Cinema and social theories

HOW IS THE SPECTATOR DRAW N INTO THE FILM ?

These are the things that we spoke about at the beginning of the course.

Marxist understanding of the society is very useful. Marx predicted many things about markets.

These are questions where you start, we start understanding society and individuals. As we see,

this book starts with a different point of view.

COGNITIVISM :

Physiological functions of the brain. These are interesting elements.

Films imitates mental processes. The brain when sees someone do something, it realizes some

chemicals in you brain. Try to use these elements. Use vocabs.

SEM IOTIC RESPO NSES:

Capability of analysing what’s in front of view. Another way of analysing how we react to a film.

Some film irritates me. If you don’t have any education it’s more possible to have an aberrant

response.

SOM E THOUGHTS:

Analysing your own reaction. What you should learn from this is that you have to find out your

personal reactions to everything. Why do I love this, why do I desire this, why do I hate this? This

helps you put yourself in a society and do what you wanna do and be what you want to be.

Whenever you watch a film you have to understand why. It’s very interesting. It could be that the

person represents something really negative in your mind. It could be a different point of view.

All of this help you understand what are films about.

Film : Otto e m ezzo

Not a typical structure. It abandoned the Hollywood structure. That’s typical of Europe. Post

modernism: the crisis of the individual. This movie got extremely important when it got out and it’s

without structure. It requires your participation. 24/4/15

storytelling is about a structure that is always been the same.

What Fellini has done is abandoning the traditional story. That’s a film of 1962. What kind of world

situation? It was an important period of the cold war, it was the year the beatles became a major

band in UK. Crisis between Cuba and USA. In 1963 Kennedy was shot and Martin Luter King was

shot. That was an intense period, something like the 70s in Italy. What was happening was that the

world was about to change quickly. Communist against America, a war about to blind people,

because the 2 blocks didn’t know anything about the other.

What was the situation in the individual? The Beatles were just becoming popular in England.

That’s a generation of conflict that was beginning to emerge. Everyone recognized a conflict.

Anything interesting in culture starts in people that are not considered into the society.

TRENDS are about a small group of people rebelling against the status quo. You find brands in

small packets of people who really rebel against what the status quo is. Strands are the runners of

what happens in society. A trend shows us that there is something wrong with the system. Then,

that rebellion becomes quickly showed. There is a genuine change in society. Little by little the

trends become so popular that everyone absorbs the trends. The trends had now been absorbed

by the society. Then we have the conservatives that are the last people getting involved into them.

It’s a question of how society change. So we look for it in the outscores (periferia) and in some

rebelling expressions. Very emotional and instinctive reaction. We are all part of the society.

Traditional story telling has a lot to do with that because it recognizes an emotional need in the

public.

THE SOCIAL NETWORK:

What is the film about? Why did the director magnificently directed the film?

Human social interactions. What’s the real conflict? His conflict, not what the movie says? The c

onflict is between what’s right and what’s wrong. It’s a really deep story about ancient films. It’s a

very ancient story. It’s about being in a respectful and being in a relationship. It’s about facebook

of course, but it’s a superficial story to talk about betrayed. If it’s simply described a story about

facebook, it would be more boring, it wouldn’t be as exasperated as it is. It exaggerates the

conflict and that’s why people go to the cinema. Thinking about a social network, it could had

been a film about army, families, the mafia or everything else. The story is really well presented to

capture us, because it’s something that’s it’s happening to us. Films help us understand deeper

meaning. We do not understand deep meaning before something terrible happen. If your mother

die when you are 15 it’s traumatic, but if she dies when you are 56, it’s more than a philosophical

question. It’s an event that changes your life or an event that you digest as a part of history?

1962: beginning of a conflict between generations. Rock and roll generation. Rebelling against the

status quo. What is Fellini role? He’s a film director. What is the film about? He doesn’t know what

the film should talk about, he doesn’t know how he should be. It’s a metaphor of life. Everyone of

us is a director of our life. It’s a metaphor about making a film. Films are representation. What do

they talk about? They talk about life. It’s a profound story. We can analyse it visually and what

inside of the film happens. I want you to realize that films is a STRCTURE, it’s a real drama. The

director sees things that other people don’t get, but he doesn’t know how to deal with them.

The film is about Guido’s conflict.

Every scene represents Guido’s conflict.

Beginning of the film: he goes to the doctor and the doctor describes a whole bunch of bullshit.

Let’s look at the FRAMING and the LIGHTING. The camera is pending and it goes back and fourth

like that. Everything is dark. He doesn’t know what it’s going on. This is Fellini and the director

photography choice. That’s a beautiful film visually. The camera goes from the doctor to the nurse.

The doctor ad the nurse are dress in white: they are people that scientifically know something.

That’s why the film becomes very strong, there’s nothing that distract you.

Interesting relationship between the representation of facts.

What period is this coming from? Someone who made this film in 62 ,has made his life in the 50s.

what was happening in the 50s in intellectual minds? The war was over = period of insecurity and

economic boom. Artistically? Painting and literature? People who are refused by society, rebels,

artists create trends. Painting: abstract expressionism. What did it represent? Art history is only one

way of organizing something, but it’s not “why” but it just shows the results. What happened in the

IIWW that affected everybody in the west? Major events? The holocaust, the atomic bomb in

Japan. Cause of the war? Hitler. Those are 3 pretty important events in history.

What did people feel like? they were scared, confused and traumatized. That’s why abstract

expressionism happened. What lies between those paintings? They represent confusion. It

becomes codified. What is it about the confusion of the expression? It represents your way to see

the world, doesn’t represent the word. Individualism, why? What’s the difference between looking

at Raffaello’s painting and abstract expression? The second doesn’t represent anything, it’s a

signifier. It requires your individual interpretation, that’s nothing more individualistic than looking

at abstract expressionism.

Freud: it represents the unconscious. Your emotional reaction. You are overwhelmed by drama.

This is a situation in which Rock and Roll was born, in which a new generation, the beat generation,

was born that was against the world that created the IIWW. Here we have the 50s full of anxiety,

individualism, conflict.

Film: middle age man, who is trying to figure our what his life is about. he goes into his fantasies,

his dreams, his fears and then he deals with reality but he doesn’t know how to deal with it. he is a

classical postmodern person.

How the character is developed visually:

He has been diagnosed. Science is looking at pieces of him and the camera is reflecting this idea.

What is the cure? Who is speaking? The doctor, that represents reasons, traditions and society.

That’s very obvious symbolically and amusing idea. Water and dirt: that’s the cure. He’s making fun

of society, putting Guido in a situation that is not the answer. Then, he’s always in the dark.

Then, the music? Valchirie di Wagner, a song that is about a goddest help to save the day and to

bring victory into the army. Guido is in a bathroom walking around and wandering what is going

on. Not diagesic sound: the music is outside the movie conditioning our emotions.

Next scene:

What are the elements about it? Why is it there after Guido goes to the doctor?

This is the termal place where the water comes from. The scene is about society and we see a lot

of people, representing society. Lot of old people, people well dressed up, people who want to

appear. Is this realistic? It’s grotesque. Why does Fellini loves using grotesque people? Why do

people exaggerate when they dress and when they appear? They want to represent their self. It’s

not who they are but who they want to appear. Italian society is about that: it’s about people

appearing. People have to look interesting.

So what about this beautiful panorama while listening Valchiria? At the beginning it’s not diagenic,

but then we see the orchestra, so it gets diagenic. Fellini is playing on that.

Why is opera lirica? You have to exaggerate to make visual, something that really goes unnoticed.

That’s why opera lirica is always about big tragedies.

That’s how you get inside our feelings, you get something intense.

What about the movement of the camera and the lighting?

The lighting is full of light. What does that do for the scene? The scene is overexposed. There are

not details and the blacks become grey. When you over exposed the white becomes empty and

the black becomes grey. When you under exposed the blacks become close and the white

become grey.

It is a completely unnatural. It’s not descripted. We are not looking to real life, but we are looking

at something unreal, fantasies, god life. Light has to do with god, with the sky, the mistery is out

there. in front of us we have reality. We have all this different kinds of people all believing in a cure,

that this is the right place. Guido completely answer: “I don’t know”.

The only way to help someone know is to experience something. That’s what life is about:

experience and understanding them.

Here we have people who believe in medicine. Fellini is making fun of them, there is NO an

answer.

There is a complete change of atmosphere. We se a young woman and then the crowd again.

Guido is looking around. “where am I, why am I here and what is this about?”

The music stops when Guido seems the girl. As soon as Guido sees a woman everything stops.

Guido is looking at everything through the glass