Child Labour in India

This certainly was not the kind of story that one ever wishes to anticipate.

However, today Indian news channels broke an absolutely horrible news story - 'A 10 year old boy beaten to death in Delhi by his employer'. Moin, a young boy from Bihar worked in a bindi factory in Delhi and was severely beaten up by his employer, who also happens to be his uncle. This act of brutality would have gone unnoticed. Thanks to the guards at a Delhi Muslim graveyard who became suspicious after noticing injury marks on the dead body of the little child. They then contacted the police, unfortunately the perpetrators escaped.

I dont know if they are going to be able to find the accused, I am not sure if the are ever going to be seriously bothered !

You may see a bit of cynicism here, but I simply cannot help it - when is this going to stop !!! ?? Child labour is one of the biggest problems that we are facing as a country ! Yet half of us, and by that I mean some of us who are apparently educated and aware don't really care. We don't mind the fact that some of domestic helpers are actually underaged children, not an emotion in us stirs any more at the sight of a child begging for alms. Oh, the immediate response has always been - '' No , lets not spoil them. This is a racket ! '' As much as I agree that poor little children are being victimised by this massive racket throughout the country, I have to say that all the rest of us do is pass our judgement and carry on. What are you really doing about it ? For heaven's sake stop talking - if there this doesn't bother you, then you better stop pretending like it does ! If you are too busy complaining about you adult lifestyle, then you might as well learn something from these little homeless and helpless children who are facing the kind of hardships that you and I have cannot imagine going through in our lives.

I am agitated ! How are we as a prospective world power allowing this to happen ? A blind eye and all we can come up with is condemn such incidents and tragedies by discussing about them for a few moments. Evidently, this is not enough and to be honest it hasn't made much difference ! I feel very strongly and do believe that we as a nation need to tackle child labour a lot more seriously. If you have a problem with the corruption in India, and hate your ministers for evading taxes then how can you not have a problem with this kind of treatment to our children ? On second thoughts, is that why we don't bother ? Because technically these kids aren't our children. They are not our son's and daughters, our nieces and nephews ! Perhaps, this is why we're still cold to this issue. I don't know if this attitude is ever going to change, I do sincerely hope that it does.

AVANT GARDE /EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA/ UNDERGROUND CINEMA

A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE ALTERATIONS INITIATED BY TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS (SUCH AS VIDEO AND DIGITALISATION) AND THEIR IMPACT ON EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA.

INTRODUCTION

The Avant Garde of the twentieth century is the one that involves the most lasting revolution in a century of revolutions: the technological revolution. Primarily started by inventions outside the boundaries of the world of art, technology based art (comprising a range of practises from photography to film to video to virtual reality) has directed art into areas once dominated by engineers and technicians. Experimental cinema resists the basic narrative structure that a usual mainstream product follows. It exhibits a disorderly connection between all the elements in a film. Over the years, various developments have influenced alternations in consumption and production practices of experimental cinema. In most situations these developments (for example video and computer) have benefited artists and have enabled them to consider themselves as part of a technological revolution. The numerous possibilities that are offered by these developments sometimes excite them and on some occasions alienate them from the process, artists associated with experimental cinema usually do not get involved in the commercialized use of the new technologies, and they instead seek to make personal statements through their practice without regard of the commodity value of what they do[1]. However, the technology accessible at present is not a product of a small period of time but has evolved over years. The history of the twentieth century media art is linked to the developments in photography, with it people began to participate in the manipulation of time itself by capturing, reconfiguring, creating variations on it with time lapses, fast forward, slow motion and all those other time related phrases relevant to the art and science of photography[2].

An evident fact about experimental cinema is that process is most important and not the object[3]. Process by the importance assigned to it, makes it impossible for any kind of consistency or linearity to be formed, when it comes to making a film or watching one, as it dominatingly becomes the main purpose of vision. Peter Gidal (London Film Co-op, 1968) states that the enormous significance given to the idea of process also gave rise to the problem of fetishising it and process became just an image, an image of process. Hence, it can be argued that the various alterations that technological developments proposed or facilitated were to an extent seen as a challenge to the institutional idea of process in experimental cinema.

CHANGES AND CHALLENGES

The Present Scenario

One of the primary concerns have been the survival of art as a separate speciality or field, the digital revolution and the convergence of technologies to an extent have threatened the existence of art by initiating alternations. Even though TV, fibre optics and global satellite systems are considered the future of arts, there clearly has been a resistance to consumer ideology (a consumers unconscious habits of mind such as beliefs, assumptions and expectations) which is concealed in the digital vision; this sort of technological determinism in the present scenario has forced artists to defend the critical function of art and culture in advancing societies[4]. Perhaps such action revels how consumerism has replaced capitalism, by focusing entirely on exploiting resources.

However, Ress contemplates this battle in a way by not placing a lone artist against this huge mega-media culture. He says for example it is wrong to bluntly polarise the ‘handmade’ ethic of the formal-structural avant garde that has always argued that film or video are forms of art media with certain properties, almost opposite to the presently converging multi-media technologies[5].

Technology has influenced changes to experimental cinema in different ways for many years now. These modern day developments are not a manifestation of an overnight technological revolution and have their roots going back in history. For example developments such as those made by the Whitney brothers (abstract electronic experiments in the 1940s) resulted in the birth of lyrical and mythic abstraction and also their own role in computer research; and it was Gene Youngblood who produced words such as paleocybernetics, the inter media network, popular culture and noosphere, the artist as a design scientist, global closed circuit and many more which are widely used[6]. While such developments took place in America, Britain also displayed an interchange between art and technology. Le Grice, who probably more than anyone else, represented ‘structural filmmaking’ made computer based experiments in the 1960s, likewise Gustav Metzger’s auto destructive art also pioneered the computer based arts in the same decade[7].

Ress writes about Metzger, ‘‘as with the machine style art of Eduardo Paolozzi in his early printmaking series (for example, ‘As Is When’,1965), it was the post modernity of these media, and their insistently automatic processes which sidestep the artist’s personal signature, which were central lures of electronic image-making.’’ Hence, it is evident that the above mentioned developments paved the path for future revolutions and also legitimise that experimental cinema has undergone alterations from the very beginning.

The debate has been going on since the 1970s between experimental filmmakers and the new video art movement. This has been the result of the difference in perspectives of different generations and also around the argument that media/technology endangered filmmaking mostly by commercialising the entire process. However some like David Hall, former sculptor and film maker defended the video making faction, by arguing that there were some institutional differences between the two media’s, these were the relation of video to television (not cinema), the real time aspect of video, its directness as a medium and its basis in electronic signals rather than photochemical images were some formal characteristics that made up the distinctive character of video as an art practice[8].

In the last two decades video has received greater acceptance and extended in the wider culture. There was a massive change in the sense of time and place occurred in the last 20 years, the visual sensation of the present time became inseparable from its temporal components and video attracted artists for the range of spontaneity and simultaneity that it made possible[9]. The lightweight camcorder replaced the awkward Portapak (the first portable camera that had inspired Paik, Hopkins and Hall) there have been changes in formats of video from spooled tape to compact cassette. Rapid video cutting was made possible for the first time by Sony in the early 1980s that also resulted in the rise of scratch video. Also tapes were combined on high definition video and scanned back to 35mm negative film for cinema release and domestic VHS tapes for home distribution[10]. Technology made exhibition and distribution a lot less complicated for experimental film maker. We will now analyse the changes and challenges that experimental cinema has witnessed in the form of video, computer art and digitalisation.

VIDEO: A revolution?

‘‘Video art is part of a broader shift from the representational tradition of visual art to one engaged in the more presentational mode of the ‘theatrical’, incorporating the sense of the here and now, of the viewer participating in the very space of the object, images and action.’’

Daniel Palmer

The arrival of ‘video’ is one of the principal contributing factors to bringing a change in experimental cinema. To understand the way in which it revolutionised experimental cinema we shall take some examples and also consider the changes that it initiated. ‘Video’ as a term has many definitions and the word is also used in many different ways. Palmer’s above mentioned quotation also demonstrates the same; it refers to some video art but cannot be considered in relation to all video art. The conventions and properties that comprise video (such as interlacing, frames, display resolution, aspect ratio, colour space etc) have to a large extent been inherited from properties from the earlier mediums including radio, theatre and to an extent film[11]. Korean born Nam June Paik is credited as the pioneer of video art, for his footage shot in the autumn of 1965 of Pope Paul VI’s procession through New York City shooting with his Sony Portapak. American artists gained access to video in the early 1960s,before the British artists...Its arrival in the United Kingdom is very interesting as initially very few were able to gain access to this new, expensive and weighty technology.

The video culture that had stimulated a lot of filmmakers in America also inspired people like John Hopkins to establish the first British TV workshop and research centre, TVX in London. Hopkins’ initiative shaped the video-culture in the coming years. The TVX planned to operate in and through electronic media; and David Curtis facilitated the exhibition of famous products of avant garde and experimental cinema here[12]. Hopkins along with Sue Hall founded the ‘Fantasy Factory’ that went on for over 30 years. Later the BBC came up with its own Community Programmes Unit based on Hopkins’ model. The unit also produced Video Nation (1994) and Video Dairies (1990-95) with a similar idea of TVX’s public access and programme making[13].A common feature of these establishments was their acceptance of the digital technologies and the intention to find ways by which its user could reshape products. But this intention was defeated as it was difficult for the artists to use television transmission (that seemed like an extension of anti-gallery and anti-high art movement) in the UK, and bodies such as BBC and ITV were difficult to get in to. Due to this problem of ‘access’ the video movement is said to have fractured into three divisions. Rees states that one of the branches of ‘video artists’ wanted to focus on the conditions of video as a mode of perception and production; the other one including those who made artist’s video, was inspired by artists such as Bruce Nauman and Rebecca Horn and wanted to use video to reject traditional media; and the third group took up the cause of community art, based on Hopkins’ model[14]. These division and difference in approach to video art for example different kinds of video practices ( use of technological mean to generate visual imagery, including formal research into plastic elements; considerable range of recordings Conceptual Art actions or happenings, often concentrated on the body of the artists himself; guerrilla video; combination of camera ,monitors in sculptures, environment and installations; live performances using video; combination of advanced video research most often video with computers[15]) resulted in absence of developed theories of video. Hence, it can be argued that video augmented the gap between the different factions of artists and generations. The new possibilities that it initiated, allowed the artists to experiment with their ideas. Technical difficulties such as the fundamental impossibility of editing on the then available VTR, discouraged artists’ interests. They became less interested in filmic conventions such as montage, and began to use closed circuit systems and instant playback; some of the other outdated technologies of the 1960s and 1970s were vidicon tubes in early cameras, open reel to reel video tape recorders and etc[16].

By keeping these in mind we can argue that improvements made on these features, helped in releasing artists from technical difficulties and provided them with more scope of experimentation and expression.

THE REBELLION: Commercialisation; New Pluralism; yBa.

The rebellion occurred in 1980s, with a number of low tech 8mm and fast cut videos; ‘scratch’ video makers re-edited the TV footage of Reagan with Thatcher and mainly used montage to create parody[17]. ‘Scratch’ (that was made popular by the British art collective Gorilla Tapes during the early 1980s) soon caught the eye of TV executives, and became a common technique in advertisements. The commercialisation that was taking place now temporarily united the remaining factions of avant garde and the ones to demonstrate the most hostile opposition were the structuralists[18]. The other faction that supported anti- commercialism was the political narrative filmmakers. The journal Undercut (81-90) by the London Filmmakers Co-Op(with the initial aim to provide access to film-making; film availability; open exhibition and distribution) established by people such as Stephen Dwoskin and David Curtis published contributions against the commercialisation of art and later when film and video were merged in editing this was seen as an anti-purist gesture[19](however this was soon commercially exploited and remains so).This decade also witnessed the coming together of the scratch movement and the low budget promo and they merged into a third group with 8mm filmmakers in the New Romantics camp. This saw the acceptance of the commercial area that was inspired by popular culture[20] as they distanced themselves from their ‘purist’ or ‘modernist’ or gallery/fine art predecessors; did not indulge in theory and took great interest in popular culture (the most famous example of this being the interaction of such people with the development of pop or music videos). The 1980s was also called the era of ‘New Pluralism’, as not only did it indicate the decline of boundaries in the film and video movement but also the spread of new media in current art. This was also a period in which video was losing its identity, the ‘meltdown factor’ proposed by TV producer and animator John Wyver highlighted the fact that the distinction between television and video art was fading due to the impact of the media revolution, and it was in the better interests of the artist to accept the new environment[21]. Artists resisted this notion of assimilation to digitalisation, filmmakers such as Michael Maziere opposed the notion of ‘meltdown’ by arguing that digitalisation extended opportunities for artists without compromising on their expressions and explorations and did not necessarily put them in the same category that was shared by TV and popular culture.

Another wave of rebellion came from the YBA artists (Young British Artists) who had graduated in the 1990s. They were divided between those who favoured low-grade media like Super-8 or VHS and those who accepted digitalisation and entered the galleries (rejecting the anti-gallery movement of previous generations). Rees states that, ‘‘on the whole they were more interested in image and event than in perception and structure; the spectator is an observer of the work rather than an active participant[22].’’

TRANSOFORMATION IN THEMES

Apart from influencing artists and giving way to transformation, video also initiated a transformation in the aesthetic ideas of the artists; one such example could be a transformation in ‘themes’. Female artists displayed greater acceptance of video, as it was cheap, easy to operate and allowed them to work alone, and in many situations these filmmakers dealt intimately with their bodies while filming. To an extent it is said that the avant garde provided them with opportunities that they were deprived of in the mainstream[23]. However, female filmmakers had challenged the male bias that was present in avant garde.

If we consider the female video artists of the 1990s, we can see that they dealt with low tech performative styles (that were present in videos by female filmmakers during the 1970s).Sadie Benning (a self described lesbian filmmaker), an American artist in the 1980s kept the improvisational spirit of the early videos in her narratives (very personal in nature). She used a toy camera manufactured by Fisher Price that recorded pixelated, black and white video images onto standard audio tapes. Her videos were complex narrative collages, they had images of random objects such as toys, movie, windows and her face expressed identity. In her videos such as A New Year (1989), If Every Girl Had a Diary (1990), and Flat Is Beautiful (1998) Benning has dealt with themes of young girls experiencing sexual maturity and desires. In all these videos she has used herself as the centre of main focus in isolated surroundings. A New Year shows a side of Sadie that is shy and conscious, away from the front of the camera using her surroundings, in this case her bedroom and the window to depict her feelings of perplexity and alienation. The title of her film Flat Is Beautiful was inspired from an old 70s t-shirt that promoted women with flat chests, Sadie constantly dealt with such themes.Sadie commented in one of her interviews that she did not like to talk and her messages were in the form of hand written text, music; she wanted to substitute objects, the things that were around her to illustrate events and so she used anything-television, her dog, etc[24]. In all her works she has explored her sexual identity and transition from a girl to a woman. She also used pop-culture to construct her message, very often images on television and movies would frustrate her and inspire her to react. In Cosmetic/ Not Cosmetic (1993-94) she has questioned the various stereotypes attached to women, she destroys a vanity box with a drilling machine while she is dressed up in a satin slip[25].

Coming to male video artists, the new trend was to adopt a lyrical track in work that tackled questions of identity[26]. They dealt with themes such as expressions of longing. Russian filmmaker Alexandr Sokurov, who has debuted as many as four of his films at Cannes demonstrates a profound search of self in his work. His works Solsatskiy Son (1995) and Oriental Elegy (1996) are some that demonstrate such emotions. Oriental Elegy a dreamscape filmed on a remote Japanese island in which the characters emerge hanging between life and death.Sokurov raises questions about finding and understanding the idea of happiness; the idea of life and death; the eternal longing and the complicatedness of life. There is a sense of longing and loss throughout, the music and depiction of lonely objects such as an empty old house, a dimly lit lantern and organisms such as seagulls and insects have been used to all a melancholy touch.

Hence, from the above discussion it is evident that not only did video made revolutionary transformations to experimental cinema at various stages, on most occasions by facilitating their artistic requirements, it also instigated some of the most fashionable rebellion in its history.

THE TRANFORMATIONS INITATED BY DIGITALISATION AND COMPUTERS.

Computer, during the 1960 was initiation by people who were mostly engineers and scientist as they had access to computing resources. But very soon artists began to explore the possibility of using computer to produce artistic ideas and also to become a part of the process. The most attractive capability of computer was its ability to produce multiple outputs with continuous variety by using three methods namely permutation, random number generation and the use of systems of incrementation[27]. This gave them an opportunity to explore and experiment into the unknown. However it was evident to artists who wanted to explore the possibilities facilitated by computers, that any technology needed to make outstanding contributions to art and should have the ability to enable process and deliver results that were not possible with the help of existing mediums of technology, in order to gain validity and be accepted widely. Malcomn Le Grice, argues that the justified reasons for artists to use computers was only if it could produce something that other available mediums could not and another was to produce work easily without compromising on the ‘meaning’[28].This idea of validating any technology before it can be used, perhaps was one of the primitive precautions to keep technology out of art and in this case experimental cinema.

As computers had not been designed to produce films, there were limited ways of using computers to achieve output; these were done placing the camera in front of a visual display system such as PDP11, or the microfilm plotter like SC 4020 which was extremely slow and inflexible as compared to the first one[29]. One the few film makers who used digital computers were John Whitney, in films such as Permutations (1968) and Matrix III (1972).Its predecessor Matrix has been credited for not only producing abstract sequences for later manipulations but attempting to define a language of motion graphics; there is a development toward a structure as a whole, and all the developments and transitions are an important part of the program[30].A similar exploration takes place in Matrix III with an interplay of dots, shapes, squares, and lines. Evidently, the use of computer in film during the 1960s and 1970s resulted in inclusion of their ideas and requirements in this ‘technology’ initially dominated by science.

Digital technologies are today producing a convergence of all preceding media: sound, text, image and their various forms and also placing them within a new stage or setting, which can be that of a library, cinema, theatre or home[31]. The ongoing changes have influenced experimental filmmakers (and also artists) in the post film and video era, where digital forms have largely replaced the previous forms. Such a massive form of digitalisation has also caused a kind of disappearance of boundaries. The lack of division has only grown bigger in present times and will continue, for example the birth of technological advancements such as high definition television (HDTV), 3D Television and Blue –Ray disc have further diminished the existing boundaries. Stephen Partridge comments that ‘video was always a bastard medium- an inherited collection of conventions and properties from earlier media and has been substituted now[32].

The greatest challenge that has been posed by digitalisation is to the idea of transforming and supporting an artistic language on the ‘material’ conditions of a medium. The modernist principal of integration between medium and the symbolic dialogues may withstand and support artistic success of one particular work, but it is not possible to sustain the concept of general dialogue based on media specificity (cause of the inclusive nature of digital technology), hence now the aim of present technological developments is to achieve a time-based auditory and visual capacity which is continuous with the forms and language developed from the history of cinema[33]. To an extent such an invention maybe able to bridge the gap and overcome the complication of supporting language and art on a material. But one the use of digital technology in film and art is the wide of computer in production process such as in the case of editing.

The extensive use of electronic or digital technologies by artists and the general cultural effect of mass media has been a matter of concern; Post-modernism has responded to this social and cultural change and has also acknowledged the difficulty of maintaining the concept of specificity of the medium[34]. It can be argued that this is not a recent development and had begun years when technology was in its developmental stages aiding the production of cinematic recording and presentation or representation. Some of these stages are the photochemical/ mechanical; analogue electronic and digital electronic (relatively recent to the other two). The various technologies present today have incorporated these functions. There are certain aspects of digitalisation that provide openings for improvement in artistic forms. Some of these are[35]

• ‘Digitalisation of cinematic images’: specific definition of every element making an image, in a specific stored element or as an outcome of an algorithm/formula;
• ‘Digitalisation of sound’: higher possibility of manipulation and intervention when sound is recorded digitally;
• ‘Sequence and Temporality’: the fundamental feature that storage of the date recorded does not need to rely on its recording sequence;
• ‘Authorship’: the possibility of the artist to increase the role of spectator in construction by using maximum technology. These are some practical ways in which digitalisation has improved and made room for further development.

Other areas where the influences of digitalalisation have been felt in experimental cinema are: Abstract film, Transformed Image Film, Non Narrative Film and Expanded Cinema. Also, it is evident that in most situations technological developments in these areas are results of previous actions and experiments.

The cinematic ides and discourses of the abstract films present in the computer films of 1960s have originated from the earlier experiments carried out in the early 1920s (the abstraction of visual qualities and their synthesis in a new language of visual music); in transformed image films the attempts made to change photographic images by the use of technical devices (such as by Malcolm Le Grice in Berlin House in 1970); the similarity in the aim of Non- Narrative cinema and experimental cinema (search for structure that does not confirm linear narratives form)[36], Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) serves as an example in which Deren establishes a significant theoretical idea which enforces non linear interpretations[37]. Expanded cinema’s definitions have been under debate. However one of the forms that brings cinematic experience into the space of the spectator through performed installations and actions.

These diverse illustrations help understand that digitalisation may be a recent development, but it heredity lies in the early years of experimental cinema and the motive has primarily been to incorporate the requirement of expression of artistic reflections in modern technology.

CONCLUSION

Throughout the history of experimental cinema, various factors have facilitated the growth of technological advancements. The developments that have taken place in the twentieth century, share a lot of resemblance to the evolution of technology in nineteenth century. The new-digital age and technologies have been successful in benefiting contemporary artists in many ways for example for providing digital cameras and editing at a lower cost. The end of the twentieth century has witnessed video art in numerous ways through narratives, formal experimentations, short humours tapes; video also gained a status of authenticity and prominence, which wasn’t the case in 1980s.

To conclude, digital technologies have provided artists with a more comprehensive and flexible podium for cultural practises, where factors such as hybridisation and diminishing boundaries between various forms do not matter as much as the ignorance of the process by the artists. The idea of seeing technological advancements as a challenge or facilitating agents of ‘rebellion’ isn’t new and there has been confrontation by different factions in all generations. In experimental cinema, the search for context, inspires filmmakers to consider various themes such as aesthetics to politics, and they always challenge the major codes of dramatic realism that determine meaning and response in the commercial fiction film. Video, computer and digitalisation are some developments that have facilitated this search.

BIBLOGRAPHY

• Grice, Le Malcolm. Experimental Cinema in the Digital Age. BFI Publishing, 2006

• Hatfield, Jackie. Experimental Film and Video. John Libbey Publishing, 2006

• Hill, John and Pamela Church Gibson. World Cinema: Critical Approaches. Oxford University Press, 2000

• Knight, Julia. Diverse Practices: A Critical Reader on British Video Art, University of Luton Press, 1996

• Popper, Frank. Art of the Electronic Age. London: Thames & Hudson, 1993

• Rees. A.L. A History of Experimental Film and Video. BFI Publishing, 1999

• Rush, Michael. New Media in Late 20^th –Century Art. Thames & Hudson Ltd, 1999

• Tyler, Parker. Underground Film : A Critical History. Penguin Books, 1969

FILMOGRAPHY AND VIDEOGRAPHY

• A New Year (1989, directed by Sadie Benning)
• Cosmetic/Not Cosmetic (1994, directed by Sadie Benning)
• Flat Is Beautiful (1998, directed by Sadie Benning)
• Matrix III (1972, directed by John Whitney)
• Meshes of the Afternoon (1943, directed by Maya Deren)
• Ocean Elegy (1996, directed by Alexandr Sokurov)
• Soldatskiy Son (1995, directed by Alexandr Sokurov)

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[1] Rush, Michael. New Media in Late 20^th – Century Art. P 9,Thames & Hudson Ltd, 1999.

[2] Rush,op.cit., p 12

[3] Ibid. p 22

[4] Ress, A L. A History of Experimental Film and Video. P 111, BFI Publishing, 1999.

[5] Ibid. p 111

[6] Ibid. p 111

[7] Ibid. p 112

[8] Rees, op.cit., p 112

[9] Popper, Frank. Art of the Electronic Age. p 56, London: Thames & Hudson, 1993

[10]Rees,op.cit.,p 177

[11] Hatfield, Jackie. Experimental Film and Video. P 181,John Libbey Publishing, 2006

[12] Rees op.cit., p 88

[13] Ibid. p 88

[14] Rees,op.cit.,. p 89

[15] Popper, op.cit, p 55

[16] Hatfield, op.cit., p 185

[17] Rees, op.cit. , p 96

[18] Ibid. p 96

[19] Ibid. p 77

[20] Ibid. p 96

[21] Rees,op.cit., p 104

[22] Ibid. p 108

[23] Hill, John and Pamela Church Gibson. World Cinema: Critical Approaches. P 23, Oxford University Press,2000

[24] Smith, Gavin. Toy Stories: Film Comment Nov/Dec98, Vol. 34 Issue 6, p28, 1998

[25] Rush, op.cit. , p 111

[26] Ibid. p 111

[27] Grice, Le Malcolm. Experimental Cinema in the Digital Age. p 220, BFI, 2006

[28] Ibid. p 221

[29] Ibid. p 222

[30] Grice,op.cit., p 230

[31] Hatfield, op.cit. , p 180

[32] Ibid. p 181

[33] Grice, op.cit. , p 282

[34] Ibid. p 311

[35] Ibid. p 239 & p 240

[36] Grice, op.cit. , p 317-318

[37] Ibid. p 318

Authorship, Genre and Realism !!!

Two of my all time favourites : Citizen Kane and Vertigo !

In the following paper we shall explore the characteristics of the classical Hollywood film

and also analyse how useful and limiting these approaches are in understanding how Hollywood films produce their meaning.

In order to understand the various characteristics we shall also analyse two films Vertigo (1958) by Alfred Hitchcock and Citizen Kane (1941) by Orson Welles. Both these films came to be known for their narrative and stylistic properties, not only did these films improve on the existing norms of classical cinema but also experimented and pushed the technical and narrative boundaries. Although they belonged to classical films genre they still challenged conventions and introduced new practises that laid the foundations for fiction films in late years.

The period from 1917, as mentioned by the authors of Classical Hollywood Cinema is the one that witnessed the formation of essential features that were the way in which a film organized narrative time and space, the continuity of script, and stylistic features[1]. Bordwell further states that the stylistic features that developed were connected to the development of the industry and its specific business and production practices. These features when applied to the classical idea demonstrated the observance of rules of compositions and aesthetic organisations that produced uniformity, balance and order in the resulting work of art[2]. Various elements contribute to the formation of particular characteristics of the classical films, some are classical narration and story telling; mise en scene: space, scene, shot and time; and modes of production.
French critic, André Bazin argued that Hollywood needed to appreciate for its vigorous tradition, and its ability to adopt and appreciate its contact with new elements[3].Both Vertigo and Citizen Kane were two films from the classical period in which Hitchcock and Welles experimented with old norms and also adopted new ways to tell stories. Certain techniques that were used in these films motivated other filmmakers to think unconventionally. Hollywood never strongly advocated conventional filmmaking, and it was this characteristic that allowed it to progress.


CLASSICAL NARRATION OR CLASSICAL STORY TELLING

‘‘The very name Hollywood has colored the thought of this age. It has given to the world a new synonym of happiness because of all its products happiness is the one in which Hollywood – the motion picture Hollywood- chiefly interests itself [4]’’
Carl Milliken 1928

From the very beginning Hollywood has been known for entertaining its audiences. One of the characteristics mentioned by the authors of Classical Hollywood Cinema is narration and story telling. These films usually follow a model in which the plot is gradually revealed to the audience in a well structured way and there is a constant struggle by the characters to achieve their goals. The story plays a very important role, Bordwell makes story pre-eminent. He says that the various techniques of Hollywood cinema are there to facilitate smooth story telling, and in this process they need to draw very little attention to themselves.

Narrative structure, motivation, cause and effect, space and time, the over all visual style, the use of sound, editing and mise en scene are factors that invisibly facilitate even story-telling. So, the main function of these techniques is to produce coherence, continuity, causality and a clear cut story. Bordwell classifies these characteristics into two: Narrative and stylistic properties and it is with the help of these characteristics that Hollywood films produced their meanings.
The narrative of classical Hollywood films follows a prearranged approach, along with other factors such as logic, cause and effect, psychological motivation (of the characters), representation of time and space that are vital to story-telling. Bordwell states that ‘‘a narrative film consists of three systems: narrative logic (definitions of events, casual relations and parallelism between events), the representation of time (order, duration and repetition), and the representation of space (composition, orientation etc).Any given technical parameter (e.g. sound, editing) can function within any or all the systems.[5]’’ This structure of the narrative, was extremely useful when it came to producing meaning.

Narrative logic is what contributes to the development of consistency in narrative. It makes it possible for the narrative to produce its meaning and provide an understandable representation of the story, the characters, and the relationship between various ‘lines of action’. The protagonist is principal representative whose character is clearly defined to the audience, and is motivated to achieve his goals. In a well structured manner, the protagonist faces challenges and is psychologically motivated to achieve his goal, this helps the story progress. These features were very helpful, as they provided a clear understanding and progress of story. Bordwell mentions that classical films had at least two lines of action, both casually linking the same group of characters, where invariably one of the lines of action involved heterosexual romantic love and out of a hundred films in USA, almost ninety five used it in one line of action or the other and about eighty five made it the principal line of action[6]. Vertigo has heterosexual romance is the principal line of action, from the very beginning we see the male protagonist getting drawn towards his romantic interest. The narrative in the middle part of the film centres mainly on the love between the two and so does the climax. Citizen Kane’s primary line of action may not be ‘romance’ but it was certainly a very prominent line of action. Charles Foster Kane’s marriages and affairs contribute to the development of the story. Perhaps this was one of the reasons why this film in particular challenged conventional classical Hollywood narrative. Not much emphasis has been given to romance in it. Using romance as a primary or a secondary line of action in films, limited the scope of other lines of action and as this was very popular with the studios as well, it further left little space for other themes. However Citizen Kane clearly focused on other another line of action and made an attempt at breaking away from the popular trend.

‘Cause and effect’ model is another characteristic on which the narrative of classical films in based. Franscis Patterson writes that plot is the careful and the logical working out of the laws of cause and effect. The emphasis is laid mainly upon causality and the action and the reaction of the protagonist[7]. He further mentions that character centred i.e. personal or psychological –causality is the armature of classical story telling[8].This is evident in Citizen Kane, the film begins with an introduction to the location and death of Charles Foster Kane, uttering his mysterious last words ‘rosebud’, which becomes the central object and the story unfolds as journalists try and uncover the secret. Psychological motivations are shown in relation to Kane’s life and his business, his story drives the plot forward in the story. But it is not the main cause that takes the story forward and this is where this feels becomes different. It is the motivation of the reporter to find the meaning of Rosebud that takes the main story forward. This film challenged the idea of a simple, general story telling that existed in classical films, the unconventional way by which we learn about Kane in the film and the secret of rosebud, but not depending on the protagonist himself but another character defying the classical norm cause and effect to an extent.

Another attribute of classical narrative is that an introduction to space, time and different characters is given as soon as the story begins. This helps one to identify with the situation and the characters. Narrative needs to have a period of time and space to create a situation, usually the narrative places the scenes in a chronological order and this in turn helps the story to move forward. Both Vertigo and Citizen Kane allow the audience to notice and familiarize themselves with the space, time and characters as soon as the film begins. Vertigo narrates its story following the classical norm, so the story telling is smooth and in a chronological order which makes it easier for the audience to follow by allowing them to form their own perception with the progress of the character. However, in Citizen Kane Welles used flashbacks to tell the story of Kane, often disobeying the chronology. These flashbacks takes the story in past and the story is developed with the memory of characters about Kane. Welles used very frequent flashbacks to help develop the character of Kane and help the reporter uncover the mystery behind Rosebud. However, these flashbacks never complicate the storytelling; they also follow a chronological order. For example, when the reporter begins to trace Kane’s life we see that one by one he interviews associates of Kane who narrate his story. First there is news on reel where we get an idea of who Kane was and his life as an adult. However more personal details about his personality come from the flashbacks .These include his childhood story from Tatcher’s diary, then Bernstein’s flashback about Kane’s career when he started his first newspaper, then comes Leland’s story that tells about his personal life, election, affair and first marriage and then Susan’s flashback when he becomes old. Although Welles used flashbacks, he still maintained chronology in them which helped the audience keep track of the story.

This practise of introduction and familiarization was perhaps one of the risk-free measures applied during Classical period of film making in Hollywood that ensured that the audience followed the story and avoided confusion. Another characteristic of classical films is that the main characters are more prominent, gaining more space and dialogue than others, the narration centres around them and the whole purpose is mainly to achieve the goal. In most films this goal is not an easy task and involves a lot of deliberation and struggle. But this is another norm that Citizen Kane does not follow. Here, the protagonist maybe Kane, but the entire story develops with the help of the journalist and the other characters, so they receive more screen presence as compared to secondary characters in other films of the classical Hollywood period. Most classical films followed norms; even major studios such as MGM had ideas that concentrated on stories about nice people involved into heartbreak, finding their happiness with each other at last and that also in settings of an idealised beauty: an England full of sunshine, an America of white fences and rambler roses around the door[9]. This shows the extent to which films depended on the existing norms to tell stories in order to produce meaning, it can be concluded that the narrative and story telling of the classical Hollywood films had common elements such as ‘cause and effect’; introduction to time and space; heterosexual romance; pursuit of goals that helped the films establish their meaning and proved to be useful without causing disorder. Bordwell’s idea of classical films benefited the films in expressing their meaning, the notion of resolution and tying up of loose ends (editing) were some of the primary characteristics that helped the story to move forward and help the audience understand the meaning

VISUAL STYLE

The stylistic properties of a film are integral elements that lend a touch of realism. The authors of Classical Hollywood cinema state that by the 1910s the shift to feature length films compelled filmmakers to gain guidance from sources such as short stories and novels to make the films have a realistic appeal and so editing,camera techniques, along with lighting, acting gesture, and even set construction, worked toward clear methods of delivering story information[10]. Classical realist cinema, building as it did upon representational codes for verisimilitude and stories that stressed plausibly motivated human agents became the foundation for commercial narrative cinema worldwide. Bazin states that this need also came from the requirement that films needed to have feel real to the audience, or else they would not be able to relate or believe in the story.

Along with narrative, the visual style of classical Hollywood films helped them demonstrate coherence, continuity, and comprehension. Narrative devices such as motivation, cause and effect, narrative logic and time and space in classical Hollywood films support the progression and completion of a story, similarly stylistic devices like visual style and sound also facilitate the progress of the narrative.

Bordwell mentions that the camera is the most important technical tool used to tell a story to the audience, he calls it a ‘story teller’. In order to produce meaning the camera positioning and movement was were used to create dimensions for objects, which represented space with depth and volume[11]. Both Hitchcock and Welles used camera as a story teller in their films Vertigo and Citizen Kane, however they used it unconventionally (which we will discuss later in the essay). Classical films followed some popular norms such as the object occupying the centre of the frame always enjoyed more attention as mentioned by Bordwell, focus on important objects and the blurred appearance of non-important objects[12].This was useful in making the audience focus more on the relevant objects, it also left very opportunities for the attention to get diverted to insignificant objects.

Although there are no rules for visual style in classical cinema, there certainly are a set of popular norms. These norms facilitate the smooth progress of the story and the narration; they also prepare the audience expectations and on many occasions motivate them to expect certain outcomes. This is evidently very useful, but sometimes it may also limit the audience’s perception if it is over used or outwardly useless.

In French, Mise en scene means ‘putting into the scene’ and it was first applied to the practise of directing plays. In Cinema it is applied to the director’s control over what appears in a frame. Bordwell states that aspects of mise en scene such as the setting, costume and make up, lighting, staging of movement, and acting are factors that contribute to the style of a film[13]. Naturally, like other narrative devices, classical Hollywood films also gave a lot of importance to these stylistic devices. Bordwell mentions that mise-en-scène is the composition of the frame which functions as part of the narrative[14]. Although, Vertigo rejects a lot of conventional norms, we do see some elements of Bordwell’s notion of mise en scene present in one of the scenes from the film. The scene that shows the conflict between the male protagonist and his romantic- interest is an example of how by the use of the right costume and make-up, staging and lighting, dramatic opportunities were created to compliment the narrative arc and establishes its meaning. The location is tranquil. The perfect positioning of the church and dark passage leading to the stairs help create drama and act as a prelude to a very intense scene which induces fear. The dark shades of the costumes also lend a sense of gravity to the scene. The narrative also demands the actors express a lot of feelings in this scene. Scotty experiences a degree of urgency and anticipation while he tries to help the female protagonist uncover and understand her behaviour. While the facial expressions of the female protagonist expresses confusion, distrust, unrest, pain, love and also detachment to an extent. All these elements and others of Mise en scene contribute to the narrative flow of the scene and thus help establish the desired meaning which in the case of Vertigo was to induce suspense, fear and shock in the audience. Not only do these elements help us understand the psychology of the characters it also helps in establishing meaning and so we can understand that such approach was very useful.

SOUND

Classical Hollywood films did have strict rules but followed norms when it came to sound, music and sound effect. Some of the norms in use of sound and music that prevail in classical Hollywood films are the use of sound in a way that it is usually loud in the absence of dialogue and is made to fade out in the presence of dialogue in to the background[15], music can be used to express the emotions of characters and underline a dramatic point, for example Welles uses loud music for Susan’s opera scene when Kane claps loudly and continuously, this means that Kane’s self centred and adamant nature stops him from accepting his wife’s failure( which in turn is a huge blow to his ego).The music was useful in conveying tension and a sense of anger to the audience.
Citizen Kane advocated the beginning of new techniques in sound as well. Welles created a technique ‘lightning mix’ in which he combined a series of related sounds to create a continuous and smooth soundtrack. This technique is evident in the scene when Kane grows from a child into a young man in 2 shots. We see Kane speaking the words ‘merry Christmas and a happy new year, only that ‘happy new year’ is spoken by Kane who is 15 years older. The audio here has been used to show the transition to the next scene. Another unconventional technique that Welles used was the over lapping of dialogues that gave the conversation between the characters a more natural look in contrast to how characters would not interrupt while others were speaking in other films of the classical period. This unconventional use of sound not only makes this film different from others, it also shows that with the use of these techniques Welles successfully produced the desired meaning.

EDITING

Editing is the final stage in which films are polished and cultured. In the classical filmmaking period editing was used to produce coherence, continuity and visual style to films. Editing was used as a tool to compliment narrative requirements.

Citizen Kane was considered as a masterpiece for the experiments that were carried out, the use of flashbacks and flash forwards to take the narrative to the past or jump to the future facilitated the progress of story i.e. We watch Charles Kane grow from an innocent child to a ruthless and power hungry old man, Welles used montage sequences to show the lapse in time. Montage in classical cinema was primarily used to depict time lapses[16].So, it can be said these unconventional techniques helped in the progression of the narrative and helped the audience on instances linking scenes and transitions like a jigsaw puzzle and on other occasion by reinforcing the plot for better understanding (for example in Vertigo we are reminded of the Scottie’s fear of height from time to time). The opening scene of Citizen Kane involves transitions known as dissolves, one by one shots fade out to allow the other shots to fade in, and another scene where it has been used is to depict Kane’s marriage to Susan Alexander and weariness of it in later years. We see a happily married newly wed couple at the breakfast table and it changes to depict middle age spouses, who hold little interest in one another. These new techniques which had not been used earlier, showed how films could achieve meaning by adopting new ways.
Also, techniques such as Reframing (pan or tilt to accommodate moving figures) have also been used in this film. It is said that after 1929 one in every six shots used at least one reframing[17]. Another characteristic was the continuity in editing. Andre Bazin summarized it as’ verisimilitude of the space in which the position of the actor is always determined even if the close up eliminates the décor and that the purpose and the effect of the cuts are due to dramatic or psychological requirements of a scene’ .Crosscutting was also a very common characteristic, in which two or more story lines or lines of action were joined together usually set in different places.

The ‘Classical Hollywood Cinema’s ‘authors lay emphasis on the fact that viewers of classical films assumed durational continuity unless signalled otherwise. Only editing disrupted this continuous time span[18].Classical cinema was cinema of cutting and single shot sequences were rare. Citizen Kane adopted an unconventional approach here as well and there are many single shot sequences, in the scene where Kane and Tatcher discuss how a newspaper should be run, we see one single shot changing the movement of the camera as per the characters enter and exit, it also zooms and pans as per the narrative and the psychological needs of the main characters.

The visual system of the audience is accustomed to recognize modifications. Bordwell introduces the composition of screen space in relation to two dimensional compositions (organization of shapes, outline of light, textures) and three dimensional space in which action occurs[19]. Citizen Kane’s scene where the ‘News on March’ ends and the characters discuss the news piece; we almost instantly get drawn to the way light is distributed in the room and on the objects. The only sources of light are the two small windows. It is still dark and one cannot easily see the face’s of the men in the room. It begins with a long shot and cuts into high angle shot. Among all the men only one is shown to move throughout the room, interestingly he is the one who makes all the valid statements and has most of the dialogues. As a result, the characters are indistinct, at best a silhouette. This allows one to concentrate on him and pay attention to him
Space and Time: There were certain norms that were followed in the classical construction of space. Bordwell suggests that the post renaissance paintings provided one such model. Filmmakers displayed interest in centred positioning, which was similar to central positioning of the erect human body in post renaissance paintings. Some of the other norms were that extreme long shots displayed a tendency to weight the lower half of the image (this derives from landscape painting traditions), most shots work with a privileged zone of screen space resembling a T: the upper one-third and the central vertical third of the screen constitute the ‘centre’ of the shot [20]. It is evident that Citizen Kane challenged these conventions and advocated numerous new stylistic techniques such as montages, dissolves and reframing. Montage sequences were also used to compress time[21]. The ‘News on the March’ in Citizen Kane helped compress a very long story of a man life into an uncomplicated news bulletin. Also allows the story to progress without having to go into details at a very early stage, also helps secure the interesting and more relevant bits from it for later as the story unfolds. Flashbacks and such use of time helps the narrative make sense to the audience, and leaves less scope for one not being able to follow the narrative.

Time: Narration manipulates time in specific ways. Bordwell mentions that in classical cinema the story in accordance with time moved forward in a 1-2-3 pace. This orderly progression allowed the audience to have a better understanding of the story; such structure also facilitated the smooth flow of narrative. Vertigo, demonstrates such order. Throughout the film the systematic narrative allowed the audience to progress along with it, rarely dramatically challenging the chronology.

Other techniques to manipulate time involved the use of flashbacks. However, very few classical Hollywood films used flashbacks and to an extent this made treatment of the story monotonous and common. It limited the scope of cinematic experimentation, all the stories moved forward following the norms, however both Citizen Kane and Vertigo used flashbacks. For example Hitchcock used flashback when Judy recalled her memory when she acted as Madeleine and Welles used it on several occasions to establish the character of Kane. One such scene in which Susan Alexander (Kane’s second wife) fades into flashback to recall Charles Foster Kane, we get to know everything about Kane as a husband and also about his empire. In a similar fashion we see more characters during the film going into a flashback and provide information about Kane. Flashbacks perhaps helped the story move forward without making storytelling monotonous. It also gave filmmakers an opportunity to showcase their creativity .Another way by which time was manipulated was by the use of fade in and fade out, as they helped show progress and change in story.

Hence, it can be said that the various narrative techniques along with the visual techniques helped classical Hollywood cinema achieve an identity that is unique to it. These techniques still find their way into present techniques of filmmaking, however there is no doubt that their inception dates back to the period of classical Hollywood cinema. Both Citizen Kane and Vertigo show that experimentation and unconventionality was possible in Hollywood. The domination of the studio system in later years also intensified these norms and left little place for experiments and innovations. The model of mass production of films was used to cut cost and also the ‘factory system ‘of making films shaped products that were to a large extent risk –free. With the growing dominance of the major studios the aim was to gain maximum profit.
Both Vertigo and Citizen Kane belong to this period of time when the industry worked as per norms and rules but they challenged conventions. Welles greatly challenged conventions and introduced new techniques that enabled cinema to produce its desired meaning with the help of new methods, he pushed the existing boundaries.

It can be concluded from the above argument that Classical narration and story telling; the various aspects of Mise en scene such as shot, scene, time. Space; and the studio system are characteristics of a classical Hollywood film that were also very useful in establishing the desired meaning. Bordwell’s argument that Classical Hollywood Cinema is the one that witnessed the formation of essential features that were the way in which a film organized narrative time and space, the continuity of script, the structure of management , and the division of labour in production stands as an important piece of substantiation to the suggestion of a ‘classical Hollywood film’. Although there are norms that have been used to produce meaning and realism, there is no doubt that some of these norms limit the creativity of filmmakers by binding them in dwell defined rules of filmmaking. Both Vertigo and Citizen Kane are films from this period of time that initiated unconventional techniques. Bordwell calls Citizen Kane unclassical as he states that ‘‘the narration supplies the answer to the rosebud mystery, but the main traits of Kane’s character remain partly undetermined, and no generic motivation justifies that[22]’’. The fact that these films were able to challenge conventions also shows the fact that Hollywood was flexible and was open to new ideas and initiates and it was one of the primary characteristics that made Hollywood cinema so popular in the world.
















FILMOGRAPHY

Citizen Kane (1942, USA.Directed by Orson Welles)
Vertigo (1958, USA. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

· Baxter Jon, Hollywood in Thirties, London: A Zwemmer, 1968, Pg 11-12

·Bordwell David, Janet Staiger, Kristin Thompson, The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985), Pg.4

·Bordwell David, Janet Staiger, Kristin Thompson, The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960, ‘Story causality and Motivation’ pg(London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985), Pg 11 & Pg16.

·Bordwell David, Kristin Thompson, ‘Film Art: An Introduction’, Part 4: Chp 6 (Sixth ed), McGraw-Hill 2001 pg 156- 160

Bordwell David, Kristin Thompson, Film Art: An Introduction, Part 4: Chp 6 (Sixth ed), McGraw-Hill 2001 Pg 176

Bordwell David, Kristin Thompson, Film Art: An Introduction, Part 4: Chp 6 (Sixth ed), McGraw-Hill 2001 Pg 156- 160

Cowie Elizabeth, (1998) ‘Storytelling: classical Hollywood cinema and classical narrative.’’, an extract from ‘A Manual for aspiring scriptwriters’ pp185 by Francis Patterson; From Neale, Steve and Smith, Murray (eds),Contemporary Hollywood Cinema ,London :Routledge, Pg 178-179

·Higham Charles, Joel Greenberg, Hollywood in Forties ( 1968) ,Pg8

· Higham Charles, Joel Greenberg, ‘Hollywood in Forties’: Black Cinema, (1968), Pg 22-23
Higham Charles, Joel Greenberg ‘Hollywood In Forties’ Chapter: Melodrama, (1968), Pg 36-37

·Maltby Richard, ‘Hollywood Cinema,’ Introduction: Taking Hollywood Seriously, Blackwell Publishers (1995), Para 2, Pg 6 & 7



·Bazin Andre ‘ La Politique des Auteurs’, in Peter Graham, ed., The New Wave (London: Secker and Warburg, 1968) pp 143-4

Trotti Lamar, ‘The Motion Picture as a Business’ delivered as a speech by Carl E.Milliken, April 1928.Motion Picture Association Archive, New York

[1] Bordwell David, Janet Staiger, Kristin Thompson, The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985), Pg.4

[2] Maltby Richard, ‘Hollywood Cinema,’ Introduction: Taking Hollywood Seriously, Pg 6 & 7

[3] Maltby, op.cit., p7

[4] Trotti Lamar, ‘The Motion Picture as a Business’ delivered as a speech by Carl E.Milliken, April 1928.Motion Picture Association Archive, New York
[5] Bordwell, op.cit., p 11
[6] Ibid, p11-p 16
[7] Cowie Elizabeth, (1998) ‘Storytelling: classical Hollywood cinema and classical narrative.’’, an extract from ‘A Manual for aspiring scriptwriters’ pp185 by Francis Patterson; From Neale, Steve and Smith, Murray (eds),Contemporary Hollywood Cinema pp.178-179 London :Routledge


[9] Higham Charles, Joel Greenberg, Hollywood in Forties (1968) , p8
[10] www.filmreference.com
[11] Bordwell pp 12
[12] Bordwell, op.cit., p 163
[13] Bordwell David,Kristin Thompson, ‘Film Art: An Introduction’, McGraw Hill, 2001, pg 156- 160
[14] Ibid, p 161
[15] Bordwell, op.cit . pp34
[16] Bordwell, op.cit., p 44
[17] Ibid, p 51

[18]
[19] Bordwell,op.cit., p 176
[20] Bordwell David, op.cit.,156- 160
[21]
[22] Bordwell, Op.cit., pp 160