Form of

Film: First
step into
the
language of
cinema

Intro to Realism and

Formalism
Magic Lantern
• early version of the slide projector – Christian Huygens –
Dutch mathematician, 1645
• First stationary projection on to wall
• Later, in 1800s, subjects with repetitive movements like train
moving across a field
• 1800s – developed further with motion projection.
• In the classic version, the rats were painted on a rotating circular
slide beneath the image of the man, giving the impression of a
never-ending stream of kamikaze rodents. This cut-price alternative
—man eating one rat—is a double slipping slide, with three overlaid
pieces of glass: one painted with the static part of the image,
another on which the sleeper’s lower jaw is moved up and down,
and a third drawing the rat from right to left.

• Phantasmagoria shows in Europe –

• Horror elements
• Projection on to smoke, for instance.
Phenakistiscope

• One of the earliest animation devices –

Joseph Plateau (Belgian Physisit) (1833)
• Optical illusion based on persistence of
vision
• Images of varying motion
hand-painted/printed on to a wheel
• When rotated, the illusion of motion is
produced
• Zoetrope – the cylindrical variant –
Allowed more than one person to engage
in the act of watching the animation
Persistence of Vision

• Even after the object is removed, the impression of the object

remains in the eye for 1/16th of a second. If another image is
projected within this duration, the impression of the two
merging in continuity is produced.
• Currently in films, we use 24fps  although 60fps and others
could be used, when there are fewer frames, the brain fills the
missing information
Muybridge’s experiment
• Edward Muybridge (English philosopher and
photographer 1830-1904) in 1878 
• Challenged to prove that all fours of the horse was in
air at one time
• racing track with 24 cameras –
• Zoopraxiscope – Glass discs where silhouettes were
painted onto
Edison

• T A Edison – First motion picture camera –

1891 (Kinetoscope)
• Using perforated silver-bromide emulsion
coated films
• Kinetoscope – originally for single viewer
(with peephole)
• Unportable
• Post-kinetoscope experiments, Edison
established Black Maria, the world’s first
movie making studio
Lumiere Bros

• Auguste and Louis Lumiere – 1895 – Landmark year

for film
• 1870s Began manufacturing highly sensitive
photographic plates
• Cinematograph – which was a camera, printer and
projector all in one
• Very compact, unlike the Edison Kinetograph and
also did not rely on electrical power
• It could be taken anywhere, wither to shoot a film or
as a projector
• Many films such as ‘The workers leaving the factory’
(1985), ‘The sprinkler sprinkled’, Feeding the baby,
train arriving the station
Melies

• George Melies (1861-1938)

• Melies too was initially inspired by Lumiere bros – realist, day-to-day events.
Until the discovery of the power of the medium
• Made films such as A terrible night (1896), Voyage to the moon (1902) etc.

• Invented the trick of editing – Camera jammed and Bus to hearse, men to
women (which he later used in films such as “A Vanishing Lady (1896)”
• Melies can be called as the father of editing, father of mise en scene, father
of stop motion animation, and the father of modern cinema – fiction
• His desire to create magical effects – mise-en-scene through his studio

• Geoorge Albert Smith – Grandma’s reading glass (1900)

• Cecil Hepworth – Alice in Wonderland (1903)

• Alice Guy Blanche – The Life of Christ (1906)

The birth of form

• 1890s-1910s – the first two decades

• Simple narratives and primitive film techniques
• Stories? What are stories? Is film a random assemblage of shots?
• Stories with a definitive beginning, middle and an end – only such a narrative order/ cohesion can help the
audience invest in the film
• The film, thus, is not a hodgepodge of elements –it has a systematic ‘form’! Can a random youtube home-video
be called a film?
• Form is the “overall system of relations that we can perceive among the elements in the whole film” – links the
narrative elements, characters, time and space; not the content itself, but how the indiv. units are connected
• Form is the result of an interaction between content and style  determined by the narrative and how it is
presented to us  its organization across space and time
• What = Content/ How = Form
• Individual shots, coupled under a scene; a sequence of events that narrates something
• Form is also about technology
• Early films – documentaries?
• How to use films; its purpose; reaction of people
• Initial films were non-fictions as the film’s ability to record movement
of the real world was itself sufficiently impressive for the audience
• Real events or re-enactments of real events, travelogues
accompanied by piano/ orchestra performance
• Lumiere Brothers’ films such as “The Gardner (1895), “The arrival of
a train in the station, (1895) for e.g.
• This can be said as the birth of realism
• Early realist films “ran much slower in pace and in
excitement” that depicted actuality as it is. No
efforts to cut short duration.
• In later day realist films  began to deal with
stories, but continued with the previous
characteristics of documenting life with long takes
• Early realist films and advocates of realism
preferred minimal editing, minimal manipulation
and minimal use of music and other “non-
diegetic” elements
• Realism, later became a tradition of film making with theorists
backing it
• “emphasizes film as a medium for directly recording what the
camera sees”
• According to realists, the function of the camera is to record
what is in front of it letting the content to speak for itself and
also letting the audience make their own objective meanings
• Shots tend to be objective; we view the mise en scéne without the camera
manipulating our perception.
• Editing tends to be seamless with an emphasis on continuity.
• Camera tends to be at eye level.
• Favours a static, non-moving camera.
• Lighting appears to be natural, neither high contrast or washed out.
• Real locations tend to be used instead of sets
• Music tends to be diegetic
• Realism is not a standard value – notions of realism varies across cultures.
• Sivaji/ Marlon Brando were considered realist actors of their times. Now looks stylized
Formalism

• Formalist films had story lines and focussed on visualizing

imaginations. Emphasizes on film’s potential as an
expressive medium

• For formalists, film should not merely record and imitate

what is available before the camera, but should produce
its own meanings

• Primary importance is given for the filmic process as the

film, a 2D medium can never entirely depict reality

• Music, makeup, set, props  contributed to these films

• Formalist films focussed on the form or the means of

conveying, therefore depended on camera techniques,
lighting etc.

• Pacing in formalist films were quicker, shorts lasted for

shorter periods of time

• Early formalist experiments – German expressionism (Fritz

Lang, Murnau), Dadaism, Soviet Montage (Eisenstein)
• Seashell and the clergymen (Germaine Dulac, 1928)
• An Andalusian Dog
(Luis Bunuel, 1929)
• Camera angles can move toward higher or lower angles.
• A moving camera can be used to emphasize subjective states or create energy and or mood.
• Lighting can move to more extreme use of color, light and shadow in the creation of subjective
states and visual metaphors.
• Sets and backgrounds stand out or draw attention to themselves.
• Music is more often used and is extra-diegetic
• Shots can tend to be subjective; This can include Point of View (POV) shots where the camera
in a sense becomes the character
• Function: every element has one or more function. For eg, the bgm. In early cinema, what is
the function of music? Compare it to other bgm such as psycho
• Every element, even an edit/ cut/ lighting in a form – has a motivation;
• More than the story, the style of narration is given more importance
• Formalism and Realism developed into academic theories
concerning Film in the later years.
• Formalism  theorized by Sergei Eisenstein and Rudolf Arnheim
• Realism Theorized by Andre Bazin, Balzac, Emile Zola and
Seigfreid Kracauer. They also used the term, naturalism.