VIEWING A FILM

Viewers of motion pictures come in various sizes and shapes, ages, and nationalities. Their backgrounds on every level, as well as their emotional and intellectual capabilities, are often different. The needs of this diverse audience have been met by different genres and types of cinema. In the face of such a complex situation, a writer who wants to discuss "viewing a film" in a couple of dozen pages or so, even after admitting that he is infected with hubris, must carefully indicate the limitations of his discussion. In this essay we will deal only with basic principles and premises and of necessity will ignore whole areas of the subject.

The first step is easy. An individual's experience of a motion picture involves three interrelated stages: his attitudes and responses before, during, and after viewing the motion picture. The next step, considering each stage in turn, immediately puts us on the slippery ground of distinctions and definitions.

Psychologists use the term sets to label the readiness of an organism to make a particular class of responses to an organization of stimuli. Although we are reluctant to describe a film as an "organization of stimuli," we should recognize that we do have different sets for different types of motion pictures. The most significant distinction is between the class of responses we are ready to make to the experience of watching a motion picture: is it solely entertainment or a work of cinematic art?

This distinction is not, of course, clear-cut and is even controversial. A few definitions will clarify our discussion. An entertainment amuses or frightens or titillates us, but what it does not do is to challenge our views of ourselves and the world around us. We escape from rather than confront our emotions and ideas. When we leave an entertainment, time has passed pleasantly, but our psyches have been unaffected otherwise by the experience.

A work of art engages our feelings and intellect and arouses us to ask questions about the experience and to what degree it has influenced our worldview. The greatest art even communicates to us insights into human nature that we might never have arrived at without its help. All works of art are entertainment in the sense that they hold our attention and cause us to move out of ourselves during the time that we respond to them. The crucial difference between art and entertainment, however, is the intensity of the experience in the case of art and, again, the effect it has on us after we are physically separated from it.

In cinema criticism there are no universally accepted terms that differentiate between a motion picture that is solely an entertainment and one that is a work of art. We will, however, follow the lead of John Simon in the introduction to his book of film criticism, Movies and Film (New York, 1971), and refer to the former as a movie and the latter as a film.

The borderline between movies and films is hidden in a forest of individual tastes and judgments. To complicate matters further, a movie may contain a moving and memorable scene and a film may have arid portions. Even if we agree that it is the effect of the motion picture as a whole that distinguishes the two types of cinema, there is still the problem of individual judgment. It is not unusual for one critic to evaluate a motion picture as an artistic masterpiece and another to dismiss it as a dull movie. The same diversity of opinions may occur when films of generally acknowledged value are compared with each other to establish their relative places in a hierarchy of artistic significance.

No more than in the other media that produce works of art does cinema criticism contain absolute criteria for judging between a movie and film or degrees of success within each category. There are even those who maintain that cinema is incapable of being an art. Some of their arguments are specious; others are disconcerting in pointing out the limitations of the motion picture medium. We do not have the space to engage in a defense of our position that cinema has and will continue to give us works of art, but we will make the following points: Critical judgment is always difficult in a popular medium, especially in the case of cinema, which has created far more movies than films. We should also keep in mind that the history of motion pictures is considerably less than a century old and serious criticism has appeared only during the last four decades. In addition, motion pictures are expensive to make (which restricts the possibility for experimentation with new ideas and techniques); specific works are not the creation of a single individual; and, most important, they are not as readily available as books are in print, paintings and photographs in reproductions, and music on phonograph records (a situation that could change radically when video cassettes are perfected).

What difference does it make, though, in viewing a motion picture if we consider it a movie or film? None, if an individual maintains the same sets whether listening to a symphony by Beethoven or tunes played by Guy Lombardo and his orchestra. Most of us, however, prepare ourselves to make a greater effort emotionally and intellectually when confronted by art than when exposed to entertainment.

The precept that an artistic work requires concentration and energy is particularly important when one is distinguishing between films and movies because many people have developed the habit of passivity when viewing a motion picture. Stanley Kauffmann insists on this point in the article, "Film Negatives," Saturday Review of the Arts ( March 1973), pp. 37-40, although he contrasts bad films and good films rather than movies and films. He argues that the chief problem of film appreciation is the ease with which a viewer can be seduced into an "aesthetic sloth." "There is something of a whorehouse feeling about this film ease, a whiff of lazy gratification in the darkness." On the other hand, "good films reprove us for indiscriminate rump-plumping. Good films ask us to do something in that seat, make demands on us, help dispel that brothel lethargy (without destroying pleasure)."

There are few cinema enthusiasts who have not discussed a significant film with a person who insists, "I don't know what you're talking about. It was just a movie." There is nothing wrong with movies in themselves. There are times when we want only to be entertained, and there are few media that can give us this type of pleasure with greater vitality than movies. To ignore films, however, is to deny ourselves the more profound experiences that they can offer. Motion pictures can never be anything but movies for individuals who do not open themselves to the possibility of being moved and influenced by what they see. And it is for this reason that there is no more important principle than the sets we have when viewing a motion picture.

Once this principle is accepted, it is evident why an individual should prepare himself intellectually and emotionally before viewing a film. For new films, one should read reviews by trusted reviewers. For older films, articles and books can be enlightening. Later we will discuss the value of understanding cinematic techniques, but now we will simply assert that the more one knows about these techniques, the easier it is to appreciate what a film is attempting to communicate and to judge its significance to the viewer himself. In this respect, books, film classes, and film clubs can help immeasurably. It is also important to learn the similarities and differences in purpose and approach of various film genre, such as fictive narrative, documentary, cartoon, and abstract film. If it is possible to do so, actually making a motion picture, no matter how short, can teach one more about cinema than a dozen books and lectures.
Our prepared viewer is now ready for the second stage of viewing a film--the experience itself. He has set himself to concentrate on the screen and to be alert to all details; now is the time to use these faculties. To look properly at a film, the viewer must as much as possible enter into its rhythms and empathize with the emotions it generates. At the end of a fine film, we may be exhilarated and emotionally charged, but we also may be as happily exhausted as after, say, two hours spent in an art gallery or at a concert.

There is a question often asked about experiencing a film. Should one analyze a film while seeing it? Our answer is one that not all will agree with. We believe that the first time an individual is viewing a film, he should not consciously consider what it is communicating or the techniques used. Anything that distracts from full, unswerving attention to the experience of the film itself should be rejected. This does not mean that a viewer will not mentally note an awkward scene or a particularly brilliant effect; it is simply that he should not dissect his reactions during the viewing. This process is reserved for the next stage, when he analyzes the film. We should mention, however, that the more experienced a person is in film viewing and the greater is his knowledge of cinematic techniques, the more details and devices he will notice. It seems that the mind develops a silent critical faculty that does not interfere with one's immediate responses to what is happening on the screen.

Because a film cannot be easily re-viewed, as in the case of a novel or a concerto on a phonograph record, memory is an essential tool in studying a motion picture. There is, as psychologists have proven, a direct correlation between memory and concentration. Here is another reason for developing the ability to focus all one's psychic energies on a film during viewing.

There is an approach that we recommend when viewing a fictive narrative film for the first time. This genre by definition contains a story. It makes no difference essentially if the story is as straightforward as in a film by Renoir or as diffuse and convoluted as often in one by Alain Renais. Although it will lessen suspense, it is worthwhile to find out the plot of a film before seeing it. It is even better to go through a script if one is available. Our justification for this suggestion is that plot is the most accessible element in a narrative film and knowledge of it allows a viewer to concentrate on other aspects while watching the film. Later it can encourage an analysis to move from "what happened?" to the more important questions of "why?" and "how?"

One naturally wants to see a significant film more than once. Each viewing will reveal new implications and subtleties. Hopefully, repeated viewings of a film will not dull the excitement of the original experience, but it is almost inevitable that an individual's critical faculties will operate with greater acuteness with every viewing. A person familiar with the over-all development of a film shifts his attention from the general to the specific, from the obvious to the elusive.

Ideally, a serious student of cinema should study a film after a first viewing on a Moviola or a similar instrument that allows him to slow down a print, even to a frame-by-frame speed. In that way he can peruse the miniature images and hear the synchronized sound. This is, however, not always possible, and most viewers must settle for taking advantage of every opportunity to see a worthwhile film more than once.

We have two recommendations for a person who is watching a film for the second time beyond the obvious one of reading any critical studies available. First of all, it is helpful to write in anticipation of that viewing and based on memory of an initial viewing a descriptive listing of the sequences that constitute the film and even a list of scenes within each sequence. Having a script in hand, of course, makes this exercise easier. The purpose is to expose the skeletal structure of the film; a sequence listing also helps to organize one's responses. Secondly, a person can make use of a portable cassette recorder during a second viewing. He can whisper into the microphone of the recorder--if this can be done without disturbing others--what he observes on the screen, such as details and techniques, and his own reactions. The value of this procedure is obvious. Not only does it aid one's concentration, but it is also an invaluable record for further study.

We are now ready to consider the third stage of viewing a film--the analysis after experiencing a film. Most of us enjoy discussing a motion picture that has excited us, yet we are often unsure of how to verbalize or to write about the experience. Perhaps we can best begin by stating our arguments against those who maintain that one should not go beyond personal, immediate responses to a film. We believe that if such responses go unexamined, in Socratic terms, then the individual is seeing without perceiving. Especially in a classroom, a supposed "analysis" of a film is very often only a justification of subjective reactions rather than a questioning, probing, and challenging of those reactions. Wordsworth may have been correct in asserting about art that to dissect is to kill. Equally restrictive, however, is the view that the mind plays no role in our appreciation of a work of art. As so often is the case with two extremes, a middle ground is the most productive. The original emotions and ideas aroused by a film must be preserved as much as possible, but now, in this third stage, they must be examined, studied, and placed in contexts that lift them from the immediate to the universal.

It is debatable just what critical apparatus one uses to dissect a film without killing primal responses to it that must always remain the foundations on which an analysis is based. Obviously, as the writers of a book of film analysis we have our own answer, which is both demonstrated and justified in the book itself. Because this volume, however, is confined to fictive narrative films, our comments will deal with this cinematic genre.

If there is one premise on which Film and the Critical Eye is based, it is that an analysis of a film must take into account both narrative elements and visual techniques--that the two are inseparable. Let us examine this premise.

A narrative is a series of events in time involving the relations of human beings to themselves, others, and their circumambient universe. It may describe events that have actually happened or are fictive (imagined by its creator). The narrative mode of expression has certain inherent characteristics that can be analyzed: there is a story or plot (the distinction, as E. M. Forster noted in Aspects of the Novel, is between a narration of events arranged in their time sequence and a narrative in which the emphasis falls on causality), characterization, conflict, themes, setting, symbols, and so on.

A narrative, however, can be communicated to an audience in various media and combinations of media. A narrative of, say, a hero on a quest can be told in a novel, poem, drama, motion picture, opera, or tone poem --to name only a few possibilities. Each form in which the narrative is cast can be explored in terms of the same elements of narration, but our experience of one form will not be the same as in another. Whatever the limitations and gains in each case, surely we respond in very different ways to the narrative of the journey of Siegfried in the medieval epic, Wagner's operas, Giraudoux play (Siegfried), and Fritz Lang film ( Siegfried's Tod). The reasons do not have to be labored. Every medium that uses a narrative mode conveys the elements of the narrative in accord with the very characteristics that define the medium.

These generalizations will become clearer if we return to motion pictures. This medium has its own unique visual language and rhetoric (which, since the early 1930s, includes the dimension of the auditory). We usually do not realize how many cinematic techniques we have absorbed unawares. We take for granted the difference between physical time and cinematic time, the two dimensions of a screen, the effect of a close-up, a cut, or parallel development. A glance at history, however, can give us perspective. There was a chorus of critics who maintained that when Edwin S. Porter used a flat cut and D. W. Griffith cross-cutting, viewers would be completely confused. This opinion proved to be wrong and audiences soon learned to accept these cinematic principles and others that were developed.

Today an audience may have no difficulties with elementary techniques of motion pictures, but a serious student of film should go beyond these basics. He should recognize the differences in the impact of a shot or scene when a director uses a high camera angle or low angle, a stationary camera or dynamic cutting, a long shot or a close-up, parallel asynchronization of sound or counterpoint synchronization, shadows or complete illumination--or any of a dozen other devices of cinema language and rhetoric. We are not referring simply to an intellectual exercise in labeling techniques, but a means of appreciating the reasons for the choices that have been made in the creation of a film. This, in turn, leads to more perceptive analyses of films.

An aspect of the language and rhetoric of film, although it is sometimes viewed as a separate area, is the role of each component of a film in its production. Film making is a group activity that requires a director, producer, actors, scriptwriter, cameraman, lighting and sound directors, composer (if there is background music), set designer for interiors, editor, and many other artists and technicians. A director is the most important figure, for he must coordinate the activities of the others. Occasionally, a director, such as Chaplin or Welles, will assume more than one role. A familiarity with how motion pictures are put together cannot help but increase a viewer's awareness of the potentials and restrictions of the medium.

Now to sum up our recommendations for analyzing a film. First the viewer attempts to recall as completely as possible his original impressions. Next he reinforces, corrects, or adds to these responses by reviewing any notes he has taken, such as a listing of sequences and what has been recorded on a cassette tape, and by rereading a script and any other printed matter that deals with what actually appeared on the screen.

The analysis itself will have as its goal the discovery of what the creators of the film were attempting to communicate and how they did it. Solid foundations for a critical study of a film require knowledge of the elements of a mode of expression and the language and rhetoric of the film (including the roles of individuals in a team of film makers). There is not, of course, a direct ratio, only a relationship between the degree of this knowledge and the quality of an analysis, for the latter depends also on the experience, intelligence, and sensibilities of the viewer.

In the case of a narrative film, one can perhaps best proceed in an analysis by examining individually each element of narrative, yet at every point considering how an emotion or idea was conveyed cinematically. The viewer should also recognize that no one element is independent of the others, and the same applies to specific techniques.

Thus far we have offered only suggestions for analyzing a film as a self-sufficient entity without going beyond--except for developing critical apparatus--what the viewer experiences directly. To complete an analysis, however, another step should be taken. It is also worthwhile to explore an individual film in larger contexts that may give insights into the "why" as well as the "what" and "how" of a film. In other words, how do we interpret a film? We feel that this complex problem must be dealt with separately, and we do so in the next chapter.

From: "FILM AND THE CRITICAL EYE" by Dennis DeNitto