Explore how far cinematography contributes to the 'experimental' identity of your chosen film or films. [20]
Pulp Fiction (Tarantino, 1994) reflects aspects of postmodernism film-making prevalent in Western culture during the 1990s. Indeed, Pulp Fiction was the signature postmodern film of the era. It exemplifies the style and ethos of American late capitalism and globalisation, addressing an audience versed in decades of pop culture through cinema, television, and popular music. It reflects a period in American cinema of the 1990s which became more playful, self-reflexive and ‘knowing’. All these factors play a part in the more experimental use of cinematography applied in this film.
Pulp Fiction represents the ‘independent major’ or ‘indiewood’ cultural and institutional trend, as it blurs the boundaries between art house and mainstream cinema. Pulp Fiction’s homage to French New Wave of the late 1950s, through the use of long takes, non-heroic characters and playful references throughout, exemplifies this trend of postmodern ‘indie’ style cinema, which broke down distinctions between high and low culture. The cinematography offers sudden shifts from long takes of long scenes of dialogue to extreme violence were commonplace in French New Wave cinema. Pulp Fiction replicates this characteristic of French New Wave throughout. One such example is the opening sequence where ‘Pumpkin’ and ‘Honey Bunny’ discuss a hold up at length, with extensive use of long shots, then launch into the violent act which is halted through a freeze frame, another stylistic device used in French New Wave cinema.
The lighting in the Jack Rabbit Slims diner evokes a nostalgic 1950s vibe. A tracking shot follows behind Vince as he walks through the diner, filled with B-movie film posters. This reflects the postmodern trend for a nostalgia for a mythic past, one the spectator may only be aware of through popular culture. Indeed, Pulp Fiction’s soundtrack is a mixture of popular songs from the 1950s to the 1990s, giving the film its nostalgic postmodern feel. Pulp Fiction reflects postmodernism’s layered referencing, as characters’ personalities, clothes, dialogue and even hairstyles are a collage of references. Mia, with her short-bobbed hair, may remind the spectator of Louise Brooks or Anna Karina, or possibly both.
Tarantino experiments with cinematography to withhold information from the audience. This reflects the trend in postmodern culture to assume an active spectatorship, who can piece together the story themselves. Certain enigmas are never resolved, including what is contained in the briefcase. We only see the briefcase from the now iconic a medium close up of Vince which results in an intriguing gold hue lighting up Vince's face, which gives nothing away. This allows spectators to create their own hypothesis and engage in the playful nature of the postmodern.
Overall, the cinematography of Pulp Fiction reflects and exemplifies postmodern culture of the 1990s. Indeed, the film set the trend for a plethora of postmodern films commonplace in American cinema of the 1990s.
TOTAL: 18/20 BAND 5
· Excellent demonstration of understanding and knowledge of experimental film.
· Detailed understanding of the context of chosen film.
· Excellent points on cinematography used in the film to illustrate argument on post-modernism.
Discuss how far your chosen film or films reflect cultural contexts associated with particular film movement. [20]
Silent film comedy was a significant movement in American cinema of the 1920s. Slapstick and gag-based comedy lent itself to the silent film medium, as visual gags could be easily understood and crossed language barriers. In the 1920s in America, such films could appeal to working-class and immigrant audiences, some of whom may not have spoken English. The four Buster Keaton short films I have studied reflect the cultural contexts in which these American Silent Film comedy was produced. This essay will address the culture in which American film comedy developed, such as vaudeville. It will also use of imagery and themes in Buster Keaton shorts relevant to key cultural movements of the period such as American short film comedy and surrealism.
American silent film comedy developed from popular cultural forms such as vaudeville, where a variety of acts, including comedians and acrobats would perform to audiences. Keaton developed his craft in Vaudeville as part of a family act, doing comedy acrobatic routines. It was here he developed his ‘stone face’ persona, as he learned a gag worked well when he stayed completely expressionless. For instance, in One Week, where the train destroys his flat-pack home, the camera cuts to Keaton’s expressionless face which emphasises the gag. It also provides spectator expectations as his expressionless face was part of Keaton’s persona which audiences recognised in all his short films. The 1920s was also the period where the star system in Hollywood developed, as studios created publicity materials around stars and developed a saleable persona. The great silent film comedians each had a distinct persona which they developed in their short films while working for the Mack Sennett studios.
The Buster Keaton shorts are reflective of the cultural movement of silent film comedy. The length of around 20 minutes was typical of the ‘two-reelers’ which were popular at the time and well-suited to a comedy where narrative was subservient to gags. The film Cops is typical of American Silent film comedy’s mocking of policemen which were popular with audiences. This mocking of police developed from Sennett’s Keystone Studios series, Keystone Cops, featuring comedic policemen in comedy chase sequences. The use of a long shot for chase sequences is typical of American silent film comedy. When Keaton is chased across the streets of Los Angeles by the entire city police force in Cops, we see this in long shot and with a deep focus, a typical way to present a chase gag in silent cinema to allow the audience to focus on the gag.
Keaton’s shorts reflect an interest in American comedy with gadgets and the mechanical age. In The Scarecrow, all objects in Keaton’s home have a dual function for comedic effect. For instance, the gramophone player functions as an oven. Keaton is often represented as the ‘little man’ who is sometimes overwhelmed by technology and the forces of nature. Keaton’s films make cultural comic references to other popular cultural texts which audiences at the time would have recognised. The house in The Scarecrow is a reference to the comic illustrations of Robe Goldberg which were published in American newspapers at the time. These illustrations depicted men confused with modern technology. Keaton based One Week on a short film made by Ford on flat pack houses for their workers, a comic depiction on the increasing consumerism and the promotion of home ownership. In One Week Keaton battles against the elements to build the house. The house also takes on a surreal cubist form, a reference to the cultural artistic movement of cubism where artists such as Picasso created fragmented and abstract shapes.
These short films also reflect surrealism, a cultural artistic movement of the period. Surrealist filmmakers such as Louis Bunuel revered the comedy of Chaplin and Keaton for their anarchic gags and use of humour to defy the laws of the real world and question authority. The gags in The High Sign are surreal – when Keaton opens a newspaper, it becomes abnormally large and eventually engulfs him. Surreal imagery appears in One Week, as a man arrives carrying a piano on his back for no apparent reason.
Overall, these four Keaton shorts reflect the cultural contexts associated with American silent film comedy, namely, the development of comedy from other entertainment forms such as vaudeville, references to artistic movements such as cubism, the use of technology, and surreal gags.
TOTAL: 20/20 BAND 5
· A sophisticated and concise response which is well focused on examples which directly relate to the question on cultural contexts.
· Excellent demonstration of knowledge in relation to the movement studied.
Apply one filmmaker's theory of documentary film you have studied to your chosen documentary. How far does this increase your understanding of the film? (20)
There are several ways the study of film has increased my understanding of my chosen documentary Amy (Kapadia, 2015). One that I have most beneficial is by looking at the film alongside the work of the filmmaker Nick Broomfield. Amy uses a highly constructed approach to the subject matter. This focuses on the singer Amy Winehouse’s rise to international stardom as a singer and her subsequent fall and early death due to problems with addiction. Kapadia uses a few techniques to present this story. He uses existing footage from media sources, personal material recorded by her friends and some unofficial shots from performances. He underpins this with a series of interviews, from a range of people – family, friends, and professional musicians such as Tony Bennett. What he produces is a film which gives a sense of Winehouse’s life, aligning the spectator directly with her predicament.
This is in turn a very personal viewpoint on behalf of the director, one that was heavily criticized by several people, most prominently her father Mitch. This single-minded emphasis on Winehouse as a victim is seen most graphically in the final sequence of the film. It is here that we can hear her friend’s voice on the soundtrack, underpinned by quite sad music with an aerial shot of London. Her friend discussed a phone call from Winehouse, where she apologises for her past behaviour. This followed by three long shots of Winehouse’s Camden house on the day of her death and sound tracked by her bodyguard talking about discovering her body. The music continues and aligns the audience directly with the singer and reaches its zenith when we see the paramedics take her body out to place in the ambulance.
Certainly, there are some parallels here with the work of Broomfield. A key aspect of his work is his very direct relationship with the subject matter. This is seen very clearly in his work on a variety of different people – but most graphically in his 1998 film Kurt and Courtney. Like Kapadia, he places the spectator with Kurt Cobain, another pop star who died prematurely as the result of his various addictions. He selects several key people who knew Cobain to initially try to ascertain if he was murdered or not. He, like Kapadia presents his main protagonist as a victim – not just of his addictions and bad life choices linked to his marriage to Courtney Love (much like Fielder-Civil in Amy).
However, a crucial difference between the films is the style and use of techniques. Broomfield through most of his career as a documentary-maker has been firmly rooted in the performative/interactive mode of filmmaking. He is often seen in his films on screen complete with a sound-boom and directly addressing the camera. His interview technique seems quite haphazard and unprepared – but one could argue is part of a carefully constructed persona designed to disarm the interviewee. On several occasions, he elicits information from these people that would ordinarily they might not share. This very direct form of filmmaking is very deliberate in its effect on the audience. That said he like Kapadia also uses found footage to contextualize his subject matter.
In Amy we don’t see the director at all nor hear his voice. Stylistically it is very different to Broomfield. That said, in my respects you could argue that his personal imprint is just as strong as Broomfield and that this comes across in the editing and juxtaposition of images throughout Amy. While in his interviews Broomfield favours long takes, in Amy there is often a succession of editing devices used to create a particular effect. This is seen in the sequence where she is recording the song Back to Black with Mark Ronson. Much of this is on the use of sound which fades in non-diegetically at the start of the sequence and by the end the end we just hear her voice in the recording booth, which gives an interesting effect in terms of how utterly bereft she sounds.
In terms of how far the theories or ideas of Broomfield tally within Amy, we could also make the point that the spectator always knows that they are watching a piece of film. Broomfield is often present in the shot, heard on the voice-over, sometimes moaning about the lack of money or problems on the shoot. Kapadia’s film with its highly mediated selection of shots – from Amy as a child, through her early tours for her first album and the use of stills and hidden camera charting her later problems provide excellent evidence of this sense that we are watching a film (in a different way to Broomfield). That said the way that Broomfield tries to be present and not act as a voyeur in many of his films suggests a very different relationship to the material than Kapadia. We never see the participants that he interviews, we only hear them. He has made a film largely in an editing suite, with access to a whole raft of private and public material. This sense of Kapadia as developing the narrative to fit his own sense of the subject matter is largely based on his careful selection of what he has in front of him and what he places on the soundtrack to support his own agenda. On the other hand, Broomfield is tied directly to the on-off encounters that he has with his participants. Obviously, these will be manipulated in post-production – but the very nature of their spontaneous aesthetic is fundamentally important in his work.
While there are a few different ways by which documentaries can be assessed, I did find that comparing and contrasting Broomfield’s ideas about making documentary has really enlightened my overall understanding of Amy.
TOTAL: 15/20 - BAND 4
· Good understanding of the film-maker Broomfield's ideas and style when it comes to documentary.
· Good ability to apply this understanding to the documentary film-making style of Kapadia.
· Candidate has achieved a lot in the time given for this section.
· References to Broomfield's ideas/theories on the form of documentary could be further detailed.
With close reference to the two films you have studied, explore how either sound or editing create meaning? (40)
Sound is a central part of both Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth (2006) and Meirelles City of God (2002). In PL, a young girl, Ofelia resists the Racism and control of her stepfather whilst at the same time battling terrifying monsters. In City of God, a boy named Rocket shows his point of view of gang violence and corruption in the favelas (slums of Rio de Janeiro).
In City of God, sound is usually used in one of two distinct ways. The first is flamboyant, over-emphasised sound, usually a mixture of diegetic and non-diegetic. A good example of this is in the introduction to the film, as we hear a knife being sharpened, people singing and playing guitar, and a chicken clucking. This serves to introduce us to our environment (for example, the singing is in Brazilian, played in a traditional Brazilian style) and to imply something about the environment. By hearing so many things at once, the viewer is disorientated, and the sound feels chaotic, implying that the favelas, in turn, are also chaotic. Another example of this flamboyant sound being used to tell us something is at the very end, as the runts walk away, and some punk music plays. Unlike the introduction, this is not done to disorient the viewer, but it does imply some things about the characters in the film. For instance, the music is upbeat and talks about 'the good times', which reflects how Rocket has found his way out of the favelas and gained a happy ending. In addition, the shot is looking at the Runts, who are discussing the potential murder and violence they are about to commit. In this case, the happy music could connote how they take joy in the same things, like Lil 'Ze, and the cycle of violence in the favelas keeps going. In both cases, the flamboyant, distinctly Brazilian sound serves to tell us something about the environment or characters.
By contrast, City of God also uses silence or purely diegetic sound to create realism in a scene. This is seen in several scenes, though the ending sequence is a notable example. After a noisy, chaotic shootout, we instead get complete silence as the camera looks over the bodies. This gives the audience some time to contemplate and implies that these people – unnamed as most of them were – are still people too and should be mourned. This is also seen, albeit a little differently, in the hand or foot scene. Ze forces Steak and Fries to shoot the Runts, no music plays, and there is only the sound of the children crying and Ze yelling. This, again, forces a sense of realism into the scene – even in the audio, we cannot escape the harsh reality of the favelas and their violence and are forced to watch what really goes on. This idea of using silence to emphasise the reality of a situation is important to City of God and stems from its context. Firstly, it is influenced by the book that inspired the film in the first place, showing Meirelles what it was like in the favelas from an insider's point of view. Therefore, using sound to show the reality of the favelas to an audience was an important aim, especially as 'no-one was talking about these things' in Brazil.
In addition, it indicates that City of God is either a piece of, or is influenced by, Third Cinema. In Third Cinema, film is used to make a political point, and to encourage people to act. By using either silence (to reflect) or diegetic sound (to show the reality of the violence) Meirelles uses film to horrify or upset and audience, potentially motivating them to change their ways. Overall, silence is used in contrast to the flamboyant sound to create reflective or visceral scenes.
Pan's Labyrinth also uses film to illicit an emotional response, but one of fear. This is probably best shown in the Pale Man scene, where the noise as soon as Ofelia enters the room creates fear. Discordant rumbling tones play throughout the whole first half of the scene, along with noises like the wind through the tunnels. This, along with the set, helps to imply the idea that these rooms are a catacomb-like place, with low sounds coming from above, or perhaps the dead within the walls. Once the Pale Man awakens, but before Ofelia notices, the sound becomes especially discordant. A soft harp plays at the same time as the low, rumbling notes, disconcerting the viewer but also indicating the part Ofelia sees – that of temptation, represented by the harp, making the food look appealing. Then, once the Pale Man starts running towards her, he roars and the music becomes more chaotic and louder, invoking fear in the viewer. The use of sound to scare the viewer is especially important here. Arguably, the Pale Man is a representation of Vidal (and fascism as a whole), exaggerated to criticise the parts del Toro wants to criticise (e.g., his greed, his stealing of innocence). In this case, then, using sound to make him exaggeratedly scary have helps to strengthen del Toro's point. The sound also connotes the horror of war, in this case. For example, the voices heard low down in the mix could be seen to reflect the lives lost in the civil war and under fascism, in conjunction with the pile of shoes in the room. Arguably, sound is used to invoke fear in the viewer so that del Toro can strengthen his point about the horror and chaos of the Spanish Civil War and fascist Spain.
Del Toro also uses sound as a motif, namely that of the lullaby. When we first hear it at the beginning of the film, it serves as a point of intrusive, contrasting with Ofelia's pained breathing and the context of the Civil War. This contrast within the sound makes an audience ask questions and establishes the lullaby on something which will continually arise during the film. Then, when we next hear it sung, it is by Mercedes when Ofelia is conflicted. This establishes her as a mother figure – someone on her side to come and guide for her since her biological mother is now siding with Vidal. At the end of the film, the lullaby helps to merge the two worlds together, seemingly happening both in the fantasy and the reality. The song helps create a sense of coherence, blending the fantasy and real worlds together at the end of the film, when they had not previously met. It also helps to contrast with the horror, making the violence and injustice seem worse by comparison to the warm, motherly song.
In City of God, it is used to show the violence of the favelas through either flamboyancy or realism, and in Pan, it is used to indicate the horror of fascism and the link between the real and fantasy worlds.
TOTAL: 29 BAND 4
· Some satisfactory mixed with some good knowledge and understanding of how sound is used within the two films.
· An even and well-structured response.
· Strong links to audience/meaning.
· Textual analysis is not sophisticated or detailed enough to reach Band 5