A
history of the German Cinema, 1945-1980s
The Language of Film
Talking about Form…
Form and
Meaning
The concept of form in film: conventions,
expectations, the language of film (Grammar)
1960s: disrupting Hollywood formal
conventions. Against Hollywood
Genre: thriller, mystery, romance,
detective, gangster, etc. Playing with genre expectations
1990s: playing with genre expectations
(postmodern). Adapting Hollywood
Different types of meaning that might be
associated with form:
Concrete content: what the film is about:
Katzelmacher is about a group of friends in a Bavarian village and
their encounter with a Greek Gastarbeiter
This is basically a plot summary
The explicit meaning: what the explicit message of the film is:
Katzelmacher is about the boredom experienced by a group of friends
in a Bavarian village and the paradoxically fashion in which, despite their own
obvious lack of activity, they feel superior to the Greek Gastarbeiter
This explicit meaning is deliberately built into the form of the film, and particularly into individual scenes. For example, long static shots of the friends describe the friends’ boredom, who are contrasted with the more animated Greek Gastarbeiter
The implicit meaning: what is being suggested by the film at a more abstract level:
Katzelmacher is about racism. It is also about the relationship
between racism and sexism, insofar as the men within the group of friends treat
their girlfriends in much the same way as they treat the Greek Gastarbeiter
This implicit meaning must be derived from the interaction of form and content: the film must be interpreted in a more abstract sense. Thus, scenes in which the men treat their women badly are combined with scenes when they behave in a similar fashion to the Gastarbeiter. This allows us to make a more general statement about the relationship between racism and sexism
The ideological meaning: what the film suggests about the society in which it plays, about its position within the debates of its time:
Katzelmacher explores racism within German society and alludes to the Nazi past in order to suggest that the Federal Republic displays some parallels with Hitler’s Germany. Equally, the gender divisions within the group demonstrate the connection between racism and sexism: West Germany, supposedly a democratic and enlightened state has not achieved equality in any sphere.
This ideological meaning must be derived from the interplay of form and content within the film and our knowledge of the broader debates within the society in which the film plays. The film is contextualised within the history, society and debates in which it was produced. We may also consider the position of the film in relation to previous films on the same subject (ie Nazi films about Jews)
Elements
of Form
Similarity and Repetition
Recall and identify characters. Reappearance of dialogue, music, camera positions, behaviour and plot. Motifs and parallels.
Creates pleasure, comedy, comfort, orientation. Also invites comparisons
Difference and Variation
Often within the context of similarity and repetition. Contrasts, oppositions and conflicts
Creates interest, rewards the audience for spotting differences. Invites contrasts.
Development
Progression through stages, or chapters: segmentation
Films often structured as journeys, as narratives, as development towards an end (self-realisation, resolution of conflict, solving the crime, etc.)
New German Cinema often disrupts this narrative, development idea: nothing is resolved
Unity/Disunity
Hollywood film typically unified: each element has a clear part to play within the whole. Tight integration of various elements
Disunity: a typical function of art-house cinema and New German Cinema. Disrupts the conventions, suggest that all is not well, leave the audience to think. Disrupt ideological harmony
Narrative
forms
Hollywood films based on chronological, linear narrative (with editing, flashbacks, flashforward intercutting, or cross-cutting)
Narrative: a product of the interaction of diegetic and extra-diegetic material (credits, music, etc.)
Cause and effect: Hollywood film depends on one action causing another (these causes may be withheld for suspense, or we may be left to infer effects)
Story and plot: what ‘happens’ and plot is everything that we see and hear (including extra-diegetic material)
Time: Hollywood ‘marks’ flashbacks or flashforwards (dream sequences, lighting, etc.) to allow us to structure narrative chronologically
Time: ‘real duration’ and ‘screen duration’. Also: contraction, selection and expansion of time for economy or emphasis
Space and Locale: vistas, panoramas, rooms, doors, cities
Openings, closings and patterns of development: in medias res (suspense and economy), resolution, gaining more information
Non-narrative
forms
Categorical – documentary, explores, shows
Rhetorical – opens with an argument/statement then provides evidence
Abstract – focuses on unusual, unfamiliar aspects of the known (colour, shape, rhythm, sound)
Associational – juxtaposition of loosely connected images to suggest new insights
Non-narrative forms are typical of New German Cinema. Arguably, the following list could be made:
The categorical film: Documentary films (Land des Schweigens und der Dunkelheit)
The rhetorical film: Issue films (Christa Klages)
The abstract film: Focus on mood and objects (Katzelmacher)
The associational film: Metaphor and suggestion (Die grünen Ameisen)
Later films (1990s) typically more ‘narrative’ (ie Hollywood)
All about shots…
Reading a film is also about reading the way in which technical composition (shots, camera angles, lighting, staging, etc.) interacts with context.
Mise-en-scene
Mise-en-scene is, quite simply, setting, staging, lighting, costume, behaviour of characters
Mise-en-scene may be more or less realistic, expressionist, background, protagonistical, atmospheric
Setting
Costume and Make-up
Lighting:
frontal lighting (eliminates shadows and produces a flat-looking image: Katzelmacher)
sidelighting/crosslighting (casts long shadows, mystery, suspense)
backlighting (behind the subject, creates silhouettes, lights the character in otherwise dark space)
underlighting (lighting from below the subject, creates distortion, horror)
toplighting (lighting directly from above the subject, tends to emphasise facial features)
Key light and fill light, sometimes also backlight
Acting: ‘realistic’, ‘actorly’, pantomime, etc.
Space: background, middleground, foreground, composition and depth, focus
The Shot
Speed – slow-motion, ordinary, accelerated, freeze-frame
Perspective – depth of picture: wide-angle lens (exaggerate depth), middle-focal lens (normal perspective), telephoto lens (reduces depth), zoom lens (adjusts depth within a single shot)
Focus – selective focus (all else blurred), deep focus (faster film, shorter focal-length lens: deeper focus)
Framing – what is in the image, what is cut out: onscreen and offscreen space, vantage point on to image (whole bodies, whole rooms, or cut off bodies, half rooms)
Distance of shot – extreme long shot (landscapes, vistas, cityscapes), long shot (figures, but background dominates), plan américain (shot from knees-up, allows balance of background and figure), medium shot (waist-up shot, allows focus on expression), medium close-ip (chest-up), close-up (head or small object, emphasises facial expression), extreme close-up (detail: lips, eyes, etc.)
Subjective angles – point-of-view shot (shot as if it were the character’s pov)
Moving Cameras (mobile framing) – pan (panorama: rotates camera on vertical axis left-to-right), tilt (rotates camera on horizontal axis, up and down), tracking shot (camera travels on ground following action), crane shot (camera moves off ground above action)
Duration of image – the long take (shot of long duration): discomfort, focus, attention
Editing
Editing is about how the various shots in the film are joined together
Ways of joining (editing) shots:
Cut to new shot (most common means)
Fade-out (darkens towards end of the shot into black)
Fade-in (new shot gradually lightens)
Dissolve (end of shot A is briefly superimposed onto shot B, implying continuity)
Wipe (line moves across film, replacing one shot with another)
Continuity editing – The classic Hollywood technique
Cutting shots to tell a story, ensure narrative continuity and smooth flow from shot to shot
Keeping figures in continuity, lighting remains constant and action stays central to the frame
Long shots have longer takes than medium shots, and medium longer takes than close-ups (spectator needs more time to take in detail)
The 180º system – everything happens in the half-cricle in front of the camera, which marks the ‘centre line’
This ensures that the same space is described in each shot
Establishing shot (establishes the space in which action is to happen)
Shot/reverse shot – one shots shows one end of the central line, the other shows the other end
Eyeline match – character look looks offscreen, next shot shows us what they see
Match on action – character begins to move in one shot, we see continuation of movement in next shot
Montage shots – dissolves of ‘external information’ (newspaper clippings, etc.) giving information in compressed form, ensuring orientation
Non-continuity
editing
Non-continuity editing is one way in which art-house films challenge Hollywood conventions. By breaking down continuity, filmmakers reveal that film is ‘constructed’, not ‘natural’, and also challenge the relationship between cause and effect and the assumed ideologies of Hollywood.
The jump shot – shooting a subsequent shot from almost the same angle and distance, even though the action has moved on (gives the impression that the camera is not ‘with’ the action – ie it is ‘there’ – and makes the film feel jerky)
Non-diegetic insert – insertion of something from outside the plot, ie a metaphorical image, intertitle, etc.
‘Poor editing’
Voices talking over another, ‘poor’ sound quality
Plot, subplots, logical progression challenged
Two
examples from German Cinema
The 1990s ‘Hollywood’ German Cinema
Katzelmacher
A
history of the German Cinema, 1945-1980s