The Art of Storytelling

 Film scholars have traditionally been at odds as to whether story is provided in service of spectacle, or vice-versa. This dichotomy has further delineated into three distinct categories of narrative operation:           Classical , Alternation , and Affective .       However, a separate model (or, perhaps, refining of the Affective model) has since been classified to accomodate for nuance heretofore unacknowledged: the Cooperative model. This cooperative model asserts that spectacle and story work hand-in-hand to create a series of highs, lows, victories and defeats for the protagonist to experience, and the audience to feel, vicariously. This meandering of story, with dramatic ups and downs, are referred to as “emotional curves.”      In traditional film discourse, the Classical model maintains that narrative is the dominant figure in a Hollywood film. Every diegetic moment acts in service of progressing the fabula...

               As the sun sinks beneath the horizon and night descends upon the world, humanity huddles around the collective light to fend off the threats within the darkness. In ancient times, this was often equated with the fear of predators, red in tooth and claw, but as humans abandoned their caves and huts for more cosmopolitan climes, the dangers began to take on a more familiar appearance. Senseless crimes such as murder would often be attributed to strange, supernatural beings -- after all, in the eyes of early man, no human could possibly do something so heinous to their kin. As such, tales of blood-sucking demons such as the draugr of Scandinavia , vrykolakas of Greece, and vetālas of India began to rise in prominence all over the world. Though the word “vampire” would not be coined for many centuries, all of these legends speak to a baser human fear of those who would prey upon their own kind. In the 19th Century, the Vampire sudd...

       In Powell and Pressburger’s A Matter of Life and Death (1946), a British airman, torn between life and the afterlife, falls in love with an American servicewoman. In order to gain more time with his newly found love, an “appeals trial,” of sorts, is held in order to grant a stay-of-execution on the young airman’s death. Central to the argument of the prosecution, the Continental Soldier Abraham Farlin, is that this Englishman is little more than a corrupting influence on the life of a young, Bostonian woman. The defense, personified by the airman’s friend, the late Dr. Frank Reeves, argues, in turn, that America and England are more alike than even the superficial and historical similarities. “Does [a glass] break because it faulty or because it is glass?” The prosecution asks. “We are all as God made us,” he argues -- asserting that the difference between an American and an Englishman is as clear-cut as the difference between an American and a banana. Reev...

     In 1969, a young Steven Spielberg walked into the office of director John Ford. Spielberg, a fan of Ford’s, asked the veteran filmmaker what it takes to be a talented filmmaker. Supposedly, Ford pointed to a series of paintings on the wall behind him and asked Spielberg to determine what it was that he saw; inevitably, the novice Spielberg pointed out the subjects in the center-frame. At this, John Ford shook his head and imparted upon Spielberg what he would later call some of the most valuable advice he’d ever been given: “When you’re able to distinguish the art of the horizon at the top and the bottom...able to appreciate why it’s [there], then you might make a good [motion] picture maker” (Favreau). In the subsequent forty years since that anecdotal meeting, Spielberg has undeniably cemented himself as one of the world’s most prolific filmmakers.     Spielberg’s films vary in subject matter, his works focusing upon stories of wonder and fantasy in ...

       On April 30th, 1975, the CBS evening news aired footage shot in Saigon, South Vietnam. The images depicted Vietnamese, and a handful of American, civilians and soldiers fleeing for their lives as Communist forces began their final assault upon the city. While American involvement in Vietnam had slowed dramatically since 1973, to many watching at home, this final defeat proved the ultimate humiliation to a country that had previously thought itself invincible. Less than four years later, Francis Ford Coppola released a film that threatened to re-open wounds that had barely begun to heal. The Vietnam War affected Americans of all walks of life -- transgressing race and party-lines, hawk and dove, alike, and changed the face American culture, popular and otherwise. In fewer ways did art replicate life than in the case of Apocalypse Now (1979), whose troubled production was every bit the quagmire as the conflict in which its set. Dogged by everything from casting...

      Involving oneself with a narrative is a process that requires imagination. Without imagination, a viewer is unable to immerse themselves within the story, to associate with characters, or become emotionally influenced by the work at hand. Characters enable a viewer to become immersed within a story, typically through identification; being able to recognize traits within a character allows for the viewer to see themselves within the character. The means of engaging with the characters is typically divided between two distinct paths: empathic connection, and the structure of sympathy.        Scholars and psychologists have further specified the type of imagination required to intake a narrative as falling under “central” and “acentral imagining.” Under the former qualifier, an individual must actively envision themselves within an imaginary circumstance. Even if you’ve never been to the Grand Canyon, you can imagine the wind upon your face, th...

       Many among the Humanities often preoccupy themselves with the study of the ideology of mass art. Is art, particularly commercial, or mass art, merely a means of propagating a dominant culture’s ideology?  Or, barring that, is it a matter of subverting that culture’s ideology? Must the study of rhetoric fall into one of those two categories -- either wholesale proselytization, or condemnation?       The duality of such a standpoint is often a pitfall for many academics, as the reliance upon cultural ideology can be used as a crutch to avoid a true critical analysis. Such a shortcut, however, is capable of backfiring on the scholar -- for if their critique of a subject centers purely upon the ideological, then by default, their criticism is too far steeped within their own ideology as to be considered a truly neutral analysis.  Whether epistemic (a viewpoint based upon the logic of said ideology), or dominant (an ideology shared b...

       From dark and steamy alleyways, to sombrous and angular meeting rooms, few film styles or genres express such an evocative and recognizable lighting style than film noir.  But are these stylistic choices truly a convention belonging exclusively to the noir method, or is it merely a culmination of previously established, Hollywood classicism? Film theorists and analysts are often divided upon this question.      In the classical Hollywood Studio-era, actors, actresses, and (for all intents and purposes) “movie stars” were typically the vehicle upon which films rode to achieve Box Office success.  As such, it was typical for films to be shot in such a manner that would highlight the star in subtle, yet noticeable ways.  Three-point lighting and soft focus gave a “glamourising” effect during close-ups, ensuring that every single frame in which the star appears is as flattering as can be. After all, in the age of classical Hollywood C...

     In her exploration of the film Groundhog Day (1993) author Kristin Thompson asserts that the film, despite the originality of its premise and narrative method, adheres to numerous classical Hollywood filmmaking standards. Though high concept films are generally viewed as the antithesis of auteurism, films such as Groundhog Day fill a particular niche that proves that while a film may be fantastical it is, by no means, devoid of artistic value. Indeed, the simplicity of explanation of a high concept film grants the filmmaker the potential to be complex and poignant in their storytelling, showing audiences a new cinematic experience that otherwise traditional Hollywood filmmaking otherwise denies them. Groundhog Day features a single protagonist, Phil Connors, trapped within an endless loop of the eponymous holiday. In a departure from traditional Hollywood storytelling, which would insist upon spelling things out, plainly, for an audience, the reason for this myste...

Art has, predominantly, been judged on the basis of whether or not a viewer or audience derives pleasure from it. While artistic value and sensual pleasure are intrinsically connected, however, art does not gain its intrinsic value by simply being viewed as pleasurable to endure. In order to bridge this connection between art and pleasure, one must take into consideration certain caveats. If a work of art is capable of being pleasurable, is it able to do so, consistently? Is this manner of enjoyment consistent with the intention of the artist? Are the emotions generated by the work primarily positive, and if not positive, was the experience at least fulfilling? Many times upon engagement with a particular work of art, we may find that our initial exposure toward the work may produce much more pleasure at first as compared to numerous or repeated viewing of the work (Levinson 12). When the novelty and uniqueness of the experience has subsided, are we still enraptured by the work of ...

 Movies enjoy a lasting foothold as the premier artform of the twentieth-century and beyond.      Differentiating “movies” from the broader categorization of “film” or “motion pictures”, the medium has a broad sense of accessibility, relatability and perceptibility to a mass audience. These can all be credited, in part, with the genre’s lasting dominance within the modern era. Distinct from more catchall sobriquets, the term “movie” refers to a film style that utilizes narrative and representative reality to engage with its viewers. Through narrative, movies engage with its audience by harkening to the inborn human curiosity of “cause” and “effect.” We are able to perceive this causality with intense clarity due to the variability of framing and focus. By being shown in pictorial form, these details mean more to us than they ever potentially could be in less overt media, such as novels or even stage-plays. Movies, in essence, have a mass appeal because of the fluidit...

       The expression “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” while perhaps accurate, remains vague -- more appropriately, beauty is attributed to the fluency in which a viewer can intake and process aesthetics and stimuli. Objects which can be rapidly and reliably interpreted by its perceiver seem to almost universally prompt more positive responses, owing to many varying qualities including object symmetry, contrast and information saturation while also being attributed to the viewer’s history and familiarity with the subject.       The alacrity in which one can intake and interpret data, stimuli and information refers to one’s “processing fluency” (Reber 366). Generally speaking, subjects that require less processing in turn have been found to have a more positive effect on those viewing than other, more complex subjects. Often this is attributed to a feeling of “error-free processing,” and being able to accurately recognize the stimulus at han...