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 #:
000195
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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the heroine is seen sitting morosely among four dancehall Singers, but she is the only one in the shot whose image is gauzily blurred; when her turn comes to dance, her image comes into sharp focus, suggesting that her mood has changed. In La Roue,’ a close-up of Norma. staring tearfully down the abyss at the fallen Elie is reinforced by being in soft-focus. In Fait Divers, the rapid. superimpositions of city landscapes and machinery over the lovers' meetings Suggests the frenetic pace of their affair. On the whole then, almost the entire repertory of optical devices is used to render certain images expressive of characters’ psychological or emotional states. Such semi-subjective use of optical devices occurs in only two non-ImpresSionist films considered (in the less abstract sections of Disque 927 and Théme et Variations), so this use of optical devices is highly characteristic of Impressionst film style. The final kind of subjectivity conveyed by optical devices is achieved by their combination with subjective camera angles (see above) to create optically subjective images. A simple (and cliché) example occurs in Feu Mathias Pascal: when a housekeeper looks through a keyhole, a vertically elliptical mask suggests the keyhole's shape. (This effect occurs in many non-Impressionist films, e.g., NS the binocular masks of L'Enfant de Paris and Nana.) More