What are the limitations of film?

In a way, it lacks the sheer spontaneity of other art forms.

obviously film has developed conventions to communicate almost anything--but which of these conventions are a bit wacky? can you juggle multiple perspectives in a way less schematic than Rashomon or is film always anchored to one, presumably objective, perspective?

(this question was inspired by Polanski's Macbeth, which actually shows the dagger during Macbeth's famous "dagger of the mind" speech. clearly in the play the dagger is just in Macbeth's mind, so why did Polanksi feel the need to show it? would it have been uncinematic otherwise?)

is Eisenstein's method of montage about upsetting our expections for what happens in a cut? (not a rhetorical question)

A fine example of what film can and can't do is to compare "Lolita" the book version to "Lolita" the film.

which one?

@d@ml - do you think the language of editing is completely learned and not at all intuitive?

For an audience? ...yes, I do think it is learned. If film's motivation was originally to present a "reality" alternate or related to our own, we would still need to view it as such, as something related to our perceptive experience, which doesn't tend to include "cuts" and juxtapositions of the type found when watching a film.

As an editor, your first instinct is always to be totally linear (as in life), but this is clearly not always the best route to take. So yes, I do think it is something that has to be learned.

I guess this reality is so singular to film as the word "cinematic", when applied to any other mediums, tends to infer a kind of overpowering sweep, energy, and ambition. Conversely, film critics obviously feel they need to reference other art forms in using words like "novelistic" (for attention to detail, depth of character), "musical" (rhythm of editing), or "painterly" (ugh!- for cinematography).

lots of people like to compare film to music or lyric poetry--and while those mediums can be narratives in the most basic sense (one thing follows from another) more often then not they are impressionistic or tone-pieces.

i guess i mean that what I personally find most intriquing about film are the non-narrative aspects. and is power of the movies really connected to narrative at all--or does narrative allow us to interpret and contextualize the other things that we go to movies to see?

i sometimes think the principle failing of the movies is the de-emphasis on character--a push towards abstraction because the movies are actually pretty poor at narrative.

Tuomas, some of those points were great, but can you expand on "descriptions of a person's thoughts;flow of consciousness"? I actually think that film is equipped to handle both of these in a very unique way, if I understand your terms.

I meant of course linguistic descriptions of thoughts and flows of conciousness. You can use a spoken narrative in a film, but only to a certain degree, because it's overuse would halt the movie. Lolita is a fine example of this: only a few snippets of Humbert's voice, so important in the book, could be worked into the movie. Flow of consciousness has the same problems: obviously you can have a visual "flow of consciousness", but because pictures are by their nature more ambiguous and more open to interpretation, visual flow of consciousness can easily become a lot less comprehensible than a linguistic one.

i guess i mean that what I personally find most intriquing about film are the non-narrative aspects. and is power of the movies really connected to narrative at all--or does narrative allow us to interpret and contextualize the other things that we go to movies to see?

I tend to think that, more often than not, narrative is just one of many potential "hooks" to make you buy into whatever the film is selling (be it laughs, titillation, theory, whatever), although this works with all art forms - if there is something that prevents you from being engaged (or if it is lacking such an element), then it just isn't going to work. Films that obsess too much over narrative ("Memento"?) tend do so to the exclusion of these elements.

Again, this is what I'm talking about - do you not need to understand "the cut" before you can have expectations of it? I'm reminded of the old Aborigines/photographs anecdote.

Film is more open to personal interpretation. If a singer, for example, is off-key, well, you can theorize all you want, but when it comes down to it, the singer just did not sing the song well. A novel can have grammatical errors. Of course, that happens practically never, but what I'm getting at is that there are no rules when it comes to filmmaking. There is no "right" and "wrong" when it comes to film language. And so, if there is a film you don't particularly like, there really isn't any way to make a definite case against it. Someone can love a film for all the same reasons you hate it.

I think there are rules when it comes to filmmaking, if you are taking the "classical" style as a model, that is. A film can present random, unconnected images and deny a narrative, even be deliberately out of focus, yet we are still allowed a judgement call on the preceived "qualities" of it, in much the same way we would judge a singer might be off-key or out of time with a beat- sometimes it's nice to have some rough edges!

I guess the argument can be made that once you pick up the camera to record that moment, it may have already passed, whereas you can capture that moment spontaneous by writing about it or drawing it, etc. but this is still a future moment looking back on your subject. i guess film fails in this ability of retrospect, at least the medium in itself does.

film can be very improvisational, poetic even. moving randomly, changing perspectives on a whim.

i think the larger problem in accepting film as a spontaneous medium comes more from the concept that a film must be contrived by way of story, lighting, acting, etc. i look more to filmmakers such as jem cohen, stan brakhage, leighton pierce, etc. who may premeditate enough to set up a shot, but don't let difficult natural conditions keep them from recording the moment.

For me, the spontaneity lies only in the conception of these things, not the execution. I have a journal that I use solely for film ideas, and while it takes a long time to fill up (my last 40 pages span from October 2002 on), it allows me first to capture the urgence of what I want and what I'm trying to convey, and then I can return to it and polish this. If it takes me another year or two to actually execute this, so what? I'd rather get it right.

The other thing is that if you're constantly shooting (in whatever medium du jour), this will hone you as well. For me there's no greater pleasure than finishing a shoot and finding out (as we frequently do) that there is an extra roll or two. My DP and I go out and just play with things, and occasionally this is when each of us pulls stuff out of our sleeves that we've been carrying around for some time.

Ultimately, though, I'm guessing that no matter how spontaneous and great a shot or scene may be, you're gonna need to edit, edit, and edit it to what you're really trying to get, and so the instant gratification of seeing raw image is no more valuable than, say, waiting a week to get back developed (and maybe telecined) film. What I love about film are the surprises, the anti-suspense of setting up a shot you hope will come out perfectly and then waiting (somehow it's only urgent once you can see it, not for the duration of the wait you have no control over). While there are the odd shots that got fucked up for one reason or another, more often then not, the amazement of seeing the results you got always exceeds what you expected you got. And almost all the time there are shots you just quickly do, "knowing" that it's not likely to really come out. And then they come out absolutely magnificently. And you praise film. For these and many more reasons, I will never abandon film to an immediately received medium.

an example: if I film a dog walking down the street and then show you the film, then isn't the film about THAT particular dog walking down THAT particulal street--in effect it is about THAT event and no other. to what extent is the abstraction we bring to film criticism (the dog represents X, the dog represents all dogs, etc) really a denial of the special properties of film as a medium that captures particularites rather than generalities? with regards to live action--what was filmed REALLY happened to an extent.

words refer to things, as do images i suppose--but to what extent is film less a representation of something rather than a actual instance of something?

what's that joke: no matter the context of the movie, the minute someone takes their clothes off you are making a documentary. to what extent are all films documentaries?

I don't really think it follows for plays themselves so much as experiences of plays because of the fact that:

1) most shows have several showings, each of which will have a different specific performance, and
2) the medium is explicitly designed with the knowledge that any good play will run many times with many different people. While playwrights may indeed write certain parts with a particular actor in mind, they also have to write with the knowledge that many others will play those roles, too. So it doesn't make much sense to specify it to the point that you could only have a hunchback albino giant for a role, because ultimately you're gonna be compromised down the line by someone else staging it later and either ignoring certain parts of that character/actor or trying to compensate for it in different ways (probably badly, either through odd acting or poor special effects).

yeah! didn't he refer to Bazin too?

brought to mind by people calling the Passion a "snuff" film (let's not discuss that though) and all those recent hard-core art films.

as someone who instinctively recoils from realistic violence AND sex in movies (i don't mean im not turned on by realistic sex in movies, it just pulls me out of whatever normal movie watching state im usually in, suddenly im watching pornography) i'd like to know if it's just me.

what i imagine the intention is in these arty films when they avoid stylizing sex and violence (and thus avoid making it aesthetically pleasing) is to somehow harness this power these things have in REAL life--a basic sort of adrenal reaction.

so i guess im saying this is something that film can do (present realistic sex and violence) that other art forms are forced to stylize.

also interesting to think about stylization vs. realism in regard to older films--people running away from approaching trains etc...

im thinking of old horror films that are not even remotely scary anymore.

First off, let me say that I don't believe in the idea of "stylization vs. realism". The great lesson of the Cinema Verite and neorealist periods was that even "realism" is a stylization--whenever you choose to turn a camera on something, you are making a stylistic choice. Often the most "realistic" films are the most stylized.

A good example of this is the film "Saving Private Ryan". I remember how surprised I was when it first came out that people were amazed by how realistic the fight scenes were. Yet they were drastically color-corrected, shot at a very jarring shutter speed, etc.

So this raises the question--why is one image/scene considered "stylized" and another "realistic"? What formal qualities lend themselves to a look that we deem to be representative of "true life" (handheld camera? certain color pallettes, shutter speeds, exposures, soundtrack, etc.?) And why do we often find realism in gritty scenes, even black & white films seem more "realistic" to many people strangely enough.

I don't know if this was an appropriate response to your question, but I think this is my initial stepping stone or foundation into the sex/violence issue you posed.

This could lead to some interesting discussion of voyeurism in cinema as well. It's making me think of one of my favorite films on the topic, "David Holtzman's Diary", where the camera in all actuality becomes a weapon and a sexual object in its own right.

funny thing about this type of "realism" is the attempt to make horror films look like home movies...(blair witch, even that recent zombie movie i am forgetting)

First off, how do I do italics? I'm tired of putting quotes around everything....

To answer the question, I think the idea of realism in the cinema is constantly changing (or at least evolving) While people thought the early Lumiere shorts & "Great Train Robbery", etc. were incredibly realistic (to the point of needing to feel the screen or jump out of their seats when an object came towards the camera), by today's standards, those films have very few qualities we deem realist (they are grainy, B&W, etc. They show evidence of the medium itself).

However, whether it's by some type of collective unconcious or what, many of these old "realistic" techniques have held on, despite an evolving & more media aware audience (long takes, handheld camera, even film grain & B&W cinematography are surprisingly still taken as "realistic", reinforced by the 90's indie film movement).

The only thing that really evolves in the mind of the audience seems to be acting styles. The overacting of the early silent films was seen as realistic in the 20's & 30's, but not now. Heck, even films from the 50's, anything "pre-method", seem phony to most of today's audience.

to close it you do the same thing with a slash - [/i]

those films have very few qualities we deem realist (they are grainy, B&W, etc. They show evidence of the medium itself).

I'm not sure any of those are elements that prevent something from being realist. In fact, they might all increase the realism, by making the film seem more "authentic".

However, whether it's by some type of collective unconcious or what, many of these old "realistic" techniques have held on, despite an evolving & more media aware audience (long takes, handheld camera, even film grain & B&W cinematography are surprisingly still taken as "realistic", reinforced by the 90's indie film movement).

The strange thing is why would such qualities, that really do not reflect true human experience at all (except to color-blind folks with bobble-heads), seem realistic to us (and I include myself in this--I'm always a sucker for cinema verite B&W docs)?