The Category of System in David Bordwell’s Concept of 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.

Scene, Aesthetics and Industry Chain: Postmodern Cultural Thinking of Films in 5G Era

With the in-depth influence of 5G technology on film art, the postmodern culture contained in it is also becoming more and more obvious. Understanding the context of the 5G era and clarifying the origin of film postmodernism culture will help us deeply analyze the cause of the rise of postmodernism film culture, especially the important influence of the expansion of film application scenes, the innovation of the whole industry chain and the evolution of film aesthetics on the rise of postmodernism film culture. In addition, we should also think deeply about the film culture under the post-modernism of 5G era, and explore the way to stick to the benign development of film creation and film industry. To enhance our cognition and appreciation of post-modern film culture, to give play to the positive factors of post-modern film culture, and to promote the healthy and prosperous development of Chinese film production, creation and industry.

The Causes and Enlightenment of Post-Modern Film Culture in the 5G Era

With the increasing influence of 5G technology on film art, the postmodern culture contained therein is also gradually becoming obvious. Understanding the context of the 5G era and clarifying the origin of postmodern film culture can help us analyze the cause of the rise of postmodern film culture, especially the important influence of the expansion of film application scenes, the innovation of the whole industry chain and the evolution of film aesthetics on the rise of postmodern film culture. In addition, we should also consider the film culture under the postmodernism of 5G era, and explore the way to stick to the benign development of film creation and film industry in order to enhance our cognition and appreciation of postmodern film culture, to maximize the positive factors of postmodern film culture, and to promote the healthy and prosperous development of Chinese film production, creation and industry.

Landscape as a Category of Film Aesthetics: Key Approaches

This article examines a variety of approaches to the concept of landscape in the philosophy of film in order to establish terminological accuracy and highlight problematic topics in conversations about space in film aesthetics in particular and to clarify the status and boundaries of the term landscape in philosophical use in general. Three groups of approaches to landscape in the philosophy of film were identified in the course of the study and analysis of literature on this issue: landscape as an auxiliary element for the director/crew/viewer (Béla Balázs, Susan Cathleen Gunn, Chris Lukinbeal, etc.); landscape as an autonomous category which is more than just an applied landscape/setting in the frame and which in its interaction with cinematography helps the latter to express its specific features to the fullest (Tom Gunning, Martin Lefebvre, Jean Epstein); single approaches failing to fit into the above categories, with the concept of landscape being subject to author’s specific interpretation (Giles Deleuze, Amy Lynn Corbin). The variety of related areas that had to be addressed in the course of this study (from sociology and politics to cultural geography and Deleuze’s concepts) gave rise to numerous interpretations of the term landscape, even within the framework of film aesthetics. The results of the research roughly outline the problem field on the one hand and indicate the need to continue working in this problem field on the other. One of the problematic issues is the traditional use of the term landscape, while the specificity of the autonomous landscape–cinema interaction requires a thorough study.

Image, Environment, Infrastructure: The Social Ecologies of the Bergfilm

The German mountain film (Bergfilm) has received extensive critical attention for its political, social, and aesthetic implications, but has received remarkably little attention for its role in the environmental history of the Alps. This article considers the Bergfilm within the long history of depictions of the Alps and the growth of Alpine tourism in order to ask how the role of media in environmental change shifts with the advent of film. The argument builds on Verena Winiwarter and Martin Knoll’s model of social-ecological interaction, Adrian Ivakhiv’s theoretical framework for the environmental implications of film, and Laura Frahm’s theories of filmic space. Through an analysis of Arnold Fanck’s films Der heilige Berg [The Holy Mountain, Fanck 1926] and Der große Sprung [The Great Leap, Fanck 1927], which are compared with Gustav Renker’s novel Heilige Berge [Holy Mountains, Renker 1921] and set into the context of the environmental history of the Alpine regions where the films were shot, the author argues that film aesthetics serve as a creative catalyst for environmental change and infrastructure development. While some ecocinema scholars have argued that environmental films teach viewers new ideas or change modes of behavior, this analysis suggests that film aesthetics are most effective at accelerating processes of environmental change that are already underway.

Prolegomenon

Kathleen McHugh explores the complex functions of women’s anger in the work and aesthetic circuitry—culture, texts, audience, reviewers—of contemporary feminist filmmakers. For all its ubiquity as a feminist feeling, anger has been little considered critically. While 1970s white theorists of feminine/feminist film aesthetics did not mention anger, feminist lesbian, materialist, and women-of-color critics lamented its absence. Julie Dash’s 1982 Illusions inaugurated an aesthetics of anger from a Black feminist perspective that exemplified the ideas in Audre Lorde’s foundational 1981 essay, “The Uses of Anger.” Drawing from Lorde’s and Sara Ahmed’s ideas about the creative value of feminist anger, together with recent affect theory on “reparative reading” and “better stories,” the essay explores four contemporary directors’ films and media works for how anger shapes their texts and critical reception and cultivates a mode of affective witness in their audiences.

The Different Meanings of “Film Form”

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.

The Social Body of Béla Balázs

Focusing on the interwar writings of the film journalist and theorist Béla Balázs, this article argues for an understanding of Balázs’s film aesthetics as grounded in a popular politics of the body. Balázs understood film as a medium in which experiences of image, sound, and expressive movement and gesture shape human subjectivities within a newly mediatized social realm. The article explores Balázs’s consequent plea for a film politics of popular embodiment and asks what a survey of Balázs’s writings as both critic and theorist tell us about the political valences of his film theory now.