15.4 WATER - Final Review Discussion

 15.4 Final Review Discussion

Directions:

Take a minute to reflect on the reading material thus far the presentation(s), and the study guide. Then,

1.Discuss a concept of your choice.

2.or, ask a question on a concept or term you would like greater clarification on.

3.or formulate a question which you feel could be included on a quiz or the final exam,  Your question may be multiple choice, or short answer. Provide your answer as well.

Finally answer a fellow student's question - other than the question from the previous bullet point.

or feel free to ask multiple questions if that is the path best for you.

Please be thorough.
Use quotes from the text to make your point, but please also cite the page.
Give examples from films screened in class. 

You may specifically concentrate on Water, this weeks film, or you may include films we have previously screened.
For instance you may discuss Water in respect to Hollywood Cinema (classicism).
1.What characteristics does it share,
2.how is it dissimilar?
3.And/or if you have gained knowledge of narrative structure,
4.styles of acting,
5.aesthetic form and analysis and you want to apply that knowledge to Water please do so.

And once again feel free to include Water in your quiz question.

My post: 

• or formulate a question which you feel could be included on a quiz or the final exam,  Your question may be multiple choice, or short answer. Provide your answer as well.

Preface to question. When I read this in the text, It fascinated me. I thought it was one of the best explanations of what made a film revolutionary and a masterpiece. Also how it contributed a change in American film history. 

In the discussion of the golden age of Hollywood which was 1927-1948, the text says that in 1941 with the release of Citizen Kane, Orson Welles’s film revolutionized the medium in American cinema. The text gave sixteen reasons that it was revolutionary; please name four in short sentence answers.

Here are the answers: 

1)Citizen Kane shows Welles’s genius as an artist and his vision of a new kind of cinema. (at age 24)
2)Involves a complex plot consisting of 9 sequences (each using a different tone and style).  -5 are
   flashbacks,
3)Including the omniscient camera, the movie has seven narrators – some of them unreliable – who,
   taken together present a modern psychological portrait of a megalomaniac.
4)Released 7 months before the US declared war in dec 41. it was a radical film for Hollywood.
5)Many interpretations including the Freudian interpretation of young Charlie’s relationship to his
   mother.
6)Citizen Kane carries a strong antifascist message. It warns against the Kane’s arrogant abuse of the
   first amendment right of freedom of speech and press, one of the many evils that Americans, reading
   their own newspapers, associated with Hitler.
7)Radical in its handling of prevailing cinematic language.
8)Astonishing complexity and speed of the narrative. It has influenced the structure and pace of nearly
    every movie after.
9)Movie’s stark design is heavily influenced by German Expressionism (in size, height, and depth of the
    rooms and other spaces at Xanadu).
10)Through deep-space composition, lighting, deep-focus cinematography, and long takes.  Gregg
      Toland (Cinematographer) achieved the highest degree of cinematic realism yet seen.  
11)The film is marked by brilliant innovations that changed cinematic language forever.
      Among these is deep focus cinematography, which permits action on all three planes of depth --
      foreground, middle ground and background.
12)In contrast to the prevailing soft look of the 1930s films, Citizen Kane has a hard finish.
13)The omniscient, probing, and usually moving camera, emphasizing its voyeuristic role, goes directly
      to the heart of each scene.
14)The editing is conventional, most often taking place within long takes/within camera. No soviet
     montage type things…except when he does “News on the March” sequence and pans and swipes that
     create the passing of time during the famous breakfast-table sequence.
15)His sound design for Kane creates and aural realism equivalent to the movie’s visual realism. He
      frequently uses overlapping sound, film also louder that typical. The bravado of its dialogue, sound
      effects, and music puts in your ears as well as in your face. Bernard Herrmann’s score was space,
      modernist ahead of its time.
16)Welles called on his stage and radio experiences to break another Hollywood convention. Actors did
      not normally rehearse their lines except in private or for a few minutes with the director b4 shooting.
      but Welles rehearsed his cast for a month before shooting began, so his ensemble of actors could
      handle long passage of dialogue in the movie’s distinctive long takes. And the performances,
      including Welles as Kane, are unforgettable.