French Impressionist Cinema: Film Culture, Film Theory, and Film Style (December 1974)

Record Details:

Title:
French Impressionist Cinema: Film Culture, Film Theory, and Film Style
Date:
December 1974
Publisher:
University of Iowa
Volume:
French Impressionist Cinema: Film Culture, Film Theory, and Film Style (Dissertation, 1974)
Leaf #:
000167
Language:
English
Collection:
Global Cinema
Format:
dissertations
Contributor:
Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research
Coordinator:
Media History Digital Library
Description:
Doctoral dissertation entitled, "French Impressionist Cinema: Film Culture, Film Theory, and Film Style," by film scholar David Bordwell. Submitted to the University of Iowa in 1974. Document is scanned from the David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson papers, archived at the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research.
Date Added:
May 23, 2024
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close-ups become subjective by suggesting a character's optical viewpoint on an event. For example, Pearlin La Glace a Trois Faces is waiting for a call from her lover, closer and closer subjective shots of the telephone embody her anxiety. When the boy in Visages d'Enfants stands at his mother's grave, there are several abrupt close-ups of the coffin as it is lowered, emphasizing his pointof-view. A more subtle instance occurs in La Belle Niver= naise, in which at several points, close-ups have shown Clara washing Victor's striped shirt. After Victor leaves the barge, Clara stares at the shirt which he has left behind. In the next scene, her father invites her to play checkers, and as they play, quick shots showing Clara's poised hand holding a checker are intercut with close-ups her mother's hands washing dishes at the sink; disturbed, Clara pushes the game away. Combining close-ups of dramatically significant objects (the checkerboard pattern linking with Victor's shirt, the mother's washing recalling Clara's washing) concisely expresses a character's train Of thought. Comparison with contemporary works like L'tAtlantide, Le Coupable, Crainquebille, Poil de Carotte, and Nana Suggests that such synecdochic, symbolic and subjective use of close-ups is characteristic of Impressionist film