Film%20Studies

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Film Studies

• Reality Effects and Truth Effects

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Table of Contents

• 1. Recap
• 2. Take a Photograph or Make a Photograph
• 3. Reality effects and truth effects

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Recap

• Film Realism - a style of filmmaking in which an
  attempt is made to represent something familiar
  or typical without changing it.
• Realist film - a type of films which are
  characterized for such a style

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Recap

• Film Formalism - a style of filmmaking whose
  primary concern is form to the extent reality is
  willingly altered or new reality is recreated.
• Formalistic film - a type of films which are
  characterized for such a style.

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Recap

• PROBLEMS OF FILM REALISM
• Film is not reality itself but the representation
  of it. Thus, filmed reality is subject to
  filmmakers alteration and manipulation.
• Imaginary relationship between the audience and
  the screen - a relationship in which the audience
  cannot distinguish the difference between
  him/herself and the character on screen.
• The parody of such a relationship

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Recap

• When the audience takes people on the screen as
  real.
• Imaginary relationship the illusion that screen
  reality is part of actual reality
• Jacques Lacan and Christian Metz
• Imaginary and symbolic relationships
• Woody Allens Play it Again, Sam (1985)

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Recap

• PROBLEMS OF FILM FORMALISM
• It is impossible to create anything which has
  nothing to do with the reality we perceive the
  filmmaker always rely on what he/she knows, has
  learned and experienced in real life.
• Symbolic relationship between the audience and
  the screen - a relationship in which the audience
  is well aware of the difference between his/her
  and the screen realities.

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Recap

• Ridley Scotts Blade Runner a SF film about Los
  Angeles in 2019 is inspired by the cityscape of
  Osaka around 1980.

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• cloudland

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Recap

• Realism and formalism coexist and interact in
  every film
• Our task is
• - to identify the extent to which a film is
  realistic, formalistic or both
• - to explore how filmmakers achieve realism or
  formalism

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Take or Make a Photograph

• Photography is a modern invention which has
  enabled us to record reality as it really is.
• Question Is photography an objective reflection
  and recording of reality?

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Take or Make a Photograph?

• Choices of exposure and shutter speed
• - reflect photographers intention.

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Take or Make a Photograph

• John Constables two drawings of the same spot.
• Dedham from Langham

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Take or Make a Photograph

• Composition
• Photographer finding an interesting moment
• Photos by Henri Cartier-Bresson

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Take or Make a Photograph

• The choice of colour or black and white
• - reflects Aesthetic choice

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Take or Make a Sketch

• John Constables series of paintings of the sky

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Take or Make a Sketch

• Constables studies on cloud-formation based on
  Alexander Cozens

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Reality Effects and Truth Effects

• Film is not, no matter how realistic it is, the
  simple, objective recording of reality but the
  rearrangement of it.
• Virtual reality, O.K. You know what virtual
  means? O.K., it is like really real. So virtual
  reality is practically, totally real. But not.
  -- Jennifer Jason Leigh as Lois Kaiser in Robert
  Altmans Short Cuts

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Reality Effects and Truth Effects

• Realism is a relative concept in two senses
• 1) There is no pure or perfect form of realism.
  Some films are more realistic than others.
• 2) The filmmakers and the viewers ideas of
  reality are relative.
• An alternative way to describe realism
• To discuss realism in terms of effects which a
  film create on the audience.

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Reality Effects and Truth Effects

• Reality Effects - they come into being when
  representations in moving images give the
  audience the impression that they mimic the
  facticity of the world around us, or surface
  appearance. Roland Barthes

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Reality Effects and Truth Effects

• Truth Effects - they come into being when
  representations in moving images agree with
  viewers ideas of what is true about the world in
  a general sense. They have to do with whether
  texts conform to what she generally believes
  about experience. Michel Foucault

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Reality Effects

• Richard Attenboroughs biographical film, Gandhi,
  imitates how Mahatma Ghandi looked, how he spoke,
  how the world in which he lived looked like and
  what his life was like - creation of an
  impression that the film is mimicing facticity,
  that is, a reality effect.

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Reality Effects

• Jinnah and Ghandi Hunger strike Opening
  Assassination

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Reality Effects and Truth Effects

• Moving images have truth-effects even when they
  are objectively untrue. They have truth
  effects as long as they agree to what the
  audience believes true.
• Samuel Fullers House of Bamboo (US, 1955)
  display the images of Japan and Japanese women.
  False for those who know Japan and Japanese women
  but true for those who believe them true.

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Reality Effects and Truth Effects

• Truth Effects
• Idealist approach to our cognition
• Things do not exist in themselves. They exist
  only as ideas that each of us has of them.

• Reality Effects
• Materialist approach to our cognition
• Things exist independently of the individuals
  knowledge of them.

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Reality Effects and Truth Effects

• Materialist conception Idealist
  conception

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Film Realism and Reality/Truth Effects

• Our impression of moving images being realistic
  or not depends on both reality and truth effects
  that they exert on us.
• Reality and truth effects as alternative to film
  realism

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Reality and Truth Effects

• Describe reality and truth effects found in
  Richard Curtis Casablanca (1942)
• Casablanca Opening

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Reality and Truth Effects

• Describe reality and truth effects found in
  Bernardo Bertoluccis Sheltering Sky (1990)

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Reality Effects and Truth Effects

• Impression of authenticity for another type of
  the viewer
• Richard Curtiss Casablanca (US, 1942)

• Impression of authenticity for a type of the
  viewer
• Gino Pontecorvos La Battaglia di Algeri (Italy,
  1966)