Burch’s idea of Form

1. Burch’s idea of Form • "The form of a work is that mode of being which ensures its unity while tending to promote, at the same time, the greatest possible diversity." • Form as process: organicism • Form as the basic spatial and temporal parameters • Form as structure or poetic function

2. Form as process: organicism • Eisenstein: dialectic as organic structure • the whole is reflected in each of its parts • each part remains autonomous in its form • a dialectical unity between the form of the film and the spectator

3. Form as process: organicism • Découpage • breakdown or shot-by-shot analysis • creative activity of director and spectator’s activity of interpretation as two sides of same coin • the specific form of the film in its essential unfolding in space and in time: “. . . the underlying structure of the finished film.” • Dialectic defines a relation between space and time: the temporalization of space and the spatialization of time.

4. Form as the temporal and spatial articulations • The five temporal articulations • Absolute temporal articulation • Temporal ellipsis or time abridgment • Indefinite ellipsis • Time reversal (including overlapping edits) • Indefinite time reversal (including flashbacks/forwards

5. Form as the temporal and spatial articulations • The three spatial articulations • Contiguity cut (matched actions) • Discontinuity editing • Orientation match cuts or proximity cuts

6. Form as structure or poetic function • Russian formalism: practical and poetic language • Motivation • The “dominant” as the focusing component of the work of art • Defamiliarization • “zero degree style” and classic Hollywood cinema • The history of aesthetic form as conflict • “zero point of cinematic style” vs. écriture

7. Burch’s idea of structure • Structure or dialectic? • ". . . a structure exists when a parameter evolves according to some principle of progression that is apparent to the viewer in the theater, or perhaps only to the filmmaker at his editing table, for, even though there may be structures that are 'perceptible only to those who have created them,' they nonetheless play an important role in the final aesthetic result." • Structures always seem to occur in dialectical form, that is, as a parameter defined by one or more pairs of clearly delineated poles.

8. Burch’s idea of structure • Découpage, or the basic spatio-temporal articulations • Photographic parameters • Auditory parameters • Organic dialectics • Dialectics of sequence and narrative time

9. The repertory of simple structures • Découpage, or the basic spatio-temporal articulations • individual shots and matches • spatiotemporal characteristics of match cutting • relation between screen and off-screen space • composition: plastic interactions between shots • framing: scale, angle, direction and rate of camera or subject movement • duration of shots

10. The repertory of simple structures • Photographic parameters • between shots or sequences • soft vs. sharp focus • shallow vs. deep space • high vs. low contrast • bright vs. dark images

11. The repertory of simple structures • Auditory parameters • sound vs. silence • direct vs. post-synchronized • close vs. distant miking (acoustic perspective) • on screen (diegetic) vs. sound-off • synethesia or sound analogies

12. The repertory of simple structures • Organic dialectics • tends to follow sequences or narrative lines • organic dialectics require that film structure be organized according to principles of disunity, conflict, or opposition • backward/forward motion with respect to stationary image • fast/slow motion with respect to normal rate of movement • absence vs. presence of image

13. The repertory of simple structures • Dialectics of sequence and narrative time • organization of sequences • flashbacks, flashforwards, or other temporal displacements

14. Film and ideology • Zero point of cinematic style (illusionism) • Linearity. Narrative unfolds according to logic of cause and effect. Autonomy and spatial integrity of shots subsumed in illusion of continuous space. • Depth illusion. Two dimensional plane is taken for a three dimensional space. • Diegesis organized to preserve illusion of verisimilitude a space taken for real rather than imaginary.

15. Film and ideology • Modernism and “open form” (anti-illusionist) • Emphasis on discontinuity stressing the formal autonomy of shot in space and time, and the autonomy of sound in relation to image. • Elimination of depth and emphasis on flatness of screen. • Diegetic space treated as "false" or imaginary, unreal. • Linear unfolding of film subverted through repetition, redundancy, and ellipsis.