Monday, November 25, 2013

The Italian Neo-Realism and LA STRADA


A Beginner's Guide to Italian Neo-realism

Roberto Rossellini, one of Italian neo-realism's pre-eminent directors, defined it as, “above all a moral position from which to look at the world”. Coming in the wake of studio-bound melodramas of the Fascist regime – ‘white telephone’ films – neo-realist films demonstrated a new social consciousness, with their emphasis on working class hardship and the daily struggle to get by in post-war Italy, where the shadow of defeat lay over its material conditions of economic hardship in war-damaged cities.

Although Italian neo-realism made its mark on the international stage with Rossellini's Rome, Open City - an account of life and resistance in Rome under Nazi occupation which took the Grand Prize at Cannes in 1946, Visconti's Ossessione (1943) is generally regarded as the first 'neo-realist' film. It certainly shocked the then Fascist government with its depiction of an authentic proletarian life, steeped 'in the air of death and sperm', as co-screenwriter Guiseppe de Santis said of it.

Neo-realist films were typified by location shooting, often in poor neighbourhoods and the countryside, and by using predominantly non-professional actors. A direct, unadorned style of filming was typical, notably in long takes. Ending with De Sica's Umberto D in 1952, true neo-realist films were few. An export ban on films that 'maligned' Italy, combined with the increasing popularity of American movies, meant that the style fell out of favour with producers and audiences.

Neo-realism may have been short-lived but was profoundly influential – not least to the French New Wave – and one of its films, Bicycle Thieves, also famously made an indelible impression on Satyajit Ray.




La Strada:
Fellini has an unerring instinct in La Strada for creating an often harshly realistic portrayal of post-war Italian society. Certainly the film’s attention to lower class and socially marginalized characters reflects the politics of Neo-Realism and its goal of developing the cinema as a tool for representing and analyzing the experiences of average, ordinary people, an impulse that arises from Neo-Realism’s roots in Italian Marxism. Evidence of pervasive poverty and the scarring effects of war are brilliantly incorporated into the mise-en-scene of the film through Fellini’s art direction and costume design. His use of actual locations in La Strada, rather than the more easily controlled environment of the film studio, and his use of untrained actors in several minor roles, likewise followed basic Neo-Realist aesthetic principles that aimed at presenting a more authentically realistic image of the world.



But Fellini was always something more than a realist. Every Fellini film possesses a certain ineffable poetry, a sense of magic and wonder that can range from the hilarious to the frightening to the uncanny. He is what I would call, mixing literary and cinematic modes, a "magic neo-realist." In Fellini’s films we ultimately encounter a fidelity to something larger and more complex than a strictly empirical notion of social and economic reality. We encounter a highly subjective view of the world, often grotesque and distorted, brimming with both irony and pathos and filtered through Fellini’s profoundly humanistic vision as an artist. Indeed, the unique blend of reality and surreality that Fellini’s films offer, their deft mingling of the objective and the subjective, reality and dreams, constitute the very essence of that often-used adjective in film criticism—Felliniesque. Fellini’s pursuit of his own, personal vision as an artist often made him a controversial figure within Italian film culture, where other directors and critics complained that his films failed to live up to the strict ideological requirements of Neo-Realism. Such complaints had little effect on Fellini, however, who continued to pursue his visionary approach to cinematic storytelling over the course of a nearly 40-year career.


La Strada was Fellini’s third film as a director, and it single-handedly established his international reputation as a director of art-house cinema, winning numerous honors and prizes including the Academy Award as best foreign film in 1954. La Strada must also be seen as the product of several fertile collaborative relationships between Fellini and others, most notably his wife, the actress Giuletta Masina who plays the gentle, simple-minded Gelsomina, and the composer Nino Rota, whose musical scores in numerous Fellini films make an enormous contribution to their effectiveness. This is especially the case withLa Strada, for which the musical score itself was a huge international hit.

Image:
Original movie poster
La Strada means "the road," and the film is best understood as a journey taken by the two main characters: Gelsomina (Masina), a simple-minded young woman who is sold by her family to a brutish, itinerant carnival strong man, Zampano (Anthony Quinn). Traveling the countryside in a crude hutch attached to the strong man’s motorbike, Gelsomina is abused and mistreated by Zampano until she is finally driven to madness and death. Along the road they encounter "The Fool," (Richard Basehart) a circus acrobat and clown who teaches Gelsomina that there might be more to life than her servitude to Zampano. The Fool and Zampano are depicted by Fellini as a study in contrasts: the strong man’s sullen brutishness and awkward demeanor around others stand in sharp contrast to the graceful and loquacious Fool, whose free-spirited contempt for authority leads him to taunt and ridicule Zampano. Finally the strong man confronts the Fool, and in the fight that follows he accidentally murders him. Gelsomina, already the victim of Zampano’s physical abuse, witnesses the Fool’s death, and begins a slow descent into madness. Finally, unwilling and unable to care for the increasingly deranged Gelsomina, Zampano abandons her to fate.



Each of the three main characters has certain obvious affinities to natural elements. Gelsomina is associated with water; we first encounter her on the beach at her home and throughout the film her returns to the ocean are shown as cleansing and restorative. Giuletta Masina’s performance as Gelsomina is one of the most outstanding features of La Strada and one of the great performances in film history. She displays a perfect balance of innocent vulnerability and sympathetic openness to others that is continually bruised in her dealings with Zampano. In film criticism the word most often used to invoke such a delicate interplay of comedy and pathos is Chaplinesque, and the spirit of Chaplin’s "Little Tramp" hovers over Masina’s carefully nuanced performance.

The Fool is associated with the air. As an aerialist and high-wire artist, we first see him high above a crowd of spectators eating a plate of spaghetti, and his costume consists of a pair of wings. The Fool represents a carnivelesque energy which seeks to subvert authority and puncture the masculine pretensions of Zampano. Though brash and egocentric, the Fool possesses a generosity of spirit that makes him an emblem of the artist: the creative individual who reaches out to others through artistic expression. He is a teacher and savior figure in the film, and through "the parable of the pebble" that he teaches Gelsomina, he bestows upon her an understanding and sense of purpose which can redeem even her sad existence. Zampano, in contrast, is a loner and outsider who views other people as either instruments to be bent to his will or obstacles to be overcome and vanquished through brute strength. He is associated with the earth, and with impulses that are base, often animalistic. His violent temper and aggression also make him a figure evocative of fire. Yet most often he conveys a sullen mistrust towards others that reveals his underlying fear. Zampano is like a dog that has been kicked so often he has become hostile and suspicious of everyone he meets.

Fellini’s La Strada is fundamentally about different ways of being human, three different ways of interacting with your fellow human beings, and thus about three different ways of finding meaning in human existence. For Gelsomina it is the wide-eyed openness and sensitivity to other beings and forces in the universe that makes her a magical, even holy, presence in the film. She, too, can be seen as a kind of savior through whose death Zampano is finally brought to some kind of emotional and spiritual awakening. For the Fool, the meaning of life is to be found in the play of personal expression, the performance of self for others that has made him a star attraction of the circus. This is also why the Fool is such a fascinating and attractive figure for Gelsomina, despite the fact that he ridicules her and calls her ugly. Still, through the "parable of the pebble," the Fool is able to impart to Gelsomina a sense of her own value and purpose in life that redeems her even in the midst of Zampano’s brutal treatment. However, the interpersonal and existential choices that Zampano makes determine that he will be unable to find any redemptive meaning to existence, any purpose to his endless wanderings as a circus strong man. He seems doomed to continuously perform an act that increasingly becomes a parody of masculinity and male strength and that scarcely conceals his basic loneliness and inability to sympathetically engage with other human beings.

Zampano is the real subject of Fellini’s film. Anthony Quinn’s brooding, laconic performance as Zampano has the effect of making the character seem remote and distant; he is often seen only on the edges of the frame, in the background, as in the first scene when he comes to purchase Gelsomina and Fellini places him hovering in the background while our attention is focused on the drama of Gelsomina’s separation from her family. But his centrality to the film is clearly established by the ending of La Strada. Several years have gone by and the strong man has become noticeably older when he arrives at a seaside village where he hears a young woman singing the plaintive melody that had become Gelsomina’s theme. Zampano learns of her death from the young woman. Later in the evening, after his performance, Zampano wanders down to the beach where he is overwhelmed by his thoughts. The final, redemptive moment occurs when he stares up at the stars and begins to cry, signaling the emergence of human emotions which he had long suppressed and denied. But it is too late; Gelsomina is dead, and the humanizing influence of her gentle spirit is lost in the overwhelming sense of grief and isolation experienced by Zampano.

Clearly La Strada can be seen as both a Christian religious parable and an Existentialist philosophical statement. Yet Fellini rejected such obvious interpretive frameworks, preferring instead to create a sense of openness and ambiguity in the film, another indication of Neo-Realism’s influence on the director. He specifically removed from early drafts of the script all overt Catholic symbolism and Existentialist didacticism in order to fashion a film of rare visual poetry and emotional impact. Finally, La Strada cannot be reduced to either a religious or philosophical argument. It is a film that must be experienced within the context of each viewer’s sense of the human condition and the need for gentleness and companionship that gives human existence whatever sweetness it is capable of possessing. La StradaThe Road is perhaps a too obvious metaphor for the journey we are all embarked upon; a journey in which how we treat others is inevitably the final measure of our own happiness.

THE NARRATIVE STRUCTURE IN FILM

THE NARRATIVE STRUCTURE IN FILM:


MOST FILM NARRATIVES ARE GOAL ORIENTED.


PLOT
THE EVENTS OF THE STORY AS THEY APPEAR IN THE FILM.

FOR EXAMPLE:




THE PROTAGONIST'S PURSUIT OF A GOAL DETERMINES THE NARRATIVE STRUCTURE.

THE VILLAIN'S GOAL MAY ALSO DRIVE THE PLOT.





MOST FILMS FOLLOW THE THREE ACT STRUCTURE:

ACT 1: EXPOSITION---INTRODUCES CHARACTERS AND DRAMATIC SITUATION. PROTAGONIST FORMS A GOAL.

ACT 2: COMPLICATING ACTION--PROTAGONIST FACES OBSTACLES IN PURSUIT OF THE GOAL.

ACT 2B: PROTAGONIST STRUGGLES TOWARD GOALS.  INCIDENTS CREATE ACTION, SUSPENSE, DELAY.  THIS MAY FORCE THE PROTAGONIST TO CHANGE IN TACTICS.

ACT 3: CLIMAX AND RESOLUTION--
PROTAGONIST CONFRONTS OPPOSITION.  GOAL IS USUALLY ACHIEVED AND IN SOME CASES NOT, BUT THERE IS A CHARACTER TRANSFORMATION.



SUMMARY OF NARRATIVE PATTERNS:
  • Striving toward a goal
  • Overcoming obstacles in pursuit of a goal
  • Solving a mystery
  • Resolving a problem
  • Bringing order to chaos (return to equilibrium)
  • The journey
  • Flight and pursuit
  • Coming of age (from innocence to experience)
  • Personal growth


Sunday, November 24, 2013

Narrative Analysis in Media Studies

WHAT IS NARRATIVE?
Narrative is the art of storytelling, something we all do every day.  It is important part of our lives and something we value highly, if you consider the amount of time we consume storytelling on TV or  MOVIES.

A brief overview of how to analyze narrative films.  A few points to consider:



Monday, November 18, 2013

Finding and staying in Character---the Meltdown---

Some of the challenges in the collaboration between the actor, director and crew:











The Conversation Essays:



The Conversation, a film by legendary Director Francis Ford Coppola focuses on Harry Caul (Gene Hackman), a surveillance expert hired by an executive (Robert Duvall) to record his wife’s conversations with her possible lover. Caul is great at his job, putting together recording from separate microphones in a crowded San Francisco plaza, so perfectly captured by the film’s masterful opening sequences. Yet, Caul’s mastery of surveillance does not translate into a mastery of security. While he prides himself on being able to keep his life private, we watch as he continually fails to do so.

Caul is drawn into a sleazy profession that he tries to redeem by emphasizing the technical aspects over the moral. Yet, as a devout Catholic, Caul feels as though what he is doing is wrong and sinful, therefore believes. Once, he confesses, his work led to the death of a woman and a child. Now, after hearing the two lovers say, “He’d kill us if he got the chance,” Caul worries his work will bring more death and he refuses to turn in his finished recording. When the tapes are stolen and tragedy does occur, Caul is helpless, forcing him to realize his failures.



the-conversation-movie-poster-1974-1020299110.jpg


Below is a scene from the Film, which I will analyse and discuss.

Mise En Scene


The Scene begins high above Union Square in San Francisco and by the time it ends, nearly three minutes later, the opening shot of Francis Ford Coppola's 1974 film, "The Conversation", will hone in on one as-yet-unidentified man (Caul).

The scene is from the film's opening, where the camera slowly glides over a park on a typical San Francisco lunchtime. The camera picks up crowds of office types wondering through a city park and as it zooms in on a crowded park, it picks up the voices and sounds from all corners of the park. Zooming in from perhaps a helicopter far above, it begins to pan around and picks out lead character 'Caul' from the crowd and slowly follows him around. This indicates to us the viewers, that he is the lead character in this movie.

As the camera zooms in, the credits roll in the lower right corner of the frame, directing our gaze to the left hand side of the screen. Here, from a distance, we are able to observe a wide variety of people, but it is a very active mime that commands the most attention. All of this seems very normal until about the 1:15 mark, when a strange bleeping noise disorients the viewer. It comes and goes quickly, but will return, unexplained, several times throughout the shot.

Throughout this scene, you kind of have the feeling that something more than a casual observation or location setup may be going on here. The one indication of this comes when the camera intentionally settles on the action of a 'mime', who soon begins to follow and imitate a middle aged man dressed in a grey raincoat (Caul). The camera stays with these two for a little while. The mime continues his act while the man is totally dismissive. Soon the mime gives up on the uninterested man steps out of the frame, leaving the camera to hold on him until the shot is over.

Editing:



The specific editing shot used in this scene is called a 'Sequence-shot'. It is very basic and straight forward, as the camera does nothing more than zoom in and pan around a park from a high angle to a medium-large angle as it picks out Caul. The camera never cuts or jumps to another shot and the entire scene is of it searching and then ending up finding (Caul) from the crowd. 


Sound: 

If there is anything this scene has plenty of, it is sound. Both authentic and non-diegetic, nevertheless sound plays a key role in this scene.

Throughout this scene there is plenty of confusing and odd bleep sounds, which appear out of the blue. The sequence of shots that follows informs us that the strange bleeps we heard in the opening shot were sound interference captured from a long-range microphone. It becomes apparent now that the camera's slow zoom in the opening shot is a standing for the microphone, a tool used for surveillance that will play a key role in the following narrative.

As the camera zooms in on the crowds you can clearly hear a jazzy song in the background, perhaps one part of the film's soundtrack. It gives a feel of happiness and warmth, yet it gently disappears as the camera picks out diegetic sounds from the crowd. Sounds of people laughing, cheering, clapping, dogs barking and that of a street dancer shuffling his feet whilst dancing. All these are authentic sounds picked out from the crowds and then added on to give a raw sense of realism.

The Jazzy sound of the background music suddenly re-enters the scene and towards the end, as the camera begins to follow Caul it gradually increases in volume and the usage of trombones, saxophones and pianos are clearly evident.



 





Close Analysis: THE CONVERSATION (1971)
THE CONVERSATION is based around Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) - a surveillance recordist, bugger and tapper whose specialty is recording people's conversations. He is hired by a variety of people for these clandestine operations, but he is never concerned with their reasons for hiring him, nor what they will do with his supplied tapes. Harry is only concerned with obtaining a strong, clear, legible recording: he is not interested in what people are saying, only that you can hear what they are saying. He is thus a dehumanized microphone. Harry is engaged in recording a particular conversation which he ends up listening to at a deeper level than usual - he actually wants to listen to what this couple he is recording are saying, to understand what exactly they are talking about and what consequences may befall them and others if this recording is handed over. In shifting his consiousness so fundamentally from his usual mechanical mode of operation, Harry's world starts to fall apart.

1. Opening scene. A single long shot with a slow zoom in onto a crowded city square full of people on their lunch break. The distant sound of a busking jazz band is audible. The slow zoom in suggests we are being led to something, however we have no idea who or waht to focus on. Throughout, strange interjections of noise occur. These moments are revealed to be distorted snippets of voice. It becomes apparent that this perspective is a surveillance perspective of one of the recordistics with a tele-photo microphone. The scene then cuts between a variery of different perspectives, showing eventually the undercover recording team moving within the square, pluys the couple this team is attempting to record. The sound, however, is continual and in uninterrupted real-time. Sound therefore occupies the totality of space; visionis the fragmented attempt to sonically match and encode that totality. Moving into a mobile van, the sound of the square continues, revealing that all the sound we have been hearing is in fact the multi-track unmixed live recording (all simulated for the film) which documents the attempt to capture the couple's conversation. This recording will be replayed throughout the film. This first version is its raw encoding on tape: location sound.

2. First piano cue. This covers shots of Harry leaving the van, travellling, and returning home. The score by David Shire is solo piano. It symbolizes the figure of Harry - his disposition, his emotional self as viewed from the outside. The piano music evokes the bar piano-player - a site where depressed, lonely and insular people gather. The music semiologically and phonologically evokes this style and presence of music. The theme is like a down-tempoed ragtime, overlaid with a trilling chromatic line which is like a slowed down quote from Flight of the Bumble Bee. All these facets combined present the music as drained of energy, lifeless and listeless, lacking in momentum and isolated - characterizing Harry Caul. Throughout the film, this theme appears over segues and transitional moments when Harry is getting from A to B: void moments where he is lost within himself. His body language communicates his world-weariness as he slumps and trudges forth, plastic raincoat trailing, framed as a solo shape against the urban downtown spread of anonymous buildings. This is the existential state and location of Harry, as the music of these moments while soft in performance and volume is mixed above any location sound, suggesting Harry is always disconnected from his environment. His mind is always somewhere else.

3. Harry's apartment. This space is a hermetically sealed zone. It is bare and devoid of character because Harry is never wishing to disclose anything about his personal life or his personality. Within this space is silence: it is 'dead' in both the acoustic sense - recording booths in studios are 'dead' so as to not colour anything within with 'live' characteristics - and the emotional sense - Harry hinself is emotionally 'dead' and blends perfectly with this space. The space is thus baffled, not unlike the acoustic baffling used in recording studios to 'deaden' the reverberant quality of the space. This zone is comfortable to Harry, because his own inner being is emotionally baffled, giving rise to the repression that shapes his pysche.

4. Harry's plays sax. Harry's only contact with life as such is when he plays saxaphone along with a 'live' jazz recording. Dead himself but appearing to be alive, his self-projected intergration into the live recording is his fictious and psychologically therapeutic way to deal with his 'deadness'.

5. Harry at work. Harry's loft space is similarly empty and expansive. At one far end is his caged work area: symbolically controlled and demarcated as a controlled environment. There he works on the recording from the square. We witness his mechanisms, techniques and techologies with which he procures and remixes the recording into greater clarity. Over this sequence, we see images from the beginning of the film replayed: this is Harry re-picturing the layout and perspective of the space. This second version of the recording is its sifting and separation from background noise - clarified sound.

6. Harry's love interest. Harry's affair with Terri Garr is one where he pays for her apartment as a love nest which he frequents for emotional/physical contact. She doesn't listen to him - just as she appears dead/dumb to his complete refusal to reveal anything of himself to her. Harry treats her like someone he is surveilling - paranoid of her true identity. The apartment is a replica of both his work space and home - it is another 'isolation booth' that maps out his world.

7. Harry listens to the tape. After becoming suspicious of his employer and not being able to deliver the tape recording to the actual person who hired him, Harry pays the tape an even closer listen. He uncovers a line in one particularly difficult section due to excessive background noise of congas: "He'd kill us if he had the chance." Harry is suddenly wracked with guilt and unease. He has crossed the threshold from being a microphone to being an ear: he is actively listening to the words spoken and making sense of them. This second version of the recording is a personally shaped and defined mix and mastering of the tape's contents - interpreted sound.
8. Harry visits the priest. As a recorder of others' voices, Harry eases his guilt by going to the confessional in an act of 'speaking to the listener'. This is one of the few moments where Harry can converse with others in a personal way - but here it is under terms of his anonymity and the priest's contract of silence.
9. Harry's party. During the party we are given a complete overview of Harry's methods, procedeures and operations, including the strategy for recrording the conversation at the beginning of the film. During the party, Harry opens up to a hooker who seems bent on finding something personal about Harry. As his world is slowly transforming through guilt, unease and his gradual corruption of personal ethic to be nothing but a microphone, Harry talks intimately with he. However Harry has had a bug planted on him by a colleague - the colleague plays it to the party gathering causing Harry to become enraged and throw everyone out. The ultimate incursion and invasion for Harry is not just to open up, but to be recorded.
10. As Harry's world starts to fall apart following his discomforting conflicts with his corporate employer, the piano themes accompany Harry, but now they are often distorted. They use the same devices that Harry uses to clarify his recordings, but now they render the score oppressive, claustrophobic and noise-laden. As Harry gets his recording of the conversation clearer, his musicalised self (as symbol of his lonely world-weariness) becomes muddied and distorted, reflecting the build-up of anxiety within him.
11. Harry in the hotel. Harry locates next door to the couple of the conversation, thinking that they are going to be killed. Immobile to confront them personally face-to-face, he attempts to bug them. However his mind is so addled he is no longer a microphone, but a mere human, bound to subjectively interpret rather than objectively record. All sound thus become noise: he imagines all sorts of sonic and visual terror - including overlays of the wildly processed/distorted piano themes - leading him to drown out the noise in his head by turning up the TV loudly.
12. Harry returns to the corporation thoroughly wracked with guilt but is powerless to do anything. There he witnesses the two people he presumed dead - and also reads in the newspaper that the girl's father who employed him is now dead. Suddenly he hears in his head the salient line from the recorded conversation and comprehends its true meaning: "He'd kill US is he had the chance". He comprehends that they killled the father.
13. Powerless, Harry returns to his home and plays silence. But a phone call informs him that he is being bugged. Now thoroughly exposed to himself and the outside world, he rips apart his house not only to locate the bug (he doesn't find it) but to pull asunder all the baffling and covering and deadening he had been using to isolate and control his inner feelings and responsibilities.


Monday, October 28, 2013

Notes on Sound


Sound

Section I - Sound Editing

Sound in the cinema does not necessarily match the image, nor does it have to be continuous. The sound bridge is used to ease the transition between shots in the continuity style. Sound can also be used to reintroduce events from earlier in the diegesis. Especially since the introduction of magnetic tape recording after WWII, the possibilities of sound manipulation and layering have increased tremendously. Directors such as Robert Altman are famous for their complex use of the soundtrack, layering multiple voices and sound effects in a sort of "sonic deep focus." In this clip from Nashville (1975), we simultaneously hear a conversation between an English reporter and her guide, a gospel choir singing, and the sound engineers' chatter.

SOUND BRIDGE

Sound bridges can lead in or out of a scene. They can occur at the beginning of one scene when the sound from the previous scene carries over briefly before the sound from the new scene begins. Alternatively, they can occur at the end of a scene, when the sound from the next scene is heard before the image appears on the screen. Sound bridges are one of the most common transitions in the continuity editing style, one that stresses the connection between both scenes since their mood (suggested by the music) is still the same. But sound bridges can also be used quite creatively, as in this clip from Yi Yi (Taiwan, 2000). Director Edward Yang uses a sound bridge both to play with our expectations. The clip begins with a high angle shot of a couple arguing under a highway. A piano starts playing and the scene cuts into a house interior, where a pregnant woman is looking at some cd's...
...finally, the camera pans to reveal a young girl (previously offscreen) playing the piano. It is only then that we realize the music is diegetic, and that the young girl was looking at the window at her best friend and her boyfriend. The romantic melody she plays as she realizes they are breaking up in turn introduces a now possible future relationship for her -- which eventually happens, as she starts dating her best friend's ex-boyfriend later in the film.

SONIC FLASHBACK

Sound from one diegetic time is heard over images from a later time. In this example from Kurosawa's No Regrets for Our Youth (Waga seishun ni kui nashi, Japan, 1946), the heroine Yukie hears the voices of her dead father and executed husband, voicing the aspirations that sustain her continuing struggle.
Sonic flashback often carries this kind of moral or emotional overtone, making a character's motivation explicit.

Section 2 - Source

Most basically, this category refers to the place of a sound in relation to the frame and to the world of the film. A sound can be onscreen or offscreen, diegetic or nondiegetic (including voice over), it can be recorded separately from the image or at the moment of filming. Sound source depends on numerous technical, economic, and aesthetic considerations, each of which can affect the final significance of a film.

DIEGETIC/NON-DIEGETIC SOUND

Any voice, musical passage, or sound effect presented as originating froma source within the film's world is diegetic. If it originates outside the film (as most background music) then it isnon-diegetic.
A further distinction can be made between external and internal diegetic sound. In the first clip from Almodóvar's Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown (Mujeres al Borde de un Ataque de Nervios, 1988) we hear Iván speaking into the microphone as he works on the Spanish dubbing of Johnny Guitar (Nicholas Ray, 1954). Since he is speaking out loud and any other character could hear him, this is an example of external diegetic sound. This clip has no non-diegetic sounds other than the brief keyboard chord that introduces the scene.
 
Sound and diegesis gets more complicated in the next clip, from Dario Argento's The Stendhal Syndrome (La Sindrome di Stendhal, Italy, 1996). As Anna looks at Paolo Uccello's famous painting of the Battle of San Romano (c1435), we begin to hear the sounds of the battle: horses whimpering, weapons clashing, etc. These sounds exist only in Anna's troubled mind, which is highly sensitive to works of art. These are internal diegetic sounds (inside of a character's mind) that no one else in the gallery can hear.
On the other hand, the Ennio Morricone eerie score that sets up the scene and mixes with the battle sounds, is a common example of non-diegetic sound, sounds that only the spectators can hear. (Obviously, no boom-box blasting tourist is allowed into the Uffizi's gallery!)

DIRECT SOUND

When using direct sound, the music, noise, and speech of the profilmic event at the moment of filming is recorded in the film. This is the opposite of postsynchronization in which the sound is dubbed on top of an existing, silent image. Studio systems use multiple microphones to record directly and with the utmost clarity. On the other hand, some national cinemas, notably Italy, India and Japan, have avoided direct sound at some stage in their histories and dubbed the dialogues to the film after the shooting. But direct sound can also mean something other than the clearly defined synchronized sound of Hollywood films -- the Cinéma verité, third world filmmaking and other documentarist, improvisatory and realist styles that also record sound directly but with an elementary microphone set-up, as in Abbas Kiarostami's Taste of Cherry (Ta'm e Guilass, Iran, 1997).
The result maintains the immediacy of direct sound at the expense of clarity. Furthermore, incidental sounds (street noise, etc) are not mixed down, but left "as it is". Impression and mood are favored over precision: not every word can be made out. The final sonic picture is blurred and harder to understand, but arguably closer to what we perceive in real life.

NONSIMULTANEOUS SOUND

Diegetic sound that comes from a source in time either earlier or later than the images it accompanies. In this clip from Almodóvar's Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown(Mujeres al Borde de un Ataque de Nervios, Spain, 1988) Pepa adds the female voice to the dubbing of Johnny Guitar, the male voice having previously been recorded by Pepa's ex-lover Ivan. (You can see Ivan's dubbing here)
While Pepa's voice is diagetic and simultaneous, Ivan's voice is also diegetic, and yet it is nonsimultaneous, since it comes from a previous moment in the film. Almodóvar uses nonsimultaneous sound to establish a conversation that should have taken place but never did (Ivan is not returning Pepa's calls and she is becoming desperate) when, with a perverse melodramatic twist, he has the jilted lovers repeating the words of another couple of cinematic jilted lovers. As in this example, nonsimultaneous sound is often used to suggest recurrent obsessions and other hallucinatory states.

OFFSCREEN SOUND

Simultaneous sound from a source assumed to be in the space of the scene but outside what is visible onscreen. In Life on Earth (La Vie sur Terre, Abderrahmane Sissako, 1998) a telephone operator tries to help a woman getting a call trough. While he tries to establish a connection, the camera examines the office and the other people present in the scene. Yet, even if the operator and the woman are now offscreen, their centrality to the scene is alway tangible through sounds (dialing, talking, etc).
Of course, a film may use offscreen sound to play with our assumptions. In this clip from Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown (Mujeres al Borde de un Ataque de Nervios, Pedro Almodóvar, 1988), we hear a woman and a man's voices in conversation, in what it looks like a film production studio. Even if we do not see the speakers, we instantly believe they must be around. Gradually, the camera shows us that we are in a dubbing studio, and only the woman is present, the man's voice being previously recorded. Moreover, theirs is not a real conversation but lines from a movie dialogue.

POSTSYNCHRONIZATION DUBBING

The process of adding sound to images after they have been shot and assembled. This can include dubbing of voices, as well as inserting diegetic music or sound effects. It is the opposite ofdirect sound. It is not, however, the opposite of synchronous sound, since sound and image are also matched here, even if at a later stage in the editing process. Compare the French dubbed, or post-synchronized, version of Mission: Impossible 2 (John Woo, 2000), with the sychronized original.
You can hear the original English version here.

SOUND PERSPECTIVE

The sense of a sound's position in space, yielded by volume, timbre, pitch, and, in stereophonic reproduction systems, binaural information. Used to create a more realistic sense of space, with events happening (that is, coming from) closer or further away. Listen closely to this clip from The Magnificent Ambersons (Orson Welles, 1942) as the woman goes through her door and comes back.
As soon as she closes the door her voice sounds muffled and distant (she is walking away), then grows clearer (she is coming back), then at full volume again, as she comes out. We can also hear hushing remarks that gives us a sense of the absent presence of a whole web of family members in the house. The stronger the voice, the closer his/ her room. Sound perspective, combined with offscreen space, also gives us clues as to who (and most importantly, where) is present in a scene. Welles' use of sound in this scene is unusual since Classical Hollywood Cinema generally sacrifices sound perspective to narrative comprehensibility.

SYNCHRONOUS SOUND

Sound that is matched temporally with the movements occuring in the images, as when dialogue corresponds to lip movements. The norm for Hollywood films is to synchronize sound and image at the moment of shooting; others national cinemas do it later (see direct soundpostsyncronization) Compare the original English version of Mission: Impossible 2 (John Woo, 2000),
with the French dubbed version.

VOICE OVER

When a voice, often that of a character in the film, is heard while we see an image of a space and time in which that character is not actually speaking. The voice over is often used to give a sense of a character's subjectivity or to narrate an event told in flashback. It is overwhelmingly associated with genres such as film noir, and its obsessesive characters with a dark past. It also features prominently in most films dealing with autobiography, nostalgia, and literary adaptation. In the title sequence from The Ice Storm (1997) Ang Lee uses voice over to situate the plot in time and to introduce the subject matter (i.e., the American family in the 1970s), while also giving an indication of his main character's ideas and general culture.
While a very common and useful device, voice over is an often abused technique. Over dependance on voice over to vent a character's thoughts can be interpreted as a telling signal of a director's lack of creativity --or a training on literature and theater, rather than visual arts. But voice over can also be used in non literal or ironic ways, as when the words a character speaks do not seem to match the actions he/she performs. Some avant garde films, for instance, make purposely disconcerting uses of voice over narration.

Section 3 - Quality

Much like quality of the image, the aural properties of a sound -- its timbre, volume, reverb, sustain, etc. -- have a major effect on a film's aesthetic. A film can register the space in which a sound is produced (its sound signature) or it can be otherwise manipulated for dramatic purposes. The recording of Orson Welles' voice at the end of Touch of Evil (1958) adds a menacing reverb to his confession.


The mediation of Abbas Kiarostami's voice through the walkie-talkie and the video quality of the image in the coda of Taste of Cherry (Ta'm e Guilass, Iran, 1997) underscore the reflexivity that is characteristic of his films.

Monday, October 21, 2013

A few articles on "Rear Window"


Rear Window Aesthetics

Windows are usually a metaphor for freedom, but in Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954) they expose privacy, they symbolize confinement, and they allude to suspenseful plot devices. Hitchcock’s aesthetic configuration of the film manipulates the audience into questioning several aspects of the film—Did Mr. Thorwald (Raymond Burr) actually kill his wife? What is buried under the garden? Will they ever discover any evidence? The biggest plot device used to produce suspense is Hitchcock’s use of point-of-view, an element that is key to suspense. With the combination of suspenseful lighting, edgy cinematography, and unique set design, Rear Window, along with all of Hitchcock’s films, proves why Hitchcock is still both remembered as one of the greatest directors of all time and influential on filmmaking today.
Not only does lighting convey the tone of the film, but it also provides a psychoanalytic aspect of the film. This psychoanalytic light is used “…to escort us across the boundary between knowledge and suspicion” (Pomerance). Various light sources—lamps, windows, and the sun—are significant for tonal, temporal, and psychoanalytical purposes. Through lighting we are told when to be fearful, when to be anxious, and when to be scared. The main drive for these lighting elements is the notion of voyeurism conveyed in the film (Pomerance). Jeff (James Stewart) is always watching others from his wheelchair. His point-of-view, often shown through binoculars or a camera in a circular frame, establishes Jeff’s view of the neighborhood and we automatically find ourselves sided with his intuition. What he sees, however, can be very misleading. Looking through the windows of his neighbors requires a necessary amount of light to be certain of what actions occur. When the rooms are dark, or the curtains are drawn, either we can barely make out what is happening or we have no idea. If we have no idea, then Jeff’s intuition and our own intuition kick in. Through the film’s contextual elements, especially lighting, we are lead to believe that Mr. Thorwald murdered his wife. While are hypothesis seems convincing, there is still a shred of doubt due to the absence of sufficient lighting and visibility. This “subjective suspense” (Morris) suppresses the most important detail and leaves us with only one perspective. With intentionally limited lighting, perspective adds to both suspense and Hitchcock’s ingenuity.
Cinematography is another important aspect of perspective that Hitchcock utilizes masterfully. One instance is the burial theme of the flower garden. Every time we look at the garden—the dog digging, Mr. Thorwald watering, Lisa and Stella digging—we are getting closer and closer to uncovering the mystery. We watch in suspense as we hope that they uncover something worthwhile before Mr. Thorwald returns. What is most significant here is not necessarily the uncovering, however, but the burial theme. Burial is darker than the buried thing, denial is darker than the denied thing (Pomerance). Burial is related to death, as if at a funeral. This relation matches with the possibility of Mrs. Thorwald being the buried object. The camera moves closer and closer to the unearthed flowerbed, and when we get close enough to look inside, we see there is nothing there. At first it seems to be a let down to the suspense, but it quickly reverts itself as a plot-driver and Lisa feels inclined to continue her investigation into Mr. Thorwald’s apartment. Jeff’s struggle against impotence (Boyd and Palmer), that is, his inability to leave his wheelchair, adds to the suspense as the camera sits inside of his apartment and we are helplessly forced to watch Lisa dangerously venture into the apartment—we too become impotent. Another camera technique that adds to this sense of constraint is the panning shots across the neighborhood, which feels like Jeff’s point-of-view but turn out to be our own. We then find ourselves back in Jeff’s apartment in the middle of something. We are just like Jeff, trapped.
Within the first five minutes of the film, a contemporary eye can notice how the neighborhood is built upon a set, whether done intentionally or efficiently. This, however, does not distract us from the events that ensue. Hitchcock carefully sets up the neighborhood to allow room for suspenseful camera movement and a mostly believable diegesis. The use of the window is variously understood as his eye, his opening on the world, his perspective, his camera (Morris). This is his only connection to reality, and although a window is usually understood as a symbol of escape, he is ironically trapped behind it, looking into other windows and into other peoples’ private lives. The backyard square of windows provides several moments of panning shots to engage the spectator into peering into the lives of these side characters. The set’s intentional arrangement in a bustling urban environment allows for multiple uses of foley and sound effects to reinforce the reliability of the diegesis. Hitchcock brilliantly uses a sliver of an alleyway to convey the neighborhood’s location, the only “window” to the outside world that Jeff is unable to reach. The set up of Jeff’s apartment above the ground level allows for a more intensified climax, in which Jeff becomes a “hanging figure” (Morris), clinging on to his life before plunging down and breaking his one good leg. Hitchcock had an infinite amount of ways to arrange his backyard neighborhood, and the way he chose was successfully original and engaging, allowing for the reliability of the story and the diegesis.
Aspects of this film survive today—not as Rear Window, but as key elements in other films. D.J. Caruso’s Disturbia (2007) is almost identical to Rear Window—a teen living under house arrest becomes convinced that his neighbor is a serial killer. Like in Rear Window, we only see through Kale’s (Shia LaBeouf) perspective. Windows become a prominent figure for entrapment and unveiled privacy, while concealing any solid evidence. Robert Ben Garant’sReno 911: Miami (2007) has a similar sequence in which the main characters are each in a separate motel room. The camera pans across the windows of their rooms in a long shot, uncovering their privacy in a humorous way. Hitchcock’s originality and mastery of lighting, cinematography, and set design in Rear Window were not only successful during the golden age of Hollywood, but will continue to be creatively adapted and consistently influential throughout the future of the cinema.
Post by: Doug Yablun




REAR WINDOW
Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 ‘Rear Window’ is a film full of symbolism, narratives, voyeurism and characterisation. It shows Hitchcocks as a strong auteur by creating it in a way in which he uses similar themes and motifs previously recognised. He also uses specific signature motifs, such as; character parallels and heavy use of vertical lines, as well as a strong protagonist. It is a film which focuses around the main protagonist Jefferies, who is a photographer who recently broke his leg and is restricted to a wheelchair. In the opening scene where the credits are shown, a lot is given away with regards to the forthcoming storyline and Hitchcock has created an opportunity to set the tone of the film. He also creates a great ambience, as a bamboo curtain is raised and the courtyard is shown, which is what the whole film revolves around.
Jeff spends his days and nights watching his neighbours through a pair of binoculars. The audience are shown life through Jefferies eyes within the six weeks in which he is restrained to just a chair. The window looks out onto a courtyard and displays a number of different windows which are representative of different ways of living in America in the 1950s.  Throughout this film the audience are shown many different characters and each window represents a different style of living and snippets of these characters lives as Jefferies sees them. There are three main protagonists in the film, the first, previously mentioned Jefferies, the second being Jefferies girlfriend (Lisa) and the third being Jefferies nurse (Stella). Throughout the film the relationships between these main protagonists change due to the change of happenings which unfold in front of Jefferies when he believes one of the neighbours of which he has been following commits the serious murder of his wife. Lisa is represented as the “perfect woman” as she is elegant, beautiful and a successful business woman, in this film whenever she is shown, she is always represented perfectly and lighting is used to continuously make her glow. She is always extremely stylish and graceful.
When analysing the visual structure of “Rear Window”, there is a parallel structure in which everyone is going about their daily lives. The audience are even shown people shaving, waking up in the morning and answering the phone. (The type of behaviour seen as normal everyday activities) This represents the fact that each of these windows show a sneak preview of what life was like as an American, living in this part of America in the 1950s, each character represents a different background. But these characters, although living so close to each other, barely interact or ever meet. Some of these characters include; a happy newlywed couple, a lonely dancer, a songwriter and Thorwald (the murderer). All these different people through the windows and their stories flow together seamlessly and music is used to proceed each scene, leading us to show what will happen next.
The newlyweds are shown through the binoculars and create a strong representation of how Jeff and Lisa could be. At the beginning of the film, Lisa and Jeff are seen as quite distant with each other and almost as strangers, they are shown as two very different characters. There is, however, a strong friendship built up with the nurse, Stella. As the film goes on Lisa and Jeff’s relationship changes, as Lisa soon becomes Jeff’s legs, when she begins to investigate the happenings of the flat in which Jeff suspects murder. With Jeff and Lisa working together to figure out if Thorwald does commit this terrible crime, it makes them work as a team and brings them closer and also makes them a lot stronger as a couple.  Lisa is seen as the eyes and legs outside the apartment. Without Lisa, Jeff would be helpless.
The camera man uses shots of panning and zooming to make it ever more realistic and makes it seem like the audience are viewing this through Jeff’s eyes. There is a good use of levels throughout which show the audience that a lot goes on behind closed doors which no one knows about, this is truly represented when the musician has the social gathering which is full of well off people enjoy themselves at a party and below there is the troubled wife, hidden behind the blinds.

When analysing the visual structure, the audience are constantly shown natural framing, which is a well-known theme in Hitchcocks films and truly represents him as an auteur. There are constantly shots which are framed by, openings such as; window frames, door frames and hallways. The window is shown to represent almost a cinema-like view for Jeff. He is the spectator of the film and sits and watches from his chair. Even when he becomes involved with one of the other characters, he does not leave the comfort of his chair or his home. This makes Thorwalds entrance into Jeff’s apartment, during the end of the film, ever more dramatic, as it is the first time someone which he has been watching interacts with him, whereas before there was the distance of the courtyard and this distance created a safety.
The use of props throughout this movie are very symbolic, the audience are shown everything through Jeffs eyes by the use of binoculars, these binoculars represent his sight. By using this it means the audience get a real feel for Jeff and his isolation.
The setting in the film is also incredibly symbolic, due to the fact the audience only see Jeffs flat, the courtyard and a small alleyway emphasises the idea of Jeff being confined and trapped. Also with him watching the dinner party of the musician it makes the audience feel sympathetic towards him as it makes him feel he is missing out on social events. The use of the small alleyway also does this, from his window and from what the audience are shown, all that is seen is an alleyway and at the end of the alleyway is a busy street. This represents Jeff being socially isolated and any social encounters are far away, in the distance.
The sound in ‘Rear Window’ is very interestingly pieced together. The majority of the sound throughout the film is diegetic opposed to non-diegetic. On the opening scene we see a man shaving, there is a radio which is blaring a commercial, we then see a man changing this to music and discover it is coming from the radio which is within the scene. This is then followed by the noise of an alarm clock, which shifts the attention from one flat to another, as this alarm clock is going off in a different flat. By doing this and making the viewer discover where this noise is coming from it makes the viewer more involved in the scenes, it leads the viewer towards the source as if they were there themselves.
When returning to analysing the beginning of the film, a lot of clues are given away on the structure and storyline of the film. Bamboo curtains are shown rising up slowly, this represents a theatre styled theme, rising up at the very beginning similar to that of a theatre show. The theme of theatre and drama is something which carries on throughout the film.
In conclusion, Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Rear Window’, is a representation of life in the 1950s. It has been created in a way in which the cinema goer or the audience is the spectator and we see the film through the eyes of the main protagonist Jeff, who is the spectator in the film. We are shown a stereotypical example of Alfred Hitchcock as an Auteur as recurring, well known themes are shown throughout such as parallel structure, strong protagonists and a linier structure. The sound in this film helps the audience to interact with the film as it draws them in and gives them clues of where the next piece of action is going to happen. All the characters play a large part in the representation of the 1950s and the stereotypes which went along with that specific era.





What Film Is: An Analysis of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window
The love of cinema is rooted in the love of voyeurism. The love of voyeurism is rooted in lack of excitement in life. Cinema, first and foremost, is a visual medium. Literature allows for the imagination of readers, but cinema defines it through the concrete visuals it possesses. Novels can pinpoint every thought and feeling of a character at every second, but film can’t. As famously noted from a Chinese proverb though, “A picture is worth a thousand words”, so every frame of a film contains multitudes of detail. Films have the ability to connect to audiences in a more personal way than novels because actors and actresses are far easier to relate to than paragraphs.
It is because of our need to connect with humans in a behavioral way that makesRear Window more of a film about relation and the evolution of cinema than the heart pounding intensity of a thriller. Through the view of his binoculars, Jeff watches the neighbors across him with increasing obsession from his apartment living room after being hospitalized for an injury he incurred while on the job. Jeff is a photographer, so his natural inclination is to observe people and take photos of them. His inability to do this due to his profession has made him turn his head to the window. The inability to live out one’s own life forces one to live through the lives of others.  Across Jeff’s window lie several stories that encapsulate stories that Jeff can relate to. He cannot hear the people in the apartment, he can only relate through the demeanor of their character and the actions of their behavior. This aspect ofRear Window is clearly reflexive because what the protagonist is essentially viewing is several different silent films. Silent films remain the purest way of telling stories through film because it is strictly image based. The phrase, “actions speak louder than words” also connects this idea of image based storytelling back to human interaction. The way emotions are conveyed by the human body and face are easier to relate to than words that define a character as being sad. Jeff uses these people as his subjects to escape his current predicament, but his girlfriend’s act of relating their situation to one of the subjects, a lonely woman, pulls him back into his real life situation. This calls back the famous quote that Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger wrote to Wendy Hiller in a letter, “No artist believes in escapism. And we secretly believe that no audience does. We have proved, at any rate, that they will pay to see the truth, for other reasons than her nakedness.” Art naturally reflects life because art is rooted in real life. The only way to create true escapism is to avoid any kind of human vulnerability whether its emotional or physical. Jeff’s observational tendencies is meant for a source of entertainment, but as he continues to watch people, he begins to become more and more involved in their lives until the inevitable happens; suspicion of one of them as a murderer.
With Rear Window, Hitchcock is showing us the history of cinema because cinema is rooted in voyeurism and voyeurism is due to lack of excitement in life. Constant viewing of another person’s life gets boring after a while, so Jeff, whether his claims are true or not, imposes a narrative on one his subjects. He believes that his neighbor has killed his wife and he tries to convince friends and policemen that his claims are true. During the 1910s and 1920s, people grew tired of watching a train moving towards them or watching people play cards, so naturally film became more focused as a storytelling medium along with being a medium to express behaviors. Jeff wants to give his subject a narrative structure because he is bored of what he is seeing. There is comfort in placing a narrative structure to life because life is seemingly without one.
Until the very end of Rear Window, the audience is still uncertain that Jeff’s accusations against his neighbor are valid. The ending culminates in a battle between Jeff and his neighbor where Jeff literally uses his camera lights to fight the supposed villain off. The lights are as artificial as the assumptions that Jeff is using against the neighbor to accuse him of a crime. The neighbor uses his own natural strength to fight Jeff back. The battle of the audience and the actor figuratively plays out with the audience winning; Jeff is validated of his claims and evidence is found that convicts the neighbor of killing his own wife. The fictional suspicion of Jeff’s mind becomes the truth. Does Hitchcock convey the message to fight for the fiction instead of the truth? No, he’s not demanding that we do, he’s rather stating that it is what we do through the unwavering faith Jeff puts in his suspicions. The realistic ending of the film would be that the neighbor is not the killer, and that Jeff has been deluding himself the entire time. Realism and honesty are not virtues of cinema because art, in and of itself, is a lie. Pablo Picasso once said, “Art is the lie that tells the truth”. With Rear Window, Hitchcock disproves the Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger quote that audiences don’t want escapism in films through the actions of Jeff.