FRED Film Radio - English Channel

Jean-Gabriel Périot – Director – A German Youth

FRED’s Nicolò Comotti interviews Jean-Gabriel Pèriot, who presented his film A German Youth (Une Jeunesse Allemande) in the Panorama Dokumente section of the 65th Berlin International Film Festival.

Jean-Gabriel Pèriot talks about the titanic nature of the documentary – which is a meticulous study of the inception of the RAF and the main figures of the Baader-Meinhof group, dissecting thousand of hours of archival footage from TV and cinema. He talks about what drew him to the documentary and discusses whether there are links that connect the story he tells in his documentary with the modern world. He also talks about his views on many views such as terrorism, the cult of terrorism, violence and racism.

Plot: “A German Youth” talks about Germany’s first generation after the end of the Second World War as it grows up, and approaches its twenties. With it, the radicalisation of its politics will grow. German students, Intellectuals, lawyers and journalist will unite, but some will seek more than just protesting.

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Dominga Sotomayor – Director – Mar

FRED’s Nicolò Comotti talks about Dominga Sotomayor who presented her feature “Mar” in the Forum section of the 65th Berlin International Film Festival.

Dominga talks with us about her journey from the Berlinale Talents campus in 2008 to presenting her new film “Mar” in the Forum section of the 65th Berlinale. She talks about the spontaneous and experimental nature of “Mar”, how the project was really conceived impulsively, and about her fascination for these types of productions.

Plot: January 2014 on the Argentine coast. Martín and his girlfriend Eli are on holiday in Villa Gesell. And yet, this 30-something urban couple’s relationship seems troubled and on the verge of falling apart.

MAR by Dominga Sotomayor / Trailer / 65º Berlinale Forum from CINESTACION on Vimeo.

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Among film genres, the documentary stands apart. In theory, it does not involve the writing of a script in the strictest sense of the word but illustrates a real situation, which unfolds without the intervention of fiction. Since it is not centred on an invented, constructed story, there are no actors playing parts. Rather, it captures life as it unfolds or shows aspects of it that are of particular interest.

Cinema sprang from the need to document reality. The first cinematographic films could be considered true examples of documentary: they are, indeed, known as films of “real life” since they focus attention on episodes of daily life. These are shots of real events, like workers at the gates of a factory in La sortie des usines Lumière (1895, “Workers leaving the Lumière Factory”) by Louis and Auguste Lumière, or shots of nature, as in Rough Sea at Dover (1895) by Birt Acres.

Even if the documentary does not permit the element of fiction, it does nevertheless present a selective, manipulated reality: indeed, the director decides what to shoot and when to start and finish shooting, and therefore favours one portion of reality over another, thereby making a choice.

Based on the various subjects tackled, the documentary has assumed different features and objectives over the years. At the end of the Second World War, it was an invaluable tool to make people aware of the horrors caused by the conflict. In a completely different field, documentaries on nature directed by James Algar and produced by Walt Disney gained popularity from the end of the forties.

In the fifties and sixties, the investigative documentary became established and the political documentary emerged, denouncing injustices in every part of the world and documenting forms of protest: for example, the demonstrations against the Vietnam War. The great documentary makers included Joris Ivens, Chris Marker and Robert Kramer.

From the sixties, the types of documentaries multiplied, due also to the development of sophisticated techniques and lighter equipment, with new trends connected to the personalities and training of the various filmmakers. In parallel with the development of an increasingly complex reality, the documentary produced significant opportunities for analysis and reflection.

Today, the mockumentary has become very successful, a term that combines two words: “mock” and “documentary”. Mock can signify fake but it also means to poke fun at or imitate. In this sense, mockumentaries are not simply fakes, but become important ways of exploring the differences between “facts” and the reconstruction or invention of reality, which, on first sight, appear plausible, not prepared or staged.

The oldest example of this practice is the famous experiment by Orson Welles who, in 1938, presented Herbert George Wells’ The War of the Worlds on the radio and triggered panic along the coast of New Jersey, with two million people fleeing their homes, convinced of the imminent invasion of Martians. The first case on film dates back to 1965 with The War Game by Peter Watkins, which made the possibility of an atomic attack on England and the consequences of nuclear war on the population of Kent plausible and realistic.

The BBC originally produced it for television but then only distributed it in cinemas, due to the difficult nature of the subject matter and the impact of certain sequences.

Producing partner: Aiace Torino http://www.aiacetorino.it/

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Film genres are closely connected to and were derived from literary genres, codified over millennia. Fundamentally, the theory of literary genres has not changed very much since Aristotle’s division between tragedy and comedy. Three centuries later, Horace returned to the matter but while, for Aristotle, the model had been nature, which art could only imitate, the basis for Horace was the literary model.  Comedy and tragedy, often combined in Shakespeare, were brought together at the end of the eighteenth century in the new genre that led to the eighteenth century melodrama and, finally, to the film genre of the same name.

Almost immediately, films were classified by genre. In the early stages, these were unquestionably drawn from literature and the theatre but comic strips, which appeared in 1894, just a year before the invention of the cinema, also played a significant role.

What are the characteristics of a film genre? Above all, a certain repetitiveness, which means uniformity in the type of stories told, that is, the subject matter, but often also in the type of scenes, the plots, the choices of the visuals, the settings and even the characters. The significant phenomenon of stardom was important in this development since many stars were closely linked to genres: all comedians, for example, but also singers and dancers who could not have found success in the movies had it not been for the musical. In any case, the presence of a star entails a certain level of expectation and predictability on the part of the audience, even more so in the days of the star system. The power of the viewers was, in fact, almost as important as that of the industry, that is, the production side, as regards the continuing existence of genres. If a genre is not recognised and accepted by the audience, it ceases to exist. Even great critical acclaim or commercial success for a new but standalone work is certainly not enough to ensure it can be reprised.

The driving force of what can be called Hollywood’s golden era, which spanned three decades from the advent of talkies in 1927 with The Jazz Singer to the end of the fifties, when the influence of television became pervasive, can be described as the classic Hollywood style, based on the genre system.

The genre system in Hollywood was created within the studio system, based on a strict division of labour and the system of the so-called “continuity script” by which the power of the director was limited and he was prevented from indulging in sudden flights of creative fantasy that might perhaps have resulted in masterpieces but would have been disastrous for the production. In the continuity script, everything was laid down: the dialogue, the action and often the framing of the individual shot, for example, close up, long shot of a room, shot/reverse shot. Screenwriters worked alone or together in the search for ideas, gags or stories. The script was therefore often the result of a real workshop, a collective output. Once written, the script was then assigned to the director who had to film it as it was, almost without any variation.

The classification of films according to the genre to which they belonged is a fundamental aspect of cinema and, in the case of Hollywood movies, this simple label instantly told the spectator what they could expect regarding the setting, style and, within certain limits, even the ideology.

Every genre film, be it film noir, a western, a musical or another genre, is the outcome of the development of representational worlds and narrative devices that express not only a form of entertainment but also a vision of the world, a philosophy of life, an aesthetic, an ideology. With the advent of sound, genres became the dominant principle that was the starting point for the creation of a film.

We now offer a rapid overview of the most common film genres, their basic features and some concrete examples of films that best represent them.

The subject of comedy is often the integration of the hero in society, once the obstacles represented by the other characters or adverse social conditions have been eliminated. Often, there is a happy “twist”, linked to unexpected discoveries or emotional and sentimental relationships, which leads to a happy ending marked by a new and freer personal and social situation. It is characterised by the great narrative pace, the sophisticated settings, often interiors, and quick-fire dialogue full of humour.

Comedy can be classified in additional subgenres: comic, in which the characters are more stylised and played by immediately recognisable performers, as used to happen in the theatrical Commedia dell’Arte (Modern Times, Chaplin, 1936); slapstick, based on blows, pratfalls and chases, which was named after the stick used by comedians (The Cameraman, Keaton, 1928); screwball, often insanely nonsensical, with weird and surreal situations (Susanna, Hawks, 1938); finally, the sophisticated comedy, with an elegant, refined but clearly artificial atmosphere (Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Edwards, 1961). The musical is also derived from the comedy genre and features numerous songs in the film that often include real ballet performances and spectacular choreography, through which the characters express their intentions and actions (Singin’ in the Rain, Donen/Kelly, 1952).

If the comedy also touches on or deals with dramatic subjects, often connected to affairs of the heart, be they the relationship between a couple or friction within a family, the genre changes and is defined as a melodrama or mélo, with its roots not only in literature, but also the theatre and operas.  Its primary features are literary simplification to the benefit of dramatic essence, the emphasis on the primary passions and the accentuation of the expressive style, while historic and existential themes and narrative digressions are kept in the background. Examples of this genre are Gone with the Wind (Fleming, 1939), Senso (Visconti, 1954), Written on the Wind (Sirk, 1956).

The western is perhaps the quintessential genre of classic American cinema. Set against the backdrop of the boundless landscapes of the West (hence the name), westerns tell stories of men and women trying to conquer new lands, natives (the “Indians”) who are fighting to avoid being overwhelmed by the advancing civilisation of the white man, and bandits who do not hesitate to attack banks and stagecoaches, steal cattle or disturb the peace of small towns. And the solitary, courageous cowboys: the real heroes of this frontier world. The first western film was The Great Train Robbery (Porter, 1903), the originator of a long series that would include very famous films like Stagecoach (Ford, 1939) and High Noon (Zinnemann, 1952) through to the reworking of the genre with the contribution of the spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone, starting with A Fistful of Dollars (1964).

The war film genre is based on the staging of a dramatic conflict, with identifiable historical references, in which the war is not confined to the setting but provides its own dynamic in the development of the action and the personalities of the characters, as happened in Paths of Glory (Kubrick, 1957). The core narrative often concerns a particularly gripping war mission told from a one-sided perspective that paints the enemy as the source of ambushes and danger, as witness. When the war film is centred on the conduct of a great battle or significant historical events concerning an important conflict, the style takes on an epic quality and the action is more concerted, as in the films of Roberto Rossellini, Rome, Open City (1945) and Paisan (1946).

The detective film is a genre based on a plot that unfolds through the instrument of the investigation, according to a basic storyline: an initial situation of equilibrium; a reversal due to an unforeseen event (a murder, the theft of an object, the disappearance of a person); the assignment of the case to a person (in general, the leading man) who begins to investigate; the conduct of the investigation; the solving of the case, which corresponds to the restoration of the initial equilibrium.

Within the genre, there are various narrative nuances. The mystery, the heir to a great deal of nineteenth century literature and the mystery novel, with detectives who ensure reason and deduction triumph, always includes the solving of the case (Ten little Indians, Clair, 1945). The film noir or hard-boiled film, has more realism and verisimilitude, with more meticulous description of the social context and greater psychological depth of the characters, starting with the problems facing the detective (The Big Sleep, Hawks, 1946). If the main characters are not so much the detectives as the “bad guys”, the film is regarded as a gangster movie, which includes many action scenes and shoot-outs, but not at the expense of the exploration of the personalities of the characters and their social and cultural background (Scarface, Hawks, 1932). The plot of the suspense film, on the other hand, is based on conspiracy or intrigue, often connected to spying by more or less deviant secret services, from whom a victim is trying to escape (North by Northwest, Hitchcock, 1959). If the atmosphere of suspense is based more on psychological aspects, personal fear and sometimes violent plot twists, often in disturbing settings, the film is described as a thriller:  examples of this were Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960) or The Silence of the Lambs (Demme, 1991).

The horror film also plays on shades of suspense and mystery but the primary objective is not solving a case so much as triggering fear and horror in those watching, resorting to ingredients such as the supernatural, the bizarre and the mysterious that provoke visual or auditory sensations, including by means of special effects and disturbing music. The stories are set in sinister places like castles, abandoned houses, cemeteries and woods, within mysterious and particular situations where ghosts, monsters, witches, demons, repellent creatures or mysterious or far-fetched beings often appear: werewolves vampires, aliens, zombies and monstrous creatures from unknown worlds. Among many films, examples include the various versions of Dracula (Browning, 1932 and Coppola, 1992), The Night of the Living Dead (Romero, 1968), The Exorcist (Friedkin, 1973) and Nightmare (Craven, 1984).

The creation of imaginary worlds is the basis of another two genres, which, however, have their own specific features, fantasy and science fiction.

The fantasy film puts the central characters at the mercy of unknown forces like magic and witchcraft, destiny and divine providence, and only a chosen few will manage to turn the situation around and overcome any difficulty with the help of their strength and determination. These characteristics are evident, above all, in stories that are linked to a universe modelled on the world of medieval Nordic sagas where the central characters are adventurers and heroines, elves and orcs, kings and wizards, as happens in The Lord of the Rings (Jackson 2001-2003), while other fantasy films are modelled more on a universe of traditional fables, as in the case of the various manifestations of Harry Potter (Columbus, Cuaron, Newell, Yates, 2001 – 2011).

Science fiction, on the other hand, is based on far-fetched predictions of scientific developments. It tells imaginary stories that, taking versions of reality to the extremes, are presented as believable with the events always following a plot that is technically and scientifically coherent or possible.

The stories may envisage future worlds that are pleasurable or otherwise and that often present dystopian visions, or deny the utopia of human progress (Fahrenheit 451, Truffaut 1966); they may be space adventures and galactic conquests, which can sometimes involve existential reflection (2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick, 1968); in other cases, they may combine saga and action film (Star Wars, Lucas, 1977); still others may involve an encounter or battle with aliens or robots, as occurs in different ways in Forbidden Planet (McLeod Wilcox, 1956), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Spielberg, 1977), Independence Day (Emmerich, 1996), Matrix (Wachovski, 1999). What unites science fiction films on a stylistic level is the continuous use of spectacular special effects and the richness of the scenes of great visual spectacular.

Producing partner: Aiace Torino http://www.aiacetorino.it/

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Invented at the end of the nineteenth century, in the era of the first universal exhibitions, cinema has been linked since its early years to the idea of being appreciated through the form of “art exhibitions” which, in the field of the performing arts, are more often referred to as “festivals”.

In 1910, the first public event attended by producers of Italian, French, German and American films was held in Milan. But it was the advent of feature films and “talkies” that saw cinema finally recognised as an artistic product to be shown during the staging of special events that were usually held annually.

The first film festival was staged in Italy in 1932; this was the Venice Film Festival. It was a point of contact for various requirements, such as the appreciation of film, local economic interests connected to tourism and accommodation facilities, the creation of a special place in which to develop a market in national and international films, a favoured meeting place for artists of different countries and cultures, but also for encounters between artists and members of the public in order to give the latter an opportunity to get to know them and engage in discussions.

Venice’s example led to the foundation of the Cannes Film Festival (France) in 1946, which immediately sparked a flourishing creative competition with the Italian festival. Many international showcases sprang up within a few years (such as Locarno, Switzerland, in 1946 and Berlin, Germany, in 1951) and rules were established among the various initiatives with an agreed calendar for international shows.

From the very first editions, awards were one of the main attractions of the festivals, due to the prestige surrounding the major festivals but also because of the financial rewards that came with them. The importance of the awards depended on the authoritativeness of the juries, usually made up of men and women from the cinema industry, prominent figures in the world of culture and the arts. Among the most common awards at the various events were those given for the best film, the best director and the best performances. Over the years, many festivals have tried to make the most of their potential as fashionable events able to attract the attention of the mass media and publicity.

It should also be remembered that, over the decades, specialist film festivals have also been established and become popular, such as Oberhausen, launched in 1955 and dedicated to short films, the International Animated Film Festival of Annecy, founded in 1960, the Pesaro International Film Festival of New Cinema, founded in 1965 and dedicated to the cinema of “emerging countries”. Other prestigious and historic festivals include the event held in Karlovy Vary, launched in the former Czechoslovakia in the forties, the Festival of San Sebastian, established in 1953 and the Pan African Film and Television Festival (FESPACO), which is held in Burkina Faso. In North America, the highly prestigious Toronto International Film Festival has been staged since 1976 and is now a strategic showcase for Hollywood productions and an extraordinarily important market for the sale of films from all over the world, and the Sundance Film Festival, dedicated to independent films.

In addition to those mentioned, there are dozens of small and medium sized festivals that continue to act as an essential driving force for the development of the audio visual market and boost the local economies of the places where they are staged. That’s why festivals, big and small, have always benefitted from lavish investment by public institutions. More recently, the sharp decline in these public investments has forced Festivals to question their very nature and seek new ways of operating. In attempting to keep up with the times, much effort has been made in creating distinctive programmes for various sections of the public (from mainstream products to works aimed at dedicated film fans) and in staging so-called “labs”, workshops that remain open all year round within the festivals aimed at giving direct support for the planning, development and production of films with specific characteristics (first works, international co-productions, cross-media products and others).

Producing partner: Aiace Torino http://www.aiacetorino.it/

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For the average viewer, who is only faced with the final product of filmmaking (the film), it’s difficult to realise the amount of work and people involved in filmmaking.

The American director George Stevens once said that making a film is like “trying to be a traffic cop and write a poem at the same time”. In other words, the final film may or may not be a work of art or entertainment, but in order to get there, a filmmaker needs time, patience and normally a large amount of people to work with. As Orson Welles, one of the greatest filmmakers, explained, “a writer needs a pen, an artist needs a brush, but a filmmaker needs an army”.

This army is called a “film crew”, which can be made up of a very different number of people, depending on the budget and size of the film.

The director normally sits outside the complex structure of a film crew. They are responsible for overseeing the creative aspects of a film, including controlling the content and flow of the film’s plot, directing the performances of actors, organizing and selecting the locations in which the film will be shot and managing technical details such as the positioning of cameras. However, the directors don’t have complete power over the film. They are ultimately subordinate to the film producers. There are, however, some exceptions: those directors who have the final cut privilege. They decide what the final form of the film will be, but, nowadays, these are only a few powerful filmmakers such as Steven Spielberg or James Cameron.

Producers set up the right conditions for filmmaking. They initiate the project, raise funding, hire staff and are involved in all phases of the project, from conception to the distribution of the film. Producers normally work under quite a lot of pressure to make sure that the films are finished on time and do not end up being more expensive than they budgeted for.

The work of the film crew is divided into three phases: pre-production, production and post-production.

In pre-production, every step of the creation of the film is carefully designed and planned. Once the final draft of the script is available, the director must try to turn the words into images. This is done, first of all, on paper, with the help of illustrators who draw storyboards with drawings of what the film will look like. Also in pre-production, the casting director finds actors to play the characters in the film, with the help of the director.

Once pre-production is finished, production starts. There are many people involved in the production of a film, working on set. One of the key groups is the camera and lighting department, normally managed by the director of photography or cinematographer, who decides with the director what the film looks like, the lighting, the framing of the shots and the cameras and lights that must be used.

Along with the director of the film and the director of photography, the look of the film is also determined by the art department, where a production designer is responsible for creating the visual appearance of settings, costumes and character makeup.

Once the movie has been filmed, that is, once the production is over, the post-production starts and is managed by a post-production supervisor. Here the key figure is the editor, who is in charge of assembling the various shots into a coherent film with the help of the director. As well as the editor and his team, the post-production also involves sound editing, visual effects and animation.

Finally, when the film is finished, it is time to make it available for viewing, that is, film distribution starts. The film needs to be marketed, promoted and made available in cinema and or television, DVDs, video-on-demand platforms, streaming.

Producing partner: University of Roehampton http://www.roehampton.ac.uk/home/

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All the professionals involved in filmmaking contribute from their different departments to create a specific language: the language of film. This language borrows elements from other arts, such as literature, painting, sculpture, architecture, music and theatre. But it is also a language of its own and abides by its own rules.

As the American filmmaker Martin Scorsese points out, there are at least six elements that make up this language: words, movement, light, sound, time and the viewers’ eye.

(Scriptwriting)

Words have to do with the story and the dialogue, that is, the screenplay. There are almost as many stories as films. What they normally have in common is that in most of them, we find one or more characters who want something, who find an obstacle to achieve it and then look for a way to overcome this obstacle. This story is often told in three parts, known as three acts: the first one (called exposition), where we are introduced to the characters and the story; the second one (rising action), where the story moves forward, the characters grow and meet new obstacles; and the third one, (resolution), where the plot finds its ending, whether or not it is a happy one.

As well as story, most screenplays also have dialogue. This is an essential element in literature too, but whereas in books, writers can describe anything they want (from action to thoughts), in films, unless a voice-over narration is used, scriptwriters must find a way to show a lot of this information through the actions of the characters, not only through words. This is why most scriptwriting experts insist on a golden rule for film writing: show, don’t tell.

The opposite is known as forced exposition and is a significant problem in many films. For example, the villain speech, where the “bad guy”, who is about to kill the protagonist of the film, starts telling him the reason why he is going to kill him, or when at the beginning of a film two siblings use the word “brother” or “sister” to address each other. None of these characters are speaking in a credible manner. They are only saying what they are saying so that the viewers can learn the information they need to know in order to follow the story. A good writer or filmmaker doesn’t need to make the characters speak like this in order to convey this information. To mention a simple example: at the beginning of a film, a character rings another one and says “it’s me”, to which the first character smiles. No need in this case to mention their names.

As scriptwriters, we’re not making our characters speak in an unnatural manner and, at the same time, we’re telling the viewers that these two characters know each other well.

(Movement and light)

As well as words, a film also needs movement, light, sound, time and the viewers’ eye.

Movement and light are also key for the camera. As David Bordwell, one of the best known film experts, explains, modern cinema is precisely characterized by the use of cameras that are constantly moving, even in relatively quiet scenes. Light can be used in many ways, for example to create a mood, like the use of shadows and darkness that was so characteristic of the expressionist films in Germany in the 30s or much more recently in many of Tim Burton’s films.

(Sound and time)

Sound in film is essential and could be used to provide us with information about the location of a scene, advance the plot, tell us about the characters in the story or heighten a mood. If the sound comes from the story of the film (dialogue, doors slamming, footsteps), it is called diegetic sound. If it comes from outside the story of the film, like the soundtrack, then it is non-diegetic sound.

Finally, time is the very element films are made of. As Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky put it, filmmaking is about sculpting in time. And this sculpting is done through editing, the ability to combine different shots into sequences, used by filmmakers to compress time and tell stories that are longer than the duration of the film. Thanks to editing, perhaps the defining element in film, films can cover a few days in the life of many characters (Crash), many years in the life of one character (Citizen Kane) or as many as 3,000 years in the lives of many creatures (The Lord of the Rings).

Indeed, filmmakers often have to think creatively about how to show the passage of time on screen. Some of the most traditional devices is to show the pages of a calendar passing by or images of the four seasons in a year. Others are more daring, like Stanley Kubrick in 2001: Space Odyssey, where a bone thrown in the air by an ape in pre-historic times is matched cut in the next shot to a similarly-shaped nuclear weapons satellite floating in space, two weapons that are separated by 4 million years and are brought together by the power of filmmaking.

As for the final element mentioned by Scorsese, the viewers’ eye, it refers to what we, as viewers, contribute to in the middle of all those cuts. When Kubrick makes us travel for 4 million years in one second by editing those two images together, what do we think? How does this affect our perception of the film? For many experts, a film is not finished until we watch it, because we provide it with the final meaning, our interpretation, which is influenced by our own personal experience. As the famous French filmmaker Jean Luc Goddard explained once, the film is not on the camera or on the screen. It is in the space between, where we (the viewers) are.

In other words, we don’t watch films as they are, but as we are.

Producing partner: University of Roehampton http://www.roehampton.ac.uk/home/

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The term “film genre” is used to help us differentiate different types of films depending on the story that they tell, the place and time in which these stories take place, the way in which the film has been made, etc.  However, more often than not, it’s actually very difficult to tell the difference between the genres.

The first distinction is between short films and feature films. Short films were very popular in the silent era and also nowadays as a platform for first-time filmmakers and for new forms of expression. According to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a short film is “an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all credits”. Films running for 40 minutes or longer are therefore known as feature films. In terms of genre, another key distinction is that between documentary films and fiction films. Documentaries tend to focus on life and reality as it is, without manipulating it too much. In contrast, fiction films make up an alternative reality, a fictional world. But this fictional world can be created in many ways, and so we have many different genres in fiction. Comedies, for example, try to make us laugh with funny characters and comic situations, dramas deal with realistic characters and emotional themes, action films feature protagonists usually taking risky turns that lead them to fights, escapes and other desperate situations, horror films try to scare or frighten the audience through suspense, violence or shock, science fiction films take us to a different place and time in our universe or in a different one and musicals have characters singing songs that are part of the story.

Depending on who we ask, the list of genres and subgenres may be much longer than that. Some genres are in fact a combination of various genres. A thriller, for example, may include some elements of action films, although its main elements are usually suspense, tension and excitement. A melodrama is similar to a drama, but the characters and the plot are intensified so that we, the viewers, have a more emotional response to the film. And fantasy films are similar to science fiction films, but they often have an element of magic, myth and wonder that science fiction films may not have.

Apart from this distinction between different film genres, some French film experts in the 50s developed the auteur theory. According to them, sometimes films are characterised not so much by their genre but by the vision of the director as a creator of the film. Even though filmmaking is a collaborative process involving many professionals, the auteur theory believes that some directors have a personal style that determines more than anything else what kind of film it is.

So far we’ve talked about the different styles of film we can find depending on the genres and filmmakers, but the style of a film can also be characterised by where it is made. And here one of the main distinctions is between films made in Europe and those made in Hollywood. There are, of course, exceptions, but generally most experts agree that whereas European filmmakers treat film as an art, mainstream Hollywood focuses on it as entertainment. So much so that the same story may be told differently depending on whether it is filmed in Europe or in America. A bomb attack, for example, may be told from the point of view of the bomber running away from the police in Hollywood, whereas the European filmmaker may choose to focus on the victims, their families and the way they live after the attack.

European films normally comment on society and the reality we live in. Those who defend European cinema sometimes say that Hollywood films are too predictable, as shown by the increasing number of remakes and sequels currently shown in the cinema. They say that Hollywood doesn’t produce 400 films a year, but rather 1 film with 400 different titles. The response from those who defend Hollywood films is that movies are, first and foremost, for entertainment, and that if you want to make a commentary or send a message, you can do so by sending an email or writing a book, not by making a film.

We are of course generalising, because there are many exceptions, but very often European films show us what life is like, whereas Hollywood films show us what life could be like.

But of course, there is filmmaking outside Europe and the US, for example African cinema, Asian cinema or Bollywood, the nickname commonly given to the Indian film industry. Bollywood (where the B stands for Bombai, also known as Mumbai) is a massive film industry that produces 800 films a year, twice as many as Hollywood. Cinema was always big in India from the very early silent films, but from the beginning of the 21st century, it has also become very popular in countries such as the UK. Bollywood films tend to stick to familiar stories where boy meets girl, they fall in love and then they fight for family approval. There is often romance, colourful costumes, singing and dancing.

A further distinction that can be made regardless of where the films have been made is that of studio films vs independent films. Studio films often manage to secure financial resources from private investors and film production companies. They involve big production teams and have access to professional staff, remote locations and expensive equipment. In contrast, directors making independent films often have to look for alternative methods to secure funding or even use their own money and sometimes rely on more limited crews and equipment. Also, studio films are often produced by studios that have a distribution company, whereas independent films are normally submitted to film festivals to attract distribution offers.

Film festivals are normally annual events with an organized presentation of films in one or more venues, typically in a single city or region. They could be general or more specific, focusing on particular genres, filmmakers, subject matters, etc. The best known film festivals are held in Venice, Cannes, Berlin and Toronto, but there are around 3,000 film festivals currently active, 70% of them in North America.

Producing partner: University of Roehampton http://www.roehampton.ac.uk/home/

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(Normal viewers vs analytical viewers)

Films are primarily made to be watched, there is no question about that. But they can also be discussed, which means that, as well as normal viewers, spectators can also be film critics or analysts.

According to Augusto Sainati and Massimiliano Gaudiosi, common viewers watch films with a passive, absent-minded and naïve attitude. They are mostly interested in the story and they get immersed in the world of the film. Instead, the analysts have an active, technical and interpretative behaviour. They try to understand the relationships among the elements which constitute the film and the logic which organizes them in a coherent whole. They act as detectives: they examine the facts and then they provide an interpretation in a review or an academic article.

(Reviews vs articles)

But what is the difference between reviews and academic articles? And when writing about film, should we describe, analyse, interpret or evaluate?

Let’s have a look, first of all, at the second question, as explained by film studies expert David Bordwell. Description involves summarizing plots, describing scenes, characterizing performances or music and visual style. The descriptions can be more or less objective or subjective. Analysis is different, as it requires the explanation of how different parts go together to make up a whole. If you simply list all the shots of a scene in order, that is a description. But if you go on to show the functions that each part performs in relation to the others or some broader effect, you’re doing analysis. If you then go on to make claims about the general meaning of a film, you are providing an interpretation. And finally, if you assess the quality of a film, you are evaluating it.

As for the difference between reviews and academic articles, a review is a brief characterization of the film, aimed at a broad audience who hasn’t seen it. Reviews track current releases and so have a sort of news value. They’re a type of journalism. They tend to describe the film (the plot, without giving much away), they do very little analysis (there’s no space for it), a little more interpretation and a lot of evaluation. This, the opinion of the reviewer, is what we’re looking for when we read a review before watching a film.

In contrast, academic articles are longer than reviews and presupose that the viewers have seen the film. They help viewers to better understand the film they have seen. They can include a short evaluation, some description and a lot of analysis and interpretation. Instead of focusing on whether films are good or not, like reviews, they focus on why they are good or not.

Reviews and articles used to be written by film critics and scholars in newspapers and film magazines (and also shown on TV programmes). Now, the Internet is also a massive platform for this, with the so called cybercriticism, that is, thousands of amateurs and professionals writing about film.

(Film societies)

So far, we have covered individual film analysis, but films can also be analysed in groups, publicly. This can be done, among other venues, in schools and in film societies.

Film societies or film clubs are membership clubs that enable people to watch screenings of films outside the context of a normal, mainstream cinema. In Spain, Ireland and Italy they are called Cine Clubs. The first countries to set up these venues were France and the UK in the 1920s. Canada and Germany followed suit in the 1930s and 1940s. In countries such as Spain, which was culturally silenced for 40 years by Franco’s censorship, cineclubs were an example of social organisation from the roots, very active, wide spread and plural. They created room for debate and disseminated all types of cinema that the dictatorship denied.

These venues are forums for film discussion, which can take place as an introduction before the film or as a Q&A session at the end of the film, often with the filmmakers exchanging views with the audience. Some of the most famous film societies are Amos Vogel’s Cinema 16, Cinémathèque Française, and the Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York City.

Nowadays, public discussions on films can also be found outside film societies, for example in multiscreen cinemas and other cinemas that present lectures and Q&As with filmmakers. These events have become essential in promoting film literacy amongst adults outside the school context.

(Film literacy)

Finally what about film education at school?

Film can be taught at school to teach different subjects, such as history, language, social studies, maths, music, sports, drama, etc. But film can also be used to teach film, that is, film education or film literacy. In the UK, the British Film Institute has just completed an international project to find out how film is taught in Europe and what can be done to improve film education.

The project provides a definition of what film education is:

– the level of understanding of a film

– the ability to be conscious and curious in the choice of films,

In other words, if (language) literacy is the ability to read and write, film literacy is the ability to understand a film critically and to be able to create moving images.

As Martin Scorsese says, in the era of image in which we live, this should not be a priviledge, but a right.

This project and the words that you are listening to are one more step towards this right.

Producing partner: University of Roehampton http://www.roehampton.ac.uk/home/

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(From intertitles to multiple language versions)

Another important part of how we watch films has to do with language. How do we watch films that speak a language other than ours? Again, we need to go back to the beginning of film history in order to understand what is available for us now.

When silent films were introduced and became popular, many people thought that finally, and for the first time ever, human beings had created a universal language, one that everybody could understand. Charles Chaplin’s most famous character, the Little Tramp, was at some point in the 20s considered to be the most iconic and recognisable image in the world and viewers in different countries considered him not as a British or American character, but as one of his. After all, he didn’t speak any language.

But this is not exactly true. Most people think that the translation of films started with introduction of sound in cinema in 1927 but actually, silent films also spoke different languages. As early as 1901, silent films started using intertitles, cards with printed text that were included in between images to convey dialogue or descriptions. When films had to be shown to foreign viewers, these intertitles were replaced with title cards in the viewers’ language.

With the introduction of sound, filmmakers and producers had to think of a different solution to translate films. The first one they came up with was very surprising: making the films again and again in many languages, sometimes with the same director and actors, some other times with different actors. They were called multiple language versions. In Paris, for example, the Joinville studio, founded by Paramount, made multiple versions of the same films in up to 12 languages 24 hours a day in 1930.

Of course, this was very expensive, so they soon had to think about alternative solutions to translate films, either revoicing the characters’ speech in another language or translating what they said as text at the bottom of the screen. This is how dubbing and subtitling were born.

(Dubbing)

In dubbing, the voices of the characters are replaced with voices in the translated language matching the lips of the actors on screen. The translation is done by translators and then voiced by dubbing actors working in a dubbing studio with instructions from a dubbing director.

The translators must make sure that the translation is almost exactly as long as the original in order to match the lips of the actors on screen. When there are close ups where only the face of the actors is seen on screen, the task is much more difficult. The translators must then make sure that whenever the actors close their lips (which happens when you pronounce a p, a t, an m, a v and an f), the translation also uses some of those letters to match the lip movements. So, for example, if there is a close up of the face of an actor saying “Good bye” in English, using “Adiós” in Spanish would be a good translation in terms of meaning, but it would not match the lips of the actors, which are closed with the word “Bye”, but not with “Adiós”. Maybe in this case “Nos vemos” (see you later) would be a better option.

Dubbing is the most common translation mode in Spain, France, Italy and Germany, and it is also used all over the world to translate animation and cartoons.

(Subtitling)

In many other countries, such as Portugal, the UK, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, etc., foreign films are usually subtitled. The viewers in these countries can hear the original voices of the actors and the words are translated normally at the bottom of the screen. Viewers who can understand the original language often complain that what appears written at the bottom of the screen is not always an exact translation of the audio. This is true but we must remember that subtitlers have to follow some rules and they are advised not to use more than two words every second, because otherwise most viewers would find it very difficult to read the subtitles and watch the images.

(Voice-over)

Finally, in some other countries, such as Poland, one person narrates the translation while you can still hear the voices of the original actors. The problem here is that there is only one voice speaking for all the characters and also that this voice doesn’t really show a great deal of emotion, so some of the intensity of the film may be lost.

Producing partner: University of Roehampton http://www.roehampton.ac.uk/home/

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