Difference between pages "A History of TV Style (Discussion)" and "Concept of Authorship (Discussion)"

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(→‎Andrew Sarris: added student submission)
 
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'''All groups'''
+
==Readings==
#Explain the concept that goes by the terms, "technological manifest destiny" and "technological determinism." Why is it a ''mistaken'' notion when applied to TV?
+
===Introduction, by John Caughie===
#*What are some examples that you've seen that prove this concept is wrong? (Don't rely on the examples in the book and you can refer to technology other than that involving video or TV.)
+
'''Group 2'''
 +
#What are the basic assumptions of auteurist critics?
 +
#How did auteurism differ from previous film criticism?
  
''' Groups 4 & 8'''
+
=== Edward Buscombe ===
#Outline the history of TV editing--listing the major technological changes. How did these changes have an impact on TV style?
+
'''Group 3'''
#*Manual film editing
+
#What elements of romanticism underpin auteurism?
#*Manual videotape editing
+
#What is the difference between Hawks and "Hawks"?
#*Editech (first electronic editing)
+
#*'''Student response:''' Hawks is the person, the director, while 'Hawks' is the structure named after the director. Another person could, or instance, follow the structure and produce a movie with a 'Hawks' structure, but it would still not be a movie directed by Hawks. Also, a certain style could be unconscious and part of 'Hawks' but not necessarily a conscious decision by Hawks. The 'Hawks' structure is a sort of culmination of everything about Hawks, whether it is all intended or not. "The structure is associated with a single director, an individual, not because he has played the role of artist, expressing himself or his own vision in the film, but because it is through the force of his preoccupations that an unconscious, unintended meaning can be decoded in the film, usually to the surprise of the individual concerned... It is wrong, in the name of a denial of the traditional idea of creative subjectivity, to deny any status to individuals at all."
#*Nonlinear editing on computer (Avid, Premiere, etc.)
 
#Why type of editing equipment do you suppose was used to cut the following programs:
 
#*''All My Children'': videotape editing
 
#*''Northern Exposure'': film editing
 
#*''Seinfeld'': film editing
 
#*''Stranger Things'': Red camera, digital recording at 6K; then edited nonlinearly
 
  
'''Groups 5 & 1'''
+
=== ''Cahiers du Cinéma'' ===
#List the elements of the production of ''I Love Lucy'' that make it significant to the history of TV style. Explain ''why'' each element is important.
+
'''All Groups'''
##Studio audience
+
#What is "formalism" and how did it relate to ''Cahiers''-style auteurism?
##Multiple-camera mode of production
+
#What is "personalism"?
##Shot and distributed on film (higher quality)
 
  
 +
=== ''Movie'' ===
 +
'''Group 4'''
 +
#What was ''Movie''?
 +
#How did ''Movie'''s approach to auteurism differ from that of ''Cahiers du Cinéma''?
 +
#*'''Student Response:''' _Movie_ attempted to go about film criticism with a more rational and objective approach. While both magazines held high the significance of the role of the director, _Movie_ was more moderate than _Cahiers du Cinéma_ in its application of auteurism. The British magazine employed a more "gestalt" approach, which acknowledged trends of good directors but also respected the result of complexes of input beyond the director (producer, photographer, etc.).
  
'''Groups 6 & 2'''
+
=== Andrew Sarris ===
#The history of color TV is very complicated. Create a timeline that lists the significant events leading up to color TV's widespread implementation.
+
'''Group 1'''
#What impact did color technology have on TV style?
+
#What, according to Sarris, are the three premises of the auteur theory?
#What is the NTSC and why was it created?
+
#*'''Student submission:''' According to Sarris, auteur theory has three premises. "[T]he technical competence of a director as a criterion of value," explains that directors must posses some kind of skill to make a good film. The next criterion has to do with the director's style. That the director must have a distinguishable personality, and his film will reflect the way he thinks and feels. These recurring characteristics of style in the film serve as his signature. Finally, auteur theory is concerned with interior meaning or the "temperature of the director on set." This is the more ambiguous of the premises as is cannot be specifically written out. It is, at the clearest, almost mise en scene mixed with the imbedded meaning of the film projected by the director. These three premises imply that the success or grade of the film rely completely on the director and his specific style and personality.
 +
#*Explain, if you can, what Sarris means by "élan of the soul".
  
'''Groups 7 & 3'''
+
'''All Groups'''
#When did the remote control first appear and what were the names of the early devices?
+
#What does Sarris mean when he uses the term "mise-en-scene"? ('''Hint''': it's ''not'' how Bordwell and Thompson use it in ''Film Art''.)
#*How did they work?  
+
#*And how does this image (below) illustrate it?
#How do modern remote controls work and when did they become commonly used?
+
[[Image:Rules Moment07.jpg|thumb|left|Jean Renoir in ''Rules of the Game'' (French title: ''La Règle du jeu'').]]
#What have broadcast networks done to try to combat channel changing and distractions from "second screens" (that is, cellphones, tablets, laptops)?
+
<br style="clear: both;">
  
{{Gallery
+
Pauline Kael, "Circles and Squares," ''Film Quarterly'' (reprinted in ''I Lost It at the Movies''), response to Sarris:
|title=Early Remote Controls
 
|width=300
 
|height=200
 
|lines=2
 
|align=center
 
|File:1956 Zenith Remote Ad.JPG|alt1=Zenith remote-control ad (1956).|Zenith remote-control ad (1956).
 
|File:Zenith Space Command.jpg|alt2=Zenith Space Command remote control unit.|Zenith Space Command remote control unit.
 
|File:56zenith.jpg|alt3=Zenith Space Command receiving TV set (1957).|Zenith Space Command receiving TV set (1957).
 
|File:Toshiba Remote Control CT-9863.jpg|alt4=A Toshiba remote control, photographed in 2009.|A Toshiba remote control, photographed in 2009.
 
}}
 
  
'''Kinescope (all groups, if time permits)'''
+
:Sarris believes that what makes an auteur is "an élan of the soul." (This critical language is barbarous. Where else should élan come from? It's like saying "a digestion of the stomach." A film critic need not be a theoretician, but it is necessary that he know how to use words. This might, indeed, be a first premise for a theory.) Those who have this élan presumably have it forever and their films reveal the "organic unity" of the directors' careers; and those who don't have it - well, they can only make "actors' classics." It's ironic that a critic trying to establish simple "objective" rules as a guide for critics who he thinks aren't gifted enough to use taste and intelligence, ends up - where, actually, he began - with a theory based on mystical insight.
#What is a kinescope? How were kinescopes created and what characterized how they looked?
 
  
{{Gallery
+
== Bibliography ==
|title=Kinescope Illustrations
+
All from ''Theories of Authorship'', John Caughie, ed. (Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981):
|width=400
 
|height=600
 
|lines=1
 
|align=center
 
|File:Dumont Kinescope Machines.jpg|alt5=Dumont Kinescope Machines.|Dumont Network kinescope machines.
 
|File:Jerry Lewis Show 1960 - Footage Comparison.jpg|alt6=Screen shots from The Jerry Lewis Show.|[http://tcf.ua.edu/EO/DV/Kinescope-TapeComparison.php Screen shots from ''The Jerry Lewis Show''.]
 
}}
 
  
== Bibliography ==
+
#Introduction, John Caughie, 9-16.
#Gary Copeland, "A History of Television Style," in Jeremy G. Butler, ''Television: Critical Methods and Applications'', '''third edition'''. Not included in fourth and subsequent editions of ''Television''.
+
#Edward Buscombe, "Ideas of Authorship," 22-34.
 +
#''Cahiers du Cinéma'', 35-47.
 +
#''Movie'', 48-60.
 +
#Andrew Sarris, 61-67.
  
 
==External links==
 
==External links==
*[http://tcf.ua.edu/EO/DV/Kinescope-TapeComparison.php Kinescope-Videotape comparison]
+
#[http://www.tcf.ua.edu/Classes/Jbutler/T440/AuteurTheory.htm Auteur Theory Illustrations]
*[http://www.tcf.ua.edu/EO/DV/Clorox.php Clorox commercials].
+
#[http://www.tcf.ua.edu/Classes/Jbutler/T340/Bazin03.htm Auteurism's defining moment], according to Sarris.
*[https://tcf.ua.edu/EO/DV/Laughin19680914.php ''Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In''] (episode 15, 9/16/1968)
 
*[http://youtu.be/gV0Ralac0w4 ''The Magic of Television''] (1941)
 
  
[[Category:TCF311]]
+
[[Category:TCF440/540 Discussion]]
[[Category:TCF311 Discussion]]
 

Revision as of 16:05, 27 February 2009

Readings

Introduction, by John Caughie

Group 2

  1. What are the basic assumptions of auteurist critics?
  2. How did auteurism differ from previous film criticism?

Edward Buscombe

Group 3

  1. What elements of romanticism underpin auteurism?
  2. What is the difference between Hawks and "Hawks"?
    • Student response: Hawks is the person, the director, while 'Hawks' is the structure named after the director. Another person could, or instance, follow the structure and produce a movie with a 'Hawks' structure, but it would still not be a movie directed by Hawks. Also, a certain style could be unconscious and part of 'Hawks' but not necessarily a conscious decision by Hawks. The 'Hawks' structure is a sort of culmination of everything about Hawks, whether it is all intended or not. "The structure is associated with a single director, an individual, not because he has played the role of artist, expressing himself or his own vision in the film, but because it is through the force of his preoccupations that an unconscious, unintended meaning can be decoded in the film, usually to the surprise of the individual concerned... It is wrong, in the name of a denial of the traditional idea of creative subjectivity, to deny any status to individuals at all."

Cahiers du Cinéma

All Groups

  1. What is "formalism" and how did it relate to Cahiers-style auteurism?
  2. What is "personalism"?

Movie

Group 4

  1. What was Movie?
  2. How did Movie's approach to auteurism differ from that of Cahiers du Cinéma?
    • Student Response: _Movie_ attempted to go about film criticism with a more rational and objective approach. While both magazines held high the significance of the role of the director, _Movie_ was more moderate than _Cahiers du Cinéma_ in its application of auteurism. The British magazine employed a more "gestalt" approach, which acknowledged trends of good directors but also respected the result of complexes of input beyond the director (producer, photographer, etc.).

Andrew Sarris

Group 1

  1. What, according to Sarris, are the three premises of the auteur theory?
    • Student submission: According to Sarris, auteur theory has three premises. "[T]he technical competence of a director as a criterion of value," explains that directors must posses some kind of skill to make a good film. The next criterion has to do with the director's style. That the director must have a distinguishable personality, and his film will reflect the way he thinks and feels. These recurring characteristics of style in the film serve as his signature. Finally, auteur theory is concerned with interior meaning or the "temperature of the director on set." This is the more ambiguous of the premises as is cannot be specifically written out. It is, at the clearest, almost mise en scene mixed with the imbedded meaning of the film projected by the director. These three premises imply that the success or grade of the film rely completely on the director and his specific style and personality.
    • Explain, if you can, what Sarris means by "élan of the soul".

All Groups

  1. What does Sarris mean when he uses the term "mise-en-scene"? (Hint: it's not how Bordwell and Thompson use it in Film Art.)
    • And how does this image (below) illustrate it?
Jean Renoir in Rules of the Game (French title: La Règle du jeu).


Pauline Kael, "Circles and Squares," Film Quarterly (reprinted in I Lost It at the Movies), response to Sarris:

Sarris believes that what makes an auteur is "an élan of the soul." (This critical language is barbarous. Where else should élan come from? It's like saying "a digestion of the stomach." A film critic need not be a theoretician, but it is necessary that he know how to use words. This might, indeed, be a first premise for a theory.) Those who have this élan presumably have it forever and their films reveal the "organic unity" of the directors' careers; and those who don't have it - well, they can only make "actors' classics." It's ironic that a critic trying to establish simple "objective" rules as a guide for critics who he thinks aren't gifted enough to use taste and intelligence, ends up - where, actually, he began - with a theory based on mystical insight.

Bibliography

All from Theories of Authorship, John Caughie, ed. (Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981):

  1. Introduction, John Caughie, 9-16.
  2. Edward Buscombe, "Ideas of Authorship," 22-34.
  3. Cahiers du Cinéma, 35-47.
  4. Movie, 48-60.
  5. Andrew Sarris, 61-67.

External links

  1. Auteur Theory Illustrations
  2. Auteurism's defining moment, according to Sarris.