Ngozi Onyema
Film 3000
November 01, 2011
Film: The Searchers
TRT: 119 minutes
Language: English.
Date of film: 1956
Director: John Ford
Award: Named “The Greatest American Western of All Time” by the American Film Institute in 2008.
The topic in film theory that this film “The Searchers” relates to is the auteur theory. Auterism is the notion that the director is the singular genius of the motion-picture medium. This theory has more to do with the audience/critics than it does the film but it does involve the audience/critics perception and critique of the film specifically the director. This was brought up in a time when some people felt that some films and their directors were wrongfully underappreciated and also felt that some of these directors should be looked at with high esteem and honor as authors which is the English pronunciation/version/meaning of the French word auteurs. John Ford was seen as one of these highly esteemed directors in the world of auteurs.
The article titled “John Ford’s The Searchers” by Stefan Herrmann starts off pointing out the racism expressed in this film. Douglas Pye says that The Searchers film does not offer “a coherent set of perspectives” which as the author of this article points out is based on a wider view on the time the film was made. The article goes on to tell different views of the film by critics. One critic in particular who is well known to hold John Ford as an auteur is Andrew Sarris. Andrew Sarris called the film in his 1971 essay on The Searchers “resolutely untraditional”, naming it Ford’s “greatest symphony”. Sarris examined the film under stylistic terms and did not focus on the ideological means of it like other critics did. In the second article titled “Gunning for John Ford at the Auteur Corral” by Thomas Doherty, the article offers a defense of John Ford against his critics and basically champions the idea of John Ford as an auteur. It speaks about the two most passionate partisans in this battle of criticizing auteurism: Andrew Sarris in the auteurist corner at a small journal called Film Culture and Pauline Kael then operating a pair of movie-revival theaters in the Berkeley are and soon to be the New Yorkers resident cinephile. Taking his cue from the French crowd at Cahiers, Sarris sought to “convert film history into directorial autobiography”. More audaciously, he celebrated Hollywood workhorses like Ford, Howard Hawks, and Alfred Hitchcock as capital A artists, fit to be ranked with all the great visionaries of the century. The auteur critics were infact a very convincing group.
These articles not only describe the film but the nature of the critique of the film. Some critics were surprised that Ford went back to doing Westerns but as this article points out, the time he did it gives us a sense of what the nature of critiquing was like. These articles relate to the screening and point out where we were at that point in time as a society while at the same time acknowledging art, style and pointing out underappreciated greatness.
My personal opinion as a result of all of this is that everyone is a critic. Even taking it from the film itself, there’s criticism within the characters in the film. This is sort of like art imitating life or life imitating art. People see things in different ways as all the critics of this film do. More than anything this film and its responses is a testament to how we all see things.
Bibliography:
Doherty, Thomas (2000, June 9). Gunning for John Ford at the Auteur Corral. Chronicle of Higher Education, Vol. 46 Issue 40, pB9, 2p. Retrieved November 01, 2011, from Academic Search Premier Database
Herrmann, Stefan (2001, April 9). John Ford’s ‘The Searchers’. Steffanherrmann.com. Retrieved November 01, 2011 from http://stefanherrmann.com/text/essays/archive/searchers.html
Monday, October 31, 2011
Monday, October 17, 2011
Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon Film Essay
Ngozi Onyema
Film 3000
October 18, 2011
Film: Rashomon
TRT: 87 minutes
Language: Japanese with English Subtitles
Date of the Film: 1950
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Awards:
• Blue Ribbon Awards (1951) - Best Screenplay: Akira Kurosawa and Shinobu Hashimoto
• Mainichi Film Concours (1951) - Best Actress: Machiko Kyō
• Venice Film Festival (1951) - Golden Lion: Akira Kurosawa
• National Board of Review USA (1951) - Best Director: Akira Kurosawa and Best Foreign Film: Japan
• 24th Academy Awards, USA (1952) - Best Foreign Language Film
The topic in Film Theory that I feel is involved with this film Roshomon is Epistemology. Epistemology is a branch of philosophy that investigates the origin, nature, methods and limits of human knowledge. It basically asks the question “how do we know what we know is the truth?” In this film there are four different interpretations of the same event. This has the audience question what is the truth and if there is such a thing as a single truth. Another topic I see in this film is allegory as I see the symbolism of this film compared to the defeat of Japan at the end of World War II.
In the first article by Paul Tatara, Paul gives a summary of the film, the effects the film Rashomon had on the film industry, critics of Kurosawa and most notably Kurosawa’s recounting of his explanation of the script in his memoir “Something Like an Autobiography”. In his memoir Kurosawa said “Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves. They cannot talk about themselves without embellishing. The script portrays such human beings the kind who cannot survive without lies to make them feel better than they really are. It even shows this sinful need for flattery falsehood going beyond the grave – even the character who dies cannot give up his lies when he speaks to the living through the median. Egoism is a sin the human being carries with him from birth; it is the most difficult to redeem. This film is a strange picture scroll that is unrolled and discharged by the ego.” In the second article by Roger Ebert he pretty much does the same thing summarizing the film but he also gives a psychological and more analytical view of the film. He gives an explanation of the film that involves both Kurosawa’s explanation of the film and the expected interpretation of the audience to the film. In the third article by Hideo Hama titled “Ethnomethodology and the Rashomon Problem” Hideo Hama speaks about Harold Garfinkel’s dissertation which critically examined Talcott Parsons’ classical formulation of the problem of order referred to as the “Hobbesian problem”. Garfinkel’s examination spoke of how congruency theory replaces the correspondence theory. Hideo Hama proposed to examine the “Hobbesian problem” but instead use the name “Rashomon problem”. Hideo Hama’s article basically examines the film Rashomon to try to figure out what truly happened.
These articles relate to the screening in a sense that they acknowledge the true explanation of the film which is given by Kurosawa himself and they acknowledge the interpreted explanation of the film which is by the audience because of the inconclusive ending of the different stories in the film. Roger Ebert says “The genius of “Rashomon” is that all of the flashbacks are both true and false. True in that they present an accurate portrait of what each witness thinks happened. False, because as Kurosawa observes in his autobiography, “Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves. They cannot talk aobut themselves without embellishing.” This goes back to the epistemology about how do we know what we know is the truth. We are given different accounts of the story and are left wondering what the truth is.
As far as the film I couldn’t help but feel that it was a little over the top as far as the acting part of it. That may be due to me not being used to Japanese films. I was also kind of disappointed to find out that Kurosawa gave an explanation of the film by saying all the stories were a lie. I was under the impression that this was a film about different interpretations, about seeing things differently from others. When you say that the different accounts are lies then it is no longer an interpretation but lie. At the same time all of the accounts can’t be a lie unless a truth is known. Kurosawa doesn’t go on to tell us what the truth is but he does tell us all accounts are lies so we are still left wondering what the truth is.
Bibliography:
Ebert, Roger (2002, May 26). Rashomon (1950). Rogerebert.suntimes.com. Retrieved October 18, 2011 from http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20020526/REVIEWS08/205260301/1023
Tatara, Paul (2011). Rashomon. Turner Classic Movies Film Article. Retrieved October 18, 2011 from http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/136021|0/Rashomon.html
Hama, Hideo (1999, October). Ethnomethodology and the Rashomon Problem. Human Studies, Vol. 22, No. 2/4, pg 183 – 192. Retrieved December 18, 2011, from JSTOR
Film 3000
October 18, 2011
Film: Rashomon
TRT: 87 minutes
Language: Japanese with English Subtitles
Date of the Film: 1950
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Awards:
• Blue Ribbon Awards (1951) - Best Screenplay: Akira Kurosawa and Shinobu Hashimoto
• Mainichi Film Concours (1951) - Best Actress: Machiko Kyō
• Venice Film Festival (1951) - Golden Lion: Akira Kurosawa
• National Board of Review USA (1951) - Best Director: Akira Kurosawa and Best Foreign Film: Japan
• 24th Academy Awards, USA (1952) - Best Foreign Language Film
The topic in Film Theory that I feel is involved with this film Roshomon is Epistemology. Epistemology is a branch of philosophy that investigates the origin, nature, methods and limits of human knowledge. It basically asks the question “how do we know what we know is the truth?” In this film there are four different interpretations of the same event. This has the audience question what is the truth and if there is such a thing as a single truth. Another topic I see in this film is allegory as I see the symbolism of this film compared to the defeat of Japan at the end of World War II.
In the first article by Paul Tatara, Paul gives a summary of the film, the effects the film Rashomon had on the film industry, critics of Kurosawa and most notably Kurosawa’s recounting of his explanation of the script in his memoir “Something Like an Autobiography”. In his memoir Kurosawa said “Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves. They cannot talk about themselves without embellishing. The script portrays such human beings the kind who cannot survive without lies to make them feel better than they really are. It even shows this sinful need for flattery falsehood going beyond the grave – even the character who dies cannot give up his lies when he speaks to the living through the median. Egoism is a sin the human being carries with him from birth; it is the most difficult to redeem. This film is a strange picture scroll that is unrolled and discharged by the ego.” In the second article by Roger Ebert he pretty much does the same thing summarizing the film but he also gives a psychological and more analytical view of the film. He gives an explanation of the film that involves both Kurosawa’s explanation of the film and the expected interpretation of the audience to the film. In the third article by Hideo Hama titled “Ethnomethodology and the Rashomon Problem” Hideo Hama speaks about Harold Garfinkel’s dissertation which critically examined Talcott Parsons’ classical formulation of the problem of order referred to as the “Hobbesian problem”. Garfinkel’s examination spoke of how congruency theory replaces the correspondence theory. Hideo Hama proposed to examine the “Hobbesian problem” but instead use the name “Rashomon problem”. Hideo Hama’s article basically examines the film Rashomon to try to figure out what truly happened.
These articles relate to the screening in a sense that they acknowledge the true explanation of the film which is given by Kurosawa himself and they acknowledge the interpreted explanation of the film which is by the audience because of the inconclusive ending of the different stories in the film. Roger Ebert says “The genius of “Rashomon” is that all of the flashbacks are both true and false. True in that they present an accurate portrait of what each witness thinks happened. False, because as Kurosawa observes in his autobiography, “Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves. They cannot talk aobut themselves without embellishing.” This goes back to the epistemology about how do we know what we know is the truth. We are given different accounts of the story and are left wondering what the truth is.
As far as the film I couldn’t help but feel that it was a little over the top as far as the acting part of it. That may be due to me not being used to Japanese films. I was also kind of disappointed to find out that Kurosawa gave an explanation of the film by saying all the stories were a lie. I was under the impression that this was a film about different interpretations, about seeing things differently from others. When you say that the different accounts are lies then it is no longer an interpretation but lie. At the same time all of the accounts can’t be a lie unless a truth is known. Kurosawa doesn’t go on to tell us what the truth is but he does tell us all accounts are lies so we are still left wondering what the truth is.
Bibliography:
Ebert, Roger (2002, May 26). Rashomon (1950). Rogerebert.suntimes.com. Retrieved October 18, 2011 from http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20020526/REVIEWS08/205260301/1023
Tatara, Paul (2011). Rashomon. Turner Classic Movies Film Article. Retrieved October 18, 2011 from http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/136021|0/Rashomon.html
Hama, Hideo (1999, October). Ethnomethodology and the Rashomon Problem. Human Studies, Vol. 22, No. 2/4, pg 183 – 192. Retrieved December 18, 2011, from JSTOR
Monday, October 10, 2011
Truffaut's 400 Blows Essay
Ngozi Onyema
Film 3000
October 10, 2011
Film: The 400 Blows
TRT: 99 minutes
Language: French with English subtitles.
Date of film: 1959
Director: Francois Truffaut
Award: The Grand Prize at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival
The topic in Film Theory that is involved with this film is the French New Wave. Film makers of the French New Wave were highly critical of the glossy, formulaic and studio-bound French cinema of the 1940s and 1950s, but praised the work of the 1930s French film makers Jean Renoir and Jean Vigo and the work of the Italian neo-realists, including Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica. The goal of the French New Wave was to have cinema become as worthy of academic study as any other art form. Existentialism was also a major influence on the French New Wave. French New Wave incorporated working on location as opposed to in the studio. Light weight hand held cameras were used. Available light was preferred to studio-style lighting and available sound was preferred to extensive studio dubbing. Following characters down streets, cafes and shops were done in the French New Wave just as was in this film 400 Blows. Also long takes like when Antoine was running from the detention center was also a characteristic of French New Wave. The French New Wave also examined relationships and told humane stories.
In the article review of the film 400 Blows by Arlene Croce, Arlene compares the 400 Blows film to American cinema and points out the differences. She basically talks about how the 400 Blows film remains natural and authentic in its image of revolt. She feels that this is something lacking in American film and something that is needed. She goes on to point out many of the French New Wave characteristics Truffaut used in this film. In Roger Ebert’s review of the film 400 Blows he expresses his enjoyment of the film but does not go in to detail about the style of the film as Arlene Croce does. Roger Ebert’s article review delves more in to the life of Francois Truffaut.
The article by Arlene Croce expressed how Truffaut used the French New Wave in the film 400 Blows. Arlene says: “The most original feature of Truffaut’s beautifully oblique style of commentary is his by-now famous use of protracted sequences accomplished through the sustained single shot and through a minimum of cutting: the scene in the revolving drum, the long ride in the paddy wagon which encompasses the boys whole descent from innocence, and which I recall as one long close-up alternated with a single reverse-field shot; the extraordinary interview with the (off-screen) psychiatrist, in which there are no cuts, merely a series of unsettling dissolves; and the long tracking shot of the stupendous finale.” Ambiguity, another characteristic of the French New Wave is mentioned in Arlene Croce’s article as described in the film 400 Blows. Roger Ebert’s article review sort of sticks to reviewing the film based on genre and not on style detail. Ebert goes on to say: “Truffaut’s film is not a dirge or entirely a tragedy. There are moments of fun and joy.” Ebert mentions the part of the film when the family went to the movies and had laughs after. Those are the distinctions between the two articles and how they relate to the screening.
Personally I’ve learned allot about French Films specifically the French New Wave and I fell that this film 400 Blows is a great representation of the French New Wave. Although I am not a film maker or major I like the fact that the French are basically being creative in their film making. They are standing out from the norm in American cinema. There is a lot of detail in film that sometimes goes unnoticed. I am glad that I was able to experience those details by watching this fim, reading about French New Wave and doing this assignment.
Bibliography:
Ebert, Roger (1999, August 8). The 400 Blows (1959). Rogerebert.suntimes.com. Retrieved October 10, 2011 from http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19990808/REVIEWS08/908080301/1023
Croce, Arlene (1960, Spring). Review: Les Quatre Cents Coups. Film Quarterly, Vol. 13. No. 3. pp. 35 – 38. Retrieved October 10, 2011, from JSTOR Database also http://www.jstor.org/stable/1210434
Film 3000
October 10, 2011
Film: The 400 Blows
TRT: 99 minutes
Language: French with English subtitles.
Date of film: 1959
Director: Francois Truffaut
Award: The Grand Prize at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival
The topic in Film Theory that is involved with this film is the French New Wave. Film makers of the French New Wave were highly critical of the glossy, formulaic and studio-bound French cinema of the 1940s and 1950s, but praised the work of the 1930s French film makers Jean Renoir and Jean Vigo and the work of the Italian neo-realists, including Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica. The goal of the French New Wave was to have cinema become as worthy of academic study as any other art form. Existentialism was also a major influence on the French New Wave. French New Wave incorporated working on location as opposed to in the studio. Light weight hand held cameras were used. Available light was preferred to studio-style lighting and available sound was preferred to extensive studio dubbing. Following characters down streets, cafes and shops were done in the French New Wave just as was in this film 400 Blows. Also long takes like when Antoine was running from the detention center was also a characteristic of French New Wave. The French New Wave also examined relationships and told humane stories.
In the article review of the film 400 Blows by Arlene Croce, Arlene compares the 400 Blows film to American cinema and points out the differences. She basically talks about how the 400 Blows film remains natural and authentic in its image of revolt. She feels that this is something lacking in American film and something that is needed. She goes on to point out many of the French New Wave characteristics Truffaut used in this film. In Roger Ebert’s review of the film 400 Blows he expresses his enjoyment of the film but does not go in to detail about the style of the film as Arlene Croce does. Roger Ebert’s article review delves more in to the life of Francois Truffaut.
The article by Arlene Croce expressed how Truffaut used the French New Wave in the film 400 Blows. Arlene says: “The most original feature of Truffaut’s beautifully oblique style of commentary is his by-now famous use of protracted sequences accomplished through the sustained single shot and through a minimum of cutting: the scene in the revolving drum, the long ride in the paddy wagon which encompasses the boys whole descent from innocence, and which I recall as one long close-up alternated with a single reverse-field shot; the extraordinary interview with the (off-screen) psychiatrist, in which there are no cuts, merely a series of unsettling dissolves; and the long tracking shot of the stupendous finale.” Ambiguity, another characteristic of the French New Wave is mentioned in Arlene Croce’s article as described in the film 400 Blows. Roger Ebert’s article review sort of sticks to reviewing the film based on genre and not on style detail. Ebert goes on to say: “Truffaut’s film is not a dirge or entirely a tragedy. There are moments of fun and joy.” Ebert mentions the part of the film when the family went to the movies and had laughs after. Those are the distinctions between the two articles and how they relate to the screening.
Personally I’ve learned allot about French Films specifically the French New Wave and I fell that this film 400 Blows is a great representation of the French New Wave. Although I am not a film maker or major I like the fact that the French are basically being creative in their film making. They are standing out from the norm in American cinema. There is a lot of detail in film that sometimes goes unnoticed. I am glad that I was able to experience those details by watching this fim, reading about French New Wave and doing this assignment.
Bibliography:
Ebert, Roger (1999, August 8). The 400 Blows (1959). Rogerebert.suntimes.com. Retrieved October 10, 2011 from http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19990808/REVIEWS08/908080301/1023
Croce, Arlene (1960, Spring). Review: Les Quatre Cents Coups. Film Quarterly, Vol. 13. No. 3. pp. 35 – 38. Retrieved October 10, 2011, from JSTOR Database also http://www.jstor.org/stable/1210434
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
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