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 #:
000188
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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ri Equally standardized is the use of optical devices. for emphasizing certain aspects of scenes. Irises concentrate attention on a face, a gesture, or an object: e.g., the iris in to the musing Pascal in Feu Mathias Pascal, the iris in to the clasped hands of Jean and Francois in J'Accuse, or the iris in to the woman seated thinking beside her lover in La Féte Espagnole. Similarly, various masks and framing devices are used to mark a character off for special attention, as in L'Inhumaine or Le Diable dans ia Ville. In Finis Terrae, even slow-motion is used to emphasize certain actions--the dropping of a handkerchief into the sea, the smashing of a bottle on the rocks, the Slow roll of waves crashing on the shore. In La Petite Marchande d'Allumettes, Death's awesome leap onto his horse is underlined in a slow-motion shot. With the possible exception of such slow-motion shots, most uses of optical effects for magical purposes or dramatic emphases are not particularly distinctive of Impressionism: cf. the appearance..of the ghost,..in Poil de Carotte, the superimposed horses' names in Nana, and the attention-concentrating irisin on the basement window in L'Enfant dew Paris. Other. functions, which optical, effects, fulfill are much more characteristic of Impressionist style. One such function is that of pictorialism, the inclusion of