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Fidelity vs specificity
1900s: Fidelity seemed to be a guarantee of artistic worth
Film directors: J Epstein, M Lherbier, A Gance, S Eisenstein rejected all for specificity of cinema;
argued adaptation = only a minor cine genre because had to be slavesly faithful doomed to
unoriginality
1920s: Virginia Woolf commenting on art of cinema in The movies and reality in New Republic of
4 Aug 1926 the alliance is unnatural
=> show how adaptation is likely to be described as parasitic work of art
1950s: French Nouvelle Vague filmmaker as auteur?
Golden age of adaptation
Film scholars:
Bla Balsz in Theory of film: character and growth of a new art, in 1952
inevitable mutation [] a kind of paraphrase of the novel- the novel viewed as raw material
George Bluestone in Novels into film in 1957
film and novel are two ways of seeing; only thing it can faithfully adapt= its story, diegesis (plot,
characters, setting)
Reader-response criticism:
R Stern in Film theory: an introduction in 2000
a faithful fil is seen as uncreative but an unfaithful film is a shameful betrayal of the original
To ANALYSE:
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http://fr.slideshare.net/jean-yves/a-basic-grammar-of-film-11526001?qid=2a9f14ef-5da4-4d22-88539037917e4d9e&v=qf1&b=&from_search=1
Sequence
forms a distinct narrative unit (//chapter)
defined by a unity of action or a unity of purpose
Scene
describes an action that takes place in a single location and continuous time >screen time=diegetic
time (// paragraph)
Shot
a single continuous recording (//sentence)
Frame
a single still image -the most basic unit but hardly interesting
Extreme Long Shot = generally an establishing shot (figures, objects, settings often an
exterior) an overall context (object/character little, lost in decorum)
Long Shot = shows entire object/character and placed in relation to surroundings and body
Medium long shot / Three-quarter short / American shot = naturalistic way to see, from the
knees up
Medium shot = from the waist up -more face more psycho function
Medium close-up = head and shoulders -conveys intimacy, psycho
Two-shot = combines the last two (1 subject in MCU in foregd; 1 in MS in back)
Close-up = takes whole frame (face, bodypart, object)
Extreme close-up = frame tight with only a fraction of the obj -stylises something instead of
just showing -> often symbolical metaphoric function
Insert or Cut-in
covers action already covered in the master shot (detail chose out of the whole)
+ emphasizes a dfft aspect of that action
Depth of field
the distance between the nearest and the furthest object that appear sharp, focused (clearly)
long: serve descriptive purpose and + cf Orson Wells Citizen Kane
short: emphasis on either fore/background
Camera angles
guide the audiences judgement about the objects and characters in a shot
- Overview angle (as in Birds) an unusual God-like position
- High-angle shot -effect = ironical or pejorative (character looks smaller, swallowed up by
environment)
- Eye-level shot =positioned as human observing; very neutral, natural unnoticeable
- Low-angle shot =increases height of objects -> makes audience look up //glorifies; plus
insecurity and fear, dominated (claustro even) by figures + sense of confusion (setting)
- Canted / oblique / Dutch angle -point of view; uneasiness
Camera movements:
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Editing
Combining shots into a coherent whole
Dfft techniques:
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Genette definition =Explicit or implicit relationship (quotation, allusion) with other texts
Refocus on overall cultural symbolical system, out of which specific text has been constructed
1. Monstrous intertextuality in Frankenstein
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An instance of hypertext
Political satire Mary Shelley liberal, but mixed feelings abt French revolution and consequences
(terror, napoleon)
Novel of exploration and scientific discovery
Philosophical novel
Gothic novel (cf Mysteries of Udolpho by Radcliffe 1794) ->landscapes, transgression hybris
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Metatextual relationships
Frankenstein is not only Shelleys novel but something that includes a much larger context: has been
adapted many times
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Brannagh => procreation: enormous bags, phallic, coital position, electric heels into a container of
fluid, naked infant
// balls, spermatozoid, womb, breath out of water, unable to walk
Choice consistent: story of monstrous birthing, of self-generation, of Vs horrified realization of
unnatural association of life and death in the monster (this guilt comes from moral and religious
preoccupations //camera angles high-low play)
BUT Shelleys answer is more oblique
through Vs dream: monster is as the illegitimate child he had with his dead mother (replacing his
lover eliz in dream)
Horror associated with motif of vision (focus on the eye)
-> horrified by gaze of his creature/son as he is fathering him + condemns it
cf psychoanalysis: is a primal scene
Mirror effects: suggests creature and V are to of a kind, like father like son (cf purple section)
In film, V not horrified but triumphant when he opens his eyes -> why?
Shots do draw parallels (out of tank; in amniotic fluid both)
But mostly contrasts: V evolves in dance-like moves / creature stitched and unable to walk
In film, V is a mix of procreator-father and re-animator, electrical resuscitation
=> Elements from cinematic epitext of F included (Whales: ascension and vertical, the close-up on
the hand, the Its alive quote)
Ambigous adaptation draws upon both, add
Thematic level: Landscapes restraint and What is the perfect English butler?
BUT
the novel rejects the heritage formula: cf argument
(Stevens wasted his life, deluded himself about his masters respectability, wasted his sentimental life
for his fantasized duty)
Reading through the lines, behind the smoke screen of his narrative, understands it all
Film goes against that? Missed the point by giving misproportionate importance to heritage
costumes decors etc? in spite, hurting drama
Cf critic: transform narrative space into heritage space
Underlying notion of false appearances: heritage elements (beautiful sets, music, light) hide inner
Contrast between the festive atmosphere and the more intimate darker deathbed scene; opposite moods
Both cover up and reveal Stevens feelings => inversion of private and public: S shows no emotion in
front of Miss K or in the bedroom; but registers the shock and distressed in the common room
Importance of intra-diegetic music: melancholy song reflecting Stevens inner state
Viewer easily see through appearances (unlike the guests)
Outside the drawing room: more intimate frame: we expect more intimate feelings to be expressed
-but a shadow-play technique (ombre chinoise) that Ivory resorts to plus Hopkins style of acting
prevent emotions to be perceived
In bedroom: he sends doctor to gentleman in pain whereas He is in pain -> putting on a mask of
perfect English butler
But viewer suspects what lies behind the mask // see under the rhetoric of Ishiguros narrator
Aesthetical choices foreground notion of unsubstantial appearances
- shot: shadows are images, no flesh real -focus on beautiful appearances
- music group scene: cf Cardinal or Lewis looking around (vs all others in one direction): as
warnings -conceal a lie
German singer as a Lorelei; the meeting of those countries not innocent!
Dichotomy strong contrast between Appearances-surface / Depth
What is said/showed is not what really is
Englishness and Perfection: actually dangerous illusions Are out of touch with the real
world outside room
Ivory critical of the heritage formula: the kind of Englishness it advertises is not only a beautiful
faade but a fraud, even a dangerous utopia.
Film and novel compare it to Germanity
Challenge addressed by screenwriters: what gaze nforced? Who sees what appears on screen? How
film convey description informed by a point of view in a novel? How to adapt first-person narr?
Identity and presence more difficult to detect Is only the implied author?
Le grand imagier (Albert Laffay) the designer at once present and invisible, the collective
intelligence that puts the film together
David Bordwell argues: no implied author behind - he applies to film and litt another concept (not
the usual view of communication of message from enunciator to receiver)
=> process more complex: an organization of a set of cues for the construction of a story (like a
jigsaw puzzle)
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Litterature primarly linguistic -> film narr is special kind of enunciation then (// Laffays theory)
grand designer is the story-telling enunciator
Narr as spectacle -> an implied viewer witnessing show of events and is engaged with content and
meaning of the narr (// Bordwell) ->only audience interiority
In any case, possibility to have an internal point of view seems ruled out?
Movies are good at action; they are not good at reflective thought and conceptual thinking. Theyre
good for immediate stimulus (Pauline Kael)
Film cant show characters interior -so is first-person narration
Common techniq: the point-of-view shot (camera replaces gaze) / eye-line match
= witness the scene through the yes of the character + sees his reaction and gets an idea of what hes
thinking
BUT not same effect as 1st pers narr in book: only catch glances
Less frequently, tried to sustain 1st p throughout the movie:
ex: Lady in the lake by R. Montgomery (1964): camera is the character BUT even if were trapped inside, dont see his face (close up show interiority), he seems more
external witness than teller of the story
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A voice-over
Device often criticized as uncinematic, too literary even there gap 2 narr instances (sound/image)
ex: Sunset Boulevard by Billy Wilder
Combined to other techniques to convay intimacy: point-of-view shots with eye-line matchs, close-up
shots, while the voice-over makes enter secret thoughts (not just words but tone, grain of voice,
rhythm as a form of music)
BUT always tell story different angle -shots seen by extra: third-person narration techniques
Techniques cannot be sustained all the way through a film = Several points of view
collaborate to narrate in a film!
Film narration = Polyphonic (cf Mikhail Bakhtin -doc)
How reality appears to a multiplicity of instances (narr, charact)
Characters merely as internal focalizers (cf Henry James)
Reflection
Symbol of a claim of subjectivity, and fluctuation mvmt
Key feature of fantastic litte: dobbles
Reflexion ambivalent: duplication of image AND thinking
Specularity (speculum latin) : speculation (hypothesis), visions almost hallu
Psyche (greek): mirror AND soul