Film Is An Art
Film Is An Art
Film Is An Art
London: Continuum,
2008. 1–15. Bloomsbury Aesthetics. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 12 Mar. 2020. <http://
dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781472545336.ch-001>.
FILM AS AN ART
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AESTHETICS AND FILM
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FILM AS AN ART
Even the films of Charlie Chaplin with their use of visual tricks embody
principles for establishing a break with reality and the creation of some-
thing entirely new.
But what of the assumption that film cannot be art if it is mere mechan-
ical recording? Behind this assumption is the following line of thought:
When a film is made, however much thought and creativity go into
writing the script, constructing a scene and rehearsing the actors, once
the camera is rolling, that’s it: the next crucial stage is beyond the cre-
ative control of the filmmakers. Of course the cinematographer can
creatively control the angle, direction and distance of the camera, and the
editor can creatively control the order and rhythm of images in the final
cut. But no one can creatively control the content of those images – if the
camera mechanically records a tree, then you end up with an image of
just that tree, just as it looked at the moment of recording. It is this lack
of artistic control at the crucial and distinctively photographic moment of
the filmmaking process that allegedly prevents photographically-based
film from being an art form.
It is undoubtedly true that film is separated from traditional arts like
painting and drama by the mechanical nature of its recording process.
The further question is whether mechanical recording rules out artistry.
Actually, there are really two questions here: the question of whether
there can be artistry despite mechanical recording and the question of
whether there can be artistry in mechanical recording itself. Early film
theorists like Arnheim only considered the first of these two questions.
The second question is taken up by the first generation of sound film
theorists. Among them is the great André Bazin who we meet in the next
chapter on realism, and who locates the power of film in the immediacy
and accessibility of its recorded imagery.
By the time we get to the second chapter we shall be able to appreciate
that Bazin’s work is made possible by the prior work of silent film theo-
rists in legitimizing filmmaking and film study. In particular, Arnheim’s
work is historically important for establishing a certain theoretical
approach to film, one involving close analysis of everything that makes
film a unique artistic medium. Since we are interested, not just in con-
firming the art status of photographically-based film, but confirming its
independent art status, this kind of medium-specific analysis is extremely
useful. It is not, however, the only valid theoretical approach to film
given that there are many continuities between film and other art forms.
We will become particularly aware of these continuities when we discuss
authorship and narration in Chapters 3 and 5, respectively.
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FILM AS AN ART
mean that the photograph represents its subject. A painting of the very
same subject, on the other hand, does represent its subject. What’s the
difference?
To answer this question, we need to understand how Scruton’s account
of representation focuses on the relation, established in its production,
between an image and its subject. This relation determines the kind of
interest we can take in the image – whether aesthetic or merely instru-
mental. To take an aesthetic interest in a representational work of art is to
take an interest in how the work represents its subject. Scruton claims
that photographs fail to inspire this kind of interest; instead they only
inspire interest in what is represented, namely the subject itself. The pho-
tograph is therefore dispensable as a means to satisfy our curiosity about
the subject. What makes the difference here is the way an image is pro-
duced – whether through mechanical recording or through the intentional,
interpretive activity of a representational artist.
According to Scruton, a painting like the Mona Lisa is representa-
tional because it shows us how the artist saw the subject. The style of the
painting manifests da Vinci’s decisions about how to paint his subject
and makes the painting interesting whether or not the subject is also
interesting. Moreover, given that the painting is the product of artistic
intentions, the subject need not even have existed. Compare this to an
imaginary case of a photograph showing a woman dressed and made-up
to look like the subject of the Mona Lisa. Clearly this is neither a photo-
graph of a Renaissance gentlewoman nor a photograph of a non-existent
woman in the mind’s eye of the photographer. The photograph cannot be
either because the subject has to exist and be in front of the camera to be
photographed. It is not up to the photographer to create the subject and,
as a result, it is not up to the photographer to decide how the subject is
going to look in the photograph. Since the camera simply records how an
actual subject actually looked at a certain moment in time, the resulting
image has no aesthetic interest as an artist’s interpretation.
When we look at a painting, knowing that it is the product of inten-
tional activity, we assume that its perceptible details were chosen as part
of the style of the work and thus have meaning. In contrast, when we
look at a photograph, we assume that its details were not chosen. In fact,
if it is a true photograph, those details could not have been chosen: they
are just the result of the camera automatically recording all the details of
the subject itself. Scruton insists that it is precisely this alleged lack
of control over detail on the part of the photographer that prevents her
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Scruton goes further to suggest that it is not just that the film-recording
process is neutral in terms of its contribution to the dramatic success of
the final work, but that it actually makes a negative contribution: Again
due to a lack of control over the detail in film images, it is going to be
harder for a film audience to know how to interpret a recorded dramatic
scene than for a theatre audience to know how to interpret an analogous
scene on stage. Let’s say that we have a film scene and a stage scene of a
battle. Since the camera records everything in the scene – every splatter
of mud, every glint of steel – the film audience can be overwhelmed with
and distracted by a plethora of unorganized detail. In contrast, since the
staging of a battle in a play is stylized to allow for the foregrounding of
certain features of the landscape and certain actions, the theatre audience
is properly drawn to the dramatic locus of the scene.
RESPONDING TO SCRUTON
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FILM AS AN ART
With these examples, King implies that due to the complexity of the
photographic method, the photographer has just as many options for
presenting her subject as the painter. If photography can be art and film
is essentially photographic, then surely film can be art too. This is not
enough to show that film is its own art form, however. We need a sense
of the differences between the artistic resources of photography and film,
something that Arnheim indirectly supplies. But Arnheim only takes us
so far in accounting for the artistic claims of film. It is up to contempo-
rary scholars to complete the account by suggesting that film offers
more creative possibilities than almost any other art form, including
painting and drama.
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FILM AS AN ART
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FILM AS AN ART
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AESTHETICS AND FILM
A CONTEMPORARY VIEW:
THE EXTRA CAPACITIES OF FILM MAKE IT AN ART
By the time that Sesonske is writing about film in the 1970s and 80s, the
artistic possibilities of the medium have been widely acknowledged such
that there is little danger of film being dismissed as mere mechanical
recording. However, since new film media are also available by this time,
questions arise about the advisability of relying on medium-specific
arguments for film art. This could explain why Sesonke’s account is
formally rather than technically based – whether a film is shown on video
or celluloid, many of its formal qualities will be the same. Moreover, film
may no longer be dismissed as mere mechanical recording but that does
not mean it has secured independent art status. In fact, as Sesonske
describes, the tendency among filmmakers, film critics and film viewers
is always to think of film in terms of some other established art form – for
example, as visual poetry or recorded drama. The task for Sesonske is
thus to find a way to understand and appreciate film on its own terms – in
other words, to create an aesthetics of film. But where to begin?
The first step, according to Sesonske, in creating the aesthetics of any
art form is an articulation of the range of formal possibilities inherent in
the medium (or, perhaps, media).21 Thus we can say that the defining
formal dimensions of film are space, time and motion. Sound is important
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FILM AS AN ART
but not essential, since a film can be complete without sound. Film shares
space with painting, sculpture and architecture, time with music, and
motion with dance. You might think that film shares all its formal catego-
ries with drama. But space, time and motion are only integral to dramatic
performance and not to the dramatic work itself, which is defined in
terms of character and action.22 Despite this distinction, however, the
formal overlap between film and practically every other art form partly
explains the tendency to think of it as a derivative art. But Sesonske
insists that this is the wrong way of thinking. For every art form that has
a formal category in common with another art form there are a unique
range of formal possibilities within that category. Thus what film can
do with space, time, and motion – how it represents them for us to expe-
rience23 – is completely new. According to Sesonske, ‘[w]hen we view a
film our experience of space, time, and motion differs from any other
context of our lives’.24
Sesonske continues by arguing that the space and time we experi-
ence in film have a unique duality. Like the space of paintings, film
space has a two-dimensional surface (of moving colours and forms) and
a three-dimensional represented depth. But unlike painting-space the
three-dimensional space of film is an ‘action-space’ in which motion can
occur. This action-space is discontinuous both with real-life ‘natural’
space and with itself. We can have the sense of moving through a film’s
action-space while remaining in our seats in the Cinema. And both our-
selves and the characters (though not usually in the fiction) can jump
instantaneously from one location to another.
As well, however, we can jump from one point of time to another,
thus indicating the parallel discontinuity of filmtime. While there is a
particular length of time it takes to watch a film, there is also a particular
length of time in which the events depicted on screen occur. The ‘dra-
matic time’ of represented events is more highly controlled than in any
other art form, including literature: A prehistoric scene in a film can be
immediately followed by a contemporary scene, or a segment of time in
a continuous event can simply be cut out. This control is such that we
may even experience a change in the form of time. For example, a freeze
frame may be experienced, not merely as interrupted motion, but as
though, in the world of the film, time itself has stopped.25
Despite these peculiarities, space and time in film do not feel that
different to us. We may feel like we have seen an entire event even when
only its highlights are shown on screen and, as Arnheim points out, we
accept jumps in location as calmly as though we were turning the pages
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of a picture book. Indeed, it is often the sign of a good film that we fail
to notice its unique treatment of space and time. Motion in film, however,
is a different matter. Sesonske thinks that the way that motion in film
is framed, edited and highlighted by camera angulation is hard to miss.
The frame created by the screen gives motion a direction and magnitude
that it lacks in real life; editing can give motion a new and aesthetically
significant rhythm; and, camerawork can lend expressive force to even
the tiniest movement. Moreover, given the discontinuity of film space,
our relation to perceived motion in film has tremendous range: One
moment we can see a movement on the distant horizon and in the next
moment we can be engulfed and swept along by it through the world of
the film.26 If we think of a film like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
(2000) with its swooping camerawork, it is easy to appreciate Sesonske’s
point here.
Thus Sesonske concludes with the following remark:
CONCLUSIONS
The challenge in this chapter has been to show that despite what Seson-
ske describes as a ‘dependence on mechanical devices,’ film counts as an
art form in its own right. It is not enough to show that film can incorpo-
rate aspects of traditional art forms, aspects like dramatization and
painterly composition. Rather, it must be shown that film has its own
methods for creating a world on screen for the viewer to enter in imagi-
nation.
Here is what we have covered in this chapter:
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