Section A World Cinema Topics -International film styles - Surrealism REVISION 2

Starter: 

Complete the handout provided which compares conventional film with Surrealist film.

Key terms:
Continuity Editing (the dominant, classical style of film editing in the USA/Hollywood Studio System).

Montage Editing (ideological juxtapositioning as well as editing that did not seek to maintain logical and connected temporal and spatial relationships between shots)

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Exam question 1:
3. Discuss how far your international film style was developed by directors and how far by other influences. [35]

The ultimate aim is to answer the questions :

·         With appropriate terminology

·         Demonstrating your own ideas with regard to the topic

·         Showing contextual knowledge

·         Using specific moments from (a range of) films

·         Assessing the impact of both macro and micro techniques

·         Integrating/ synthesising the ideas of theorists/ critics

·         Drawing conclusions; however tentative

·         Placing the question’s focus in the broader framework of the topic

Topics

Section A : International Film Styles : Surrealism

Section B : Spectatorship : Popular Cinema and Emotional Response

Section C : Close Critical Study : Vertigo

Each section has a different focus and is designed to draw out specific issues with regards to the film texts:

Section A

•  an understanding of the philosophy of Surrealism
•  the extent to which Surrealism can be seen to possess a common style and approach
•  the ways in which its film makers use micro and macro features to achieve its effects and what  these effects are.
•  an understanding of the extent to which time, place and personal background of film makers  may be traceable in their films’ themes and concerns
•  the difference between these films’ approaches and those of mainstream films
•  an awareness of the distinctively different approaches/ concerns of your film makers

Exam question response:

Discuss how far your international film style was developed by directors and how far by other influences

Describe the international film style (Surrealism).

Name the directors that you will discuss (Bunuel - Svankmajer)

Name the films (with dates) that you will discuss (UnChien Andalou 1929 - L'Age d'Or 1930 - The Garden 1968)

Discuss how far your international film style was developed by directors and how far by other influences

Describe the international film style (surrealism).

L'Age d'Or, commonly translated as The Golden Age or Age of Gold, is a 1930 French surrealist comedy directed by Luis Buñuel about the insanities of modern life, the hypocrisy of the sexual mores (customs) of bourgeois society and the value system of the Roman Catholic Church. The screenplay is by Salvador Dalí and Buñuel. L'Age d'Or was one of the first sound films made in France.

The surrealist films of Luis Bunuel, Un Chien Andalou 1929 and L'Age d'Or 1930 are  full of style typical of the surrealist movement. The micro elements are used to show themes and ideas which epitomise the definitions of surreal cinema, they are pivotal works of the movement.

Jan Svankmajer is a Czech film maker and artist.  He is a self-labelled surrealist known for his animations and features, which have subsequently influenced other artists such as Terry Gilliam, the Brothers Quay, and many others. The influence of the surrealists can be seen through the use of micro elements.

Surrealist cinema originated in Paris in the 1920's as a facet of the literary art movement led by Andre Breton and the Surrealist group. The roots of Surrealist cinema lie within the earlier art movement, Dadaism. Dadaism had anti-establishment sentiments and attempted to provoke the bourgeois society whom they despised. Surrealism was also influenced by the psychoanalytic theories of Freud, in particular his theories regarding dreams, expression and the unconscious.

Bunuel and Salvador Dali, who co-directed Un Chien Andalou, had the primary aim of shocking the bourgeois and questioning the authority of their values. Svankmajer's 1968 film 'The Garden' includes quick cuts, often several in the space of a couple of seconds, to cram as much information, emotion, and meaning into as little time as he can. There are also intense close-ups, showing bemusement, happiness, or boredom on the faces of Svankmajer's actors.  

The garden can be compared to Bunuel's films in terms of themes and messages and also uses a non realistic approach stylistically with a plot that is detached from real life.

Un Chien Andalou's most overt stylistic motifs are the juxtapositioning of two or more seemingly unrelated images, here Bunuel drew on Freud's method of free association to create links between images highlighting themes of violent and sexual repression. One scene which illustrates this is the juxtapositioning of a seated woman who has her eye sliced open with a razor, a realtively shocking scene which is indicative of Surrealist cinema's provocative nature while a cloud cuts across the moon with unrealistic speed. The latter image is metaphorically linked to the the former with the moon being traditionally associated with feminity. The razor, according to Freudian dream theory represents the phallus. The scene implies a violent sexual nature, a theme which is a theme typical of Surrealist works in general.

(Discuss the films of Svankmajer)

L'Age d'Or is more explicit in its provocation of the bourgeois and a screening of the film was actually vandalised by far right protesters at the time of its release. 

The film uses what seems to documentary footage of scorpions in vicious competition. This was to function as a metaphor for the Catholic Church and the bourgeois in general which the Surrealists saw as oppressive institutions. Bunuel specifically criticizes the bourgeois who are represented as a mass group, opulently dressed and seen to thwart the attempted consummation of two lovers in a frenzy. The female lover turns to a statue in order to exercise her sexual desires when her lover is taken away. This not only metaphorically represents sexual repression but can also be said to represent how people internalise their own subordination via the bourgeois and its institutions. The woman is seen kissing a foot which is a classic image of subordination. The narrative in  L'Age d'Or is predominantly linear although Bunuel does at times divert to completely detached scenarios.

In Svankmajer's film The Garden, the character Frank visits his friend Josef, who introduces him to his pedigree rabbits and his wife Mary. Frank is more interested in the slightly unsettling fact that Josef and Mary's garden fence is entirely made up of living people holding hands. Finally, Frank asks Josef how he manages to keep the fence together.

Svankmajer orchestrates point-of-view shots and jarring close-ups to indicate the guest’s growing discomfort as the host boasts of his purebred rabbits and rich compost. Made during the Prague Spring’s collapse in 1968, The Garden remains a crystalline vision of tyranny’s end result.

Today, L'Age d'Or is widely regarded as one of the key works of surrealist cinema. British critic Philip French noted that the film, alongside Buñuel'sUn Chien Andalou (1929), featured "bizarre sequences that assault bourgeois values and sexual oppression while making no logical sense, and they were acclaimed by the leading arbiters of surrealism as the first authentic surrealist films. 

Conclusion - how far..?
Overall the Bunuel films, UnChien Andalou 1929 and L'Age d'Or 1930 use violent, visual metaphors which are typical of surrealism whilst Svankmajer ‘s The Garden borrows from the dreamlike visual style of the early surrealists but can be said to be a continuation of their style.

Discuss how far your international film style was developed by directors and how far by other influences. Level 4 

A very good knowledge and understanding of the international film style itself and of specific film examples which can be referred to accurately and in detail. 

A sound ability to understand and respond to the terms of the question, including a good knowledge of directors’ contribution to the chosen international film style. 

A confidence in responding directly to the question, weighing the relative arguments for a ‘directors cinema’ and those for other and different inputs. 

(The very best candidates) … will develop a sophisticated argument and have the confidence either to adopt and defend through elaboration a very definite position – or to offer a refined weighing of different creative inputs.

Task 1: Complete the essay above including a description of surrealist style, an expansion of Svankmajer's influences and a conclusion.

Task 2: Complete the Svankmajer biography worksheet

Task 3 (homework) Plan and write a response to the following exam question:

4. To what extent is your international film style characterised by a particular approach to performance and/or mise-en-scène?