A Grammar of the Film: An Analysis of Film TechniqueOriginally published in England in 1935, this book is an attempt to isolate the fundamental principles of film art and to teach in concrete detail how these principles are well or badly applied in the production of films. This essential task, shirked or derided by most film critics today, Spottiswoode executed with skill and perception. He traced the history of the new medium, analyzed the aesthetic factors governing proper use of camera angle and movement, cuts, dissolves, sound, and other elements of film construction. He also examined the proces by which films produce their special effects upon audiences. A Grammar of the Film contains some predictions that history has belied, and as the author remarks in his preface, parts of it abound in distinctions without differences. Yet its analytic perspective remains sound and useful, because the passage of years has brought little significant experimentation and little change in the basic aesthetic problems of the medium. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1950. |
Contents
CHAPTER IINTRODUCTORY | 25 |
The purpose of illustrations and examples | 31 |
Contents | 33 |
France 192934 page 82 | 34 |
The domains of scientific and philosophical | 37 |
B The SoundFactor | 42 |
A The Visual Film | 44 |
The advanceguard 192033 86 | 54 |
The imitative use of music | 190 |
The dynamic use of music | 191 |
the denial of montage | 193 |
CHAPTER VITECHNIQUE OF THE FILM 2 SYNTHESIS 1 Summary and scope of this and the pre vious chapter | 197 |
The cut | 201 |
Antithesis implication and obliquity | 202 |
The dialectical process in life and personal experience | 204 |
Rhythmical montage | 206 |
Russia 192030 | 63 |
America Chaplin | 70 |
America | 76 |
CHAPTER IVCATEGORIES OF THE FILM | 102 |
CHAPTER VTECHNIQUE OF THE FILM | 113 |
position | 131 |
The closeup | 138 |
Delimitation of the screen | 141 |
The expanding screen | 146 |
Applied to the synthetic film | 152 |
The stereoscopic film | 154 |
camera move ment | 156 |
Tilting | 160 |
camera speed | 161 |
Fast motion | 162 |
Slow motion | 163 |
The temporal closeup | 164 |
Reversal | 166 |
Optical distortion | 167 |
Focus | 168 |
Superimposition | 169 |
Reduplication | 172 |
classification page | 173 |
Realismunrealism | 174 |
Counterpoint | 177 |
Unrealism | 178 |
Parallelismcontrast | 180 |
Examples | 185 |
Summary | 220 |
Contrastive rhythmical montage | 223 |
Primary montage page | 224 |
Simultaneous montage | 227 |
Secondary montage and implicational montage | 231 |
Ideological montage | 233 |
An example illustrating every type of montage | 234 |
Factors adverse to montage | 238 |
Realism of sound solidity delayed transference | 239 |
Camera movement | 240 |
Abstraction | 243 |
Speech | 244 |
Titles | 246 |
The visual simile | 247 |
Relations | 251 |
Like | 252 |
Modes and components of the appreciation of films | 254 |
The relation of technique to subject matter | 262 |
Marx | 263 |
Croce | 268 |
Contrasts and comparisons | 271 |
CHAPTER VIICATEGORIES OF THE FILM | 275 |
Mr Grierson | 284 |
Characteristics of the documentary | 295 |
The model film | 301 |
CHAPTER VIIICONCLUSION | 308 |
| 323 | |
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Common terms and phrases
¹See abstract film aesthetic affective tone already appear appreciation artist audience Battleship Potemkin beauty camera angle chapter characters cinema colour concepts conflict Constant Nymph contrast convey course criticism cutting-tone definition degree demand differentiating factors director dissolve documentary documentary film effect Eisenstein Emil Jannings emotion example expression F. W. Murnau filmic Fritz Lang G.P.O. Film Unit greater Grierson's important less Marxist material means mechanism of attention ment method mind movement moving natural film natural sound never objects Pabst Paul Rotha person pictorial play position possible present produced Pudovkin rate of cutting reader realistic relation rhythm rhythmical montage Russian scenarist scene screen screen-play seen sequence shot silent film single slow social sound factor sound film spectator speech speed stage synthetic film technique theory thought tion titles to-day total film types of montage visual film visual simile whole wipe words