Narrative Conventions

Alienation VS Identification Identification Cinematic Pleasure Loss of Self Awareness Almost infant like Emotional Engagement Alienation Denial of Pleasure Self Awareness Intellectual engagement

Why was that Weird?

Elements of Film Mise en Scene: staging’. Describes everything in the image which has been placed in front of the camera for filming: set design, location, costume, make-up, props, actors, acting style and lighting effects. Cinematography: film stock, Lens, film speed, Exposure, Focus, framing (ie the distance, level, height and the angle of the camera) and camera movement. Shot types: List on Page 38

Production Audio Microphones Diegetic Non-Diegetic Sound

Editing Continuity Shot Reverse Shot Kuleshov effect 180 Degree Rule 30 Degree Rule Eyeline Match/Match on Action real time vs. story time Flashbacks Hollywood Montage

Post-Production Editing Special Effects Transitions Audio Editing and Sound Design

Imitation of Life 1959 Douglas Sirk

Hans Detlef Sierck German born son of Danish parents Bremen Playhouse ( ) Artistic Director Old Theater in Leipzig

Beginnings as Film Director Fled Nazi Germany in 1937 Arrived in US in 1939 Hitler’s Madman, 1943 (1st American Film)

Assigned only B-movies to work on Until he began working for Universal Studios in 1950 He directed comedy, westerns, and war films Most noted for complicated melodramas that showed a dark side to upper middle class life

1954 Magnificent Obsession 1955 There’s Always Tomorrow 1956 Written on the Wind 1958 All that Heaven Allows 1959 Imitation of Life

McCarthyism U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthyU.S. SenatorJoseph McCarthy increased fears about communist influence on American institutions and espionage by Soviet agents communist espionageSoviet During this time many thousands of Americans were accused of being Communists or communist sympathizers and became the subject of aggressive investigations and questioning before government or private- industry panels

Hollywood Blacklist entertainment industry blacklist, mid twentieth- century list of screenwriters, actors, directors, musicians, and other U.S. entertainment professionals who were denied employment in the field because of their political beliefs or associations, real or suspected as Socialistscreenwriters

Artists were barred from work on the basis of their alleged membership in or sympathy toward the American Communist Party, involvement in liberal or humanitarian political causes that enforcers of the blacklist associated with communism, and/or refusal to assist federal investigations into Communist Party activities; some were blacklisted merely because their names came up at the wrong place and timeAmerican Communist Party

Presented a dangerous environment for politically subversive work Imitation of Life seems to present a conformist or accomodationist stance. Story focuses on two women Laura who is ambitious Annie who lives in two worlds (as an African American maid in the middle class white world and as a community leader in her own)

The film seems to recommend that its female characters can find happiness by conforming to “more natural” domestic roles as mother and wife. For the women who rebel against their limitations it recommends the path of least resistance Acceptance of society’s view of women and women of color as different or inferior

Sirk’s Women’s Films Dismissed as soap operas until the 60’s and 70’s Subversive possibilities in mass culture accepted medium Genre study Feminist revision New German Cinema Cahiers du Cinema Considered Kitsch/Bad Taste

Within the Hollywood Studio Subversive and transgressive text Distance, self critique Response to the repressive Eisenhower era

Kitsch Appealing to popular taste in a bad way Low-Brow Often of poor quality

Dialectic Subject Matter/Genre Artist’s Direction

Baroque Visual Style Over the Top Elaborate Sets Garish Colors

Melodrama as social commentary Brechtian (avant garde theater: Three Penny Opera August, 1928) Distanciation or Verfremdungseffekt (defamiliarization effect) Self-reflexive theory of theater called the epic theater spectator shouldn’t identify emotionally with characters Climactic catharsis leaves the audience complacent His audience would have a critical perspective

recognition of social injustice and exploitation effect change in the world outside stripping the event of its self-evident, familiar, obvious quality and creating a sense of astonishment about them

Breaking the 4th wall harsh lighting songs interpreting action explanatory placards speaking the stage directions out loud Conventions Subverted

Ranier Werner Fassbinder on Sirk Saw him as a European artist who worked in Hollywood and made anti-American films Expressive lighting (garish colors) and strained happy endings This writing is considered by some to be narcissistic and Anti-American and a simplistic reading of Sirk’s work

How can melodrama be critical?

Ice Blue Color Scheme Central Character “Laura” becomes emotionally extraneous to the story Secondary Characters (minority) fill the emotional vmondy oid Take from reading Conventions of Women’s Pictures subverted