
does Bazin emphasize when he defines De Sica as a director of realist
films? Are those the same aspects of the film that you focused on in
response to the previous questions? Which elements of de Sica’s films
does Bazin not notice or choose to deemphasize?
In an essay on Bicycle Thieves
Bazin writes that the film “is one of the first example of pure cinema.
No more actors, no more story, no more sets, which is to say that in
the perfect aesthetic illusion of reality there is no more cinema.”
What does Bazin mean by that statement? In your own experience of the
film, did Bicycle Thieves
appear less “cinematic” than in other movies? If cinema is no more,
what takes its place?
How is the realism
of Bicycle
Thieves
different from the realism of Goddess?
Which elements are more abundant or emphatic in one film rather than
the other? Is Bicycle Thieves melodramatic
like Goddess? What is the
relationship between melodrama and realism in the film? Does the
heartrending story of the family at the core of Bicycle Thieves make the film seem
less realistic? What function is served by the melodramatic aspects of
the film?
At the time of its
release, some leftist critics expressed their
disapproval of the ending of the film because it brings the personal
relationship of the father and son to the foreground and allows their
social and economic circumstances to recede into the background? Do you
share that critique? What role does the father-son story play in the
film’s representation of the social and economic conditions of post-war
Rome?
Some historical
background on the film . . . The Battle of
Algiers focuses
primarily on one three-year phase in the Algerian War of
Independence—the years 1954-1957—and it concludes with a brief coda set
in 1960. The revolution began in 1954, when the National Liberation
Front (FLN) and its military wing (ALN) launched a guerrilla war, and
ended in 1962, when the FLN forced the French army and colonial
settlers to withdraw. The fighting began in the countryside but spread
to the city in 1956, when three women placed bombs at three crowded
urban locations (a key event in the film), sparking the Battle of
Algiers. The character of Colonel Mathieu is a composite based mainly
on General Jacques Massu, the leader of the French paratroopers in
Algeria. The film combines material salvaged from the original
screenplay, called Para, which presented the battle from the
perspective of a French soldier, and other stories adapted from Souvenirs de la
Bataille d’Alger, a
memoir by Saadi Yacef, one of the FLN military commanders. Most of the
major Algerian figures in the film are based on historical figures with
the same name and played by non-professional actors. The film was
banned in France until 1971, and the torture scenes were initially
removed from American prints for fear of inciting anti-French sentiment.
Although it looks
like a documentary shot during the Algerian War, The Battle of
Algiers contains not
a single foot of documentary or archival footage, despite the fact that
French archives contained an abundance of material shot by the military
and journalists. Why would the filmmakers refuse to use existing
documentary footage and instead recreate a fictional documentary of
their own?
Although every
scene in the film was re-created years later, The Battle of
Algiers is renowned
for its appearance of documentary realism and newsreel-like
authenticity. Do you share the opinion that the film looks like a
documentary rather than a re-creation or fictional account? How does The Battle of
Algiers create the
illusion that it was shot on the scene of real historical events? How
do the cinematography and editing contribute to that effect? And the
sound?
What does the film
have in common with the Italian neorealist films
that we’ve seen in class? And with Bazin’s writing on realist cinema?
Does the film use the long shot/long take aesthetic of early neorealist
pictures like La Terra trema?
What are the key areas of overlap and difference between the neorealism
of films like The Bicycle Thief
and Algiers.
What elements of
the film appear artificial? Does the film ever draw on
conventions of fiction filmmaking? When? Do those moments undermine the
realism of the film?
How would you
describe the visual strategy that Todd Haynes uses in Safe? Does the film adopt a style
closer to the long shot/long take aesthetic characteristic of
neorealism or the analytical editing of classical Hollywood cinema?
Which specific shots from Safe
do you have in mind?
When Safe was first released
one critic remarked that much of the film looked like it had been shot
with a security camera. Which specific scenes do you think the critic
was referring to? What function does that surveillance camera aesthetic
serve? Who is watching whom? How is the impression that someone is
watching related to the film’s title? Should this surveillance make us
feel “safe in our world”?
In the doctor’s
office Carol sees an ad asking if she is allergic to
the 20th century. Of course, nobody is allergic to an entire century,
and the words “allergy” and “20th century” are being used in a larger,
more metaphorical sense in this ad. What is Carol allergic to? What
does this condition have to do with the 20th century?
Think about the
suburban southern California location of the film. Why
set the film in this particular environment? How are the security
camera aesthetic and the overarching theme of safety related to this
setting?
At certain moments
the film draws upon Hollywood genre conventions
(especially when Carol is suffering from an attack). Which genres does
the film refer to, and how does it make those allusions? Do these genre
elements seem excessive in a film that’s otherwise relatively
restrained? What do they contribute to the film?
Think about various
trajectories of the narrative. What kind of space
does Carol inhabit in the beginning of the film? Where does she find
herself at the end? What does Carol look like at the beginning of the
film? What changes does her body undergo over the course of the film?
How does Carol see herself at the beginning of the film? How does she
see herself in the final sequence in front of the mirror? Do you view
this narrative trajectory as a journey of self-discovery? Of escape? Of
retreat to safety? Or of something else? If Carol is finally safe in
her world, what are the benefits and costs of that safety?
In what ways does
the experience of Jefferies as he watches events
unfold across the courtyard parallel that of a spectator watching a
film? Be as specific as possible, and think about each aspect of the
process of watching a film: think about the physical condition of
Jefferies and/or Lisa, about their state of mind (as they betray their
fascination with what happens in the windows across the way and their
desire to know more), and about the object of their attention contained
in those rectangular windows. Which of these elements is most closely
analogous to some aspect of watching a film? Why?
What point of view
is established by Hitchcock’s camera? Is that POV
always consistent, or does the film depart from that POV at certain
moments? Also consider the many glances and gazes shown to us and
exchanged by characters throughout the film. Who looks at whom, who is
seen by whom, who watches without being seen in return? What
technological devices aid or impede vision in the course of the film?
How are those devices related to the film camera?
How does the
relationship between Jefferies and Lisa (discussing issues
of marriage, commitment, gender roles, etc.) relate to the drama
unfolding across the courtyard? Which relationships are most analogous
to those of Jefferies and Lisa? Miss Torso? Miss Lonelyheart? The
Thorwalds? How does the dynamic of the film and their relationship
change when Lisa moves over to the other side of the courtyard and
participates in the drama that she and Jefferies had been content only
to watch?
In one of its
aspects, this is a detective film concerned with the
discovery of a crime. But Hitchcock seems as concerned with the motives
of the amateur detectives as he is with those of the villain. What does
the film suggest about their desires and motives? What do we learn
about our own desires and motives from watching the film?
Like Rear Window, Peeping Tom tells a story that
revolves around some of the fundamental acts of cinema: looking, being
seen, recording images, and projecting them. How does the dynamic
change when the news photographer of Rear
Window becomes the
cinematographer of Peeping Tom? To what extent are the
characters in Rear Window punished for their voyeurism? Is there more
guilt and retribution in Peeping Tom?
What are people guilty of, and how are they punished?
The film received
horrible reviews when it was released in 1960, it was
eventually pulled from the theaters, and it virtually ended the career
of one of Britain’s most important directors. What do you think was the
cause of this outrage (in addition to the acting)?
What is the
relationship between the films that Mark Lewis makes and
watches, on the one hand, and the film that we (the spectators) are
watching? What devices are used to distinguish between the two films?
What makes Mark’s scopophilia pathological and the voyeurism of the
film audience normal? How does the mother’s blindness and almost
extra-sensory perception contribute to this meditation on limits of
vision?
Laura Mulvey writes
that cinema involves a number of different types of
gaze: the look of the camera on the world it records, the look of
characters in the film, and the look of the audience on the film. How
does Peeping
Tom
differentiate between these gazes? Is any of these gazes more sinister
and dangerous than the others? How are male and female gender roles
apportioned in the course of this movie? Is any of these gazes (the
camera, the character, the spectator) assigned a gender?
How and why does
the film relate the acts of filmmaking and viewing to
the act of murder? What is the difference between Mark’s “perfect film”
and the other snuff films he shoots? What is the relation between
Mark’s movies (“perfect” and otherwise) and the other types of images
presented in Peeping Tom
(pornography, studio productions, documents from Mark’s father’s
research, and the pictures to be taken by the “magic camera” in Helen’s
books for children)?
What motivates Mark
to commit his crimes? Do we have any sympathy with
him? Is he a victim in any sense as well? Why does Mark feel naked
without his camera?
One of the taglines
for the film was “Do you know what the most
FRIGHTENING thing in the world is?” According to Peeping Tom, what is the most
frightening thing in the world?
Think about the
experience of “clip” production and spectatorship
offered by the SQUID. How is it different from the gaze of the voyeur
and the camera that we’ve seen in Rear
Window and Peeping Tom?
How is the reception of those images different from the way the snuff
films are screened in Peeping Tom?
What fundamental challenges does this device pose to film theories
based on a model with a camera, a projector, and a screen?
Who records their
experience (or has it recorded) in Strange Days and who watches the
clips that result? Are the dynamics of the gaze—the active male viewer
and passive female object—the same as in Mulvey’s model? What changes?
What are the implications of a form of media that allows people to
exchange their sensory experience of the world with someone else? Which
characters refuse to participate in this exchange? Why?
What clips are
considered beyond the pale in Strange Days? What standards do
different characters uphold in order to maintain some distinction
between moral and immoral voyeurism and between the SQUID and real life?
Kathryn Bigelow is
probably most famous for being one of the few female
action directors, the first woman to win an Oscar for Best Director,
and because of her adaptation and transformation of
very formulaic genres. Does Strange
Days introduce any
unexpected, genre-altering twists to the
action movie? How?
Think about the
many recent films concerned with some variation on
virtual reality (e.g., The Matrix
trilogy). Why do you think this concept—a perfect recording or
imitation of the world that someone else can view or experience as
reality itself—has been so important to contemporary filmmakers? Which
theorists that we’ve read this quarter help us understand this
phenomenon?
Think about the
visual style of the film. Are there
any distinctive strategies of framing or composition? Is the black and
white
film stock used in an idiosyncratic or remarkable way? Are there any
virtuoso
moments of technical skill that draw attention to themselves and the
filmmakers? Touch of Evil is often
characterized as a film noir, and at the time of its release, it was
advertised
using typical film noir images and language. (One tag line described it
as “the
strangest vengeance ever planned!”). Does the film seem to fit
comfortably
within the aesthetic and narrative framework we associate with film
noir? If
not, when does it resist that generic framework? If so, does its
connection
with a generic formula developed by thousands of people working in an
industrial context make it less of a work of art and less a product of
the
vision of individual artists?
Welles made the
film after a relatively unproductive
decade in Europe, where he lived in a kind of artistic exile after a
series of
commercial and critical failures in the United States. He was
originally
supposed to participate in the picture only as an actor, but at the
suggestion
of Charlton Heston and others, he was also allowed to direct the film.
Eventually,
in one of the most famous instances of studio intervention in a film’s
final
cut, executives at Universal International Pictures reshot several
scenes to
include more explanatory information, radically reedited the rough cut
provided
by Welles, and eventually released it as the bottom half of a double
feature.
Welles responded with voluminous protests and detailed instructions to
reedit
the film according to his wishes, including a 58-page memo describing
his
proposed changes. (For the text of the memo and commentary on the
changes made
as a result, see http://www.wellesnet.com/touch_memo1.htm.)
Touch of Evil is one of a surprisingly
large group of supposedly great films by key directors that don’t half
an authoritative
“director’s cut” because the economics and power structure of the film
industry
placed the ultimate editing decisions in someone else’s hands. Does
this
account of the production history of Touch
of Evil strengthen or weaken the now-common argument that a
director is the
ultimate author of a film?
Quinlan is often
described by authorities on the
U.S. side of the border as a legendary cop renowned for his intuition.
After he
broke onto the Hollywood scene while still in his twenties, Orson
Welles was
renowned around the world as a great actor and storyteller, as well as
a
boy-genius director with exceptional natural talent. Welles plays
Quinlan in Touch of Evil. Does the film draw any
parallels between these two “great men”? Is making a film anything like
solving
a crime? Is a certain kind of director like a certain kind of
detective? What
roles do creativity and intuition play in the act of solving a crime?
How
important is storytelling and drama in police work? What functions do
rules and
aesthetic and social norms play in cinema? With his serial violations
of the
law and contempt for the rights of the accused, Quinlan is certainly a
flawed
cop. Does the film soften that horrific dimension of his character or
is he ultimately
as corrupt as he appears? How do you interpret the final revelation
that “Quinlan
was right after all”?
Touch
of Evil is one of the
most famous border films ever
produced in Hollywood, and the opening sequence shot appears to cross
the
border itself as it follows the car and bomb from Mexico to the United
States.
Does the film have anything interesting or profound to say about that
particular geopolitical border or the process of drawing boundary lines
more
generally? How the does the metaphor of the border relate to other
dimensions
of the film, including the narrative and the construction of character?
What
are the differences between the ways that Quinlan and Vargas view the
border
between Mexico and the United States? What happens when each character
crosses
that line into the other’s territory? What does the film have to say
about the
value and validity of these lines between countries, languages, races,
and
even, as the title suggests, between good and evil?
Is Touch
of
Evil a good film in the most generic, “thumbs up” or “thumbs down”
sense?
Is it a masterpiece? Would it be viewed in the same way if its release
date
were 2010 rather than 1958? Has its over-the-top approach to
characterization
(e.g., the nervous motel clerk played by Dennis Weaver, the lesbians
who kidnap
Susie Vargas, the young hoods and junkies, or virtually everyone of
Mexican
descent) aged well in the intervening years? Is it okay for Charlton
Heston to
play Vargas or for a Russian-born Armenian like Akim Tamiroff to play
Joe
Grandi? If these decisions about casting and the representations of
national
and racial groups seem dated, does that force us to reconsider the
status of the
supposedly “timeless” and classic film?
The Cahiers du cinéma critics
famous for developing auteur theory used Howard Hawks as one of their
prime example of a director who worked within the Hollywood studio
system but still developed a personal style in his films. (Because of
their enthusiasm for Hawks and Hitchcock, they were know as the
“Hitchcocko-Hawksians.”) If you’ve seen any other Hawks films, can you
notice any continuity between those films and Gentlemen Prefer
Blondes? Even if
you haven’t seen any Hawks films, can you imagine any room within the
formula (a musical with two major stars stealing the show) for a
director to place his stamp on the film? Where and how would the
director have an opportunity to make this into a Hawks film? If you
were asked to identify the author of this film, how would you respond?
What do you know
about the star persona of Marilyn Monroe? Where did
you get that information? Do you know about her through her films? How
has her celebrity endured over 40 years after her premature death?
Does Gentlemen Prefer
Blondes
confirm or complicate your own preconceptions about Marilyn Monroe? Is
she living up to the stereotypes and legends? Or is there more to her
performance than the myth of Marilyn?
More generally,
think about the way that a star persona is constructed
(try using one of your favorite stars as a model). What do you know
about this person and how do you know it? What does this individual
represent beyond him- or herself? What values and qualities begin to
accumulate to the star?
What kind of
image are we watching at the very
beginning of the film? In other words, what kind of filmmaker and
camera
produced it, and under what conditions? Is there a definite point of
view? Is
it film or analog or digital video? How do we know? Is there any
ambiguity? Are
there any transitions that seem to mark the passage between one way of
seeing
or image production and another?
At what points in
the film does that type of shot
return? How would you answer the questions above for each of those
subsequent
shots? Are they the same? Does it matter if the events depicted are
historical
rather than contemporary? Does it matter if the images reveal a
personal story
or memory rather than a street scene viewed from a public space? How
would you
characterize the point of view in each of those shots, especially the
childhood
memory recounted by Georges?
What is the
connection between these images and the
relationship between Georges and Majid? The film alludes to the
historical event
when Majid’s parents died, forcing him to live temporarily with Georges
and his
family. During this incident in 1961, French police attacked supporters
of the
FLN — the Algerian independence movement also featured in The
Battle of Algiers — during a march in Paris. Some of the
protesters were tortured and killed, the bodies of many of the victims
were
dumped in the Seine, and up to 200 people died. Nobody was prosecuted
to the massacre
due to a general amnesty, and the traumatic events were only
acknowledged by
the French state in the late 1990s. Does this historical background
help
explain the tension between Georges and Majid? But if that tension
exists, why
does Haneke use this particular strategy—the surveillance video, the
long take,
etc.—to reveal this family and national secret?
What theoretical
reading from the course seems most
directly related to these images? Are they long shots and long takes in
the
sense described by Bazin in his writing on cinematic realism? Are they
like the
sequence shots theorized by Pasolini? Are they realist images at all?
Are they
purely objective images unattached to any character? Are they purely
subjective
images recorded from a particular perspective? Or are they closer to
the kind
of new media environment we’ve encountered in the reading at the end of
the
course?