What is cinema, what is a popular cinema, what is art cinema, what is a documentary cinema

1. JNU ASC
26th November 2010
126th November 2010, JNU ASC

2. Film Studies rests on three basic
questions
 What is a film?
 What kind of appeal does it have for its viewer?
 How does it appeal to its viewers?
226th November 2010, JNU ASC

3. Today, we shall address only
the first question, namely,
What Is A Film ?
326th November 2010, JNU ASC

4. It is obvious that film is an audio
visual moving image that travels in
a sequence so as to tell a story
with a beginning, middle and end.
426th November 2010, JNU ASC

5. Objects, people, time, distance to create events..
526th November 2010, JNU ASC

6. Cinema may very well be a theory of events, or a
logic of events..also a theory of history, or a
philosophy of what happens, a
mythology, cosmogony..
626th November 2010, JNU ASC

7. If this is so, then how is a film
different from
epic, myth, ballad, novel, poetry
, painting, music or even
theatre
726th November 2010, JNU ASC

8. The rest are created out of imagined situations and their
logical outcomes.
826th November 2010, JNU ASC

9. Model building exercises to express the logic of
interconnectedness of events.. Painting, poetry
included…
926th November 2010, JNU ASC

10. The logic of events…
1026th November 2010, JNU ASC

11. Then how is the
film different?
1126th November 2010, JNU ASC

12. The uniqueness of film
 It has movement, which means that it must align its
pace with that of its time.
 Because of its movement, it ,must have a stable or a
fixed point of view, which means that it must have a
lead protagonist.
 Since the protagonist must move against the backdrop
of the real world in general, there is always a tension
between the individual and the world.
 The cinema becomes a story of the individual and the
world.
1226th November 2010, JNU ASC

13. Often the theme, or the subject is the protagonist.
1326th November 2010, JNU ASC

14. Cinema despite its technology is
also an art form with its distinct
politics. In countries where a
certain kind of politics exist one can
make films..
1426th November 2010, JNU ASC