My idea so far is to film two, 90 second long Westerns scenes. The first being a Western in a traditional sense. The second being a revisionist Western, I could argue that revisionist Westerns allow for greater empathy and identification because they have characters that are more realistic and less morally narrow-they are more rounded, more relatable and thought through individuals.

In this I could look at covering my scenes in two seperate ways. The first being un-empathetic, so quicker cuts, more obtrusive soundtrack, less dialogue, broken down communication. The second could be slower, more interesting, more of a verbal exchange, more minimalistic.

I want to look at conventions of the genre and sub-genre and see what influences they have on the viewer-what techniques do what.

So I’ve decided the genre I shall explore with this project brief is the Western, in my current exploration I want to look at empathy within the western genre and write my exegesis based on how it is best evoked. Currently I am looking at articles on academia.com

• Westerns often depict a societal change. The town is often obsolete, a symbol of the past and it is threatened by industry and modernity.
• Unwritten social order as opposed to actual law.
• The heroes of Westerns are similar to how Knights were in old England.
• Simple tales of morality.
• The saloon holds the immorality within the wild west. Sex, alcohol and violence is drawn to the Saloon.
• The landscape/backdrop plays a part. It isolates the characters, it dwarves them and makes them come across as feeling lonely and isolated.
• Often its about a conflict between settles townspeople (civilisation) and an outsider (nature). This idea reminds me of No Country for Old Men where Anton Chigurh is described as an unpredictable force of nature, he flips the coin because like nature he operates by chance. I used to think of this character as a subversive character, an outsider more dangerous than the usual ineffective western villain, this is not the case, he quite literally epitomises the Western Villain.
• Revisionist Westerns: In Revisionist Westerns filmmakers began to depict subvert traditional Western tropes, they questioned the morality of using violence to test ones character and to prove someone as being right. They also began positively depicting Native Americans (as opposed to the traditional Western where they are depicted as villains).
• Allegorical
• Standard Western is often derided by its simplistic morality.
• Shorthand communication (villains where white etc)
• An individual bound by his own private code of honour. In No Country for Old Men Tommy Lee Jones’s character gives away being the sheriff because he can’t keep up with the times, there are simply too many evil doers. The sadness behind his final monologue is that he can’t even begin to abide by his own moral code, the world is too cruel.
• Richard Geres Bob Dylan in I’m Not There takes part in a quintessential Western Story. He is a townsman and has been a farmer in an old town for years, one day he leaves his house to go to town and see that the government is going to build a highway through the town. This is an example of the standard Westerns fear of modernity, of civilisation destroying its towns, its cultures way of life.
• Often in the Western the backdrop is a symbol for the protagonist. The vast, isolated desert reflects the individualistic, lonely protagonist.
• Often long shots begin the film, showing the open space that the protagonist will have to survive in, in order to live.
• Masculinity is often depicted in traditional westerns.
• A mixture of closeups, point of view shots and wide panoramic shots create an uneasy, lonely feel.

My Sources

• http://resources.desmet.org/bergman/a%20ink%20to%20screen/Western.pdf

Critique of the Western Genre in Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man

This week in preparation for my next project brief I explored Berys Gauts article, Empathy and Identification in cinema.

• Gauts suggested there are two kinds of emotions in cinema, artificial emotions (that are reactions to film technique, such as a beautiful shot, fantastic editing) and representational emotions represented at story events or characters (and there situations) that are represented in film. For example at the beginning of Richard Linklater’s new film ‘Everybody wants some’ he starts with a pretty car driving down the street to The Knacks ‘My Sharona’, its beautifully shots and makes me quite excited. Its through film technique that he draws feeling (excitement). However at the end of Sleepless in Seattle where Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan finally get together my emotions are drawn more from the characters and there stories than any specific film technique.
• Gauts then talked of story directed emotions-feeling suspense and curiosity towards a story (like a murder mystery) and character directed emotions when the viewer fears for them, admires them etc. Its essentially when the viewer starts seeing the story from a particular characters perspective.
• Theorists maintain that the audiences ability to identify and empathise with character is a key ingredient and a major factor in there emotional engagement with the characters. A minority of theorists believe identification is impossible, that the viewer is always at a distance and what occurs isn’t identification, but absorption, assimilation.
• Affective identification is imagining feeling what the character feels. The audience (irregardless of the characters emotion) imagines feeling that emotion (because we have felt it before) it allows us to identify with that character. Its essentially imagined empathy, we have a conception of the state the protagonists in and we allow this conception to guide our imaginings.
• Empathy is genuine feeling, the feelings are raw and honest. For example a 12 year old me crying at the end of Titanic-I actually feel/weep for the characters.
• Identification is imagining from the outside, whereas empathy is imagining from the inside, both require imagination in order too connect with the characters feelings, it also requires our own preconceptions (and how we perceive the events, hurdles, the character is attempting to overcome).

My Current Idea 

• Juxtaposing (artificial emotions and Identification) with (representational emotions and empathy). I could potentially construct aa quintessential western in one way and through various techniques create artificial emotions and identification and then re-write and film the scene a different way that explores genuine empathy and taps less into film technique and more into character.
• I’d imagine the artificial one would have more shots, bigger soundtrack whereas the representational one with be less filmic, slower paced and the emphasis will be on the character rather than the event.

Thoughts on whether Ripley a feminist icon in the film Aliens? 

• Often in pseudo-feminist films the female protagonist will change her identity, her attributes, in order to succeed. An example of this is in the Garry Marshall film Pretty Woman where Vivian (Julie Roberts) is only treated with respect from Men when she acts ‘ladylike’. She adopts attributes that don’t come naturally to her in order to impress men. In Aliens this isn’t the case, Ellen (Sigourney Weaver) doesn’t alter who she is in order to succeed-she simply succeeds. She is independent, courageous, cool under pressure and resourceful, unlike her male subordinates who are inept and at times cowardly (Burke is an example of this). Ripley’s identity at the end of the film is the same as it was at the start.
• Aliens doesn’t abide by the ‘Final Girl’ horror trope: It is a convention of Horror and Slasher films for the surviving character to be the least sexually promiscuous female. The character is often a virgin. Ripley isn’t innocent, she is very much grounded in reality and doesn’t shy away from sexual activity-the film depicts a blossoming relationship between her and Hicks.
• Ripley saves Newt in order to reconcile her feelings of loss. It was a maternal drive that led to her risking her life several times for Newt; She was making up for lost time because she had slept through her daughters entire life.
• The Alien Queen also has a maternal drive-it fights to protect its eggs.
• Some classmates believe that the film isn’t feminist because Ripley dons male attributes instead of embracing her own female identity. It was as if the writers (I think this is actually true) wrote a male character and simply casted a female in the role. It may have been a stronger feminist text if Ripley had displayed more traditional feminine traits, instead of only succeeding because she behaved like a man.
• A similar thing can be said about Vasquez (Jeanette Goldstein). She was the best fighter and the second most competent person on the mission second to Ripley yet she displayed quintessentially male attributes-she even had the build of a male.
• However, it can be said that the males in the film certainly learnt from Ripley. Before the attack they dismissed her, they believed what she was saying was a load of hyperbole. They quickly realised this wasn’t the case and began depending on her for their survival. This is a subversion of traditional Hollywood gender roles.

Julian Hanich outlines in his book ‘In cinematic emotion in horror films and thrillers’ the idea that Horror Film, unlike other genres, can connect you to the rest of the audience due to the communal physiological responses the genre derives (from the audience). Though shock and fear is subjective (no one comes to a film as a blank slate, we all have expectations and opinions based on publicity and the films genre) it is often the same moment in horror films that draw specific physiological reactions from the viewer (such as an accelerated heart beat and jumping). This reminds of old footage of 1950’s teenagers watching B Grade science fiction films-they are scream, jump and laugh simultaneously-making the passive viewing of the film more of a communal event. When George Melies first screened footage of a train to an audience, some people left the theatre in fear of being ran over by a train-it seems as though fear, which Hanich believes to be mans strongest, most primal emotion creates a sense of connection within the audience.

Hanich fails to recognise other genres that do the same thing. The first that comes to mind is comedy, often comedy creates a sense of connection through an audience, films are made for the viewers to be continually laughing together. One screening that comes to mind is of Hail Caesar, a recent Coen brothers film, throughout that screening people were laughing at the gags that were meant to be laughed, so when something funny occurred in the film the whole cinema broke out into laughter and then stopped-this created a sense of community. In a very superficial way (and for a very brief time) the film united a group of strangers. Horror (unlike comedy) you can build an immunity too. Horror buffs are less likely to be scared at a viewing of Scream  than I would, simply because I don’t watch much horror. This isn’t the case with comedy, it doesn’t matter how many times you’ve seen a comedy film, if something is funny you will laugh.

Notes on Berberian Sound Studio

• The film sets up many horror conventions such as: contrasting silence with loud, gruesome noises, violence (stabbing cabbages, when I was viewing the film I believed it to be a foreshadowing of what was to come), morally ambiguous characters (the Italian film producers certainly didn’t seem like nice people, they were presented as the type of people who had a mystery behind them). Anyway, the film sets up all of these conventions but none of them are actualised- no one dies and no one is tortured. It was horror in a sense of what the film was trying to achieve, it was trying to unsettle the audience, build up a sense of anticipation- there were certainly allusions to death, but none of these eventuated which is why the film is so interesting (and also why it made a loss at the box office).

Barry Keith Grant in his introduction to ‘In the Hollywood Film Musical’ states that actors in the film musical continually break an implied 4th wall. In other words it is evident in a film musical that the actor portraying the onscreen character is performing for an audience beyond a diegetic one. A quintessential example of this is in Tom Hoopers Les Miserables where Anne Hathaway sings I Dreamed a Dream (as a soliloquy) directly to the audience, it is obvious that Anne Hathaway is very much conscious of the broader audience and knows excactly who she is singing too. This breaking of the fourth is linked back to Brecht’s alienation effect, it reminds the audience they are engaging with a piece of fiction. One Night the Moon contrasts its realism with this convention of musical theatre. When a song isn’t being sung directly to camera the characters and the story is grounded in realism-Jim and Rose react to the death of there daughter in a grounded, raw and depressingly honest fashion. This realism comes across as being more profound when contrasted with the songs. The songs serve the purpose of taking the audience out of the story and making them focus on themes and issues such as: land and belonging, Isolation, racial discrimination…..

Notes I made on the film.

• I found it interesting how in one particular song the white man sings ‘the land is mine’ whereas the Indigenous Man sings ‘I am the land’. It shows the two different relationships too the land, Paul Kelly’s Jim wants to posses some of it, own it, box it in and map it out whereas Kelton Pells Albert Yang understands how the land works and that it is something far more dangerous and far more complexed than anything that can be mapped. The contrasting lines in the song demonstrates Jim’s superficial relationship with the land and the spiritual connection of Alberts (relationship with the land).
•  The significance of place: Grant in his writings said that musicals take place beyond reality, in a space charmed by the magic of performance, he then quoted the wizard of oz by saying all musicals are ‘not in Kansas anymore’. Grant was outlining the idea that a musical space transcends reality and once the audience accepts this different reality-things far out of the ordinary, like spontaneous singing and dancing, even actors performing with there own physical limitations (e.g Pierce Brosnan who couldn’t sing in Mamma Mia) become understood and welcomed. Its as if the genres conventions allow for a space of spontaneity, risk and failure-that other genres don’t have.
• Emotion: The music can position the audience to like/not like a certain character and/or feel a specific thing for a certain character such as like pity or pride.
• Plot: A musical can inform the viewer quickly, it can save the film time. For example in Hairspray Edna changes from a recluse too a lady about town in the matter of one song. It is the use of song that facilitates this massive change without the audience questioning it. This is an example of the way a musical can easily speed up character development in a way few other genres can. ‘Song’ can also spoon feed the audience about certain characters emotions, ploys, plots and thoughts. In Les Miserables ‘Stars’ essentially hand feeds the audience Javerts opinions on laws, human rights and justice, which makes the song such an interesting character study. It’s his one chance in the film to communicate his thoughts and (potentially) redeem his actions.

The Incitement of Pity in Neo-Traditional Romantic Comedy’s

–       Making an argument, don’t use the term I a lot, be blunt, be formal.

–       Spectators are more likely too relate to the everyman than a rich person, especially in the modern era.

–       Woody Allens Annie Hall is plausible because of its reality, the funniest part of the film with Woody being afraid of the lobsters is funny simply because the audience can relate to it.

–       Realism is essential.

–       Neo-Traditional Rom Coms tend to be more centered on realism.

–    Woody Allens Annie Hall, though it subverts the genre in many ways it is deeply grounded in reality

–    Neo-traditionals rely less on broad comedy that spawns heavily from displacement. Marx brothers is an example of crap comedy.

–   There is baggage, less black and white in neo films.

Empathy in Neo-Traditional Romantic Comedy’s

A neo-traditional romantic comedy differs from a traditional ‘Hollywood’ romantic comedy due to its significant roots in realism. To highlight these differences, I will explore elements within Woody Allen’s neo-traditional comedy Annie Hall and demonstrate how they differ from the romantic sub-plot in the 1952 romantic musical Singing in the Rain, a quintessential example of a broader, ‘more Hollywood’ type of comedy. I will then contend that these differences make neo-traditional comedies evoke greater empathy from its viewers.

In Claire Mortimer’s essay In Romantic Comedy she outlines social displacement as a ‘popular source of humour in screwball comedies’. Comedy spawns from the abnormal and the unexpected coming from the mundane, as Geoff King outlines ‘departures of a particular kind from what are considered to be the normal routines in life’. Singing in the Rain typifies this, with Kathy Selden an ‘ordinary’ woman (who buys Hollywood gossip magazines) falling in love with Don Lockwood, Hollywood’s biggest star. The comedy and much of the tension between the two leads is derived from Kathy’s social displacement as well as the unlikelihood of a celebrity falling in love with an ‘average person’, an outsider. Though this relationship makes for an entertaining and interesting plot device, it doesn’t make for a believable romantic comedy which will draw empathy from its audience. In contrast to Singing in the Rain, Woody Allen’s Annie Hall does. Unlike traditional romantic comedies where a promise is made to the audience that the two leads will get together, a promise is made in Alvys opening monologue that they wont. Alvys opening monologue, in a similar fashion to the documentary style in ‘When Harry met Sally’ adds a sense of realism and sincerity that the director  Woody Allen doesn’t shy away from. Instead of depicting an ideological romance, where the two protagonists are lifted from the mundanity and responsibilities of adult life to eternal happiness the couple never leave the ‘tedium and loneliness of their normality’. This is how empathy is drawn from the audience. The relationship was between two middle class people from a working class background, they dated how the audience would date (going to bars, watching movies, playing tennis), and there relationship ended in a hyperreal way. This realism places emphasis on emotional engagement and many of the laughs come from pop culture references (a convention of neo-traditional romantic comedies) and from how real there relationship seems to be.

Unlike Annie Hall, Singing in the Rain draws much of its comedy from standard conventions. Claire Mortimer highlighted two key conventions in the comedy film, one is the Irony of Delusion where a character believes him/herself to be in control of there situation. Lina Lamont in Singing in the Rain exemplifies this, she unwittingly believes she has everyone wrapped around her little finger-though it is the other way round. The other is the protagonists transition from Ignorance to Knowledge, both Don Lockwood and Kathy Selden  learn from each others societal positions and become more rounded individuals by the end of the film. Annie Hall abides by this tradition too, with Alvy coming to an optimistic conclusion that his relationship with Annie wasn’t a waste of time because whilst they were dating, for the most part they were very happy. Alvy maturely pencilled down his time with her as win, which was a less ideological but more real way to end the film and ultimately draw empathy from viewers.