B0041VYHGW EBOK (26 page)

In reading this book, you’ll find that we have generally minimized evaluation. We think that most of the films and sequences we analyze are more or less good based on the artistic criteria we mentioned, but the purpose of this book is not to persuade you to accept a list of masterpieces. Rather, we believe that if we show in detail how films may be understood as artistic systems, you will have an informed basis for whatever evaluations you wish to make.

Because film form is a system—that is, a unified set of related, interdependent elements—there must be some principles that help create the relationships among the parts. In the sciences, principles may take the form of physical laws or mathematical propositions. For researchers and inventors, such principles provide firm guidelines as to what is possible. For example, engineers designing an airplane must obey fundamental laws of aerodynamics.

In the arts, however, there are no absolute principles of form that all artists must follow. Artworks are products of culture. Thus many of the principles of artistic form are matters of convention. In
Chapter 9
, we shall examine how various genres can have very different conventions. A Western is not violating a law of nature if it does not follow the conventions of classic Westerns. The artist follows (or disobeys)
norms
—bodies of conventions, not laws.

But within these conventions, each artwork tends to set up its own specific formal principles. The forms of different films can vary enormously. We can distinguish, however, five general principles that we notice in experiencing a film’s formal system: function, similarity and repetition, difference and variation, development, and unity/disunity.

If form in cinema is the overall interrelation among various systems of elements, we can assume that every element has one or more
functions
. That is, every element will be seen as fulfilling roles within the whole system.

Of any element within a film we can ask, What are its functions? In
The Wizard of Oz,
every major character fulfills one or more roles. For instance, Miss Gulch, the woman who wants to take Toto from Dorothy, reappears in the Oz section as the Wicked Witch. In the opening portion of the film, Miss Gulch frightens Dorothy into running away from home. In Oz, the Witch prevents Dorothy from returning home by keeping her away from the Emerald City and by trying to seize the ruby slippers.

Even an element as apparently minor as the dog Toto serves many functions. The dispute over Toto causes Dorothy to run away from home and to get back too late to take shelter from the tornado. Later, when Dorothy is about to leave Oz, Toto’s pursuit of a cat makes her jump out of the ascending balloon. Toto’s gray color, set off against the brightness of Oz, creates a link to the black and white of the Kansas episodes at the film’s beginning. Functions, then, are almost always multiple. Both narrative and stylistic elements have functions.

One useful way to grasp the function of an element is to ask what other elements demand that it be present. For instance, the narrative requires that Dorothy run away from home, so Toto functions to trigger this action. Or, to take another example, Dorothy must seem completely different from the Wicked Witch, so costume, age, voice, and other characteristics function to contrast the two. Additionally, the switch from black-and-white to color film functions to signal the arrival in the bright fantasy land of Oz.

Note that the concept of function does not always depend on the filmmaker’s intention. Often discussions of films get bogged down in the question of whether the filmmaker really knew what he or she was doing by including a certain element. In asking about function, we do not ask for a production history. From the standpoint of intention, Dorothy may sing “Over the Rainbow” because MGM wanted Judy Garland to launch a hit song. From the standpoint of function, however, we can say that Dorothy’s singing that song fulfills certain narrative and stylistic functions. It establishes her desire to leave home, its reference to the rainbow foreshadows her trip through the air to the colorful land of Oz, and so forth. In asking about formal function, therefore, we ask not, “How did this element get there?” but rather, “What is this element
doing
there?” and “How does it cue us to respond?”

One way to notice the functions of an element is to consider the element’s
motivation
. Because films are human constructs, we can expect that any one element in a film will have some justification for being there. This justification is the motivation for that element. For example, when Miss Gulch appears as the Witch in Oz, we justify her new incarnation by appealing to the fact that early scenes in Kansas have established her as a threat to Dorothy. When Toto jumps from the balloon to chase a cat, we motivate his action by appealing to notions of how dogs are likely to act when cats are around.

Sometimes people use the word “motivation” to apply only to reasons for characters’ actions, as when a murderer acts from certain motives. Here, however, we’ll use “motivation” to apply to any element in the film that the viewer justifies on some grounds. A costume, for example, needs motivation. If we see a man in beggar’s clothes in the middle of an elegant society ball, we will ask why he is dressed in this way. He could be the victim of practical jokers who have deluded him into believing that this is a masquerade. He could be an eccentric millionaire out to shock his friends. Such a scene does occur in
My Man Godfrey.
The motivation for the beggar’s presence at the ball is a scavenger hunt; the young society people have been assigned to bring back, among other things, a homeless man
(
2.4
).
An event, the hunt,
motivates
the presence of an inappropriately dressed character.

Motivation is so common in films that spectators take it for granted. Shadowy, flickering light on a character may be motivated by the presence of a candle in the room. (In production the light is provided by offscreen lamps, but the candle purports to be the source and thus motivates the pattern of light.) A character wandering across a room may motivate the moving of the camera to follow the action and keep the character within the frame. When we study principles of narrative form (
Chapter 3
) and various types of films (
Chapters 9
and
10
), we will look more closely at how motivation works to give elements specific functions.

In our example of the ABACA pattern, we saw how we were able to predict the next steps in the series. One reason for this was a regular pattern of repeated elements. Like beats in music or meter in poetry, the repetition of the A’s in our pattern established and satisfied formal expectations. Similarity and repetition, then, constitute an important principle of film form.

Repetition is basic to our understanding any film. For instance, we must be able to recall and identify characters and settings each time they reappear. More subtly, throughout any film, we can observe repetitions of everything from lines of dialogue and bits of music to camera positions, characters’ behavior, and story action.

It’s useful to have a term to describe formal repetitions, and the most common term is
motif
. We shall call
any significant repeated element in a film
a motif. A motif may be an object, a color, a place, a person, a sound, or even a character trait. We may call a pattern of lighting or camera position a motif if it is repeated through the course of a film. (See
“A Closer Look,”
pp. 69
–70.) The form of
The Wizard of Oz
uses all these kinds of motifs. Even in such a relatively simple film, we can see the pervasive presence of similarity and repetition as formal principles.

Film form uses general similarities as well as exact duplication. To understand
The Wizard of Oz,
we must see the similarities between the three Kansas farmhands and the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion. We must notice additional echoes between characters in the frame story and in the fantasy
(
2.9
–
2.12
).
The duplication isn’t perfect, but the similarity is very strong. Such similarities are called
parallelism,
the process whereby the film cues the spectator to compare two or more distinct elements by highlighting some similarity. For example, at one point, Dorothy says she feels that she has known the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion before. At another point, the staging of a shot reinforces this familiarity
(
2.13
,
2.14
).