"FORCES" BEHIND THE FILM

Like all other disciplines on the surface of mother earth, the film industry has some pyrotechnics that spells it functionability, also tend to pave way for all and sundry to delve into the very edges of what screenplay really entails.

Film theory is an academic discipline that aims to explore the essence of the cinema and provides conceptual frameworks for understanding film's relationship to reality, the other arts, individual viewers, and society at large. Film theory is not to be confused with general film criticism, though there can be some crossover between the two disciplines.

French philosopher Henri Bergson's Matter and Memory (1896) has been cited as anticipating the development of film theory during the birth of cinema. Bergson commented on the need for new ways of thinking about movement, and coined the terms "the movement-image" and "the time-image".

However, in his 1906 essay L'illusioncinématographique (in L'évolutioncréatrice), he rejects film as an exemplification of what he had in mind. Nonetheless, decades later, in Cinéma I and Cinema II (1983–1985), the philosopher Gilles Deleuze took Matter and Memory as the basis of his philosophy of film and revisited Bergson's concepts, combining them with the semiotics of Charles Sanders Peirce.

Early film theory arose in the silent era and was mostly concerned with defining the crucial elements of the medium. It largely evolved from the works of directors like Germaine Dulac, Louis Delluc, Jean Epstein, Sergei Eisenstein, Lev Kuleshov, and DzigaVertov and film theorists like Rudolf Arnheim, BélaBalázs and Siegfried Kracauer. These individuals emphasized how film differed from reality and how it might be considered a valid art form. In the years after World War II, the French film critic and theorist André Bazin reacted against this approach to the cinema, arguing that film's essence lay in its ability to mechanically reproduce reality, not in its difference from reality.

In the 1960s and 1970s, film theory took up residence in academia importing concepts from established disciplines like psychoanalysis, gender studies, anthropology, literary theory, semiotics and linguistics. However, not until the late 1980s or early 1990s did film theory per se achieve much prominence in American universities by displacing the prevailing humanistic, auteur theory that had dominated cinema studies and which had been focused on the practical elements of film writing, production, editing and criticism. American scholar David Bordwell has spoken against many prominent developments film theory since the 1970s, i.e., he uses the humorously derogatory term "SLAB theory" to refer to film studies based on the ideas of Saussure, Lacan, Althusser, and/or Barthes. Instead, Bordwell promotes what he describes as "neoformalism."

During the 1990s the digital revolution in image technologies has had an impact on film theory in various ways. There has been a refocus onto celluloid film's ability to capture an "indexical" image of a moment in time by theorists like Mary Ann Doane, Philip Rosen and Laura Mulvey who was informed by psychoanalysis. From a psychoanalytical perspective, after the Lacanian notion of "the Real", SlavojŽižek offered new aspects of "the gaze" extensively used in contemporary film analysis. There has also been a historical revisiting of early cinema screenings, practices and spectatorship modes by writers Tom Gunning, Miriam Hansen and Yuri Tsivian.

Television writer/producer David Weddle suggests that film theory as practiced in the early 2000s is a form of bait and switch, taking advantage of young, would-be filmmakers: anyone in Hollywood filmmaking who used film theory terms like "fabula" and "syuzhet" would be "laughed off the lot." Weddle also quotes Roger Ebert's opinion that "Film theory has nothing to do with film" and is an obscuricantist "cult;" and quotes silent film historian Kevin Brownlow's alarm that academic film theorists are typically "quite aggressively Marxist."

In 2008, German filmmaker Werner Herzog suggested that "Theoretical film studies has become really awful. That’s not how you should study film. Abolish these courses and do something else which makes much more sense."

Some of the major theories of film are:

1.       Apparatus theory

Apparatus theory, derived in part from Marxist film theory, semiotics, and psychoanalysis, was a dominant theory within cinema studies during the 1970s. It maintains that cinema is by nature ideological because its mechanics of representation are ideological. Its mechanics of representation include the camera and editing. The central position of the spectator within the perspective of the composition is also ideological.

Apparatus theory also argues that cinema maintains the dominant ideology of the culture within the viewer. Ideology is not imposed on cinema, but is part of its nature. It follows an institutional model of spectatorship.

Notable Apparatus theorists:

         i.            Jacques Lacan

       ii.            Louis Althusser

      iii.            Jean-Louis Baudry

     iv.            Jean-Louis Comolli

       v.            Christian Metz

     vi.            Giorgio Agamben

    vii.            Laura Mulvey

  viii.            Peter Wollen

     ix.            Constance Penley

2.       Formalist film theory

Formalist film theory is a theory of film study that is focused on the formal, or technical, elements of a film: i.e., the lighting, scoring, sound and set design, use of color, shot composition, and editing. It is a major theory of film study today.Formalism, at its most general, considers the synthesis (or lack of synthesis) of the multiple elements of film production, and the effects, emotional and intellectual, of that synthesis and of the individual elements. For example, take the single element of editing. A formalist might study how standard Hollywood "continuity editing" creates a more comforting effect and non-continuity or jump-cut editing might become more disconcerting or volatile.

Moreso, one might consider the synthesis of several elements, such as editing, shot composition, and music. The shoot-out that ends Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Western "Dollars" trilogy is a notable example of how these elements work together to produce an effect: The shot selection goes from very wide to very close and tense; the length of shots decreases as the sequence progresses towards its end; the music builds. All of these elements, in combination rather than individually, create tension.

Formalism is unique in that it embraces both ideological and auteurist branches of criticism. In both these cases, the common denominator for Formalist criticism is style.

3.       Genre Theory

Genre theory or genre studies got underway with the Greeks. The Greeks felt that the type of person an author was would be directly responsible for the type of poetry they wrote. The Greeks also believed that certain metrical forms were suited only to certain genres. Aristotle said,

    We have, then, a natural instinct for representation and fortune and rhythm—and starting with these instincts men very gradually developed them until they produced poetry out of their improvisations. Poetry then split into two kinds according to the poet's nature. For the more serious poets represented the noble deeds of noble men, while those of a less exalted nature represented the actions of inferior men, at first writing satire just as the others wrote hymns and eulogies.

This is all based on Plato's mimetic principle. Exalted people will, in imitation of exaltation, write about exalted people doing exalted things, and vice versa with the "lower" types (Farrell, 383). Genre was not a black-and-white issue even for Aristotle, who recognized that though the ‘’Iliad’’ is an epic it can be considered a tragedy as well, both because of its tone as well as the nobility of its characters. However, most of the Greek critics were less acutely aware—if aware at all—of the inconsistencies in this system. For these critics, there was no room for ambiguity in their literary taxonomy because these categories were thought to have innate qualities that could not be disregarded.

The Romans carried on the Greek tradition of literary criticism. The Roman critics were quite happy to continue on in the assumption that there were essential differences between the types of poetry and drama. There is much evidence in their works that Roman writers themselves saw through these ideas and understood genres and how they function on a more advanced level. However, it was the critics who left their mark on Roman literary criticism, and they were not innovators.

After the fall of Rome, when the scholastic system took over literary criticism, genre theory was still based on the essential nature of genres. This is most likely because of Christianity's affinity for Platonic concepts. This state of affairs persisted until the 18th century.

At the end of the 18th century, the theory of genre based on classical thought began to unravel beneath the intellectual chafing of the Enlightenment. The introduction of the printing press brought texts to a larger audience. Then pamphlets and broadsides began to diffuse information even farther, and a greater number of less privileged members of society became literate and began to express their views. Suddenly authors of both "high" and "low" culture were now competing for the same audience. This worked to destabilize the classical notions of genre, while still drawing attention to genre because new genres like the novel were being generated (Prince, 455).

Locke, in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), had reduced data to its smallest part: the simple idea derived from sense. However, as the science of cognition became more precise it was shown that even this simple idea derived from sense was itself divisible. This new information prompted David Hartley to write in his Observation on Man (1749),

    How far the Number of Orders may go is impossible to say. I see no Contradiction in supposing it infinite, and a great Difficulty in stopping at any particular Size. (Prince, 456).

JAMES BOND

The possibility of an infinite number of types alarmed theologians of the time because their assumption was that rigorously applied empiricism would uncover the underlying divine nature of creation, and now it appeared that rigorously applied empiricism would only uncover an ever-growing number of types and subsequent sub-types.

In order to re-establish the divine in categorization, the new taxonomical system of aesthetics arose. This system offered first beauty, and then the sublime as the taxonomical device. The problem with Aesthetics was that it assumed the divine and thus the sublime must underlie all these categories, and thus, the ugly would become beautiful at some point. The paradox is glaring.

4.       Marxist film theory

Marxist film theory is one of the oldest forms of film theory.

Sergei Eisenstein and many other Soviet filmmakers in the 1920s expressed ideas of Marxism through film. In fact, the Hegelian dialectic was considered best displayed in film editing through the Kuleshov Experiment and the development of montage.

While this structuralist approach to Marxism and filmmaking was used, the more vociferous complaint that the Russian filmmakers had was with the narrative structure of Hollywood filmmaking.

Eisenstein's solution was to shun narrative structure by eliminating the individual protagonist and tell stories where the action is moved by the group and the story is told through a clash of one image against the next (whether in composition, motion, or idea) so that the audience is never lulled into believing that they are watching something that has not been worked over.

Eisenstein himself, however, was accused by the Soviet authorities under Joseph Stalin of "formalist error," of highlighting form as a thing of beauty instead of portraying the worker nobly.

French Marxist film makers, such as Jean-Luc Godard, would employ radical editing and choice of subject matter, as well as subversive parody, to heighten class consciousness and promote Marxist ideas.

Situationist film maker Guy Debord, author of The Society of the Spectacle, began his film Ingirumimusnocte et consumimurigni [Wandering around in the night we are consumed by fire] with a radical critique of the spectator who goes to the cinema to forget about his dispossessed daily life.

Situationist film makers produced a number of important films, where the only contribution by the situationist film cooperative was the sound-track. In Can dialectics break bricks? (1973) a Chinese Kung Fu film was transformed by redubbing into an epistle on state capitalism and Proletarian revolution. The intellectual technique of using capitalism's own structures against itself is known as détournement.

Marxist film theory has developed from these precise and historical beginnings and is now sometimes viewed in a wider way to refer to any power relationships or structures within a moving image text.

5.       Psychoanalytical film theory

Psychoanalytical film theory is a school of academic film criticism that developed in the 1970s and '80s, is closely allied with critical theory, and that analyzes films from the perspective of psychoanalysis, generally the works of Jacques Lacan.

The film viewer is seen as the subject of a "gaze" that is largely "constructed" by the film itself, where what is on screen becomes the object of that subject's desire.

The viewing subject may be offered particular identifications (usually with a leading male character) from which to watch. The theory stresses the subject's longing for a completeness which the film may appear to offer through identification with an image; in fact, according to Lacanian theory, identification with the image is never anything but an illusion and the subject is always split simply by virtue of coming into existence.

6.       Screen theory

Screen theory is a Marxist film theory associated with the British journal Screen in the 1970s. The theoreticians of this approach -- Colin MacCabe, Stephen Heath and Laura Mulvey -- describe the "cinematic apparatus" as a version of Althusser's Ideological State Apparatus (ISA). According to screen theory, it is the spectacle that creates the spectator and not the other way round. The fact that the subject is created and subjected at the same time by the narrative on screen is masked by the apparent realism of the communicated content.

7.       Structuralist film theory

                Structuralist film theory is a branch of film theory that is rooted in Structuralism, itself based on structural linguistics, a now-obsolete branch of linguistics.[citation needed] Structuralist film theory emphasizes how films convey meaning through the use of codes and conventions not dissimilar to the way languages are used to construct meaning in communication.

An example of this is understanding how the simple combination of shots can create an additional idea: the blank expression on a person's face, an appetising meal, and then back to the person's face. While nothing in this sequence literally expresses hunger—or desire—the juxtaposition of the images convey that meaning to the audience.

Unraveling this additional meaning can become quite complex. Lighting, angle, shot duration, juxtaposition, cultural context, and a wide array of other elements can actively reinforce or undermine a sequence's meaning.

8.       Feminist film theory

Feminist film theory is theoretical film criticism derived from feminist politics and feminist theory. Feminists have many approaches to cinema analysis, regarding the film elements analysed and their theoretical underpinnings

The development of feminist film theory was influenced by second wave feminism and the development of women's studies within the academy. Feminist scholars began taking cues from the new theories arising from these movements to analyzing film. Initial attempts in the United States in the early 1970s were generally based on sociological theory and focused on the function of women characters in particular film narratives or genres and of stereotypes as a reflection of a society's view of women. Works such as Marjorie Rosen’s Popcorn Venus: Women, Movies, and the American Dream (1973) and Molly Haskell’s From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in Movies (1974) analyze how the women portrayed in film related to the broader historical context, the stereotypes depicted, the extent to which the women were shown as active or passive, and the amount of screen time given to women.

In contrast, film theoreticians in England began integrating critical theory based perspectives drawn from psychoanalysis, semiotics, and Marxism, and eventually these ideas gained hold within the American scholarly community in the later 1970s and 1980s. Analysis generally focused on "the production of meaning in a film text, the way a text constructs a viewing subject, and the ways in which the very mechanisms of cinematic production affect the representation of women and reinforce sexism".

In his article, "From the Imaginary Signifier: Identification, Mirror," Christian Metz argues that viewing film is only possible through scopophilia (pleasure from looking, related to voyeurism), which is best exemplified in silent film.

According to Cynthia A. Freeland in "Feminist Frameworks for Horror Films," feminist studies of horror films have focused on psychodynamics where the chief interest is "on viewers' motives and interests in watching horror films".

More recently, scholars have expanded their work to include analysis of television and digital media. Additionally, they have begun to explore notions of difference, engaging in dialogue about the differences among women (part of movement away from essentialism in feminist work more generally), the various methodologies and perspectives contained under the umbrella of feminist film theory, and the multiplicity of methods and intended effects that influence the development of films. Scholars are also taking increasingly global perspectives, responding to postcolonialist criticisms of Anglo- and Eurocentrism in the academy more generally. Increased focus has been given to, "disparate feminisms, nationalisms, and media in various locations and across class, racial, and ethnic groups throughout the world".

RELATING THE APPARATUS FILM THEORY TO NOLLYWOOD’S “SAWOROIDE” (1999)

This 1999-shot film, Saworoide, an epic Yoruba movie, by TundeKelani beam-lights the robust and enviable Yoruba culture and oral tradition. The movie symbolizes the patterned institution of the laudable Yoruba heritage.

TALKING DRUM

The level of professionalism that is evident in this film emphasis on the economic yields of movie production over any artistic considerations. I chose this film specifically because it involves a number of factors chief of which is creative interpretations and projections of culture -Yoruba culture in this instance- in his films, which reflects his appropriation of orality as performative energy.

The film maker believes it is necessary that artistic and cultural productions speak in any culture as well as to others as part of global cultural education.Kelani aims largely to speak through locally mediated experiences, through memory recognizable, through metaphysics- which some cultures might consider exotic- but ultimately to celebrate aspects of African history and culture and enlighten others about these. That is the celebratory vision in Saworoide and at the level of allegorism and orality. The plot of the story is well crafted and the dialogue rich and nuanced. Acting is never lacking in Kelani’s ensemble because the ‘naturalness’ of the old hands of Yoruba traveling theatre who have been collaborating with the theatre scholars, since Duro Ladipo and Kola Ogunmola, is always felt. Take LerePaimo (of Eda fame), Dr. Akinleye(of Idamu Padre fame), Dr Kola Oyewo, AlagbaBayoFaleti, Abiodun Oya, Dejumo Lewis and Prof. Akin Ishola and you have the most formidable cast you could ever get in this part of ‘wood’.