Film Art           Chapter 2  


This chapter is about the form of film. 

Form and Content
When we talk about the content of a film, e.g. the story, we have to remember that the story can't be shown to us without a form (color, tone, music, etc.) 

Film and Emotion
We need to be aware that a film is following certain formal systems to direct our attention to it.   Even our emotional reaction to a film's story is to a great extent determined by its form.

Conventions and Genre
Some of the systems are so familiar to us that they become 'conventions', rules of representation, for instance, most Hollywood films end with an empty shot of the sky to signify closure.   Films with the same sets of conventions are grouped to become genres.

Form and Meaning
Bordwell lists four levels of meanings in a film: 
• the 'referential'--this is the literal meaning of a film, which involves merely our recognition of the images or words in a film.
• the 'explicit'-- this is the obvious meaning of a film, which is normally directly expressed by a charactor or narrator in a film.
• the 'implicit'--this is the more subtle meaning that has to be discovered by the audience through interpretation.
• the 'symptomatic'--this is a meaning we find in a film about the existence of the film itself, that is the  ideologies of the society embedded in the film.

Criticism
Bordwell thinks that there are three criteria normally used to judge whether a film is good:
• coherence
• complexity
• originality

When we examine a film's form, we can pay attention to the following aspects:
• the functions of certain elements (we can ask what its purpose of being there is)
• similarity and repetition
• difference and variation
• the development of plot
• unity/disunity
By finding these elements in a film, we may get a clear picture of what the film is trying to do with such a form.


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