The Elements of Classical and Alternative Cinema in The Big Sleep - Essay Example

Section 1: Short answers 1. What is the difference between a metteurs-en-scene and an auteur? A metteurs-en-scene and an auteur comprise literary or cinema works that originate from various sources. The work of an auteur portrays a semantic dimension since it is not purely formal, whereas the work of a metteurs-en-scene does not extend past the realm of performance, transposing a pre-existing text or scenario, book or play into special complex cinematic codes. The meaning of films from the auteur perspective is constructed a posteriori, which is semantic rather than stylistic or expressive. The films of metteurs-en-scene are the exact opposite of the auteur since they exist as a priori. The lack of clarity in this distinction has led to the difficulty in the classification of film makers as either auteur or metteurs-en-scene (Wollen 1972). 2. What is the difference between art cinema and classical cinema? The difference between art cinema and classical cinema is clearly delineated. Art cinema is the most acknowledged area within film studies due the recognition it receives from celebrated film makers, specific films or cinema types, as well as from select writers and the target audience. Art cinema is commonly located within the auteur category of films, with examples including L’Avventura (1960). In contradistinction to art cinema, David Bordwell and other filmmakers coined the term ‘classical cinema. Their focus tends to be on the metteurs-en-scene category of art or film. As such, classical cinema has been broadly disseminated because of the dominance of these film types, and most filmmakers choose to make films in this style. Art cinema is presented in small film theatres, compared to classical cinema, which is conducted in large multiplexes. Art cinema screen new films with repertory functions, drawing their audiences from a highly educated urban demographic. This differs from classical cinema, which is indicative of popular culture and attracts a less educated, rural demographic (Kolker 1980). 3. Who are the movie brats and what do they have to do with auteurism? Movie brats include directorial luminaries such as Michelangelo Antonioni (b. 1912), Federico Fellini (1920–1993), Jean-Luc Godard (b. 1930) and Ingmar Bergman (b. 1918). Their respective films L’Avventura, 8½ (1963), À bout de souffle (Breathless, 1960) and Det sjunde inseglet (The seventh seal, 1957) played a critical role regarding the impact that auteurism has had film production. It is evident that a new generation of movie brats exercised greater controls the in the creative process and production of their films (Grist 2000). The recent works of the movie brats have challenged the romantic and individualistic ideologies portrayed in earlier works that conform to aspects of auteurism. As pointed out by David Cook (1996), auteurism was exploited along with the rise of college level film to entice patronage. Further, Timothy Corrigan (1994) also notes that the appearance of the United States (US) studio system made the deployment of auteurism a potential outcome in the marketing of movies within a system other than that using studio signatures. The movie brats also tended to focus on the role of auteurism in enhancing the economies of distribution. Therefore, the article focuses on the place of auteurism and its struggle against the organisation of film production in the first few years. They have thus deployed auteurism to assert the prerogative of the professional managerial class against, not only the studios, but also the film unions. The two films Joe (1970) and Five easy pieces (1970) demonstrate the battles affecting the balance of power existing in the industry; this occurred alongside the representation of characters dealing with social class in the majority of these films (Grist 2000). 4. What is entailed by the aesthetic category of ‘the grotesque’? As described by the director Stanley Kubrick, the aesthetics of ‘the grotesque’ (2006) entail the analysis of films dealing with aspects such as tone, mood and complex emotional states. The aesthetic category of ‘the grotesque’ connotes an ideology that includes the discussion surrounding literary works as regards the stylistic devices used in such pieces, including the mood and the interaction between characters. Kubrick is also known assign his mood on the actors of his films and his deep affection for stray animals and household pets that the aesthetics of grotesque bec becomes an important element in any form of literary work (Naremore 2006). 5. What are the characteristics of the ‘Hawksian woman’? A Hawksian woman is risk averse, a character trait revealed when she asks one of the protagonist in a film why they are placing their lives at risk. The latter respond that they have no clear reason for their behaviour, but claim that they are enjoying life through recklessness. According to one of the films of Howard Hawks such as The Big Sleep (1946), Hawksian men have no place in this world, since they are pictured as unreasonable. In contrast, Hawk’s women are very reasonable and are decision makers. Further, Hawksian women have suffered at one point in their lives, and their attitudes follow the maxim ‘once bitten twice shy’. They live in fear of the male dominance witnessed in society, one in which they are viewed as inferior and in which men are portrayed as superior and ever suspicious of their women. The Hawksian woman is initially portrayed as traditional, one whose place in the society is behind the scenes, for example, in the kitchen. Later, these women become informed and aware about their rightful place in society, leading to their pride in and an appreciation of the life hitherto denied to them (Louis 1981). Auteur is a French word for author which is used in cinema parlance to determine the creator of the film. Auteur can be compared to the author of a book or novel or the artist of a painting. One of its key components is the creative control that the filmmaker exercises in the creation of the film (Fast Pass TV 2009). The purpose of Auteurism is to determine the author or maker of a film. Typically, authoriship of a film is assigned to the director and the auteur theory determines the competence of the director as a criterion of the film’s artistic value (Sarris 1962). It follows that the identification of the technical competence of the director would enable critic and viewers alike to determine the quality and artistic value of the film. Personal cinema on the other hand is a movie created by a film maker primarily to exercise his or her artistic freedom where he or she has greater control in the creative process of movie production of which Stanley Kubrick staunchly asserted as a filmmaker (Fast Pass TV 2009). Auteurism today affects the way that films are marketed. It helps form preconceive notion about the quality of the film even before the actual preview of the film. The classic example we can use to illustrate this point is George Lucas’ recent Starwars film. The film was already judged as an excellent movie even before it was shown by mere association of George Lucas’ name in the film. As a result, the viewing public flocked to the theaters with the preconceived idea that the film is very good because George Lucas created it. Auteurism however has been criticized that movie making involves a lot of people in its production process that it would be difficult to say that a certain individual was solely responsible of the authorship or creation of the film (Moran 1999). Moreso, in a Hollywood setting where a multitude of people had to work and collaborate together to create a film. We can cite for example the film The Big Sleep (1946) which was a product of collaboration with different film makers. It involved novelist Raymond Chandler who wrote the novel which was the basis of the film, Howard Hawks, screenwriters William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett and actors Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall (Lev 1988) all were distinguished artists in their own right. It is also important to note that the film made a last minute revision in January of 1946 invites discussion about authorship because it clarifies when and who decides for the change of the film indicating ownership of the film (Lev 1988). This is an important notion of auteurism because it highlights the complicity in according authorship in a film as argued by the critics of auteurism. The creation of The Big Sleep revealed that even if the film was based on Raymond Chandler’s novel there were others who also contributed in writing the script that it was no longer a faithful rendition of the novel but rather a product of various talents who collaborated to complete the film. “Studio records, internal evidence and secondary sources indicate that William Faulkner played a major role in writing the script” (” (Lev 1988:6) in addition to the source Chandler. Faulkner also had a writing partner, Leigh Brackett, a young pulp writer and Jules Furthman who edited the film’s ending. The three worked collaboratively in the outline of the screenplay then wrote alternate sections to it (” (Lev 1988). The movie also did not have the demarcation line between screenwriting and production where screenplay changes occurred during production until post-production. Hawks may have been the designated director but the screenwriters also had a hand in the production process thus none can claim exclusivity in any process of creating the film. This clearly indicates that the film was a product of several creative people in the film industry. Thus, Hollywood feature film as The Big Sleep poses an interesting question of how one determines authorship of a movie and questions the validity of a single auteur in the film making process. Considering the industrial nature of Hollywood of which filmmakers must work, it would be difficult to determine a filmmaker’s status as an auteur as the movie The Big Sleep illustrated. The key aspect of auteurism which is creative control to determine authorship is blurred in Hollywood production due to the various collaboration that occur among different talents in the pre-production, production proper and post production process of a movie. The case of The Big Sleep is not an exemption for it may be necessary to work with several film makers to come up with a film whose production requirement equates to industrial magnitude. This process is not necessarily bad in the industry nor taints the creative integrity of a director only that it fails to recognize the contribution of other artists in the movie. In The Big Sleep, while the contributions of Raymond Chandler William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett and actors Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall are generally recognized in the film industry, the official auteur of the movie was Howard Hawks. The credit went to him just because of the fact that it was him who proposed the idea of The Big Brothers to Warner Brothers as part of his “third film to be made under the non-exclusive contract” (Lev 1988:4). While assigning Hawks to be the single author of the film is highly debatable, his collaboration with Warner Brothers explain the circumstances why a single individual was credited for authorship for a work that was done by many people. On the other hand, if a filmmaker is bent to maintain his control over the production of his films, it would tantamount to working outside of Hollywood such as what Stanley Kubrick did that qualified his movies to be “personal cinema” due to his exclusive control over the production the process. His authorship in the movies he created was patently Kubricks’ that one can consider it as Kubrick’s “personal cinema” and thus can be considered as the genuine auteur of his films. Bibliography Corrigan, T. 1994. “A short guide to writing about film. HarperCollinsCollegePublishers, Cook, D. (1996). “A History of Narrative Film 3rd edition” W W Norton & Co Inc Fast Pass TV 2009, “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Retrieved from http://www.fastpasstv.ms/movies/dr_p_-strangelove-or_pp_-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-bomb-1964/ Grist, L. 2000, ‘An Italo-Judeo production: Taxi Driver’, The films of Martin Scorsese, 1963–77: Authorship and context, Palgrave, New York, pp. 123–214. Kolker, RP 1980, ‘The tectonics of the mechanical man’, A Cinema of Loneliness: Penn, Kubrick, Coppola, Scorsese, Altman, Oxford University Press, New York, pp. 69-138 vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 69–138. Lev, P. 1998, “The Big Sleep: production history and authorship”. Canadian Review of American Studies 1(19): pp. 1-21 Louis, G 1981, ‘The cult of personality: the cinema of Howard Hawks’, i Masters of American Cinema, Prentice-Hall, New Jersey. Mamber, S 1996, ‘A Clockwork Orange’, in M Falsetto (Ed.), Perspective on Stanley Kubrick, G.K. Hall & Co., New York, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 171–84. McFarlane, B 2005, ‘Smoking guns and smouldering lips: “The Big Sleep”’, Screen Education, vol. 1, no. 39, pp. 139–43. Moran, M. April 27, 1999, The Problem With Auteurism. Retrieved from http://personal.markmoran.net/Writing/Film%20Intro%20-%20Final%20Paper.html Naremore, J 2006, ‘Stanley Kubrick and the aesthetics of the grotesque’, Film Quarterly, vol. 60, no. 1, pp. 4–14. Sarris, A. 1999, “Notes on the Auteur Theory of 1962”.  Film Theory and Criticism, Fifth Edition.  Ed. Leo Braudy.  New York: Oxford Truffaut, F 1954, A certain tendency of the French cinema, from Cahier du Cinema in English originally published in French in Cahiers du Cinema 31. Reprinted by permission of Cahiers du Cinema Wollen, P 1972, The auteur theory, Secker & Warburg, London. Read More