Hollywood cinema is widely viewed as narrative with most viewers seeing films only as entertainment and nothing else. And most movies are for entertainment, providing a story with a narrative form or also called Classical Hollywood Cinema. This includes forms of narration, sound, editing, cinematography, etc. Anything you find in the normal classical cinema such as the Marvel movies, Disney movies, or the endless remakes of Planet of the Apes movies. All these films are similar in style because they follow the Classical Hollywood Cinema movement. However, there are alternatives to classical cinema, alternatives meaning that these films don’t obey the typical guidelines for the classical Hollywood cinema. Viewers might be confronted when watching…
Martin Botha (2012) looks at the South African film history and the past. Botha criticises the many highly creative uses of cinematic forms, styles, and genres as set against South Africa’s cinematic experience (three Act structure film, a clear protagonist, and antagonist, clear turning points, causal-chain effect and appeal to international audiences) that have been normalised by the West. Due to western technical requirements for African cinemas, aesthetic principles originating in African…
On September 29, 2000, A. O. Scott, a journalist for The New York Times, wrote a film review of the movie, “Remember the Titans”. His article, “How the Goal Line Came to Replace the Color Line,” presents a short but detailed analysis of the sport centered movie. “How the Goal Line Came to Replace the Color Line” is an article that is meant for everyone, regardless of race. In fact, Scott implores that viewers of all races will be infused with pride after viewing “Remember the Titans” because it…
Zach Zorich “After studying Roman artwork, government documents, and fighting manuals, Tuck says gladiators were like modern-day athletes: highly trained, overpaid, well-fed sex symbols who were not expected to die. They were celebrities.” They lived in luxury, not like criminals as movie portrays it. They also took care of their body and ate healthy as Andrew Curry says, “But the biggest revelation to come out of the Ephesus cemetery is what kept the gladiators alive — a vegetariandiet rich in…
Singin’ in the Rain (1952) directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen is one of Hollywood’s most famous musicals. As a big fan of musicals, it’s surprising that I have never seen this infamous film. I had preconceived notions about what it would be like and I thought that I wouldn’t enjoy it. However, the movie was nothing like that I thought it would be and I enjoyed the “behind the scenes” style of film that the director used to show the transition between silent films to talkie. Due to this…
Paper 1 Describe the classical Hollywood narrative structure. Use examples from the film Shadow of a Doubt to illustrate the structure The Narrative structure of cinema has been ductile through history. Today we have a very wide spectrum of different plotlines and structures that directors and writers get to choose from; however, the classical Hollywood narrative structure stuck to one consistent narrative structure that follows a linear timeline through 3 basic steps: equilibrium, disruption,…
Film, in general, is a narrative medium, or, at least, a medium of many narrative capacities” (Kuhn). For a film to be a narrative it must present a story with a series of events in ways that imply connections between one event and the next. Narratives must, therefore, have constituent parts, which are also discernibly related; however, the type of relationship may vary greatly. Generally we expect a cause-and-effect relationship: one event has the effect of causing another event, which causes…
find out the ideal way to format and enhance it in order to make it perfect. This was helped substantially by a book called ‘Save the Cat’ by Blake Snyder [1]. In looking at various points towards the Femme Fatale and castration anxiety, we looked at the book ‘Feminism and Film’ by Maggie Humm [2] and ‘Visual and Other Pleasures’ by Laura Mulvey [3]. These helped us in writing and portraying phallic imagery (in the form of a gun) and the death of Mia for castration anxiety, the gun being the…
partner gets murdered and a woman, Ruth Wonderly, shows up needing his help to find a falcon statue. Spade meets a variety of characters all with the same motive of acquiring the falcon statue. This films use of a classical opening and closing, the way it develops its characters, the omniscience of the narrator, and causal linearity combined with the continuity editing system define this film as an example of classical Hollywood cinema. The opening of the Maltese Falcon represents the exposition…
During the late 80’s an innovated film maker named Spike Lee created a revolutionary piece of cinematic history called Do The Right Thing. Lee not only directs this incredible film he also stars as the lead role named “mookie”. Unlike most films in the 80’s Lee exposes the audience to thing they aren’t used to seeing. He uses classical Hollywood cinema techniques to capture his film in a different way. For instance, an individual may notice the use of synchronized sounds, close up shots, and the…