Giannetti’s discussion of movement in
Chapter Three is clearly developed and worth studying. He explores realistic, classical,
and formalist movement. He provides an explanation of seven basic moving camera shots
(pans, tilts, crane shots, dolly shots, zoom shots, handheld shots, and aerial shots―see
pp.107-19). His discussion of five basic distortions of movement (animation, fast motion,
slow motion, reverse motion, and freeze frames―see pp. 119-27) is less thorough, but
nonetheless adequate to an understanding of the filmmaker’s techniques related to the
language of movement. And Giannetti gives plenty of examples. This part of the
lecture will review the overall concept of movement and how the camera
"captures" it.
Cinema―it’s
a synonym for "film" and derived from the Greek word, kinema,
which means "movement." If you’re French or Italian and
want to see a movie, you go to the cinema (of course the French and Italians
pronounce the word in their own special way); if you’re Spanish, you go to the
cine.
Kinetic energy is energy associated with motion; kinetics is the study
of all aspects of motion; kinetic art is an assemblage or sculpture comprised of
parts designed to be set in motion, like a mobile; kinesiology is the study of
muscles and their movements. The cinematographer is the one who writes with
movement. A cineast (also spelled cineaste, with an acute
accent on the first e - which I've erased from this Weblecture because Moodle
turns the accents into a strange character) is a motion-picture
enthusiast. One of the first devices for showing films, which provided entertainment at
peep-show parlors, was Edison’s "Kinetoscope" (seeing movement). Cinema
is a synonym for film, motion pictures, the movies.
When we talk the language of movement, we’re talking
about the essential dance of film. The way the camera moves. In that darkened room,
we’re scarcely aware of how we’re being moved by the way a camera moves. The
way the camera captures movement. Moving subjects include people, animals, and things
like a train, a car, a cloud, a light (like the spotlight Rotwang uses during the
catacombs chase, to capture Maria and stop her from running away―in Fritz Lang's Metropolis).
Because early cameras were bulky, heavy, and hard to move, you’ll find early movies
focused on the moving subject. The camera would be stationary, sitting still on a tripod,
and recording the motion out there: the train coming into the station; the people walking
on the streets, kissing, or sneezing; the "rocket" landing smack in the face of
the Man in the Moon.
Whether still
or in motion, the camera eye (lens) "captures" whatever movement that it
creates or observes. Of course, it is all an illusion in the celluloid
universe of film―the illusion of movement. The brain is fooled into
believing or assuming that the images on the flickering screen are real
movement, when in fact they are a series of still frames, and a rapid sequence
of light and dark at speed of 24 fps (frames per second). The brain is fooled by this magic lantern in part because of the way the
visual perception system works in humans: there is a tendency to hold the light in the
mind's eye or optic system longer than it is actually present out there; this is known as
"persistence of vision." In real time, of course, when the Lumiere brothers
were actually filming "Arrival of a Train," that train actually was moving
into the station; but the celluloid captured only a series of still points in
that motion, and the resulting "movie" provided only the illusion of the train
smack toward the audience in their seats. top
The World Wide Web is getting into the act of placing the
camera so it can "record" movements in private and public spaces that used to be
havens from prying eyes (or ears). Some Websites now train the camera on their designers;
they say, "Watch me in my everydayness." Do you want a peek into Robert
Swan’s living room to see what he’s watching on the television? He’s made
it easy for anyone in the world to pry into his real home by accessing his cyber
home. In Alameda, California (in the San Francisco Bay Region), a live telerobotic
camera, in continuous operation since June 1995, records the comings and goings on the
street. At its corresponding Website, "Welcome to the City Of Night Live
Camera,"
you can actually move the camera by a click of your mouse! (I used to
provide a hotlink here, but the site has become so commercial-dominated that
it's actually difficult to get to the live camera.)
Indeed, the body of recording devices on the streets and in
the private rooms of ordinary folk is growing daily. In fact, there’s even a search
engine dedicated to the Webcam. You can check it out (it looks like a Yahoo directory) at
"Earth Cam-Webcam" (see recommended sites below).
Watch cows grazing, keep an eye on a candy jar and spy on who’s sneaking extra treats
(and how often!), see what skeletons are in Naomi’s closet. You can visit Ana in her
mundane and spectacular glory (updates every 2 minutes―advisory: adults only. . . oh, and
BTW, it’s not free either). You can watch T-Bone and Filet grazing in Alloway, New
Jersey (5-minute updates); view the ski conditions in Aspen, Colorado; and much, much
more. Yes, you could spend your life watching the movements of others or recording your
own (or your cow’s); you could, in so many words, become a camera, or be the star in
the screenplay of life.
The increasingly ubiquitous camera has become the subject
of intense debate over nature of truth and reality, and the value of individual privacy.
Video is increasingly being used as evidence in the
courtroom, to the delight or dismay of those who know that a camera can record what
actually happens (the "realist" view of the camera) and to the horror and
disbelief of those who know that what is being recorded can be easily manipulated and
distorted in the lab or cutting room, or even on the set itself (the "classical"
or "formalist" view of the camera). In the O.J. Simpson case, newscasters filmed
the famous chase in the white Bronco in which O.J. and his friend Al Cowlings were fleeing
from justice. Or were they? Was O.J. just contemplating suicide, and was his
friend just trying to save his life? The cameras caught the moving vehicle, but they
didn’t capture the whole truth of the episode. In the same case, police investigators
brought videotape of the Simpson mansion as evidence into the courtroom. "Here,
see the bloodstains on the driveway," they claimed―"and there, there are the
bloody socks!" (Or was it "Where, where are the bloody socks"?)
The question remained: what did the camera record? What did it see and when did it
see it? What was actually there? What was moved around between takes?
The visual images themselves won’t tell the whole truth. Only those who make
them or who interpret them in a larger context can edge toward understanding of truth.
Over the years the movies have glorified, examined, and
interrogated the world of prying and spying, the world of the voyeur and the
exhibitionist. For decades, writers and filmmakers have been enthralled many with
the idea of the camera as intruder into the private lives of human beings. David
Cronenberg’s Videodrome (USA/Canada, 1983), for example, tells the story of
the manipulation of the cinematic experience for the purpose of controlling the
minds―brainwashing or brainbending the watcher. In this movie, the flickering television
image is coded to cause a growth in the watcher’s brain (or maybe it’s a new
organism), a growth that causes hallucinations (or maybe the experiences are real).
Cronenberg’s film interrogates the idea of the television capturing and creating
reality by penetrating (or being allowed to penetrate) the private lives of the viewers,
seducing, controlling, and thus transforming them. Videodrome explores the
transforming effects of video technology on our sense of reality―and suggests that when
people plug in too wholeheartedly or unquestioningly into technology, the lines
distinguishing fantasy and reality begin to blur.
Michael Radford’s Nineteen Eighty-Four
(UK, 1984) examines the fate of the individual in a society where Big Brother
is always watching and listening, even in the bedroom. Based on a novel by
George Orwell, the story suggests the impossibility of hiding from or escaping
the watchful eye and prying ear of the devices that come to symbolize the
tyranny of Big Brother. In Ridley Scott’s Blade
Runner (USA, 1982/92), cinema and video technologies impinge on the question of human identity in a future Los
Angeles. The Matrix
(USA, Andy & Larry Wachowski, 1999)―as well as its sequel, Reloaded―presents
us with a world that would be totally constructed, controlled, and populated
by machines, that feed on humans for their energy, were it not for some brave
men and women who are willing to die to remain "real." (Note:
The current Patriot Act has given us our own Matrix! It stands for Multistate
Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange, a data-mining program that monitors
"innocent citizens" as it tries to capture criminals. See links below.)
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