Peter Singer on our obligation to alleviate suffering

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Karl Marx stated, ’the philosophers have merely interpretated the world in various ways. The point, however, is to change it’.

Marx’s sentiment is, I think, shared by many; philosophy can be seen to be an abstract pursuit, and philosophers far-removed from everyday concerns. One philosopher who cannot, however, be accused of such abstraction is Peter Singer. Singer is rightly heralded as a philosopher at the forefront of Applied Ethics, the area where philosophy comes into direct contact with ‘the real world’. Continue reading →

Editing

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“I love editing. I think I like it more than any other phase of filmmaking. If I wanted to be frivolous, I might say that everything that precedes editing is merely a way of producing film to edit.” (Stanley Kubrick)

Editing is arguably the most important stylistic element that filmmakers have at their disposal. Editing in film is the coordination of one shot with another. A shot is one or more exposed frame in a series on a continuous length of film stock. These shots are combined, via the editing process, into scenes (a segment in a narrative film that takes place at one time and space or that uses crosscutting to show two or more simultaneous actions). The joins whereby two shots are combined can take different forms (cut, fade, dissolve, wipe) of which the cut is by far the most popular.   An ordinary Hollywood film typically contains between 1000-2000 shots; and an action-based movie can contain 3000 or more.  As such, editing is a vital part of the process of filmmaking. Continue reading →

Film Narrative

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In our discussion of form, we said that a film’s form included both narrative and stylistic elements. In this session we are going to focus on the narrative elements.

Humans are ‘the storytelling animal’ – it is through stories that we make sense of ourselves and the world around us. When we speak about films we, more often than not, mean narrative films – films that tell a story. Because stories are all around us (in life, literature, other films) we will approach a narrative film with a great many existing expectations. Further expectations will be aroused as we actively participate in creation of the film’s form: the ending has the task of satisfying or cheating the expectations prompted by the film as a whole. This session will consider how narrative form engages the viewer in this dynamic activity. Continue reading →

Film Style

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In What is Film Studies? I introduced the distinction between content and form - the way in which the content of a film is conveyed. The film-maker has both narrative and stylistic formal elements at his command, and it is the the overall pattern of these elements that make up the film’s formal system. This post focuses on the elements of film style – mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing, and sound – providing a few examples of how Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941) utilises these elements in and, in doing so, draws on other prominent film styles. Continue reading →