Riding Off Into the Sunset

This is my last post in a series looking at the way landscape functions in film. To see the journey and how it has evolved, look at my first hub post, and then my reformulated hub-post that concludes with thoughts left here.

A Recap of My Last Post

In my last post, I spoke about the ways in which natural elements in movies have been used as a way of "transporting" us to another world, creating an "immersive" experience that can capture the viewer's attention, and not allow additional moments for reflection. I used "Avatar" as a prime example, and showed its trailer which employed the typical attention-grabbing techniques. We might ask ourselves whether the trailer actually made use of "landscape," as I defined it in a blog post under my older hub, in which landscape is differentiated from "nature" and from "setting." In the trailer, perhaps the pace was such that the natural setting never had a chance to emerge from the margins to take its place as the focus of attention.

Also in my last post, Andrew made a comment that questioned my use of the trailer as an example. I think he makes a good point that the trailer pushes an extreme...but it makes my point. There well may be extended uses of landscape in the film Avatar, but it will be up to future viewers to make that decision, and to decide whether that movie provides the space within which to reflect, or whether even the uses of natural settings are only shown long enough to entrance and immerse, but not to reflect.

My Limitations

I don't think that I have a neat formulation of what line we may form between "setting" and "landscape," partly because the "landscape view," is dependent upon the viewer to have, at the moment that he or she chooses it. Nevertheless, we may say that the natural elements indicated in the Avatar trailer certainly allow little time for a "landscape view" to arise.

Back to My Main Text, and Why Landscape Matters

What would be a film on the other end? I refer here back to the literature that inspired my musings on landscape in film: Victor Sjostrom's Terje Vigen.

In this clip, a man rows to save a family stranded in a sinking ship. The scene is full of emotional tension, and certainly that influences the way that one will see the natural elements. But one of the things that most markedly differentiates between this clip and the trailer from Avatar, is the duration of the shot, that allows the viewer to understand the action occuring in the scene well enough to spend time considering the aesthetic properties of the sea, thus creating "landscape." The aesthetics of the "landscape view" are further accentuated by the naturally engaging rhythms of the wind-blown waves. A viewer might spend those moments of aesthetic consideration any number of ways: mesmerized by the "motion of the ocean," or recalling a childhood experience on the beach, or perhaps even (as I did) pondering about the authenticity of the churning waves as a backdrop for a fictional film. The former engaged my thought process, not by entrancing me, but by demonstrating to me the juxtaposition of a fictional narrative with something that (for me) transcended even the story being told, because of its authenticity, because of this "landscape," or "seascape" being so much more than an artificially constructed set, but rather something that existed before the making of the film, almost eternally.

Barthes and the Readerly/Writerly Perspective

In a 1983 article in Sight and Sound just following Roland Barthes death, the critic Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote a short review of what he perceived to be Barthes' views on film. He described Barthes as "mistrusting the hypnotic spell exerted by cinema," and at the same time saying that "the best films are those that suspend meaning the most..." Rosenbaum explains that such a film would "jolt" the viewer "profoundly," corresponding with what Barthes had also written about "writerly texts - the kinds that refuse easy understanding and are hard work to get through. See Barthes' S/Z for more background.

My relation of landscape to Barthes' ideas about "readerly" and "writerly" texts refers not to that "jolt" supplied almost forcefully by the difficult, uncomfortable text(film), but rather to what Barthes writes about the ability of a consumer to create "writerly" texts from a text that is "readerly." By nature, a film pulls along the viewer according to a predetermined pace, and in many ways filmic narratives might be considered in the "readerly" category, unless through story or spectacle they seek to deliberately "jolt" the consumer, rather than entrance or immerse. And because of that same pacing, it might be difficult for a viewer to deliberately create what Barthes calls "edges" in a text, by skimming, flipping pages, or reading out of order as one might do with a book (of course, I must point out that I am referring to a theatre-type viewing, in which the viewer has no control over the showing of the film). But when we have shots as in the above clip from Terje Vigen, the length of time dwelling on the landscape images, without the intercession of flashy film techniques like panning, zooming, tracking, quick editing, aggressive sound track or sound effects, etc, allows an opportunity for the viewer to create the edges that Barthes talks about; the lingering nature of the landscape allows the viewer, should he so choose, to find a "writerly" moment in a text that would often otherwise be "readerly."

Concluding Thoughts

This, ultimately, is the driving force behind my exploration of landscape as Victor Sjostrom used it, and in film in general. It is not an exhaustive proof, and certainly does not detail in much thoroughness the ways that film grammar functions in film, nor does it extend my hypothesis into a much-needed survey of films including natural elements to determine accuracy. Nevertheless, I hope that my use of media in this blog has provided enough concrete evidence for at least a thoughtful question to be posed, even if my answers are inadequate. To the reader who would continue this exploration, may you journey thoughtfully into the sunset-drenched horizon, and may you develop your own, individual ideas about landscape.

P.S. You'll want to click on this last image

Tom Gunning: Setting me straight

My "Writing About Literature" professor, Dr. Burton, asked that we extend our research process beyond our own isolated bubble, so that we could better take part in a larger conversation about our research topics, and learn to make connections that will allow us to grow through collaboration. So, I decided to send an e-mail to the superstar of silent film scholarship, Tom Gunning.

Tom Gunning is the Chair for the Department of Cinema and Media Studies at The University of Chicago, and is "famous" for creating a new way of looking at pre-feature silent films, which he terms "the cinema of attractions." The following is an excerpt from his Bio on UChicago's faculty page (along with a great Bio pic):

His published work (approximately one hundred publications) has concentrated on early cinema (from its origins to the WW I) as well as on the culture of modernity from which cinema arose (relating it to still photography, stage melodrama, magic lantern shows, as well as wider cultural concerns such as the tracking of criminals, the World Expositions, and Spiritualism). His concept of the "cinema of attractions" has tried to relate the development of cinema to other forces than storytelling, such as new experiences of space and time in modernity, and an emerging modern visual culture.

I decided to send Dr. Gunning an e-mail with a question that I had been researching but could not find an answer for. Here is the e-mail:

Dr. Gunning,

I am a double Film and English Major at Brigham Young University. I don't presume that you respond to e-mails from anonymous students; but as I'm working on a project in your area of expertise, I finally decided that it was worth giving it a shot.

I have spent some time following the work you have done, especially in early silent film. About a year ago I found Martin Lefebvre's volume "Landscape and Film," which you contributed to, and have since learned about your work with what you term the "cinema of attractions." It was an exciting experience to realize that there is still a fairly current and evolving discussion about film, even in its classic stage, and it is a dream of mine to contribute to it myself.

My specific interest is in landscape and film, and I know that you have spent time looking at D.W. Griffith and landscape in particular. I am currently revising a paper I hope to find publication for about Victor Sjostrom and the "landscape view," as I was sharply struck by Sjostrom's use of landscape (seascape) in Terje Vigen (A Man There Was - 1917), and The Outlaw and his Wife(1918). I am formulating a paper that suggests that these two films of Sjostrom's may form a model that we might benefit from today.

One specific question I have is whether Sjostrom was diverging from common practice by shooting such striking, poignant scenes out in nature, as opposed to in the studio. I have extrapolated that most producers would choose to shoot big-budget films on a set in a studio because it would be cheaper than moving a whole film crew to a natural location...and that the studio system was really coming into its own during just this period...but have not found definitive proof for this in the research that I have conducted.

Whether you find the opportunity to respond to this e-mail or not, I wanted to express my admiration for the work that you have done.

Best,

Neal Call

About an hour later, I realized that I'd made a mistake in my e-mail (aw suck!), and sent Dr. Gunning a second e-mail apologizing:

As I was looking at Martin Lefebvre's book again, I realized that it was Jean Mottet who wrote an article about landscape in D.W. Griffith. It doesn't alter my interest in your work, but I apologize for misrepresenting. I just knew that you had done work with the early American film and D.W. Griffith.

Despite my silly mistake, Dr. Gunning responded almost immediately with an answer that probably saved me 5-10 extra hours of research trying to find evidence for something that didn't exist (and I'd spent that much time already trying to find it). Here is his response e-mail:

Dear Neal

A quick answer. In the teens when Sjostrom was working, shooting in a big studio for landscape scenes was not necessarily cheaper, so it was not unusual for directors of the teens to shoot landscape scene sin nature (Griffith, prodcuer Tomas Ince and the various directors who worked under him) Maurice Tourneur, all did great work in landscapes, However I would agree Sjostrom was perhaps more powerful than any of the others, not because he was the only one shoorting in landscape, but because he has such an extraordinary sense of the way environment interpenetrated his character and his narrative. Outlaw is perhaps the masterpiece in this regard, but most of his films show this great sensibility. It may partly be a cultural sensibility, since I feel the strongest rival to his talent in this regard is his fellow Swede Maurice Stiller, especially Song of the Scarlet Flower and (available on DVD) Sir Arne's Treasure I have an essay on Sjostorm, but it is not on one of his landscape films: “‘A Dangerous Pledge’: Victor Sjöström’s Unknown Masterpiece Mästerman” in Nordic Explorations: Film Before 1930 ed. John Fullerton and Jan Olsson (Sydney: John Libbey and Co., 1999).

yours

Tom Gunning

And Dr. Gunning's response to my flub of attributing his work:

Dear Neal

I did wonder, but if you look at my Griffith book you will find pleanty on Landscape...

yours

TRG

You'll note that Dr. Gunning directly refutes much of what I wrote in my second post on landscape in film, but I am overjoyed that he did, because I knew that I was making a leap without enough proof. Now I can revise it to make it accurate. Even better, though, was that he corroborated my sense that Sjostrom did something special that other film-makers were not doing - he in essence justified my paper, even if he offered a concrete counter to a sub-argument. All things considered, it was an excellent exchange, and if I can come up with another good, concise question to ask, I hope Dr. Gunning might offer me another pearl or two.

Landscape in Film: Where'd it come from?

This is the second post in series about landscape and film, through the lens of early silent films by Victor Sjostrom. Click here for the Head Post.

The first 20 years in the life of the motion picture marked fascinating developments from a “cinema of attractions” to narrative films. Tom Gunning posits that the “cinema of attractions” dominated the cinema until about 1906-7, and that it was an “exhibitionist cinema,” as opposed to the “voyeuristic aspect of narrative cinema” (56). With the “cinema of attractions” came travel films, such as those put on by Hales Tours in the first few years of the 1900s, the “largest chain of theatres exclusively showing films before 1906" (Gunning 58). Natural locations, in these early films, were a popular subject. They were not just films statically showing nature, as we would imagine in landscape paintings; they were often moving films, filmed from trains, mimicking a sense of “travel” that was extremely popular (Gunning 58). For the example of one of Thomas Edison's films on a train from 1900, see my "Head" post.

As narrative films came into their own, nature took a backseat to story. More and more films were shot in studios to take advantage of lower shooting costs and greater control. In 1915, when D.W. Griffith released Birth of a Nation, the narrative reached dominance with the feature film. Thereafter, features ruled the screen.

On the other side of the ocean in Sweden, Victor Sjostrom made films during the same exciting period. He cut his teeth on fairly uninspired films during the early teens, but like D.W Griffith, made the most of his developing powers as filmmaker in the later teens, crafting magnificent, singular feature films. Where nature took a dominant position in some of the earlier “attraction” films, it was demoted in many later narratives; Sjostrom promoted it again in his great work Terje Vigen, which also laid the groundwork for The Outlaw and His Wife, which would follow shortly.

To understand Sjostrom’s movement towards his masterpieces (Terje Vigen specifically anticipating others such as The Outlaw and His Wife, the Girl from Marsh Croft, etc.) in the late 1910s, we should first consider the filmic traditions from which he was building. The Lumieres showed their first films to a paying audience in 1895, while the first moving images shown in Scandinavia were in Norway’s capital in April of 1896. For the first few years, most of the films shown in Scandinavia were English and French films (Iversen 94). As much as anything, audiences came simply to see an exciting new technology; Gunning describes the technology itself as an “attraction,” independent of any film shown (58). After a few years, certain types of films developed greater popularity than others and these films formed what Gunning has called the “cinema of attractions” (57). Before native Scandinavians were producing films, foreign filmmakers employed by such companies as Hales Tours had descended on the Scandinavian fjords and mountains to make travel films, primarily for foreign audiences (Sorenssen 103). There was an early sense that the Scandinavian landscape held a special spirit about it, and so-called “Norway films” remained popular into the 1920s and 1930s even as other films of the “cinema of attractions” era faded away (Sorenssen 104).

The travel films offered the most significant group of films that incorporated nature as something for its own sake, independent of any other on-screen action. Earlier films by such filmmakers as the Lumieres had natural elements; we should think particularly of A Boat Leaving Harbour, as its depiction of the men struggling on the sea is later echoed in other Scandinavian films, specifically Strosjom’s Terje Vigen. The sea, for Sjostrom, would be a recurring and deeply personal subject. We can see a similar subject matter in the first Norwegian feature film produced between 1906-1908, entitled Dangers of a Fisherman’s Life – An Ocean Drama, a one-reeler in which a fisherman’s son falls overboard and is lost. This film is significant both in theme and because its photographer, Julius Jaenzon, later became the “master photographer” for both Victor Sjostrom and Mauritz Stiller (Iversen 95). Yet the primary purpose of both of these single-reel films was to show the action of the men in the boat; the ocean was incidental. By contrast, the travel films focused on the land or scenery and no specific action or event.

Post update: 6/5/2010:

After posting this, I had an e-mail exchange with Tom Gunning, the man who got "cinema of attractions" into the silent film lexicon, and he let me know that shooting in natural locations was not in fact as abnormal as I suggest - he points out that Griffith, Thomas Ince, and Maurice Tourneur all frequently shot "landscapes." However, he does corroborate my view that Victor Sjostrom was using landscape in some unique ways that set him apart from other film makers.

The Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA)

I finally got my copy of Victor Sjostrom's "Terje Vigen" in the mail, and have been preparing to upload some clips to youtube to demonstrate Sjostrom's use of landscape. However, I've run into some ethical/legal issues that I simply don't have the answers to. Basically, I can't tell if it is legal to copy clips from the DVD to upload to youtube. I've done a fair amount of research, but haven't been able to find a definitive answer yet.

Here are some of the things I've been able to determine, some being confounding factors:

1. "Terje Vigen" was "published" before 1923, and so would appear to be in the public domain, and fair to copy and use clips of. However, the DVD version that I have obtained indicates that it was created using a version discovered and restored in 2004, at which time a new soundtrack was also added. On the DVD case, it indicates: "Copyright" in 2008 to Kino INternational Corp.

2. In general, it appears to be illegal to bypass any copy-protection program (DRM)included in any electronic medium. Most recent media should have these features. Mine probably does. There is an exception: "Audiovisual works included in the educational library of a college or university’s film or media studies department, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of making compilations of portions of those works for educational use in the classroom by media studies or film professors. (A new exemption in 2006.)" But does this apply to me?

3. As far as uploading works that someone else has the rights to, youtube says "don't do it." Since it is not a legal service, youtube does not explain what the legal ramifications are, only that it may remove the video or terminate your account. But is it okay to upload something and keep it up if nobody ever contacts you to take it down? Youtube's policies basically make it clear that the copyright holder must contact them to remove content, and that a suit is possible. But if you take it down when asked, is the suit probable? And have you done something wrong?

4. Youtube does indicate that there are "fair use" possibilities even for copyrighted material, but can't say what those are. At the government site they link, it says "fair use" could include: "the reproduction of a particular work may be considered fair, such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research." It sets four general guidelines for determining this fair use, but I can't tell where using something like a 5-minute clip falls in there. In fact, the government site indicates that "The distinction between fair use and infringement may be unclear and not easily defined." It does indicate moments when a student might use copyrighted material. Is this one of them? And would I need to take the video down when the course was over?

5. It is possible that the youtube video of Lawrence of Arabia that I uploaded was not posted on youtube legally/appropriately. Is it okay for me to link to it? What about other videos with similar questionabless?

If you have any helpful advice, please weigh in. This is probably important info for all of us as we consider fair use with new media and new technology. I got the image from freefoto.com.

A crude summary of my paper

So, I'm going to not worry too much about the completeness or appropriateness of what I post here...it will mostly be a sort of stream of consciousness series of thoughts about my paper. I think I'll start by summarizing my paper, which will help myself and others to know the general sense of my argument already, and help me to add to it. I think I'll also include the full paper somewhere, but I'll have to figure out how to include it in a reasonable format that doesn't overwhelm this blog, since it is 13 pages long.

So, to the summary:

1. The main thing I am analyzing in the paper is the use of landscape in the silent film-maker Victor Sjostrom's 1916 film Terge Vigen, or A Man There Was.

2. I argue that natural landscapes that once existed in early "cinema of attractions" disappeared in favor of cheaper movies shot in studios. Sjostrom led a trend back to using natural landscapes.

3. I argue that Sjostrom not only brought landscape back, but used landscape in such a way to actually give the landscape personality and character. This may have shown up first in Scandinavian films because of unique cultural feelings about landscapes.

4. Landscape can be distinguished from setting in that setting is merely a backdrop for action; landscape by contrast is a focal point. Landscape can also be contrasted to "nature," in the sense that it is man's "interaction with nature and environment that produces the landscape."

5. The theorist Martin Lefebvre argues that "the birth of landscape should really be understood as the birth of a way of seeing." In other words, landscape actually represents a choice for the viewer/reader to see landscape instead of mere setting. To see "landscape" creates a pause or rift with narrative.

6. I argue that landscape in film in general is a special thing, different than landscape in other mediums, because of the special quality of film: motion and change over a period of time. So, the viewer has the frequent opportunity to make the decision to see natural elements as "landscape" or "setting," to step back from the narrative and consider or to be neatly led along by the narrative. Also, that Victor Sjostrom did this earlier and better than anyone.

7. I argue that nurturing a "landscape gaze," both from a film-maker's perspective and from a film-watcher's perspective, is important because it transfers some of the power and responsibility of creating meaning to the viewer, allowing the viewer to make choices and be more than a mindless consumer.

Quick thoughts on my 2nd paper

I've already got a paper that I'm working on revising; it's 13 pages long, so it's quite a bit to bite off for anyone giving me comments. What I'd like to look at, in part, is the way that I make assertions in the paper as a stand-in for the reader, when in fact the reader might not agree with the assertions I am making. I intend to take lines and phrases from the paper so that my peers can give me feedback on whether those assertions hold up, or whether they are really only the opinions of the writer (me). So, the "new media" component would be the method of polling my peers and integrating feedback into the paper.

Also, because the paper is about a film - itself a comparatively "new medium," I think the arguments in the paper already address new media concepts, and I will continue to develop those.