08film Studies

1. Week Eight
PERFORMANCE
Characterization, Stage and Screen
Acting, Stanislavski and Method
Acting, Improvisation, Truth and
Believability, Celebrity and the Star
System, Casting, Relationships.
Feature: Citizen Kane
Auteur: Orson Wells
Film Studies

2. Week Eight
1.Also … Motif and mise-en-scene review today
including new ideas about “composition.”
2.How are your research papers coming along?
Anybody have directors or genres they wish to
pitch as topics?
3.Barsam’s Writing About Movies can guide your
information design. (No way you can buy a
paper and have it correspond to our
requirements.)
Announcements

3. Discussion from last class
Story Structure? Inciting incident? What else is this same event once you
know the ending of the film?
Sound
(Meaning of “diegesis”: “Fictional world presented in a film.”)
Examples of Synchronous? Nonsynchronous? Diegetic? Nondiegetic?
Nonsynchronous diegetic? How about Synchronous Nondiegetic?
“Mickeymousing” anywhere?
Character motif through sound? Foreshadowing?
What mood was set up with the music?
How about emotional shifts?
Donnie Darko de-brief -- page 1

4. Other considerations?
Writers seldom resist the temptation to get pedantic. They’ll
sneak a thesis moment into their script --
Hear anything in Donnie Darko that expressed a central idea?
What do we know about the director, Richard Kelly?
Household name? Auteur? Why or why not?
What makes Donnie Darko a study in performance excellence?
Donnie Darko de-brief -- page 2

5. Performance and Movie Actors
Screen acting is an art where actors use imagination,
intelligence, psychology, memory, vocal technique, facial
expressions, physicality, and an overall knowledge of the
filmmaking process to realize, under the director’s
guidance, the character created by the screenwriter.
Charlie Chaplin, the most famous movie star of his era,
admitted: “Film acting is unquestionably a director’s
medium.”
The movie actor is a tool of the director -- another language
system (signs/signifiers/signified) through which the
filmmaker communicates ideas and emotions (semiotic
theoretical perspective.)

6. Whether the performer’s or the director’s decision … the
goal of both stage acting and film acting is believability
and truth.
The many fundamental differences between film and
stage acting include physicality, vocal requirements, and
facial features. “The camera loves you baby!!”
In screen acting, the essential relationship is between the
actor and the camera. The stage actor deals with more
“physicality” -- full body expression as their entire body
is always on view.
For acting in cinema, the more “realistic” the director’s
techniques, the more necessary it is to rely on the abilities
of the actors because of long shots, long takes where the
camera is essentially a recording device.

7. The more “formalistic” the director, the less likely he or
she is to be dependent on the actor’s contribution. Hint
“stylist flamboyance.”
In film, “the shot” is the basic building unit and therefore,
the actor doesn’t have to sustain performance. The actor
often just “is.”
The screen actor does not “build” emotionally as the stage
actor must. On screen, concentration for short periods.
(This does not require long rehearsal periods.)
See Barsam page 235 for sidebar on “Analysing Acting.”

8. The Star System - the backbone of the of the
American film industry. Stars’ influence on fashion,
values, public behaviour is enormous.
Remuneration (fees) are staggering. In 1910, (Canadian)
Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin were the highest-paid
employees in the world.
In the 1940s, top stars received 3,000 letters per week and
this was used as a barometer of their popularity. Fan clubs
also indicated popularity with MGM stars Clarke Gable,
Jean Harlow, Joan Crawford at the top.
Stars fulfill an ancient need, almost religious in nature…
supernatural … immune to the ordinary.

9. Personality Stars - commonly refuse all parts
that go against their type. Eg Mae West. Others?
John Wayne, the most popular star in film history, was the
archetypal westerner -- a man of action rather than words.
His iconography is steeped in distrust of “high-brow
culture” and intellectuality.
Stars are signifying entities. When following semiotic
theoretical perspectives, a film analysis must take into
account the star’s iconographic significance.
Casting a personality stars ensures a ready-made ideology
-- a set of values that are associated with the star because of
previous work. (Personality stars are top box office.)
Also see Barsam pg 216.

10. Actor Stars - refuse to be typecast and attempt
the widest array of roles possible. Eg Robert De Niro
. Others?
Sometimes take unpleasant character roles rather than
conventional leads to expand their range (variety and
breadth).
Distinction between a professional actor and a star is based
on mass popularity.
Perhaps the ultimate glory for a star is to become an icon in
American popular mythology.The iconography of a star
can involve communal myths/emotional richness.

11. Styles of Acting -- External and Internal
(Page 218 Barsam)
“Method acting” developed by Constantin
Stanislavsky, at the Moscow Art theatre, favours the
exploration of the character’s inner spirit which must
be fused with the actor’s own internal emotions.
In emotional recall (emotional memory), the actor
delves into their own past to discover past feeling
analogous to their own .
British acting traditions tend to favour mastery of
externals, based on observation. Believability
achieved through process of external “mask.”

12. Styles of Acting cont.
In the 1960s, French New Wave directors
(Truffault, Godard) popularized the technique of
improvisation with performers on camera. Their
reason was to capture a better sense of discovery
and surprise (truth and believability?)
Further examples of improvisational acting styles
are Second City live theatre in Toronto (and
SCTV), Loose Moose Theatresports (developed in
Calgary and played around the world, and Saturday
Night Live -- Canada’s legacy to the performance
world.

13. Upcoming Clips and Citizen Kane
Look for:
Relationships. Personality,
Charisma, Believability, Presense,
“Chemistry.”
Your theories on “Acting Style.”

14. Coffee and Cigarettes (Jim Jarmusch, 2003)
Writing credits
Jim Jarmusch
Genre: Comedy / Music / Drama (more)
Plot Outline: Short stories from Jim Jarmusch that
all have coffee and cigarettes in common.
Cast, next screen …
From imdb
Performance
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15. Coffee and Cigarettes (Jim Jarmusch, 2003)
Cast includes: Roberto Benigni .... Roberto
Steven Wright .... Steven
Joie Lee .... Good Twin
Cinqué Lee .... Evil Twin/Kitchen Guy
Steve Buscemi .... Waiter
Iggy Pop .... Iggy
Tom Waits .... Tom
Cate Blanchett .... Cate/Shelly
Alfred Molina .... Alfred
Steve Coogan .... Steve
Genius/GZA .... GZA
GZA)RZA .... RZA
Bill Murray .... Bill Murray
From imdb
Performance
QuickTimeﾪ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.

16. Orson Welles and Citizen Kane
WATCH FOR
Jarring combinations of realism and formalism that occurs
at the levels of the film’s style.
The way that Welles is attracted to themes associated with
classical tragedy: the downfall of a public figure
because of arrogance and pride.
The dozens of symbolic motifs. Technical (camera angles),
content (fences), and Rosebud.
Fragmentation motif explains his complex personality.
(REVIEW)
Welles as expert of dynamic staging and mise-en-scene.
(REVIEW)

17. Systematic Mise en Scene
Analysis
15 pt. Systematic Mise en Scene Analysis
Review this for quiz next week. Chapter Four Giannetti.
1.Dominant. What is our eye attracted to?
2.Lighting Styles and Key: High-key, low-key, painterly, linear?
3.Shot and Camera Proxemics: What type of shot? How far away?
4.Shot Angles. High, low, neutral.
5.Colour values. What is dominent colour? Colour symbolism?
6.Lens/filter/stock. How do these distort or comment on photography?
7.Subsidiary contrasts. What are the eye-stops after the dominant?
8.Density. How much visual information is packed into the image? Is
texture stark, moderate, or highly detailed?
Continued next screen
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18. Systematic Mise en Scene
Analysis
15 pt. Systematic Mise en Scene Analysis
9. Composition. How is the 2-D space segmented and organized? What is
the underlying design? Balance, Emphasis, Rhythm.
10. Form. Open or closed? Does the image suggest a window that
arbitrarily isolates a fragment of the scene? Or is it self contained?
11. Framing. Tight or loose? How much room do the characters have to
move around?
12. Depth. On how many planes is the image composed? Does the
background and foreground comment on the midground?
13. Character placement. What parts of the framed space are occupied?
14. Staging positions.Which way to they look vis-à-vis the camera
15.Character proxemics. How much space between characters?
Continued …

19. Review … Mise en scene review
Point #9 Composition
Principles of Design
2.Balance: Weight, Position, Arrangement.
3.Emphasis:
(Focal Point and Hierarchy)
4.Rhythm
5.Unity
See page 224 in Barsam for an example of Citizen Kane and
Framing/Composition.

20. Visual Weight

Where you position a mark
on a page affects its
visual weight. In visual
perception different
areas of the page carry
more weight, for
example, the centre of
the page is very
powerful.
Painting, Edith Kabuthia

21. Balance -- Symmetry

Where the visual elements
are evenly distributed on
either side of an
imaginary vertical axis,
like a mirror image.
Equal distribution of
weight on either side.
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22. Citizen Kane
(Orson Wells, 1941)
2 hours (119 minutes)
Writers:
Herman J. Mankiewicz (screenplay) and Orson Welles (screenplay)
Genre: Drama
Plot Outline:Following the death of a publishing tycoon, news reporters
scramble to discover the meaning of his final utterance. more
Awards: Won Oscar. Another 4 wins & 9 nominations more
Cast
Orsen Welles … Orsen Welles
Joseph Cotten... Jedediah Leland
Dorothy Comingore... Susan Alexander Kane
Agnes Moorehead... Mary Kane
Ruth Warrick... Emily Monroe Norton Kane
Ray Collins... James W. Gettys
From imdb