Agenda• Announcements• 8½ Discussion • Break• Fellini in Context:

Between Neorealism and the New Wave

• Auteur Theory in Brief• The Cinematography of

8½

Announcements• Blog Post Rescheduling:

– Second Blog Post: Due Friday, May 9th• Comments due Friday, May 16th

– Third Blog Post: Due Friday May 23rd

• Comments due Friday, May 30th

– Fourth Blog Post: Canceled

• Next Week: Take Home Quiz, due Wednesday

• First Blog Post Feedback back; First Essay Feedback by end of the day Wednesday.

Mid-Term Survey• Three Questions:

– What’s going well?– What would you change?– Are there any questions you would like to have answered? (Perhaps

concepts you’re unclear on, or terms you’re not sure how to define)

• Extra Credit: .5 points on next quiz

• Things to think about:– How class time is apportioned, or subjects you’d like to spend more or

less time on– How discussion works– How screenings work– Pacing of the class– Format of the assignments and quizzes

Discussion: 8½ • What did you think?

• Did you like Guido? How would you describe him? How were the other characters characterized? (Flat/Round; Major/Minor)

• What’s the narrative of 8½? What are the major events?

• What were the most memorable scenes? What struck you about the form?

• Let’s Talk about Guido’s Relationship to:– His wife (and other women)– His film production team– Catholicism– His childhood

• What’s with the final scene?

What Do You Think of This Guy?

• “This life is so full of confusion already, that there's no need to add chaos to chaos . . . We're smothered by images, words and sounds that have no right to exist, coming from, and bound for, nothingness. Of any artist truly worth the name we should ask nothing except this act of faith: to learn silence . . .

• . . . Our true mission is sweeping away the thousands of miscarriages that everyday... obscenely... try to come to the light. And you would actually dare leave behind you a whole film, like a cripple who leaves behind his crooked footprint. Such a monstrous presumption to think that others could benefit from the squalid catalogue of your mistakes! And how do you benefit from stringing together the tattered pieces of your life? Your vague memories, the faces of people that you were never able to love” – The Critic

• “What is this sudden happiness that makes me tremble giving me strength, life? Please forgive me sweet creatures; I didn't realize, I didn't know. How right it is to accept you, to love, you . . . and how simple! Luisa, I feel I've been set free. Everything looks good to me, it has a sense, it's true. How I wish I could explain, but I can’t . . . everything's going back to what it was. Everything's confused again, but that confusion is me; how I am, not how I'd like to be. And I'm not afraid to tell the truth now, what I don't know, what I'm seeking. Only like that do I feel alive and I can look into your loyal eyes without shame. Life is a celebration – let’s live it together. I can't say anything else, to you or others. Take me as I am, if you can. It's the only way we can try to find each other.”

• “I don’t like the idea of “understanding” a film. I don’t believe that rational understanding is an essential element in the reception of any work of art. Either a film has something to say to you or it hasn’t. If you are moved by it, you don’t need it explained to you. If not, no explanation can make you moved by it.” – Fellini

Italian Neorealism: 1945-1952• Thematically:

– “The lives of ordinary working people” (LaM 455)

– Struggle, poverty, unhappiness, lives of children

• Aesthetically: – Location shooting– Nonprofessional actors– Spare, simple dialogue– Natural lighting – Long takes – Deep space cinematography

• Ideologically: – Anti-fascist, Humanist, Often

Marxist

The New Wave• Thematically:

– Young people rebelling– People searching for meaning or

personal identity – Boredom – Sex w/o marriage – Impenetrable or Unexplainable

Characters

• Ideologically:– Rejection of traditional authority

(religious, political, artistic)– Existentialism (sometimes

nihilism)– Search for new values, untainted

by the past

Aesthetic and Formal Attributes

• Cinematic Self-Awareness:– Citation and cinephilia – Highlighting the conventions and artifice

of film-making and Genre– Direct address to the camera– Imprint of the director– Innovation for the sake of innovation

• Improvisatory Feel: – Jump cuts and ellipses– Nonlinear or unconventional narratives

(breaking 3-act structure)– Unscripted dialogue– Nonprofessional Actors– Natural Lighting– Direct sound recording– Handheld, Lightweight Cameras

Jump Cuts

1960s: New Wave Cinema• France:

– Truffaut (The 400 Blows), Godard (Breathless), Agnes Varda (Cleo from 5 to 7), Chris Marker (La Jetee)

• Germany: Das neue Kino– Werner Herzog, Rainier

Fassbinder, Margarethe von Trotta• Czechoslovakia• Japan:

– Seijun Suzuki (Branded to Kill), Nagisa Oshima (In the Realm of the Senses)

• Brazil: Cinema Novo

The Auteur• The director is the author; the

camera is the pen

• Andre Bazin: Cinema must express a personal vision

• Truffaut: “There are no good and bad movies, only good and bad directors"

• Ideal Auteur: Director and Screenwriter (Fellini fits the bill)

• Critiques: – Film is an industrial process– We misread film when we read

through director’s intention– Having a consistent style isn’t an

artistic virtue

Review: Cinematography• Anything related to the manipulation of the camera

in the shot. Includes:– Camera movement– Camera placement (or angle)– Manipulations of film or film speed

• Questions to Ask:– Where is the camera positioned in relation to the subject? – Is the camera moving? If so, how/where? – Are any film or camera manipulations? (i.e., tinting or

slow/fast/stop motion)

Review: Describing Shots• Distance: Extreme long shot, Long shot, Medium

shot, Close up, Extreme close up

• Movement: – Camera Moving on Tripod: Pan and tilt. – Camera Moving in Space: Tracking shot, crane shot.– Camera Stable, Lens Moving: Zoom In, Zoom Out

• Angle: High angle, eye level or point-of-view, low angle, bird’s-eye . . . Canted or “dutch angle”

Outline: Cinematography in LaM• Film Stock

– 35mm, 8mm, etc.– Also, now, digital video– Color v. B & W

• Lighting– Source– Quality (Soft v. Hard)– Direction– Color

• Lenses/Focus– Focal length: Short, Medium,

Long; Also, Zoom Lens– Depth of Field, Planes, Rule of

Thirds, Deep Focus, Racking Focus

• Camera Proximity/Framing– Shot Types: XLS, LS, MLS, MS, CU,

MCU, XCU; Two-Shot, Three-Shot, Etc.

– Deep/Shallow Space; Foreground/Background

• Camera Angle and Height– Eye level, High, Low, Dutch, Bird’s

Eye, Worm’s Eye• Camera Movement

– Pan, Tilt, Dolly Shot, Tracking Shot, Crane Shot

– Handheld camera, Steadicam• Camera Speed

– Slow/fast motion• Special Effects and CGI

Focus

Aspect Ratio: Width to Height

• From: http://www.swiftfilm.com/netflix-we-dont-crop-movies/

Panavision or Cinemascope: 2.35:1

Most Movies, Netflix: 1:85:1

Lighting

Cinematography in 8½

• 8 ½ Cinematographer: Gianni di Venanzo

• What did you think?

• Next Series of Slides: – Look at the image– Decide what it represents, cinematographically– Think about why Fellini chose that kind of shot for the subject