Jordan Ilan A-Level Film Studies

Film Movements: Silent Cinema (MWAMC & APDN) - Film Form - Meaning & Response - Contexts - Critical debates - relate the chosen film to the realist / expressionist critical debate. - explore the significance of a particular key element of film, such as editing, in the film and how far this reflects the film movement more generally. - consider how far specific issues relating to silent cinema, such as the absence of recorded speech, are significant in explaining particular creative practices in the chosen film / film movement. Constructivism & Modernism: - Realist/ Expressive critical debate This  debate centres on whether film should be a ‘realist’ or an ‘expressive’ medium. In other words, should a filmmaker be concerned with representing the world as is, for example in the manner of a documentary, or should a filmmaker regard the medium as a creative one in which the everyday world is transformed? In film history this divide is traced all the way back to ...

Discuss how far your chosen film or films reflect aesthetic qualities associated with a particular film movement: Look at printed sheet in folder or in email with examples from class & teacher ^Summaries: Entertainment & Leisure section: - Vertov eschews classical forms of art -> conforms to constructivist & modernist forms of art & filmmaking - Fast motion shot for 'Proletarian Film Theatre' -> represents quickness of society changing due to industrialisation - Modernism = growth of film as 'contemporary' art form -> shot ends on film theatre - 'Proletarian Film Theatre' -> correlates with constructivist ideas -> emphasise importance of breaking from tradition -> broadens art forms + makes it more accessible to larger demographic - Double exposure technique used (long shot of man constructing movie cam on top of building over a city) -> art piece within art piece -> link to Soviet Montage constructivism -> cen...

Study Areas for Every Question Component 1: Hollywood 1930-1990 (Vertigo & OFOTCN) - Film Form - Meaning & Response - Contexts - Auteur American Films since 2005 (NCFOM & CF) - Film Form - Meaning & Response - Contexts - Spectatorship - Ideology British Film since 1995 (WNTTAK & FT) - Film Form - Meaning & Response - Contexts - Narrative - Ideology Component 2: Global Film (COG & PL) - Film Form - Meaning & Response - Contexts Documentary (Amy) - Film Form - Meaning & Response - Contexts - Critical debates - Filmmakers' theories Film Movements: Silent Cinema (MWAMC & APDN) - Film Form - Meaning & Response - Contexts - Critical debates Experimental film (Pulp Fiction) - Film Form - Meaning & Response - Contexts - Narrative - Auteur

Art so far: - Talkies controversial when originally introduced - Film seen as a form of art and mass media when it came about - MWAMC: experimental, took on concepts never done in films before, created idea of art - Art is no longer just a painting, cinema is art A propos de Nice (About Nice): - A documentary about Nice Unmediated -> not edited to appease certain people, without bias? Realist vs Expressionist Realism: - Representation: As unmediated as possible - Visual Aesthetic: Simple - Principle: Respect/Truth - Intent: Spectator reflection Expressionism: - Representation: Highly mediated - Visual Aesthetic: Highly constructed - Principle: Manipulation - Intent: Spectator 'agitation' APDN: expressionistic -> designed to make people angry about the rich APDN: - directed by Jean Vigo, France, 1930 - Silent short documentary - Photographed by Boris Kaufman (brother of MWAMC's director Dziga Vertov) - Film depicts life in Nice, France by...

Constructivism The constructivists believed art should directly reflect the modern industrial world. Vladimir Tatlin was crucially influenced by Pablo Picasso’s cubist constructions ( Construction  1914) which he saw in Picasso’s studio in Paris in 1913. These were three-dimensional still lifes made of scrap materials. Tatlin began to make his own but they were completely abstract and made of industrial materials . By 1921 Russian artists who followed Tatlin’s ideas were calling themselves constructivists and in 1923 a manifesto was published in their magazine  Lef : The material formation of the object is to be substituted for its aesthetic combination. The object is to be treated as a whole and thus will be of no discernible ‘style’ but simply a product of an industrial order like a car, an aeroplane and such like. Constructivism is a purely technical mastery and organisation of materials . Constructivism was suppressed in Russia in the 1920...