Subject: Re: Sociology-Film
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 1999 11:41:26 -0700 (MST)
From: Gary Norris <garyn-AT-tatteredcover.com>


dennis posted:
> 
> I would like to comment on the notion of subjectivity creeping in to film,
> long before the first shot.
> Of course it does...in any artistic medium. Didn't Picasso have a point of
> view in his painting Guernica?  I believe that what Ed speaks to is
> Constructed Mediated Reality, the unavoidable practice of portraying events as
> they are perceived (not necessariily as they are) when telling a story. When a
> story is non-fictional, the author puts his/her stamp on the book, which is,
> in turn, given a new, or at least different,  point of view when made into a
> film.


however, since Mallarme and Barthes' essay on the death of the author, we 
have been deluged in academia with theorists who insist that the view of 
the artist is not the point, in fact that the point does not exist.  
Barthes went so far as to say that the reader (he was writing about the 
novel, but theorists are always crossing critical genres), so the 
audience let us say, once finding pleasure in the text (film) is actually 
the author.  We have to work through this issue rather than pointing to it.



> This, however, is not a real concern when using film as a mirror of social
> behavior, as long as you realize that it is constructed- and by definition,
> not necessarily accurate.


I disagree with this.  No one believes that film is real, rather we would 
all agree that it is emotive.  the issue is that hollywood *is* not 
concerned with accuracy as much as morality (in an Aesopian sense.)  I 
mean by this, 
that in telling a story through showing us pictures of ourselves, we are 
educating the masses about themselves.  Societal viewpoints are shaped by 
"the show."  The show can't be accurate, so why go for "realism".  
However in the New German Cinema, Herzog and Wenders (at times) have 
handled human realism quite well.  But notice the distinct difference in 
film styles.  Hollywood goes technical for realism, while the German's 
mesh it out in discourse and a strained sense of humanity.  Give me 
Strozek, with his turkey and shotgun and the chair lift "Is this really 
me" painted on the back and the silent and distant report of the gunshot, 
anyday over a Spielbergian forced milieu of staged violence.  


> An example would be the portrayal of  women in film, and later television. 
> 1n 1902 we had Theda Bara as the "vamp" character....a character that has
> never gone away. In Red Headed Woman (Conway, 1932), Jean Harlow plays this
> character to perfection. The vamp is a woman who uses her "femimine wiles" to
> get what she wants. Who among us, of either gender, has never used sex as a
> weapon?
> The New York Hat (Griffith, 1912), portrays several types of women. The lead
> character receives a fancy hat from the preacher...not knowing that it was the
> dying wish of her grandfather that she should have something nice from the
> money he had saved before his death, the town gossips begin to suspect
> (publicly) that something must be going on between the girl and the preacher. 
> It has long been a practice in film to take one facet of a person, and magnify
> this to represent the ENTIRE person. But are not all women (and men) in
> possession of all of these qualitites, for better or for worse? Doesn't
> everyone have a (basically) good heart, but sometimes use sex as a weapon, or
> gossip about others?

good points.

LETTER FROM AN UNKOWN WOMAN.   how about that, for constructing an 
identity and a reality.



( i snipped some good points about 50's sociological stuff)
> Film is a mirror of society, not the society itself, and can be a very
> powerful tool in the study of the sociology of a given society at a given
> point in time. We must, however,  keep in mind that it is only a mirror.
> Characters are portrayed as they are expected to behave- not necessarily as
> they really do. 


dennis, though film is a mirror, it is not enough to say that it is a 
mirror.  Psychologically we depende upon the other, that which is 
representing us to ourselves, to speak to us about the world.  We have to 
have Ideology.  How the mirror is directed is pretty important and must 
be critiqued.  I would use Hamlet and his relation to his mother or Lear 
and his relationship with his daughters at this point to illustrate what 
happens when the signified phallus of masculine discourse (the mirror 
hamlet built, the same one Lear destroyed) is placed within the lap of 
the women they love.  This mirror not only reflects the world for us to 
represent history to ourselves, rather it holds within its image the 
design for society's mores.  When the mirror is misdirected or 
reconstructed (Lear's destruction when refusing to hear Cordelia's 
intent), society becomes terribly grotesque in the way it sees itself.  
We can lose our direction (or "the director.") 




> Film is most effective as a sociological tool when used to analyze the way
> that people were "expected" to act at a given time, in contrast to the way
> people really do act.


yes, if the audience is aware of this intent.


> I have used film as a tool when guest lecturing to many Sociology classes. The
> above examples refer to the portrayal of women in film...no matter what the
> topic, film is a reflection of society, and a very powerful tool in the study
> of Sociology.
> For what it's worth, I know of which I speak...I hold an MFA in Fine Art, an
> MA in Media Communication, and a PhD in Cinema Studies.....that, and 50 cents,
> might get me a cup of coffee.....
> Dennis


cool beans, daddy, give me some more


gary norris


ps--  pardon the shotgun posts, until I get a computer at home, I have to 
do this thinking stuff at work.


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