film theory

4 posts

Clever Meets Stupid: Criticism, Theory, and Spielberg Apologists

Film

Citizen Spielberg, (Lester D. Friedman, University of Illinois Press, 2006)

Empire of Dreams: The Science Fiction and Fantasy Films of Steven Spielberg (Andrew M. Gordon, Rowman and Littlefield, 2007)

DAVID ST HUBBINS [Michael McKean]: It’s such a fine line between stupid, and…

DEREK SMALLS [Harry Shearer]: … and clever.

– This Is Spinal Tap (Rob Reiner, 1984)

Two familiar devices are used to frame the discussion of Steven Spielberg’s films in Lester D. Friedman’s Citizen Spielberg and Andrew M. Gordon’s Empire of Dreams. The first is the mandatory apology: the slightly defensive opening where the author justifies their interest in such a populist and ubiquitous filmmaker. One would hope such protestations are no longer needed, but I suspect Friedman has not exaggerated the snobbishly dismissive reactions of many colleagues when he told them the subject of his book. Dropping Spielberg’s name with any enthusiasm into a film-related discussion is still a faux pas worthy of the same sort of awkward silence that might follow a fart at a dinner party; we should not be harsh on authors for offering such an apologetic opening while these attitudes prevail.1 The second familiar introductory refrain is that the existing work on the subject is patchy or misguided, allowing the present author to sweep in and produce a definitive account. With regards to coverage, the case is hard to make; Spielberg’s work has been the subject of a number of book length studies already.2 While these, of course, have their own quirks and flaws, collectively they amount to a substantial body of critical work, and it is hard to sustain an argument that Spielberg’s work is under-discussed. Gordon’s approach is to differentiate his book by concentrating on a niche of Spielberg’s filmography (albeit a large niche that covers much of his output) – science fiction and fantasy films; while Friedman distinguishes his book from the others which he categorises as either biography, interviews, behind-the-scenes accounts or “general commentaries for fans” (p.1). However, I’m not sure that such categorical nit-picking can really sustain Friedman’s contention that scholars have “ignored” Spielberg (p.1). What is perhaps more accurate – and this brings us back to the point about snobbery – is that the vast amount of critical and academic work on Spielberg has failed to substantially shift opinions of his basic merits as a filmmaker. Peter Biskind’s Spielberg-and-Lucas-destroyed-Hollywood narrative is still all-too widespread.3, and there remains a tendency to fixate on certain aspects of his style (like characters gaping up at bright lights) that are perhaps more appropriate to a study of his work circa 1983. I have little doubt that Spielberg’s reputation will rise over time, as a generation of critics and theorists who have grown up with Spielberg and have an ingrained sympathy towards him come to the fore.4 For now, though, there is enough orthodoxy in the approach to Spielberg that Friedman and Gordon can cast themselves as iconoclasts for offering even a limited defence of him.

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Is Film Theory Bullshit? A Look Back at Noël Carroll’s Mystifying Movies

Film

Mystifying Movies: Fads and Fallacies in Contemporary Film Theory (Noël Carroll, Columbia University Press, 1988)

Anyone who makes a habit of writing or even talking about films in any depth – debating meanings, interpretations, and so on – will sooner or later get the dismissive response: “well, you can make it mean anything, really, can’t you?” It can be a frustrating reaction, because often it is prompted by a knee-jerk resistance to the idea that there’s anything deeper going on in a medium such as film that is so synonymous with popular entertainment. It becomes particularly maddening when it can be easily verified that an interpretation under discussion was intended by the filmmakers: so, for example, if someone is dismissive of the idea that High Noon has a subtext commenting on McCarthayism, despite screenwriter Carl Foreman having endorsed that reading. At the same time, though, such scepticism serves a purpose in demanding some sort of justification: either a recourse to evidence that the filmmaker intended a reading, or an explanation of why a reading unintended by the filmmaker is nevertheless plausible and useful. That’s a positive impulse, and part of the fun of interpreting and discussing films is haggling over where to draw the line between an interesting interpretation and  an unsustainable crock.

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Life Reproduced in Drawings: Realism in Animation

Film

This essay was originally published in a somewhat different form in Animation Journal,Volume 13, 2005.

The relative scarcity of serious theoretical writing on animation in the early years of establishing film studies as a discipline has fundamentally influenced the nature of animation theory. In this essay I wish to highlight one such oversight: the dearth of writing on realism in animation.1 By this, I mean theory that looks at the way in which the animated depiction of reality resembles the actual physical world, and the implications that the similarities and differences between the representation of the cartoon and the actual experience of life in the real world have for the way in which cartoons are understood. This is an extremely wide area of study, and I cannot attempt to outline a realist theory of animation here. Rather, I want to briefly outline some contrasts between classical notions of film realism (developed with reference to live-action cinema), and the ways in which writers on animation have discussed the subject. Much writing on animation is structured around certain assumptions and arguments about animation’s relation to the real. With a few exceptions, however, these arguments tend to be made implicitly. I wish to make explicit some of the approaches to realism that occur in writing on animation, and to extend the existing work that has explicitly acknowledged the realism question. A single unifying theory of animated realism is, I believe, no more achievable or helpful than attempts to outline a realist theory of live-action cinema. However, the study of live-action cinema was given a robustness by the variety of early theorists who posed alternative competing theories about cinema’s relation to the real. I want to outline a vocabulary, and make some preliminary comments, to allow similar approaches to animation.

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MIFF Week One

Film

We’re about halfway through the Melbourne International Film Festival now, and my own experience has been only average. This isn’t a reflection on the festival: it’s just the way the cards have fallen in the vast lucky dip that happens when you have to choose from a range of movies before the usual pre-release buzz. (It’s a little frightening to realise how much you rely on distributors and the media to direct your viewing).

My experience so far has been of several middling films, one good one, and one really wretched one. Which is probably a strike-rate reflecting the overall quality of any given sample of movies. But I do hope the second week throws me up something really excellent. But here’s what I’ve seen so far.

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