Kelly Minterson

Broadcasting/Cinema 101

Prof. Didders

The Theory of Film

  Cinema has been around for as long as people have been making movies. The dawn of the cinematic age from came around the earliest part of the last century when Edward Mybridge took some of  the first pictures of horses and showed that no horse's hoof ever touches the ground when it runs. The kinematiscope was among the first technologies that came out that showed images flying by in a circle in a thing that had a lihgt inside it. It was terrific and soon people were lining up all the way around the sides of buildings and on back behind the building to get a peak at this amazing marvel of picture, sight and sound. To compete with the Kinemascope, Nickelodeon started when people were first starting to like comedies but TV would not be around for the next several decades and it would take at least this long for Nickolodeon to become as popular as it currently is today with its smart yet funny shows that kids and adults as well can enjoy together. Also, as a "cliff's note", if you will, sound was always provided by compleate orchestras & they should still do this.

   The biggest difference between early film and new film is that now we have theorys to go along with those films that are just exceptionaly informative and show you how should be watching a movie while youre watching it. Films  or even olde ones are now five times better now that I've taken this class. Just to outline a few kinds of theorys, I would like to point out that they are extraordinarly complicated. 

   One is a theory that the movies comes from news or "reality" (Bazin 52). I personally can't think of a single movie that I've seen that comes from news except that one Citzen Cane one that was shown but I'm sure there are many others besides just that one. I did see the "the paper" with Michael Keeton and a bunch of other name actors. That is the first theory-- the one of news.

   The second theory that we've talked about says that movies comes from art (Eisenstein 409). I think this is one that comes closest to being true. I see it every day when I watch almost every single movie that they show. And everyone everywhere's heard that expression "Life Imitates Art". Well, if that doesn't say it all, I don't  know what possibly can. I mean, when you watch a movie, what are you thinking: "Well this is some REAL GOOD NEWS we have."??? No you're thinking, "This art is great." And art is great. Its the foundation of our whole society.So this is the theory that I must push out to you as the one that I love most number one best. 
   The third film theory says that you should just use everything and make it fake (Arnheim 17). I don't like that very much at all. You should always try to make a movie as real as possible. Even if it IS life imitiating art.

   Finally, there was Kuleshov who said that no matter what you do, you can make people think that someone is hungry when you show a picture of food after them (Kuleshov 105). This is a theory of editing and it makes a lot of sense but you have to think about it. Once you know this and you watch the clip that you showed us, people really do look hungry when you show a picture of food after a man's sad, hungry face. It's so amazing.

   To rap it up, the best thing about film theories is art. All movies are art thru and thru. A man's face is hungry when you show hungry things and a man's face is sad when you show a closed black coffin with a little dead girl inside it. Movies CAN come from news or reality as I have shown with Citizen Cane and "the paper" but they don't absolutely HAVE to. They can also...come....from..art.........and......life.