7.3–Key Components of Film

With regard to genre, as cinema developed, so did the need to categorize the films, using cues from literary categorization. Modern descriptors for film break down into short-form vs. full-length/feature-length; fiction vs. nonfiction (documentary and/or biography); live-action vs. animated; and genre. In ENGL 203, the focus will typically lean toward the fiction film, which can be short, full-length, live-action, animated, and any genre. Within this space, genre categories include: drama, comedy, horror, science fiction, Western, fantasy, suspense/thriller, and action/adventure. Because genre is a fluid system of categorization full of hybrids and subgenre blends, the aforementioned labels are subject to debate (ex: romance is often considered its own genre and sometimes it is placed within drama and/or comedy). For each genre system, representative films exemplify the narrative expectations within their content and toward viewer responses, and each genre contains its own set of distinctions among its canon of films. A comedy is often, but not always, filled with lighthearted moments designed to make an audience laugh (Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein [1948], a slapstick comedy] while some comedies offer situational stories that make audiences laugh through feelings of discomfort (The House of Yes [1997], a dark comedy). A science fiction film typically addresses concepts of time (past, present, and/or future), technology, and humanity’s relationship with its surrounding space (Her [2013]), a hard science fiction film vs. Time Bandits [1981], a steampunk, speculative, fantasy-adventure science fiction film). As we can see from taking a brief look at comedy and science fiction, film genres—like most literary divisions—are quite flexible in their narrative elements.

Authorship

The author of a film is another point of subjective perspective. We have to consider the partnership that a director makes with their writer(s), cinematographer(s), co-directors, and editor(s) instead of the staple single author for written works. The actors and crew members also take part in the collaborative process of moviemaking, and quite often a director performs multiple roles in production. We usually associate the director as the author of a film because they are at the helm to ensure all the working parts come together to create the final product, their name is typically showcased last in the opening credits before the story begins, and they are who we have collectively assigned the role over the years; however, not all film productions function the same and therefore authorship is not such a simple concept. Consider these scenarios: If a movie, such as The Blair Witch Project (1999), is unscripted and the actors guide the story through their dialogue and movements, are they not mostly responsible for the direction of the film? If a director has to leave a production (85% completed) and have another take over, does the new director take on full authorship of the film, including what the previous director accomplished? If a production company is unhappy with a completed film and has the editor change the content by restructuring its scenes, shots, and cuts, is the editor the true author of the story? Traditionally, we can associate a film’s director as the author, but the complex nature of authorship that exists for individual movies is specific to film as a literary medium. In this manner, the authorship of a film can be decided on a case-by-base basis. An instructor might also inform their students how authorship will be treated during the duration of a course.

The movie we watch on screen has its own origin story, and putting all of its parts together involves a few processes. Most often, a film evolves from an original screenplay, the written version of the visual presentation. A spec script (standard screenplay) is created by a writer who hopes to have their work optioned (selected for possible purchase and eventual filming), and once that process happens, a shooting script is then created specifically for movie production that typically serves to help the director and cinematographer decide what order to film scenes, what changes need to be made, and so forth. The script sometimes develops from a previous text—a short story, novella, novel, play, poem, and even a series of these texts (think The Hunger Games book series that later became a film franchise)—that we label the adapted screenplay.

Casting for the movie is a process that involves auditioning actors for particular roles. Usually, actors read lines from the script to audition; they may get a callback to do a second audition or more, read with another actor already hired for the film, and/or complete an interview. Money has to be discussed, contracts have to be signed, and a host of other behind-the-scenes business deals settled before filming can begin. When viewing a film, star power can alter the way in which we receive and interpret the story. If the actors are not well known, we might connect more with the story, but if the actors are household names in popular culture, that recognition might pull focus from the story and/or influence how we react to the content and performance. Although movies are visual texts, the screenplay is read by the hired actors to learn their lines (similar to the stage play/drama) and during table reads when they come together to test how the story will flow and create chemistry between the characters they hope to bring to life.

As filmmakers plan the action of the screenplay, they often storyboard, which means they create a graphic illustration like a comic book with panels, action, and dialogue to envision and organize the story content. And even after filming concludes, post-production elements —editing, special effects creations, music and sound mixing, etc.—continue the process to finalize the story we see in the theatre. Sometimes situations occur that necessitate extreme post-production changes to the existing film. In one such example, an actor was cut from Army of the Dead (2021) for legal reasons. This action led to the role being recast, scenes reshot, and the new actor superimposed into previously shot scenes frame by frame—a painstaking process. In the way that we may discuss different editions of a written work in which materials is cut, added, or revised in some other manner, a movie typically exists as a theatrical cut (what we see in theatres that has been agreed upon by all parties responsible for the filmmaking, most notably the production company) and a director’s cut (the final version of the film that represents the director’s vision for the project before it undergoes any changes resulting from the ratings board and production company directives). Unlike written works of literature that go through different editions, and more like cover songs, original movies often transform into remakes and/or reboots like Psycho (1960) and Psycho (1998) or the Charlie’s Angels franchise that started in 2000 then rebooted in 2019.

We, as the viewing audience, play an integral part in the film process, as our responses to the form and content inform how we interpret a movie. Although we may all watch the same film, our perspectives on its form and content are often determined by our backgrounds (academic, geographic, gender, ethnicity, age, politics, etc.). This is an implicit bias we should all disclose—to ourselves first—in order to clear away predispositions that may cloud making an informed argument. But before we can fully explore film as literature in the ENGL 203 classroom, we must remember that the written works we typically explore in school came before the visual texts (although the written word is a visual text, especially early-form pictographs that represented writing through symbols, but let’s not get too historical and instead stick with contemporary classroom standards).

First, we can review some important considerations for written literature and then move into how those elements transition into visual spaces.

Reading a Written Text

We all have some experience with literature, from storybooks as children to young adult novels in middle and high school, to fiction and nonfiction writings in college and in our personal lives. Some of us write to create our own literature. What we take away from these readings and/or writings can typically be either didactic (instructional), non-didactic (entertainment), or a blend of the two. The same can be said for film in the way that we have all seen a documentary, short film, and/or feature-length movie, or perhaps made our own content (from independent cinema at festivals or in theatres to the work being created on YouTube). What I want to discuss in this section is how we arrive at those lessons learned from the content and form—the way in which we interpret the information.

Written literature is something we are typically more exposed to in and out of school. We read for comprehension to get a sense of the author’s purpose in creating the work and how we—as readers—respond to our interpretations and perspectives. There is no single answer to understanding form and content in literature; however, simple questions can be used to direct analysis. Some of those inquiries about form include (in no particular order):

1. How is the narrative arranged (chapters, titles, subheadings, etc.)?
2. Does the front matter indicate anything (judge a book by its cover)?
3. Are graphics/visuals included, and if so, how do they contribute to surface analysis?
4. Who is the author? How does this influence preconceived notions about the work?
5. What type of literature is the work (novel, novella, short story … sci-fi, romance, mystery, etc.)?
6. How does the type (structure, length, and category) affect the storytelling?

The content of a literary work encourages us to consider a much longer list of questions than those that can be applied to the form. These questions help unpack the narrative and break down the story into multiple levels of evaluation for a more in-depth discovery of its meaning. Here are a few questions regarding content:

1. What perspective is being used (first-person, second-person, third-person, etc.)?
2. What time techniques are employed (flashback, flashforward, time markers, etc.)?
3. How is figurative language utilized (simile, metaphor, allusion, etc.)?
4. Who are the main characters in the story?
5. What types of characters are presented (dynamic/round versus flat/static)?
6. What is difficult to understand in the narrative?
7. What theme and/or recurring motifs does the story offer to its audience?
8. Who is the audience for the narrative? (Is the writing directed toward a targeted group?)

This may seem like a basic review of elements presented long ago from the high school years, but these are fundamental aspects of understanding literature that can be used for almost any narrative. In television and film, the written forms of the teleplay and screenplay, respectively, may be examined using similar questions listed above. Using these tools helps literary analysis, but how do we “read” a film? In many ways, the process is the same; however, the language (terminology) is a bit different. Before we can discuss film specifically, we will focus on its major building block – the visual image – and how to decipher meaning from it.

What is visual analysis (VA)? In the simplest understanding, VA is the action of analyzing visual images to comprehend the messages they communicate to various audiences. However, a more complex investigation of the process involves a breakdown into visual rhetoric and visual literacy – the act of communicating through visuals and the ability to “read” them, respectively. In other words, visuals are composed of elements like color, shape, space, texture, shading, and positioning that convey specific messages and meaning based on the arrangement of the elements working together and their individual impact. How we “read” (interpret) them depends on subjective perspectives that we back up by using the text itself to support our analysis. Figure 7.1^[1] depicts one example:

By reading the elements of this photograph – without any other context provided – we might come to the following conclusions:

• The single frame represents a protest.
• The people pictured are angry/upset about an issue.
• The people are united in their objective.
• This is a public demonstration.
• The situation is immediate.

How can we make these interpretations?

• The image depicts a gathering of people, some with fists raised in a symbolic protest gesture.
• People’s mouths are open, indicating voices yelling for recognition.
• Signs carried indicate social movements regarding freedom and justice; people are applauding.
• People hold signs written in large print for observers to read from a distance.
• An overhead shot is used to showcase the compact crowd which provides an urgent mood/tone.

This type of reading is something we do every day as we interpret traffic lights while driving, say hello to a stranger on the sidewalk based on their facial expression, and binge-watch a favorite TV series into the wee hours of the morning, following visual cues provided in each episode. Discuss the image in Figure 7.2^[2] with your peers to compare similar and different ways in which you interpret its visual elements:

Consider what elements are present within the frame and their arrangement, the use of color and patterns, focal points, and camera positioning. We can tell a lot about a story from one single frame in a movie. But if we read visuals all the time, you might not immediately consider their importance as forms of literature to study.

Why is VA important? Because we read visuals all the time is the exact reason why visual analysis is important. We need to know how to understand visuals because they represent such large components of life: human communication, learning how to do something, and entertainment; and within the classroom, they function as aids to help us develop critical reading, writing, and comprehension skills that can be applied to various modes of writing.

Beyond the singular visual image lies the combination of more than one in motion to create a film. With all that we have discussed, we can now move into the specific focus of understanding film through its form and content.

Reading a Visual Text

Film is a visual medium in presentation; moreover, in the 21st Century, we access film in the theatre on the big screen, at home on the small screen (television and computer), and on-the-go via laptop, phone, and other devices. We watch films all the time, and they make us laugh, cry, think, evaluate how we would handle a situation, and so forth. But these are most often just reactions that help us decide if we like the film or not. In “reading” a film, we can still have these reactions, but they can be used for a deeper understanding of its form and content. In a similar manner for analyzing literature, here are a few questions about the form of a film:

1. How are the opening credits presented?
2. What type of music/song opens the film with the credits?
3. What kind of camera work is noticeable (quick cuts, fades, wipes, angles, etc.)?
4. What colors are dominant in the frame?
5. Are there textual elements (subtitles, title sequence, etc.)? How do they affect surface analysis?
6. What genre is the film classified? How does this correlate to form and content expectations?

After “reading” some of these surface elements of a film, they can assist a viewer in analyzing subtext (what lies within the narrative beneath the surface). If a film (its creators and participants) is trying to convey a message to its audience, here are a few aspects to question in order to decipher the content:

1. Who is the director? How does this influence form/content expectations before the viewing?
2. Who are the actors? How does this influence acting expectations before the viewing?
3. What repeating story elements are recognized in the narrative? How do they develop themes?
4. How does the film connect to others in its genre (or beyond its genre)?
5. What defines the film (particular scene, visuals, dialogue, etc.)?
6. How does the film provoke emotions? Which ones?
7. What seems out of place with the established tone of the film?
8. How does the ending resolve conflict?

These are just a few questions that can be taken into consideration when analyzing film. How a reader or viewer responds to a work will influence their own set of inquiries to investigate. Perspectives can shape how we evaluate film; however, we should focus on objectivity in order to understand that there is no one way to receive and/or interpret a narrative. While a consensus may be reached (i.e., Blade Runner (1982) is a science-fiction film), there can and will always be other perspectives (i.e., Blade Runner is film noir). It is in our best interests to support our arguments (informed opinions) but remain open to understand the viewpoints of others and address them.

Terminology

Most literary terms for written works—characters, dialogue, flashback, etc.—apply directly to film; however, there are film-specific terms that are utilized to describe the inner and outer workings of a movie. Review Table 7.1 to identify terminology you currently know, and take time to look up definitions of terms for which you are unfamiliar. Getting to know these terms will help you communicate ideas regarding film in peer discussions and in your writing.

Table 7.1. Film Terminology