Form in film

1. Form in film • If you are listening to a song on a CD and the music is abruptly switched off, you are likely to feel a little frustrated. • Such feelings arise because our experience of artworks is patterned and structured.

2. Form as a system • Artworks rely on the unifying quality of the human mind • Every film coaxes us to connect sequences into a larger whole. • The artwork and the person experiencing it depend on one another.

3. Form as a system • Artworks cue us to perform a specific activity. • Without our playing along and picking up the cues, the artwork remains only an artifact. • E.g a painting uses line, colour, composition

4. Form • Cues are not merely random • They are organised into systems

5. Form - elements • Narrative (the film’s story) • Stylistic (camera movement, use of colour, use of music etc)

6. Interrelationships • Narrative and stylistic elements are useless when viewed separately • The viewer’s role in film form is to create meaningful links between story and design.

7. Intermission • It’s all to do with form • We realise that the system of relationships within the work has not yet been completed. Something more is needed to make the form whole and satisfying. We have been caught up in the interrelations among elements, and in the absence of cues we cannot develop and complete patterns.

8. Formal Expectations • Form affects our experience by creating a sense that “everything is there”

9. You - the viewer • Film requires a special sort of involvement on the part of the viewer • In everyday life we make perceptions about our world in a practical way • In film there is no practical relationship • E.g. falling in a street

10. Algebra • We watch patterns in film which are no longer ‘out there’ in the real world but instead become a calculated part of a self-contained world, on the screen.

12. The Cult Film

13. Some examples of cult films: • Being John Malkovich (1999) • Dead Snow (2008) • Pulp Fiction (1998) • Deliverance (1972) • Psycho (1960) Other examples

14. Donnie Darko • Theatrical trailer (2001) vs the Director’s Cut trailer (2004) • What genres are represented?

15. Donnie’s World: 1988 George Bush Snr (Republican) Michael Dukakis (Democrat)

16. Writer and director: Richard Kelly

17. Writer and director: Richard Kelly • TA: Why release a director’s cut? “ The director’s cut is a lot closer to what premiered at Sundance Film Festival. Then the movie didn’t sell for four months, and all the sudden the movie is STV, going straight to video, and it’s going to debut on the STARZ! Network. So you have to cut ten minutes, you have to add more voice-overs to clarify the ending, take half the music out, reshuffle the music so we don’t have to pay for as much of it... at this point I was just desperately trying to salvage the film before they take it away from me and it debuts on the STARZ! Network and my career is over. It was difficult but we were able to maintain the story and I’m proud of the theatrical ending, I think it’s beautiful. But there is a longer version of this film, a version that I need personally as the author of this film to clarify my intentions.”