The Film Experience An Introduction Ebook
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this proven approach even stronger and even more accessible to a wider range of
instructors and students. Whether it’s making the text even easier to read and learn
from, adding new visual walkthroughs, or creating a brand-new suite of pedagogi-
cal videos, every improvement further reinforces one or more of the three major
pillars of the book, making the third edition of The Film Experience the consum-
mate introduction to film.
Acknowledgments
A book of this scope has benefited from the help of many people. A host of review-
ers, readers, and friends have contributed to this edition, and Timothy Corrigan is
especially grateful to his students and his University of Pennsylvania colleagues
Karen Beckman, Peter Decherney, Meta Mazaj, and Nicola Gentili for their hands-
on and precise feedback on how to make the best book possible. Patricia White
thanks her colleagues in Film and Media Studies at Swarthmore, Bob Rehak and
Sunka Simon; the many colleagues and filmmakers who have offered feedback
and suggestions for revision, especially Homay King, Helen Lee, and Jim Lyons (in
memoriam); and her students and assistants, especially Mara Fortes, Robert Alford,
Brandy Monk-Payton, Natan Vega Potler, and Willa Kramer.
Instructors throughout the country have reviewed the book and offered their
advice, suggestions, and encouragement at various stages of the project’s develop-
ment. For the third edition, we would like to thank Kara Anderson, Brooklyn College;
Craig Breit, Cerritos College; John Bruns, College of Charleston; Chris Cagle, Temple
University; Donna Campbell, Washington State University; Jonathan Cavallero, The
Pennsylvania State University; Shayna Connelly, DePaul University; Joe Falocco,
Penn State Erie, The Behrend College; Neil Goldstein, Montgomery County Commu-
nity College; Gregory Dennis Hagan, Madisonville Community College; Roger Hallas,
Syracuse University; D. Scot Hinson, Wittenberg University; Michael Kaufmann,
Indiana University—Purdue University Fort Wayne; Glen Man, University of Hawai’i
at Maˉnoa; Sarah T. Markgraf, Bergen Community College; Tom Marksbury, Univer-
sity of Kentucky; Kelli Marshall, University of Toledo; Michelle McCrillis, Columbus
State University; Michael Minassian, Broward College; Robert Morace, Daemen
College; Scott Nygren, University of Florida; Deron Overpeck, Auburn University;
Anna Siomopoulos, Bentley University; Lisa Stokes, Seminole State College; Richard
Terrill, Minnesota State University, Mankato; and Robert Vettese, Southern Maine
Community College.
For the second edition, we would like to thank Kellie Bean, Marshall Uni-
versity; Christine Becker, University of Notre Dame; David Berube, University of
South Carolina; Yifen Beus, Brigham Young University Hawaii; Jennifer Bottinelli,
Kutztown University; Donna Bowman, University of Central Arkansas; Barbara
Brickman, University of West Georgia; Chris Cagle, Temple University; Shayna
Connelly, Columbia College; Jill Craven, Millersville University; Eli Daughdrill,
Santa Monica College; Clark Farmer, University of Colorado—Boulder; William Fer-
reira, Houston Community College Southwest; Anthony Fleury, Washington and
Jefferson College; Rosalind Galt, University of Iowa; Neil Goldstein, Montgomery
County Community College; Thomas Green, Cape Fear Community College; Ina
Hark, University of South Carolina; Elizabeth Henry, Eastern Oregon University;
Mary Hurley, St. Louis Community College; Christopher Jacobs, University of
North Dakota; Brooke Jacobson, Portland State University; Kathleen Rowe Karlyn,
University of Oregon; David Laderman, College of San Mateo; Peter Limbrick,
University of California—Santa Cruz; William Long, Camden County College;
Cynthia Lucia, Rider University; Glenn Man, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa; Jayne
Marek, Franklin College; Kelli Marshall, University of Texas at Dallas; Adrienne
media producer, and Caitlin Quinn, new media editorial assistant, for helping to
make the media for this book happen.
We are especially thankful to our families, Marcia Ferguson and Cecilia, Gra-
ham, and Anna Corrigan, and George and Donna White, Cynthia Schneider, and
Max Schneider-White. Finally, we are grateful for the growth of our writing part-
nership and for the rich experiences this collaborative effort has brought us. We
look forward to ongoing projects.
Timothy Corrigan
Patricia White
Glossary 468
The Next Level: Additional Sources 483
Acknowledgments 488
Index 490
xiii
PART 1
CULTURAL CONTEXTS:
making, watching, and studying movies 2
introduction Studying Film: Culture, Practice,
Experience 5
Why Film Studies Matters 7
Film Spectators and Film Cultures 8
Form in Action: Identification, Cognition, and Film Variety 13
Film in Focus: Studying The 400 Blows (1959) 14
The Film Experience 16
xv
PART 2
FORMAL COMPOSITIONS:
film scenes, shots, cuts, and sounds 60
chapter 2 Exploring a Material World:
Mise-en-Scène 63
A Short History of Mise-en-Scène 66
Theatrical Mise-en-Scène and the Prehistory of Cinema 66
1900–1912: Early Cinema’s Theatrical Influences 67
1915–1928: Silent Cinema and the Star System 67
1930s–1960s: Studio-Era Production 68
1940–1970: New Cinematic Realism 68
1975–Present: Mise-en-Scène and the Blockbuster 69
The Elements of Mise-en-Scène 70
Settings and Sets 70
Scenic and Atmospheric Realism 70
Props, Actors, Costumes, and Lights 71
FILM IN FOCUS: From Props to Lighting in Do the Right
Thing (1989) 80
Space and Design 84
Form in ACTION: Mise-en-Scène in Fantastic
Mr. Fox (2009) 85
The Significance of Mise-en-Scène 86
Defining Our Place in a Film’s Material World 86
Interpretive Contexts for Mise-en-Scènes 87
FILM IN FOCUS: Naturalistic Mise-en-Scène in
Bicycle Thieves (1948) 90
Spectacularizing the Movies 92
PART 3
ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURES:
from stories to genres 212
chapter 6 Telling Stories: Narrative Films 215
A Short History of Narrative Film 216
1900–1920: Adaptations, Scriptwriters,
and Screenplays 218
1927–1950: Sound Technology, Dialogue, and Classical
Hollywood Narrative 219
1950–1980: Art Cinema 220
1980s–Present: Narrative Reflexivity and Games 221
The Elements of Narrative Film 222
Stories and Plots 222
Characters 224
Diegetic and Nondiegetic Elements 231
Narrative Patterns of Time 232
Form IN ACTION: Nondiegetic Images and Narrative 233
Narrative Space 238
Narrative Perspectives 240
FILM IN FOCUS: Plot and Narration in Apocalypse Now
(1979) 242
The Significance of Film Narrative 245
Shaping Memory, Making History 246
Narrative Traditions 246
FILM IN FOCUS: Classical and Alternative Traditions in Mildred
Pierce (1945) and Daughters of the Dust (1991) 250
PART 4
Critical Perspectives: history, methods,
writing 352
chapter 10 History and Historiography: Hollywood
and Beyond 355
Early Cinema 357
Cinema between the Wars 358
Classical Hollywood Cinema 358
German Expressionist Cinema 361
Soviet Silent Films 362
French Impressionist Cinema and Poetic Realism 363
Postwar Cinemas 364
Postwar Hollywood 364
Italian Neorealism 366
French New Wave 367
Japanese Cinema 368
Third Cinema 368
Contemporary Film Cultures 369
Contemporary Hollywood 370
Contemporary European Cinema 371
FILM IN FOCUS: Taxi Driver and New Hollywood
(1976) 372
Indian Cinema 375
African Cinema 376
Chinese Cinema 377
Iranian Cinema 379
The Lost and Found of Film History 380
Women Filmmakers 380
African American Cinema 384
Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender (LGBT)
Film History 387
Glossary 468
The Next Level: Additional Sources 483
Acknowledgments 488
Index 490
CULTURAL
CONTEXTS
making, watching,
and studying movies
I n 2009, James Cameron’s blockbuster Avatar created a sensation, not so
much because of its well-worn story of an alien world threatened by exploita-
tion and conquest but because of its dramatic use of 3-D and other new technol-
ogy. Extensive newspaper, TV, and online coverage of its billion-dollar budget
and spectacular 3-D images appeared well in advance of Avatar’s release, and
the film was widely distributed in a range of venues. By contrast, that same year
Lee Daniels’s Precious, Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, with its tale of an
illiterate African American teenager who finds a way to transform her life, reached
audiences by means of a significantly different path. Modestly budgeted and
independently produced, the film generated critical and word-of-mouth “buzz” and,
most importantly, an American distributor, Lionsgate, at the Sundance Film Fes-
tival. In 2010, Precious garnered several Oscar nominations and two awards that
confirmed its status as the most successful surprise of the year.
Social and institutional forces shaped these very different films in very
different ways—from their production through their promotion, distribution, and
exhibition. Part 1 of this book identifies institutional, cultural, and industrial
contexts that shape the film experience, as well as shifts in these contexts
over time, showing us how to connect our personal movie practices with larger
critical perspectives on film. The Introduction discusses how and why we study
film, while Chapter 1 introduces the movie production process as well as the
mechanisms and strategies of film distribution, promotion, and exhibition.
Understanding these different contexts will help us to develop a broad and
analytical perspective on the film experience.
chapter 1
Encountering Film: From
Preproduction to Exhibition
Studying Film
Culture, Practice, Experience
In Woody Allen’s 1977 film Annie Hall, Alvy Singer and Annie Hall stand in line to
see the 1972 French documentary The Sorrow and the Pity. Next to them in line is
a professor who pontificates about movies and about the work of media theorist
and counterculture critic Marshall McLuhan, author of Understanding Media and
The Gutenberg Galaxy. Alvy grows more and more irritated by the conversation,
and finally interrupts the professor to tell him he knows nothing about McLuhan’s
work, as Annie looks on, embarrassed. When the professor objects, Alvy counters
by bringing McLuhan himself out from a corner of the lobby to confirm that the
professor is all wrong about McLuhan’s writings. While this encounter among
moviegoers comically exaggerates a secret wish about how to end an argument
about the interpretation of movies, it also dramatizes, with typical Allen humor,
the many dimensions of film culture—from scholarship to courtship—that drive our
pleasure in thinking and talking, both casually and seriously, about film. For Alvy
and many of us, going to the movies is a golden opportunity to converse, think,
and disagree about film as a central part of our everyday lives.
KEY OBJECTIVES
■ Define film culture, and discuss the various factors that create and distin-
guish it.
■ Appreciate the role and impact of film viewers, and note how our experi-
ence of movies and our taste for certain films have both personal and public
dimensions.
■ Articulate the ways in which film culture and practice discussed in this text-
book contribute to the film experience.
I see increasing reason to believe that the view formed some time
back as to the origin of the Makonde bush is the correct one. I have
no doubt that it is not a natural product, but the result of human
occupation. Those parts of the high country where man—as a very
slight amount of practice enables the eye to perceive at once—has not
yet penetrated with axe and hoe, are still occupied by a splendid
timber forest quite able to sustain a comparison with our mixed
forests in Germany. But wherever man has once built his hut or tilled
his field, this horrible bush springs up. Every phase of this process
may be seen in the course of a couple of hours’ walk along the main
road. From the bush to right or left, one hears the sound of the axe—
not from one spot only, but from several directions at once. A few
steps further on, we can see what is taking place. The brush has been
cut down and piled up in heaps to the height of a yard or more,
between which the trunks of the large trees stand up like the last
pillars of a magnificent ruined building. These, too, present a
melancholy spectacle: the destructive Makonde have ringed them—
cut a broad strip of bark all round to ensure their dying off—and also
piled up pyramids of brush round them. Father and son, mother and
son-in-law, are chopping away perseveringly in the background—too
busy, almost, to look round at the white stranger, who usually excites
so much interest. If you pass by the same place a week later, the piles
of brushwood have disappeared and a thick layer of ashes has taken
the place of the green forest. The large trees stretch their
smouldering trunks and branches in dumb accusation to heaven—if
they have not already fallen and been more or less reduced to ashes,
perhaps only showing as a white stripe on the dark ground.
This work of destruction is carried out by the Makonde alike on the
virgin forest and on the bush which has sprung up on sites already
cultivated and deserted. In the second case they are saved the trouble
of burning the large trees, these being entirely absent in the
secondary bush.
After burning this piece of forest ground and loosening it with the
hoe, the native sows his corn and plants his vegetables. All over the
country, he goes in for bed-culture, which requires, and, in fact,
receives, the most careful attention. Weeds are nowhere tolerated in
the south of German East Africa. The crops may fail on the plains,
where droughts are frequent, but never on the plateau with its
abundant rains and heavy dews. Its fortunate inhabitants even have
the satisfaction of seeing the proud Wayao and Wamakua working
for them as labourers, driven by hunger to serve where they were
accustomed to rule.
But the light, sandy soil is soon exhausted, and would yield no
harvest the second year if cultivated twice running. This fact has
been familiar to the native for ages; consequently he provides in
time, and, while his crop is growing, prepares the next plot with axe
and firebrand. Next year he plants this with his various crops and
lets the first piece lie fallow. For a short time it remains waste and
desolate; then nature steps in to repair the destruction wrought by
man; a thousand new growths spring out of the exhausted soil, and
even the old stumps put forth fresh shoots. Next year the new growth
is up to one’s knees, and in a few years more it is that terrible,
impenetrable bush, which maintains its position till the black
occupier of the land has made the round of all the available sites and
come back to his starting point.
The Makonde are, body and soul, so to speak, one with this bush.
According to my Yao informants, indeed, their name means nothing
else but “bush people.” Their own tradition says that they have been
settled up here for a very long time, but to my surprise they laid great
stress on an original immigration. Their old homes were in the
south-east, near Mikindani and the mouth of the Rovuma, whence
their peaceful forefathers were driven by the continual raids of the
Sakalavas from Madagascar and the warlike Shirazis[47] of the coast,
to take refuge on the almost inaccessible plateau. I have studied
African ethnology for twenty years, but the fact that changes of
population in this apparently quiet and peaceable corner of the earth
could have been occasioned by outside enterprises taking place on
the high seas, was completely new to me. It is, no doubt, however,
correct.
The charming tribal legend of the Makonde—besides informing us
of other interesting matters—explains why they have to live in the
thickest of the bush and a long way from the edge of the plateau,
instead of making their permanent homes beside the purling brooks
and springs of the low country.
“The place where the tribe originated is Mahuta, on the southern
side of the plateau towards the Rovuma, where of old time there was
nothing but thick bush. Out of this bush came a man who never
washed himself or shaved his head, and who ate and drank but little.
He went out and made a human figure from the wood of a tree
growing in the open country, which he took home to his abode in the
bush and there set it upright. In the night this image came to life and
was a woman. The man and woman went down together to the
Rovuma to wash themselves. Here the woman gave birth to a still-
born child. They left that place and passed over the high land into the
valley of the Mbemkuru, where the woman had another child, which
was also born dead. Then they returned to the high bush country of
Mahuta, where the third child was born, which lived and grew up. In
course of time, the couple had many more children, and called
themselves Wamatanda. These were the ancestral stock of the
Makonde, also called Wamakonde,[48] i.e., aborigines. Their
forefather, the man from the bush, gave his children the command to
bury their dead upright, in memory of the mother of their race who
was cut out of wood and awoke to life when standing upright. He also
warned them against settling in the valleys and near large streams,
for sickness and death dwelt there. They were to make it a rule to
have their huts at least an hour’s walk from the nearest watering-
place; then their children would thrive and escape illness.”
The explanation of the name Makonde given by my informants is
somewhat different from that contained in the above legend, which I
extract from a little book (small, but packed with information), by
Pater Adams, entitled Lindi und sein Hinterland. Otherwise, my
results agree exactly with the statements of the legend. Washing?
Hapana—there is no such thing. Why should they do so? As it is, the
supply of water scarcely suffices for cooking and drinking; other
people do not wash, so why should the Makonde distinguish himself
by such needless eccentricity? As for shaving the head, the short,
woolly crop scarcely needs it,[49] so the second ancestral precept is
likewise easy enough to follow. Beyond this, however, there is
nothing ridiculous in the ancestor’s advice. I have obtained from
various local artists a fairly large number of figures carved in wood,
ranging from fifteen to twenty-three inches in height, and
representing women belonging to the great group of the Mavia,
Makonde, and Matambwe tribes. The carving is remarkably well
done and renders the female type with great accuracy, especially the
keloid ornamentation, to be described later on. As to the object and
meaning of their works the sculptors either could or (more probably)
would tell me nothing, and I was forced to content myself with the
scanty information vouchsafed by one man, who said that the figures
were merely intended to represent the nembo—the artificial
deformations of pelele, ear-discs, and keloids. The legend recorded
by Pater Adams places these figures in a new light. They must surely
be more than mere dolls; and we may even venture to assume that
they are—though the majority of present-day Makonde are probably
unaware of the fact—representations of the tribal ancestress.
The references in the legend to the descent from Mahuta to the
Rovuma, and to a journey across the highlands into the Mbekuru
valley, undoubtedly indicate the previous history of the tribe, the
travels of the ancestral pair typifying the migrations of their
descendants. The descent to the neighbouring Rovuma valley, with
its extraordinary fertility and great abundance of game, is intelligible
at a glance—but the crossing of the Lukuledi depression, the ascent
to the Rondo Plateau and the descent to the Mbemkuru, also lie
within the bounds of probability, for all these districts have exactly
the same character as the extreme south. Now, however, comes a
point of especial interest for our bacteriological age. The primitive
Makonde did not enjoy their lives in the marshy river-valleys.
Disease raged among them, and many died. It was only after they
had returned to their original home near Mahuta, that the health
conditions of these people improved. We are very apt to think of the
African as a stupid person whose ignorance of nature is only equalled
by his fear of it, and who looks on all mishaps as caused by evil
spirits and malignant natural powers. It is much more correct to
assume in this case that the people very early learnt to distinguish
districts infested with malaria from those where it is absent.
This knowledge is crystallized in the
ancestral warning against settling in the
valleys and near the great waters, the
dwelling-places of disease and death. At the
same time, for security against the hostile
Mavia south of the Rovuma, it was enacted
that every settlement must be not less than a
certain distance from the southern edge of the
plateau. Such in fact is their mode of life at the
present day. It is not such a bad one, and
certainly they are both safer and more
comfortable than the Makua, the recent
intruders from the south, who have made USUAL METHOD OF
good their footing on the western edge of the CLOSING HUT-DOOR
plateau, extending over a fairly wide belt of
country. Neither Makua nor Makonde show in their dwellings
anything of the size and comeliness of the Yao houses in the plain,
especially at Masasi, Chingulungulu and Zuza’s. Jumbe Chauro, a
Makonde hamlet not far from Newala, on the road to Mahuta, is the
most important settlement of the tribe I have yet seen, and has fairly
spacious huts. But how slovenly is their construction compared with
the palatial residences of the elephant-hunters living in the plain.
The roofs are still more untidy than in the general run of huts during
the dry season, the walls show here and there the scanty beginnings
or the lamentable remains of the mud plastering, and the interior is a
veritable dog-kennel; dirt, dust and disorder everywhere. A few huts
only show any attempt at division into rooms, and this consists
merely of very roughly-made bamboo partitions. In one point alone
have I noticed any indication of progress—in the method of fastening
the door. Houses all over the south are secured in a simple but
ingenious manner. The door consists of a set of stout pieces of wood
or bamboo, tied with bark-string to two cross-pieces, and moving in
two grooves round one of the door-posts, so as to open inwards. If
the owner wishes to leave home, he takes two logs as thick as a man’s
upper arm and about a yard long. One of these is placed obliquely
against the middle of the door from the inside, so as to form an angle
of from 60° to 75° with the ground. He then places the second piece
horizontally across the first, pressing it downward with all his might.
It is kept in place by two strong posts planted in the ground a few
inches inside the door. This fastening is absolutely safe, but of course
cannot be applied to both doors at once, otherwise how could the
owner leave or enter his house? I have not yet succeeded in finding
out how the back door is fastened.