The Sociology of the Cinema - Essay Example

There can be no aesthetic of the cinema, not even a purely technological one, which would not include the sociology of the cinema. – Theodor W. Adorno Adorno’s comment on the inseparability of art from its sociology, more so in the field of cinematics, may be eschewed as an understatement, only to reiterate the fact that the connection between cinema and society goes far beyond the realms of a single parameter, which may be sociological, historical, voyeuristic, or aesthetically individualistic. Plain logic would expound the presence of each one of the parameters in an evenly distributed measure to call a cinematic endeavour a masterpiece. However, the validity of such rationale may conveniently be challenged by the words of master film-makers like Jean-Luc-Godard: "The cinema is not an art which films life: the cinema is something between art and life. Unlike painting and literature, the cinema both gives to life and takes from it... Literature and painting both exist as art from the very start; the cinema doesnt." Godard’s viewpoint may well be perceived as the carefully masticated fodder that went into Walter Benjamin’s Theory on the mechanical reproduction of art. Where Benjamin refrains from commenting on the adequacies or inadequacies of a material reproduction of a work of art; it is left to the reader/viewer to ascertain the level of connectedness that a skillful representation of reality may establish. The basic premise of Walter Benjamin’s theory is that reality has an aura which builds a bridge between the piece-de-resistance and the beholder, which by itself is unique as it is wrapped in the irreproducible synergies of time and space. “Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be. This unique existence of the work of art determined the history to which it was subject throughout the time of its existence. This includes the changes which it may have suffered in physical condition over the years as well as the various changes in its ownership. The traces of the first can be revealed only by chemical or physical analyses which it is impossible to perform on a reproduction; changes of ownership are subject to a tradition which must be traced from the situation of the original.” (Benjamin, chap ii) Therefore, the quantum of response over the same piece may vary tangentially in terms of magnitude, quality, as well as certitude, from person to person. However, as reality is reproduced; the master stroke is sealed and preserved over time and at the risk of having lost its aura in technological manifestation, builds a new aural-visual relationship with its viewer. A Director’s job in film-making is thus reduced to that of a preserver of time and space and keeping it alive through changing perspectives and interpretations. In an historical perspective an event may merely involve the passage of time through given geographical or demographical parameters. However, it assumes meaning and emotion when the Director translates the same event into a story and the same passage of time now strokes the lives and emotions of people with different brushes. People thus, transcend the barriers of time and emotions acquire a timeless omnipresence. Thus, comes to fore the concept of a ‘progressive reaction’(Allen,230 ) as the continuity of reality and time is maintained; as opposed to the viewing of one such event or character over disjointed time frames and fragmented responses. History therefore, becomes a part of the present and the story no longer remains merely a figment of an individual’s imagination. The film ‘Cigarette Box’ opens with the camera on a sign with two cigarettes put together in the sign of the holy cross and a logo that reads ‘sin and singe’. Camera zooms out. As the camera steps over to the character’s side; which, in this case, is the cigarette box itself, it acquires the perspective of the box. There may be two divergent treatments in this case. One may be that of the cigarette box becoming the camera-the Seeing Eye, and viewing the world as it gets carried along in the turn of events, On the other hand, it may be the lead character being seen by an unnoticed eye. The journey and the ensuing travails of this little box becomes a story in itself without any dramatic unfolding of events or a cathartic ending. In both the cases, sitting in the pocket / bag of its buyer; a college student; the cigarette box is witness to a typical college campus scenario, which entails a bike/car-ride to the college campus, an examination hall, a room in the students’ hostel, a toilet seat, college cafeteria etc. The journey of the cigarette box, which starts from a shop / vending machine, etches a trail of visible and audible evidences that establish its presence in a particular area. The audio–visual effects like horns and sirens on the road, increasing and decreasing sounds of vehicular traffic, thumping of a ball, muscular leg-calves in socks flashing suggesting the box’s presence near a basketball court, flushing of a toilet, high-pitched mixed chatter of youthful voices, etc., help in establishing the fact that the cigarette box is travelling in the pocket of a student who goes to college to write an exam, is nervous, goes to the toilet for a smoke, shares a smoke with friends in the basketball court. It may also be established through the audio-visual mode whether the student is male or female. The box lying in a bag next to a flashy pink mobile phone helps in establishing the presence of a female owner. The box becomes a part of a game of dominoes on the table of the college cafeteria. As the dominoes fall (and our cigarette box), the announcement of the demise of pop star Michael Jackson on television sends a shock wave among the students and chaos ensues. The box is left on the table, and is subsequently picked up by the janitor. The janitor, an old lady, tries to steal a smoke in the powder room. An asthmatic co-worker present there, inhales the smoke, suffers from an asthmatic attack, and drops down to the floor. The cigarette box falls on the floor and the camera zooms in to the cautionary note on the box that reads ‘Smoking Kills’. Since the audience does not get to see people in action, the sound of running tap water, shuffling feet, gasping breathes, followed by silence, create a simulated effect of the entire scene. In the face of it, the series of events are routine and the person who set the ball of events rolling, is quite oblivious of the series of events that ensue. This, in accordance with Benjamin’s theory, apprises us of the fact that art in reality cannot be detached from its sociological history. However, when visualized in real time, it may not tell a complete tale of the abrasions of history on its back. A mechanical or technological reproduction, therefore, establishes the effects of the past on the present. In retrospect, the journey of this box would eke out a different interpretation and emergence of an emotional plane where a collective response may coexist over different periods of time. Whatever the outcome, the only constant in the film remains the passage of time over this box and thus, its identity as an object of art remains unchanged. What changes is the viewer’s perception based on his or her own sociological history. The visual play of various long and close shots helps in combing out the fabric of the film in a linear plane. The various visual and audio clips manage to create a montage of sorts, which parallels an ensemble piece in theatre, where no visual takes over the other and one sound exists only to complement the presence of the other. According to Eisenstein’s Theory of Montage, a scene or a moment may be expounded to extraordinariness through a ‘linkage’ of related images. Eisenstein and his contemporary, Lev Kuleshov, two of the earliest film theorists, argued that montage was the “essence of the cinema” and the "collision of shots could be used to manipulate the emotions of the audience and create film metaphors” (http://intellect-ideasfilms.blogspot.com). Eisenstein’s method of ‘Montage’ aimed at deriving a fusion of emotional reactions from two seemingly independent and mutually exclusive scenes. His various methods of montage ; metric, rhythmic, tonal, over tonal and intellectual; are all means of layering the perceived meaning of different sensory experiences and achieve a collusion of images with a totally new and independent identity. Famous examples of this technique in Battleship Potemkin in the Odessa Steps and the runaway baby carriage sequences still stand the testimony of time in terms of arousal of the emotional experience by using a simple technological detour (Montage Theory: Eisenstein). The Cigarette Box, in the same manner, plays upon the aesthetic value of everyday humdrum life, which may be ordinarily missed, to tell several tales spinning out of a single string running through time. The role of the Director as an able story teller in the medium of film making is that of a ring master who trains the lion to perform the antics of a house cat and create a visual metaphor; and that of a ventriloquist who creates the illusion of a lifeless doll coming to life and becoming an animated character. However inevitable it may seem that the final image that the audience gets to see is the projection of the director’s interpretation on screen, it remains an undisputed fact that even the most talented director cannot curtail the impact of the viewer’s intellectual conditioning on his response to the scene/film. In fact, a talented director would not only digress from superimposing his interpretation of a situation on his audiences, s/he would also deviate from expressing by way of a “bourgeois ritual” and becomes a “translator who expresses a relation between one language and another rather than an exact correspondence.” (Lodge, 10). Benjamin, in his essay on ‘Work of Art’ states that “history of every art form has critical periods in which the particular form strains after effects which can be easily achieved with a changed technical standard- that is to say, a new art form.” (Bullock-  Order by: relevance | pagesrelevance | pages-  ‹ Previous  Next ›  -  View all, 75). The mention of this new art form points to the revolutionary switch from the era of silent films to that of the talkies and how the convergence of ideas was achieved with the coupling of a few sound effects. Movies like M 1939 stand the test of time in terms of a ubiquitous appeal. The development of cinema through the annals of history speaks of the evolution of the human psyche and intellect. In addition to this, it may also be a reflection of a heightened sensory awareness as the emotional recesses are scrabbled upon. The use of motion, sounds, art of distancing and suggestion, silence as an aural medium and clip art as a cohesive force; all indicate the limitless possibilities in the genre of film making. Representation of facts for the sake of preserving history and collating facts is long passé and the genre has now prodded into unexplored vacuums, where neither the action nor the response follows the dictates of conventional approval. Where nothing is right or anything wrong and where fact is what is understood by the viewer; in such territories now do the film and its creator play. Ingrid Bergman aptly comments: "Film as dream, film as music. No form of art goes beyond ordinary consciousness as film does, straight to our emotions, deep into the twilight room of the soul." References Allen, Richard W. The Aesthetic Experience of Modernity: Benjamin, Adorno, and Contemporary Film Theory . New German Critique, No. 40, Special Issue on Weimar Film Theory (Winter, 1987), pp. 225-240 Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Transcribed byAndyBlunden; http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm Bullock, Marcus, The Rose of Babylon: Walter Benjamin, Film Theory, and the Technology of Memory MLN, Vol. 103, No. 5, Comparative Literature (Dec., 1988). Maryland :The Johns Hopkins University Press Forrest, Tara. The politics of imagination: Benjamin, Kracauer, Kluge. 2007. Transcribed by Tara Forrest Lodge, David and Nigel Wood. Modern Criticism and Theory 2004, 2nd reprint. Walter Benjamin: The Storyteller . Singapore: Pearson Education Montage theory: Eisenstein, Vertov, &Hitchcock; http://faculty.cua.edu/johnsong/hitchcock/pages/montage/montage-1.html Read More