This document is an excerpt from the textbook "Looking at Movies" which discusses several key concepts in film analysis. It introduces movies as the most popular art form today that can be consumed through various platforms. It describes cinematic language as the visual techniques that tell stories while concealing the means by which they do so. It discusses analyzing movies by identifying the tools and techniques used and their intended effects. It also covers implicit and explicit meaning, viewer expectations, and formal and cultural analysis approaches.

1. Looking at Movies
Fourth Edition
Richard Barsam  Dave Monahan
CHAPTER ONE
Looking at Movies
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2. The Most Popular Art Form Today
• Movies are not just watched in theaters today
– TiVo, big-box retailers, and Redbox machines
– Online, cable, and satellite stations
– Streaming video, computers
– Televisions
– iPads, smart phones
– Other systems not yet imagined
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Cinematic Language
• The visual vocabulary of film
• Composed of myriad integrated techniques and
concepts
• Connects the viewer to the story while deliberately
concealing the means by which it does so.

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Actively Looking at Movies
• Recognize the many tools and principles that
filmmakers employ to tell stories, convey information
and meaning, and influence emotions and ideas.
• Understand movies as narrative, as artistic expression,
and as a reflection of the cultures that produce and
consume them.

5. What is a Movie, Cinema, or a
Film?
• Essentially interchangeable terms
• Cinema: from the Greek kenesis (movement)
– Often implies art films (e.g., “French Cinema”)
• Film: from the original celluloid strip media
• Movie: short for motion pictures
• Motion is the essence of the movie medium
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What is a Movie?
• A form of popular entertainment
• A narrative that tells a fictional story
• The presentation of a story affected by both cultural
differences and when it was produced
• An art form influenced by less conventional
approaches and emerging technologies

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Basic Construction of a Movie
• Shot – an unbroken span of action captured by an
uninterrupted run of a motion-picture camera
• Editing – the joining together of discrete shots
• With each transition from one shot to another, a movie
is able to move the viewer through time and space

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Film Analysis
• The one essential inquiry: What does it mean?
• Analysis – the act of taking apart something
complicated to figure out what it is made of and how it
all fits together
• Step 1 – Identify the tools and techniques within a
scene, sequence, or movie
• Step 2 – Investigate the function and potential effect of
that combination

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Invisibility and Cinematic Language
• Painting, sculpture, and photography allow you to
study and absorb them as long as you want
• Cinematic language is invisible because movies move
too quickly for the viewer to consider everything
they’ve seen
• The spectator subconsciously identifies with the
camera’s viewpoint
• Cinematic language draws upon real-life interpretation
of visual information for our intuitive absorption

17. Invisible Techniques
• Movies rely heavily on largely invisible techniques that
convey meaning intuitively
– Fade-in / Fade-out – viewers understand that significant
story time has elapsed
– Low-angle shot – viewers associate looking up at powerful
figures with strength, nobility, or possibly as a threat
– Cutting on action – common editing technique designed to
hide the instantaneous and potentially jarring shift from one
camera viewpoint to another
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18. Low-angle shot in Juno
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19. Cutting on action in Juno
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Cultural Invisibility
• Filmmakers favor stories and themes that reinforce
viewers’ shared belief systems
• The stories tap into and reinforce viewers’ most
fundamental desires and beliefs
• The people making movies may be just as oblivious to
their own cultural attitudes as the viewers are

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Implicit and Explicit Meaning
• No matter how many different layers of meaning are in
a movie, each layer is either implicit or explicit
• Implicit – lies below the surface of a movie’s story and
presentation; is closest to our everyday sense of the
word meaning
• Explicit – available on the surface of the movie;
obvious

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Viewer Expectations
• Our experience of movies is shaped by what we have
been told about that movie beforehand
• Viewers harbor essential expectations concerning a
film’s form and organization
• Viewers must be alerted to these expected patterns in
order to fully appreciate the significance of deviations

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Formal Analysis
• Dissects the meaning of all of the elements and tools
used by cinematic storytellers
• The analytical approach primarily concerned with film
form
• Form – the means by which a subject is expressed
• Every element in every frame is there for a reason

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Formal Analysis:
Waiting-Room Sequence in Juno
• 13 shots, 30 seconds of film time
• The formal analysis shows us how the filmmakers
conveyed the way the seemingly insignificant
fingernail factoid infiltrates Juno’s thoughts and
ultimately drives her from the clinic.

30. Some Analytical Terms for Juno
• Theme or Motif – a recurring cinematic element
(chair) that in some ways defines the story
• Dolly in – visually increases the significance of
what is in frame (Juno, clipboard, fingernails)
• Duration – the length of screen time of a shot
that establishes a rhythm (drumming sound)
• Point of view – the perspective (personal or
psychological) suggested by the shot
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Alternative Approaches to Analysis
• Alternative approaches analyze movies more as
cultural artifacts than as traditional works of arts
• Search beneath a movie’s form and content to expose
implicit and hidden meanings
• Explore cinema’s function within popular culture as
well as the influence of popular culture on the movies

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Questions to Consider for a Cultural
Analysis of Harry Potter
• Why do audiences like this movie?
• How do the movie’s form, themes, and
messages explain its popularity and $7 billion in
ticket sales?
• What is the role of nostalgia, the aging of the
main characters in the movie(s), religion, and
the visual associations with World War II?

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Further Questions to Consider for a
Cultural Analysis of Harry Potter
• Do audiences identify with Christian themes, or is the
power of Harry Potter purely narrative and cinematic?
• Does the movie glamorize the occult?
• Is the witchcraft in Harry Potter nothing more than an
endorsement of imagination and individuality?
• Is there a potential sexual intensity between Harry and
Hermione? Will Harry nevertheless end up alone?

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Review
1. What term describes the integrated techniques and
concepts that connect us to the story while deliberately
concealing the means by which it does?
a. cinematic creativity
b. cinematic narrative
c. cinematic entertainment
d. cinematic language

64. Review
2. According to the text, even though every movie
employs narrative in some form, what primarily affects
how stories are presented?
a. cultural values
b. cinematic creativity
c. cinematic language
d. formal analyses
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65. Review
3. Which of the following is NOT a device used for
cinematic invisibility?
a. cutting on action
b. jump cut
c. continuity of screen direction
d. fade-in
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66. Review
5. Which of the following is a formal analysis option for
Juno?
a. the movie’s treatment of class
b. the movie’s depiction of women and childbirth
c. the implications of the T-shirt messages displayed by
the film’s characters
d. the motif of the empty chair that frames the story
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67. Review
4. According to the text, if someone asked you to
interpret a film or “say something arguable about it,”
what kind of “meaning” are they looking for?
a. conventional
b. fundamental
c. implicit
d. explicit
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