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Importance Of Film Language In Cinema

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Everything in this universe communicates. Cinema, too, has its own communication patterns. It is a language system in itself. “Film is not a language in the sense that English, French, or Mathematics is …. But film is very much like a language.” “The penetrating eye f the camera helps to eternalize the object it sees, and the strength of the film lies in its giving a clear representation detail.” One way to analyze the film language is to compare it with other communicative arts. According to this school, the shot is the word of film, the scene its sentence, and sequence its paragraph. Punctuations are provided by cuts, wipes, dissolves, fade ups, fade downs, super impositions etc. Montage or/and image compositions determine the narrative …show more content…

According to V.I. Pudovkin, one of the great Russian film masters who developed theories of montage, “the foundation of film art is editing”. (Giannetti, L. (1999). Understanding Movies, Prentice Hall, New Jersey). Editing can control what we see on the screen, how we see it-the order in which we see each and every visual-the timing of the shots and pace of storytelling. The role of editing is not limited to eliminating unwanted time and space alone, rather it is a process that gives a film its own rhythm. Terry Ramsaye refers to editing as the “syntax of cinema, its grammatical language. Like linguistic syntax, the syntax of editing must be learned. We don’t possess it innately.” Giannetti, L. (1999). Understanding Movies, Prentice Hall, New Jersey). When films started to narrate stories, editing became a necessity to arrange visuals sequentially. “The word ‘edit’ often means ‘to cut out’: in audio-visual texts it refers to the join between shots. The purpose of conventional editing is to make this join as smooth as possible….to make the join seem invisible. This can only happen if …show more content…

While Kuleshov experimented with cutting films and resembling them, Eisenstein came up with his collision theory which proclaimed that the collision of two shots produces an entirely new idea which is not present in either of the two. According to this school of editing, cuts should stimulate the viewer. Unlike continuity style, montage cutting employs overlapping edits and shot repetition, which compresses or expands time. So a montage sequence is created by joining many separate shots some of which can be repeated in the same sequence. Shots are juxtaposed to build dramatic tension. The emphasis is on dynamic, sometimes discontinuous, relationships between shots and the juxtaposition of images to create ideas which are not inherent to either shot by

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With Rear Window (1954), Alfred Hitchcock proved himself to be one of the best directors of suspense thrillers filled with mystery and humour. He himself called the film his most cinematic one because it was told only in visual terms (Morrow), but it was also a challenging “editing experiment” as the entire film was shot from one place, Jeff’s apartment that overlooked his backyard. The Film follows L.B. Jeffries “Jeff” (James Stewart), a photographer confined to a wheelchair in his apartment after breaking his leg at work. He spends his days watching his neighbours and eventually suspects that one of them killed his wife. His caretaker, his girlfriend Lisa and his detective friend, at first unconvinced of his suspicion, eventually join him in his voyeurism and help him to solve the crime.

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“Mise-en-scene” is a French expression that was originally a theatrical term that refers to “staging” (Thompson & Bordwell 1999). When this term was transferred to film production, its practices involved the framing of the shots (Hayward 2000). According to Karam (2001), Mise-en-scene involves a choreographed set of visual elements that correspond to a set of ideas. Mise-en-scene involves the use of multiple elements that are used in a scene to create a certain mood or to influence the audience’s perception (Thompson & Bordwell 1999).

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The cinematic language that we hear in modern day movies would not be as it is today if we hadn 't had synchronous sound recordings from the beginning of film. Cinematic Language is the systematic method by which movies communicate with the viewer. Some examples of cinematic language are, Mise-en-scène, camera angles, the use of long takes, & depth of field. Barthes theory of Expressionism, the use of lighting techniques, montage and elaborate props push to make The Wizard of Oz appear to be a spectacle of realism.

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This essay talks about the use of cinematography in the scene where the protagonist – Riggan Thomson enters a room and had a conversation with his daughter in the film Birdman. Birdman is set in New York City in a time where theatre shows were losing their significance in the entertainment industry. The film is about Riggan trying to salvage his career through a Broadway show while his ego portrayed as Birdman threatens to bring it all down. On top of the brilliant acting from the actors, Birdman was well known for its trademark illusion that it was filmed in a continuous, long tracking shot with no cuts. This scene begins with Riggan returning to the theatre

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In the article, Eisenstein: ‘Intellectual Montage’, Poststructuralism, and Ideology’ written by Jason Lindop, he explains that montage can be seen as ‘a central concern in these works us how a series of images can, when correctly composed by the filmmaker and then interrupted by the viewer, produce and abstract concept not strictly present in each of the composite images.’ (Lindop, 2007). Intellectual montage is when we see different images that are different to each other but can be connected in the conveying of meaning and a metaphor that can be visually seen. In another article written about A Man with a Movie Camera, Eisenstein states its ‘different forms ‘Cinema of Attraction’ and experimented with a form of film editing which attempted to produce the greatest emotional response in a viewer by conflicting two different shots side created by juxtaposition.’ (“Man with the…”,

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More importantly, the conceptual montage is what reveals the key things to highlight about the story even though the shots are not continually edited to make up a story. Each shot is taken from random times and at random places. This helps in knowing the theme of uncertainty, just like a person not living a civilized and lawful life will experience not having a life with purpose or sense of direction. It can be seen through how the shots are taken because it brings the viewer’s eye to different directions. And just like the characters themselves, they are uncertain of what their actions may lead them

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Parallel editing was present in the film wherein it was edited in a way that two scenes were alternating to make it appear that they were happening simultaneously (Lorber, 2010). High and low angled shots were also present, and panoramic shots as well. The editing that I liked the most was in the scene when The Machine Man was made to look like Maria. The surge of electricity in this particular scene and the orbits going up and down The Machine Man was what amazed me. It is shocking that in order for this to happen, the people responsible for editing had to film this frame by frame so imagine the hours, days, weeks or even months that were put into this particular scene.

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