The Different Meanings of “Film Form”

Projections ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 55-71
Author(s):  
Melenia Arouh
Keyword(s):  
Common Understanding ◽  
Film Form ◽  
Film Aesthetics

The appreciation of form is a common preoccupation in aesthetic analyses of films. The concept of form, however, has traditionally troubled philosophers of art, and although its meaning and significance have been debated throughout history, a common understanding is not always easy to discern. This article reviews certain ambiguities regarding “form” in film aesthetics through an examination of the uses of the word, especially in relation to content, medium, and style. Through this discussion, both the significance of the word is explained, but also the type of analysis it allows for.

John Dos Passos and Cinema

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Nanney
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
John Dos Passos ◽  
Feature Films ◽  
Unpublished Manuscripts ◽  
Film Form ◽  
Film Aesthetics

John Dos Passos & Cinema, the first study to use the novelist’s little-known writing for the screen to assess the trajectory of his prolific career, explores both how film aesthetics shaped his revolutionary modernist narratives and how he later reshaped them directly into film form. The book features previously unpublished manuscripts and correspondence illustrating case studies of his screen writing during the 1930s for Hollywood feature films and in an innovative independent treatment; it examines the complexities of his role in the 1937 political documentary The Spanish Earth; and it explores the unproduced screen treatment of his attempts from the 1940s on to adapt his epic trilogy U.S.A. directly for the screen and to realign its leftist politics toward the anti-Communist conservatism reflected in his work and activism of that period. John Dos Passos & Cinema thus provides a new context for and reading of his modernist literary innovations and his conservative political reorientation in the 1930s that redefined his literary career.

scholarly journals The ‘Good Form’ of Film

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Poulaki
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Dynamic Models ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Gestalt Psychology ◽  
Gestalt Theory ◽  
Good Continuation ◽  
Film Research ◽  
Film Form ◽  
Film Aesthetics

Summary This article questions certain assumptions concerning film form made by the recent (neuro)psychological film research and compares them to those of precursors of film psychology like Hugo Münsterberg and Rudolf Arnheim, as well as the principles of Gestalt psychology. It is argued that principles of Gestalt psychology such as those of ‘good form’ and good continuation are still underlying the psychological research of film, becoming particularly apparent in its approach to continuity editing. Following an alternative Gestalt genealogy that links Gestalt theory with more recent dynamic models of brain activity and with accounts of brain complexity and neuronal synchronisation, the article concludes that psychological research on film needs to shift the focus from form to transformation, both in conceiving the perceptual and cognitive processing of films and in approaching film aesthetics more broadly.

scholarly journals The Category of System in David Bordwell’s Concept of Film Aesthetics

2021 ◽  
pp. 6-20
Author(s):  
Mirosław Przylipiak
Keyword(s):  
System Theory ◽  
Feedback Loop ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
Formal System ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Hollywood Cinema ◽  
Classical Hollywood Cinema ◽  
Classical Hollywood ◽  
Film Form ◽  
Film Aesthetics

The aim of this paper is to analyse the role played by the category of system in the early books of David Bordwell. They have exerted an enormous influence on the understanding of film aesthetics, but little space has been devoted to their methodological background, including the category of system. In Film Art: An Introduction (1979), all elements of film form have a systemic character, which is visible in the chapter titles, such as “Form as System” or “Narration as a Formal System”. In The Classical Hollywood Cinema, the film aesthetics is based on systems of narrative logic, time and space. In Narration in the Fiction Film, the systems of syuzhet and style are foregrounded. Bordwell’s fascination with systems is rooted undoubtedly in their popularity in the 1970s. But do Bordwellian notions really fulfil the criteria of system theory, especially in its newer version, with such notions as chaos, feedback loop, self-regulation and others? Perhaps even Bordwell himself is not certain of that, since the word “system” disappears from recent editions of Film Art: An Introduction.

The Embittered Mind

2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 213-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hansjörg Znoj ◽  
Sandra Abegglen ◽  
Ulrike Buchkremer ◽  
Michael Linden
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Reaction ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Systematic Research ◽  
Roc Curve Analysis ◽  
Confirmatory Factor Analyses ◽  
Receiver Operating Characteristic Curves ◽  
Confirmatory Factor ◽  
Different Dimensions ◽  
First Time ◽  
Common Understanding

Abstract. There is a growing interest in embitterment as psychological concept. However, little systematic research has been conducted to characterize this emotional reaction. Still, there is an ongoing debate about the distinctiveness of embitterment and its dimensions. Additionally, a categorical and a dimensional perspective on embitterment have been developed independently over the last decade. The present study investigates the dimensions of embitterment by bringing these two different approaches together, for the first time. The Bern Embitterment Inventory (BEI) was given to 49 patients diagnosed with “Posttraumatic Embitterment Disorder (PTED)” and a matched control group of 49 patients with psychological disorders with other dominant emotional dysregulations. The ability to discriminate between the two groups was assessed by t-tests and Receiver Operating Characteristic Curves (ROC curve analysis). PTED patients scored significantly higher on the BEI than the patients of the control group. ROC analyses indicated diagnostic accuracy of the inventory. Further, we conducted Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFA) to examine the different dimensions of embitterment and their relations. As a result, we found four characteristic dimensions of embitterment, namely disappointment, lack of acknowledge, pessimism, and misanthropy. In general, our findings showed a common understanding of embitterment as a unique but multidimensional emotional reaction to distressful life-events.

Punishment and Citizenship

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Milena Tripkovic
Keyword(s):  
Historical Development ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Citizenship Status ◽  
Criminal Conviction ◽  
Criminal Offender ◽  
Normative Foundations ◽  
Common Understanding

The book develops a normative theory of criminal disenfranchisement and determines which offenders may justifiably lose electoral rights after criminal conviction. Having examined the historical development of the practice and contemporary electoral restrictions—which reveal that disenfranchisement is still widespread in European democracies—the book goes on to explore the nature of this sanction and its normative foundations. Diverging from common understanding, the book proposes that criminal disenfranchisement is not a form of punishment, but a citizenship sanction that aims to reduce membership entitlements of disenfranchised criminals and deplete their citizenship status. To determine whether criminal disenfranchisement can be justified, it is necessary to understand the substance of membership in a polity and the requirements that a citizen ought to satisfy to enjoy a full range of rights attached to this status. To account for possible differences in citizenship requirements between diverse types of polities, the book develops three ideal-typical models, which are loosely tied to the liberal, republican, and communitarian forms of political organization. The book contends that, regardless of internal differences, only one kind of criminal offender fails to satisfy citizenship requirements in all three types of polity and may thus incur electoral restrictions—a person who has seriously and irreversibly severed citizenship ties with her polity owing to an incorrigible lack of moral conscience. The book concludes by specifying additional conditions that ought to be satisfied before restrictions can be enacted, but also suggests reasons for which polities may abstain from imposing them.

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