Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Blog #2
Clip #1: George Melies, "A Man of Heads" (1898)
Clip #2: Lumiere Brothers, "Arrival of a Train" (1895)
"As for the scenario, the 'fable,' or 'tale,' I only consider it at the end. I can state that the scenario constructed in this manner has no importance, since I use it merely as a pretext for the 'stage effects,' the 'tricks,' or for a nicely arranged tableau."
-George Melies in Tom Gunning's "The Cinema of Attractions Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde"
The films of George Melies and the Lumiere Brothers are often cited as foundational of two distinct tendencies in the cinema. The realistic tendency is characterized by the Lumiere's use of non-studio/outdoor settings, non-actors and a documentary-like approach to their subject matter. The formative tendency can be seen in Melies' exploration of the medium through trick photography and staged movement in non-realistic settings.
However, according to Tom Gunning, in what ways are the early films of Melies and the Lumiere Brothers similiar? Using the two films posted above as your examples, explain Gunning's concept of the cinema of attractions. According to Gunning, what is the relationship between this early mode of cinema and avant-garde practices that developed in the first half of the 20th century?
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16 comments:
The similarities of the two films are simple, there is no plot among either of them, and they are purely produced to show off what can be done with film, space and time. More obviously the two films were shot close to the same time period when film was in black and white and synchronized sound had not yet been developed.
The two films posted are examples of Gunning’s concept of Cinema of Attractions. The films focus more on the visual experience that is produced to the viewer, instead of the art of story telling. Gunnings concept doesn’t take film technology for granted; he focuses on the cinematic development of time and space in today’s film. George Melies film makes a formative influence on Gunnings Cinema of Attractions by being a pioneer film using trick photography and illusion.
The relationship between avant-garde and the early mode of cinema is outside the box of common theater and literature, its purpose is to be original and give you a visual experience like none other.
-Film Expert Nick Edmonds
Both films, like Nick had stated, have no plot, and deliver no real message. They are simply showing something.
This is then linked to Tom Gunning's concept of Cinema of Attractions because as Tom Gunning says, "What precisely is the cinema of attractions... it's the ability to show something." The films don't tell a story, give you a message, or motivate you to do something. They simply are there to show you a magic trick, or a train entering a station.
Avant-garde and early films are similar in the fact that are attractions. They are created for viewers to simply watch and enjoy. This is not to say their cannot be a thought provoking idea or concept present, but the major purpose is to entertain.
These two films have very few differences in the terms of their purpose. They were both black and white, both contained only background music, and both were produced only for a means to dazzle the audience. They were just trying to show off their new technology.
In terms of cinema of Attractions, these two films are great examples of it. Both were not made to send the audience a message through a plot or script, but to give them something for their eyes to enjoy. However both Gunnings and Melies films were necessary in advancing film technology.
Avante-grade and the early mode of cinema are alike because both of the short films did not provide any plot, information, or purpose other than giving its viewers something to marvel at.
Ryan Bender
These two films have very few differences in the terms of their purpose. They were both black and white, both contained only background music, and both were produced only for a means to dazzle the audience. They were just trying to show off their new technology.
In terms of cinema of Attractions, these two films are great examples of it. Both were not made to send the audience a message through a plot or script, but to give them something for their eyes to enjoy. However both Gunnings and Melies films were necessary in advancing film technology.
Avante-grade and the early mode of cinema are alike because both of the short films did not provide any plot, information, or purpose other than giving its viewers something to marvel at.
Ryan Bender
The two films are hard to consider films by today's standard because there were not any fancy specal effects or famous actors, they were just everyday things. At the time, though, they were amazing, because this was new technology that gave the public some insight into the future of film and the moving picture.
Both films are examples of the Cinema of Attractions, in that they are merely for entertainment, there is no need to think while watching these films. There is no story line that needs to be followed, much like avant-garde films. They could be seen as more experimental films, but with the two early films, they are more of a representation of the technology at the time, there to visually appeal to the audience rather than provide an in-depth plot.
Steven Ball
Tom Gunning defines cinema of attractions as “a cinema that bases itself on ... its ability to show something” as opposed to linear narration (pp. 57). So, to echo everyone else here, the main similarities shared by these two films are a lack of narration/storyline and exhibition for exhibition’s sake. Additionally, these films were produced within three years of each other, so they obviously share common technology (e.g., both are in black-and-white). Their titles (“A Man of Heads” and “Arrival of a Train”) are fairly self-explanatory; that is exactly what they show.
Gunning proposes that the aforementioned quality of exhibitionism and the emphasis on visual stimulation is precisely what drew the avant-garde crowd to early cinema in the first place. I think that, for the avant-garde, film provided a more comprehensive means for innovation and experimentation: for the first time, images, sounds, and movement could be utilized into one medium, allowing for more interaction between art and viewers.
The two films are similar according to Gunning because as Hannah said, they are telling stories, and they are fascinating to the audience because of the illusory power films have. Both of the films we watched in the blog are very basic now, but back then they were powerful. The films are black and white, and have common music from the late 1800’s playing in the background. Some other similarities they share is there is no plot to the short films, and they just show the supremacy of film making.
The relationship these films have to Gunning’s cinema of attractions are that the films are for the audience to view, not to learn something from them. They relate to Avant-Garde because they are mainly aimed for the audience to watch and enjoy. The films don’t need to have an “educational” value. It is also something different for the viewers, it’s not just basic art, it is “enthusiastic” entertainment.
The early films of the George Melies and the Lumiere Brothers are similar in that they both fall under what Gunning calls the “cinema of attractions.” In today’s culture, cinema is typically thought of as following the narrative form. However, artists like the Lumieres and Melies were not concerned with the narrative possibilities of cinema, but rather with the possibilities of cinema. Both film examples demonstrate that early cinema was a means to explore the immense possibilities of film as a new medium. This is the essence of the cinema of attractions: the spectacle of the films rather than the content of the films. Instead of offering a story line or plot, men like Melies simply demonstrated fantastic feats capable only through the “magic” of cinema. These kinds of films laid the groundwork for the early avant-garde cinema found during the first half of the twentieth century. This shocking new media provided a new art form for the middle class, who typically went unexposed to traditional art forms. The cinema of attractions lead directly to the avant-garde movement of the early twentieth century.
Innovative ideas are all created through previous styles. Hence, the similarities through generations of art. In some cases an artist uses the foundation built in previous styles to create a more modernized piece.
Tom Gunning compares the two films by the path each artist paved in there respected cinema techniques. The short clips were attractive without having any sort of story line to them. Both clips seem to lack meaning. Tom Gunning's concept of cinema attraction bled through each one with the attraction of each video clip without having a storyline. Most people can relate to the documentary style clip of the train arriving through previous experience. This relation will attract viewers. The trickier clip "A Man With Heads" attracts viewers through editing capabilities of film, especially during the time the video came out (1898).
First watching the films by Melies and the Lumiere Brothers it is hard to find many similarities. Melies’s film uses special effects to create and illusion not possible in real life. In the Lumiere film they show real people getting on and off a train. Something that a person could see happen any day. Tom Gunning looked at these films in a different matter and found the similarities.
Gunning noticed that they were the same in the sense that they both, rather then telling a story, simply showed a few different views to their audience. In this way the filmmakers were able to entertain the audience without needing to express a storyline. When you relate the two films in that matter it is very easy to compare them. They both refer to the avant-garde practices because in both films you can tell that they were experimenting with film and finding its possibilities. I believe that is more represented however in George Melies’s film because of the use of special effects.
-Logan Lovett
Tom Gunning explains in his article his beliefs regarding cinema history. He believes early cinema has been examined mainly on its contribution to narrative film. Narrative film however is not the only effect early cinema had on the future. This is evident in the two videos posted to the blog. It can be seen that both the Lumiere brothers and Melies influenced technical advancement of cinema as well as the way the images were seen. Tom Gunning says the similarities between the Lumiere brothers and Melies are not their contribution to narrative film but to his idea of cinema of attractions. The cinema of attractions is not necessarily worried about giving the audience a story to fallow but a series of images for them to view in a way that they could not see ordinarily see them. George Melies gave the audience the images of a man removing his head, something not seen on an average day, in "A Man of Heads" (1898). The Lumeire brothers showed images of a train entering a train station in "Arrival of a Train" (1895). Neither of these short films has a narrative drive. They are only to produce images in front of an audience. Tom Gunning also compares avant-garde film and modern film in that they attract people who want to sit back and enjoy a spectacle.
Nathaniel Winter
Both of these films were made in the age where film was still a form of magical and exciting entertainment. (Any modern non-film nerd student would find them boring, in other words.) They are purely for entertainment and to explore and experiment with the magic of film itself and what can be done with it. They were created to fascinate.
The main difference between these two films, as outlined in the Gunning essay is that Melies' film can be described as "theater in film" whereas the second film is like "reality in a larger-than-life setting". Melies shows us things we could see on a stage, but it remains fascinating simply because it is reprooduced through film. The second film, however, shows reality as we know it, but in an awesome and intense setting. It is said that people in the theater actually ducked when the train comes through in the shot.
The two films of George Melies and the Lumiere Brothers are similar in the fact that they both do not contain a narrative. They are simply show-and-tell films. Each film is under a minute long, and is focused on one spectacle, to dazzle the eye. These films can be applied to Gunning’s concept of “Cinema of Attractions.” Gunning describes the Cinema of Attractions as simply “the ability to show something”. This early style of film displays itself to gain the attention of spectators. Most films made in this early period displayed magical camera techniques to capture the eye. As seen in George Melies “A man of heads”, the film simply demonstrates the magical capabilities of the camera by removing the mans head from his body several times. The Lumiere Brothers “Arrival of a train” is similar in the face that it is plotless and contains zero characterization. The film is entirely one shot of a train coming into the screen. It shows no narrative purpose, but it is there to attract audiences.
This style of cinema changed in the early 20th century when films became more than just a show-and-tell. Films were now moving into narratives. Gunning says that the cinematic attractions of the past still remained, but they were now shown as a form of dramatic and narrative expression.
The two films are similar in that they were shot during the same time period. They were filmed before the development of sound. They are both demonstrations of a filmmaker's ability to create an illusion and make a spectacle out of space and time.
GUnning's concept of Cinema of Attractions is catured in both of these films. Each film presents the visual experience of the film to the viewer rather than developing and following any sort of storyline. Instead, the Melies film uses trick photography simply to puzzle the viewer. The Lemiere Brother's film gives a cinematic account of space time and movement.
In the early days of film, there were people like the Lemiere Brothers and George Melies who i consider to be film scientists because of their amazing work of experimental productions which captivates the minds of filmmakers a century later.
Jack Kirby
When watching these films there are the basic similarities, they both were made roughly around the same time period there for being presented in black and white. Full feature films were unheard of for that time and the difficulty for them to pull of just the special effects in short clips like these too large amounts of work, which limited them to be very short. The chips are simply to excite and audience of the earlier film era with the new advances that were made in film and they lacked a message or actual plot line. Which pulls together the ideas of Tom Gunning and his ideas of Cinema Attractions and “it's the ability to show something." (pg. 57) and thats all they did was show the audience the capabilities of film.
Lumiere Brothers, "Arrival of a Train" (1895) attracted people because for probably one of the first times it showed not only people but large mechanics in motion something that during that time people could very well see since it was a large means of transportation but because it was being presented in a new way it sparked interested in the viewers. With George Melies, "A Man of Heads" (1898) a film made three years later showed how film can be manipulated and presented as something fictional. It explored visual effects that than amazed people beyond belief.
Chris Moore
Both films show simplicity while at the same extreme difficulty. The two are both, like everyone else has said, without a plot. when i first saw these works I realized that these films could simply be some sort of publicity stunt used in a time where film has only just been invented and finding those who understand film is a dime a dozen. For the audience these actions are nothing but amazing, and the power of film no less intriguing, Gunning's concept of cinema of attractions is seen here because, there is no motive, plot, exposition or back story, just the sheer amazement of film.
Sorry about the lateness of my replay issues with computer formating on blogger
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