Film as a Subject of Study Essay Example for Free

Film as a Subject of Study EssayThe tremendous expense involved in producing motion pictures reminds us that image is both an Industry, and an Art. Each pack is the child of a turbulent marriage surrounded by businessmen and artists. further despite an ongoing battle between aesthetic and commercial considerations, word-painting is now recognized as a unique and powerful art form on a par with Painting, Sculpture, Music, Literature, and Drama. As a form of human expression, the wretched picture is similar to new(prenominal) artistic media, for the basic properties of other media argon woven into its own rich fabric. Film employs the compositional elements of the visual arts line, form, mass, volume and texture.Like moving picture and photography, take away exploits the subtle interplay of light and shadow. Like sculpture, film manipulates three-dimensional space. But, analogous pantomime, film focuses on moving images, and as in dance, the moving images in film have rh ythm. The complex rhythms of film resemble those of symphony and poetry and like poetry in particular, film communicates through imagery, metaphor, and symbol. Like drama, film communicates visually and verbally visually, through action and gesture verbally, through dialogue. Finally, like the novel, film expands or compresses time and space, traveling cover version and forth freely within their wide border. Despite these similarities, film is unique.1. It is set apart from all other media by its quality of free and constant motion. The continuous interplay of sight, sound, and motion allows film to transcend the static limitations of picture show and sculpture in the complexity of its sensual appeal as well as in its qualification to communicate simultaneously on several levels. Film even surpasses drama in its unique expertness for revealing various points of view, portraying action, manipulating time, and conveying a boundless sense of space. 2. Unlike the stage play, fil m can provide a continuous, unbroken flow, which blurs and minimizes transitions without compromising the storys unity. Unlike the novel and the poem, film communicates directly, not through abstract symbols like words on a page still through concrete images and sounds. Whats more, film can treat an intimately infinite array of qualifieds.3. There is almost nothing that the eye might behold or the ear hear, in actuality or imagination, which cant be represented in the medium of film. From the North and South poles to the Equator, from the Himalayas as a vast lot range to the minutest flaw in a piece of steel, from the whistling flight of a bullet to the averse growth of a flower, from the flicker of though across an almost impassive face to the frenzied ravings of a madman, there is no point in space no degree of magnitude or drive on of movement within the apprehension of man which is not within reach of the film. To simplify what Im getting at, recall the many faces of Gabba r Singh in the film Sholay, and you recall the power of film.4. The Elasticity of Time in a FilmFilm is unlimited not only in its choice of subject but also in its approach to that material. A film can look to the remote past or probe the distant future it can make a few seconds seem like hours or compress a whole century into minutes. Film can run the gamut of feeling from the most fragile, tender, and pretty-pretty to the most brutal, violent, and repulsive. 5. Of even greater importance than films unlimited range in subject matter, however, is the overwhelming Sense of Reality it can convey. The continuous stream of sight, sound, and motion creates a here-and-now excitement that immerses the witnesser in the cinematic experience. Thus, through film, fantasy assumes the shape and emotional impact of Reality. The technological history of film can in fact be viewed as an ongoing evolution toward greater realism, toward erasing the border between art and nature, between fiction and reality. In sum, Film is a uniquely powerful combination of the 7 Arts.IIA. In the two pages above, a way of looking at films has been offered which says that films are more than conscionable an entertaining way to pass the time. There is an art, and a science to them, which usually goes unnoticed. When you begin to notice these two dimensions, your understanding of cinema will be much smarter and sharper. To take an example, please go back to pt. 2 above, and especially the observation that film does not communicate through abstract symbols. How then does it communicate?The resolve through concrete, flesh and blood symbols. With the help of tv camera angles and special lighting, almost everything becomes symbolic on film. The protagonists hairs-breadth style, dimpled cheeks, the clothes they wear, the voice in which they speak, the way they walk, the way they smoke, the solitary glass on a dishearten, the chair, the cerement anything and everything can be loaded with extr a meaning in a film shot, and through the construction of repetition be made symbolic. For instance if you see the empty glass on the same table in more than one scene, it becomes symbolic.B. Let us now go to pt. 5 which stresses the power of the camera in creating a sense of reality. This is the cinematic experience, in a nutshell. You may be watch computer-created beings as in the Hollywood film Avatar, but they succeed in feeling and sounding like humans. The same perhaps can be said about the Tiger in the film The action of Pi.This ability to convey the sense of reality endows the filmmaker with tremendous power which can be utilise to great public benefit, or it can be wickednessd. Try and think of examples of both use and abuse