Film Form Culture Webinar Series

What Can Film Do Better Than Any Other Art?

One of the reasons we don’t pay attention to the form and structure of film is that the form and structure of film disappear behind the very story and characters they produce. However, film is about making images and editing them into stories.  We will analyze and discuss the meaning of three films and start by exploring the image through examining mise-en-scene and montage. We will also look at the culture that produced each film.  Culture in the sense of the general ideological components of society at the time the film was made. For instance, Rashomon, our first film, is often seen as a film about the notoriously unreliability of eyewitnesses – an exploration of memory, truth and justice. However, the film was produced in post-war Japan under American occupation and is a reflection of that time. With a close reading of Kurosawa’s camera, it can be viewed as an anti-war film, questioning moral certainties and the roots of violence.

Please view the films before each class! 

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We will start with Kurosawa’s masterwork, Rashomon, first viewed at The Venice Biennial in 1951 and winning best picture, leading to the ‘discovery’ of Japanese cinema by the west and the ascension of its director into the cannon of master film directors. The script is based on two short stories by Agutagawa, whom Kurosawa described as “going into the depths of the human heart as if with a surgeon’s scalpel, laying bare its dark complexities and bizarre twists. Kurosawa accomplishes this with his camera and I will be showing many stills and short clips which we will analyze and talk about together.  

As many of you are artists with training and experience in the elements of composition, line, space, texture, proportion, balance etc your comments on Kurosawa’s mise-en-scene and editing techniques will be insightful.

Mise-en-scene

This is a term borrowed from the theater. If you are not sure what this means please visit Film Life Style or one of the many good explanations on YouTube.

Please watch at least a couple of times the opening scenes of Rashomon Gate up to when the woodcutter enters the forest. We will discuss the opening at length.

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