‘The auteur theory can be summarised most simply as an acknowledgement of the director as the primary and shaping force behind a film' (Craig Keller). How is Godard's ‘primary and shaping influence' detectable, if indeed, it is? Introduction The auteur theory or la politique des auteurs was a principle developed in the 1950s by a group of French film critics namely: Eric Rohmer, Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard. These critics wanted to see an end to the “literary”, “lifeless” and not “tr...
-The auteur theory, if defined as the ultimate foundation for a filmmaker's vision, can be a rather unstable remark for one to give. Who in the beginning of film history declared that a director must adhere to a specific genre with a specific style? It seems, like anything else, that the reasoning behind this theory is for a person to find a way to make sense of it all. However, one could argue that a filmmaker has reasoning behind why they have chosen their career path in the first place, or...
Society's ideological constructs and attitudes towards minority groups are created and reinforced through media imagery. Although negative associations that maintain inequities with regard to race, gender and homophobia (Conner & Bejoian, 2006) have been somewhat relieved, disability is still immersed in harmful connotations that restrict and inhibit the life of people with disabilities in our society. Disability has appeared frequently in recent films (Byrd & Elliot, 1988), a reflection of s...
Second Essay Question: Deconstruct a scene from one of the film's we've seen this semester. Address how the director used the actors, dialogue, lighting, camera movement, sound, editing, and production design to get their point across in the film. Casablanca was released in 1942 by the director Michael Curtiz. The film was considered one of the best motion pictures ever made. The film's actors, strong emotions, and loving triangle all helped out in having a classical film. The last scene in C...
Becket is a historical drama of 1964, directed by Peter Glenville on the play by Jean Anouilh "Becket or the Honor of God." In 1154 the English throne shall take King Henry II. Archbishop of Canterbury plays a central role in protecting the prestige and authority of the church, but Henry II needed subservient Archbishop's throne, a man whom he could trust completely, and he finds in the face of his friend Thomas Becket. But when the king formally appoints him Archbishop of Canterbury, Becket...
Soviet Montage theory was principally developed by Sergei Eisenstein, a Russian film director and theorist, whose teachings about film and editing still play a big part in film history. In contrast to classical Hollywood Cinema that used widely popular editing techniques like crosscutting, eye-line and action match, in ''Eisenstein at 100: A Reconsideration'', it is argued that Eisenstein ''re-functionalized'' these known devices in order to create more emotional and cognitively engaging film...
Li Cunxin, is one of the best male ballet dancers in the world. He has shown great courage, ambition and determination throughout his entire life. He excelled in the gruelling ballet training at the Beijing Dance Academy, made his way to be one of the premier dancers with the Houston Ballet for 16 years before moving on to another career as a stockbroker and today, he resides in Australia while travelling around the world as a motivational speaker. Li was born into a very poor family in 1961 ...
''In order to design buildings with a sensuous connection to life, one must think in a way that goes far beyond form and construction.'' Peter Zumthor. Zumthor's prestigious, and international reputation for creating "highly atmospheric spaces through the mastery of light and choice of materials" began in Switzerland in 1979, when Zumthor began his "small yet powerful and uncompromising practice". From his rural chapel of Bruder Klaus that immerses the beholder into a world of awe and wonder,...
In the past, women have been depicted on screen with negative stereotypes. They have been subjected to the male gaze by men in films like Gilda and Psycho (Smelik, 2009). A study by Bazzini et al. (1997) has shown that younger women in US films before the 1980s were more favoured as their older counterparts were underrepresented and considered less attractive and smart (as cited in Neuendorf, K. A., Gore, T. D., Dalessandro, A., Janstova, P. & Snyder-Suhy, S, 2010). Feminism is the fight for ...
In this essay, Modleski took a very negative look at the representation of woman in Hitchcock's film. Modleski argues that sexual violence was the general feminist view of 'blackmail'. First, Modleski pointed out that the film could be seen as a 'set-up' of the woman,' who began the film by flirtatiously laughing at another man's joke and at the end becoming somebody's joke. And this woman occupies the place that 'Freud assigned to women in the structure of the obscene joke: the place of the ...
