Director (Film)
The modern motion-picture director is the person most responsible for the ultimate style, structure, and quality of a film. Cinema is an art of collaboration, and in some instances someone other than the director may come to dominate (for example, a producer with authority over the final cut or an actor whose box-office popularity gives him the power to direct the director), but in general it is assumed that the person assigned to direct the picture must take the credit or blame for its form and content.
While the function the director serves has always been filled by someone, the priority of that function has not always been recognized. Georges Méliès, for example, thought of himself as a “producer” of films, and indeed from 1896 to 1912 he took care of all aspects of the making of the films bearing his name, including set design, acting, and camera work. Charles Pathé, in turn-of-the-century France, was one of the first producers to assign an assistant (Ferdinand Zecca) specifically to direct the pictures of his rapidly expanding film empire. At France’s Gaumont Pictures, Louis Feuillade and Alice Guy, the first woman to take on a key position in cinema, shared the task of directing, each specializing in separate genres. In the United States as in Europe, many of the first film directors were cameramen (Edwin S. Porter) or actors (D.W. Griffith) until circumstance compelled them to take on various directorial duties. The movie industry was growing rapidly, however, and by 1910 the number of films required to fill the many newly constructed movie theatres was such that production had to be delegated. The director’s role was to work with the actors, designers, technicians, and others involved in the moviemaking process, coordinating and overseeing their efforts in order to rapidly turn out interesting and comprehensible movies within given financial and material strictures.
As early as the 1920s those who wrote seriously about motion pictures had no qualms about attributing successes and failures to the director. Some directors, notably F.W. Murnau and Fritz Lang in Germany and Victor Sjöström in Sweden, were virtually as famous as the stars who acted in their films. In 1926 William Fox paid Murnau $1 million to relocate in Hollywood in the hopes that he would make the greatest movies the world had yet seen. The primary issue of this marriage of art and money, Sunrise (1927), remains an anomaly in the history of the film industry, for Murnau was given unusual control and virtually unlimited resources. The film still astounds critics, but it was not a commercial success, and it stunted for a time the growing stature of the director. Erich von Stroheim’s more dramatic encounters with producers such as Irving Thalberg further encouraged this businesslike attitude, which led to the practice of quickly typing directors as either workmanlike or difficult.
Unidentified, Gary Cooper, and Frank Capra on the set of Mr. Deeds Goes to Town [Credit: Columbia Pictures Corporation/The Museum of Modern Art Film Stills Archive, New York City]In the great age of the studio system (1927–48), strong directors vied with the factory conditions in which films were made. Those directors with powerful personalities (such as Frank Capra, Howard Hawks, John Ford, and Ernst Lubitsch) were given great freedom, but they still had to work with actors and actresses contracted to the studio, with union personnel following time-honoured routines, with scripts and scriptwriters selected by the studio, and with deadlines that discouraged experimentation.
The “auteur theory,” which was propagated by French film theorists in the 1950s, offered a powerful method for studying and evaluating the films of the studio era. The word auteur (literally “author” in French) had been employed in France in the 1930s in legal battles over the rights to artistic property. This legal struggle to determine whether a film “belonged” to its scriptwriter, director, or producer strengthened the belief held by many critics and theorists that it was the director alone who deserved credit for a film, just as an architect could be credited for a building even though it was built and used by other people. While this view made eminent sense when strong directors were concerned, it tended to ignore average filmmakers.
Auteurs are defined as directors with solid technique, a well-defined vision of the world, and a degree of control over their productions. Some directorial situations are easy to evaluate. Griffith and Chaplin had complete financial control over their major efforts. European art directors, such as Ingmar Bergman, enjoyed similar freedom. Indeed, their films were often marketed as the expressions of important artistic personalities. However, the auteur theory was developed to encourage the reevaluation of countless films by directors operating in the middle of suffocating studio situations. Directors such as Leo McCarey, Gregory La Cava, and Anthony Mann stylistically and thematically imbued their films, whatever the genre, with a consistent, personal aesthetic. Their output, even when unsuccessful, is deemed immeasurably more valuable than the undistinguished films of weaker directors who merely translated the words and actions indicated in a script into routine screen images. Scriptwriters in the studio years worked mainly in teams; a single script often passed through the hands of several different writers, so most films are more recognizable as the product of a particular studio than of an individual writer. The tension between director and genre or studio is thought to produce films that appeal to the public while expressing the vision of an individual. Thus, through the auteur, the popular art of cinema is able to achieve the traditional goals of poetry and the fine arts, goals of authentic expression and of genius.
“2001: A Space Odyssey”: Kubrick directing a scene [Credit: MGM/The Kobal Collection]The auteur theory was especially influential in the 1960s and arguably was instrumental in creating not only the French New Wave but also similar movements in Britain and the United States. Directors such as Lindsay Anderson, Joseph Losey, Stanley Kubrick, John Cassavetes, Francis Ford Coppola, and Arthur Penn thought of themselves as budding auteurs and earned critical and popular acclaim for their distinctive styles and themes. With the fall of the studio system in the 1950s, there was indeed room for a single personality to take control of a film and to market it on the basis of personal vision.
After 1960 first-rank American motion-picture directors began to make films under conditions that had been in practice in Europe throughout the century. The insignificant studio system of France, for example, had enabled and encouraged individual entrepreneurs to put together film projects on a onetime basis. Such projects generally revolved around an équipe, or team of creative personnel, with the director at its head. The director could then truly shape the work of the designer, composer, and (most important) the scenarist so that the film had a consistent and relatively personal style from beginning to end. In this artisanal format, a producer depends on the director to develop a distinctive way of handling scenes. The director may even be required to rewrite the scenario in order to achieve a particular effect. As a result of this personal commitment, the well-publicized arguments that occur during the production of many important films almost always involve the director.
Sanders, George: still from “Rebecca” [Credit: © 1940 Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation; photograph from a private collection]Alfred Hitchcock was one director who disdained arguments. He kept the blueprint of his films in his head and provided detailed instructions for each shot, without any discussion. His producers were not given the opportunity to offer alternative suggestions or to recut the film. The scenes fit together in one way only, Hitchcock’s way. While some critics have complained that the acting in a Hitchcock film is often stilted, that the sets are artificial, and that the rear-projection shots are obvious, the Hitchcock style is immediately recognizable. Most people admire the effectiveness of Hitchcock’s direction, some even claiming that in his films can be found profound moral and metaphysical insight.
While the function the director serves has always been filled by someone, the priority of that function has not always been recognized. Georges Méliès, for example, thought of himself as a “producer” of films, and indeed from 1896 to 1912 he took care of all aspects of the making of the films bearing his name, including set design, acting, and camera work. Charles Pathé, in turn-of-the-century France, was one of the first producers to assign an assistant (Ferdinand Zecca) specifically to direct the pictures of his rapidly expanding film empire. At France’s Gaumont Pictures, Louis Feuillade and Alice Guy, the first woman to take on a key position in cinema, shared the task of directing, each specializing in separate genres. In the United States as in Europe, many of the first film directors were cameramen (Edwin S. Porter) or actors (D.W. Griffith) until circumstance compelled them to take on various directorial duties. The movie industry was growing rapidly, however, and by 1910 the number of films required to fill the many newly constructed movie theatres was such that production had to be delegated. The director’s role was to work with the actors, designers, technicians, and others involved in the moviemaking process, coordinating and overseeing their efforts in order to rapidly turn out interesting and comprehensible movies within given financial and material strictures.
As early as the 1920s those who wrote seriously about motion pictures had no qualms about attributing successes and failures to the director. Some directors, notably F.W. Murnau and Fritz Lang in Germany and Victor Sjöström in Sweden, were virtually as famous as the stars who acted in their films. In 1926 William Fox paid Murnau $1 million to relocate in Hollywood in the hopes that he would make the greatest movies the world had yet seen. The primary issue of this marriage of art and money, Sunrise (1927), remains an anomaly in the history of the film industry, for Murnau was given unusual control and virtually unlimited resources. The film still astounds critics, but it was not a commercial success, and it stunted for a time the growing stature of the director. Erich von Stroheim’s more dramatic encounters with producers such as Irving Thalberg further encouraged this businesslike attitude, which led to the practice of quickly typing directors as either workmanlike or difficult.
Unidentified, Gary Cooper, and Frank Capra on the set of Mr. Deeds Goes to Town [Credit: Columbia Pictures Corporation/The Museum of Modern Art Film Stills Archive, New York City]In the great age of the studio system (1927–48), strong directors vied with the factory conditions in which films were made. Those directors with powerful personalities (such as Frank Capra, Howard Hawks, John Ford, and Ernst Lubitsch) were given great freedom, but they still had to work with actors and actresses contracted to the studio, with union personnel following time-honoured routines, with scripts and scriptwriters selected by the studio, and with deadlines that discouraged experimentation.
The “auteur theory,” which was propagated by French film theorists in the 1950s, offered a powerful method for studying and evaluating the films of the studio era. The word auteur (literally “author” in French) had been employed in France in the 1930s in legal battles over the rights to artistic property. This legal struggle to determine whether a film “belonged” to its scriptwriter, director, or producer strengthened the belief held by many critics and theorists that it was the director alone who deserved credit for a film, just as an architect could be credited for a building even though it was built and used by other people. While this view made eminent sense when strong directors were concerned, it tended to ignore average filmmakers.
Auteurs are defined as directors with solid technique, a well-defined vision of the world, and a degree of control over their productions. Some directorial situations are easy to evaluate. Griffith and Chaplin had complete financial control over their major efforts. European art directors, such as Ingmar Bergman, enjoyed similar freedom. Indeed, their films were often marketed as the expressions of important artistic personalities. However, the auteur theory was developed to encourage the reevaluation of countless films by directors operating in the middle of suffocating studio situations. Directors such as Leo McCarey, Gregory La Cava, and Anthony Mann stylistically and thematically imbued their films, whatever the genre, with a consistent, personal aesthetic. Their output, even when unsuccessful, is deemed immeasurably more valuable than the undistinguished films of weaker directors who merely translated the words and actions indicated in a script into routine screen images. Scriptwriters in the studio years worked mainly in teams; a single script often passed through the hands of several different writers, so most films are more recognizable as the product of a particular studio than of an individual writer. The tension between director and genre or studio is thought to produce films that appeal to the public while expressing the vision of an individual. Thus, through the auteur, the popular art of cinema is able to achieve the traditional goals of poetry and the fine arts, goals of authentic expression and of genius.
“2001: A Space Odyssey”: Kubrick directing a scene [Credit: MGM/The Kobal Collection]The auteur theory was especially influential in the 1960s and arguably was instrumental in creating not only the French New Wave but also similar movements in Britain and the United States. Directors such as Lindsay Anderson, Joseph Losey, Stanley Kubrick, John Cassavetes, Francis Ford Coppola, and Arthur Penn thought of themselves as budding auteurs and earned critical and popular acclaim for their distinctive styles and themes. With the fall of the studio system in the 1950s, there was indeed room for a single personality to take control of a film and to market it on the basis of personal vision.
After 1960 first-rank American motion-picture directors began to make films under conditions that had been in practice in Europe throughout the century. The insignificant studio system of France, for example, had enabled and encouraged individual entrepreneurs to put together film projects on a onetime basis. Such projects generally revolved around an équipe, or team of creative personnel, with the director at its head. The director could then truly shape the work of the designer, composer, and (most important) the scenarist so that the film had a consistent and relatively personal style from beginning to end. In this artisanal format, a producer depends on the director to develop a distinctive way of handling scenes. The director may even be required to rewrite the scenario in order to achieve a particular effect. As a result of this personal commitment, the well-publicized arguments that occur during the production of many important films almost always involve the director.
Sanders, George: still from “Rebecca” [Credit: © 1940 Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation; photograph from a private collection]Alfred Hitchcock was one director who disdained arguments. He kept the blueprint of his films in his head and provided detailed instructions for each shot, without any discussion. His producers were not given the opportunity to offer alternative suggestions or to recut the film. The scenes fit together in one way only, Hitchcock’s way. While some critics have complained that the acting in a Hitchcock film is often stilted, that the sets are artificial, and that the rear-projection shots are obvious, the Hitchcock style is immediately recognizable. Most people admire the effectiveness of Hitchcock’s direction, some even claiming that in his films can be found profound moral and metaphysical insight.
Cinematographer
Cinematographers remain largely unknown outside the motion-picture industry even though their contribution sometimes matches that of the director in importance. Although the director has ultimate control over the visual image, the cinematographer actually records that image on film, translating the director’s ideas and creating the atmosphere and the look of the film. The association between the cinematographers and the processing laboratory is also of highest importance, because the cinematographer often spends hours there after shooting, checking the negative. On most feature films a camera team (often consisting of a director of photography, a cameraman, and an assistant cameraman) shares the responsibilities.
Cinematographers are responsible for exact framing, sometimes for screens of more than one type. They also must decide upon the use of masking, the choice of lens, the camera angle, and the control of camera movement. They must either keep the focus sharp or put all or part of the picture out of focus if this effect is required. Cinematographers also control slow motion or accelerated motion. With early hand-cranked cameras, the camera operator simply slowed down or cranked faster, but later special controls and cameras were developed. Trick photography was once effected by simple manipulation of the camera: magical transformations were made simply by stopping the camera and changing the scene, and the impression of backward motion was achieved by turning the camera upside down and reversing the film. More-elaborate processes now at the cinematographer’s command involve laboratory technicians as much as the camera crew. Many effects require the actors to perform against a background of previously prepared film. The cinematographer must be in command of all these processes. The best cinematographers give a motion picture a visual style that is uniquely their own.
Cinematographers are responsible for exact framing, sometimes for screens of more than one type. They also must decide upon the use of masking, the choice of lens, the camera angle, and the control of camera movement. They must either keep the focus sharp or put all or part of the picture out of focus if this effect is required. Cinematographers also control slow motion or accelerated motion. With early hand-cranked cameras, the camera operator simply slowed down or cranked faster, but later special controls and cameras were developed. Trick photography was once effected by simple manipulation of the camera: magical transformations were made simply by stopping the camera and changing the scene, and the impression of backward motion was achieved by turning the camera upside down and reversing the film. More-elaborate processes now at the cinematographer’s command involve laboratory technicians as much as the camera crew. Many effects require the actors to perform against a background of previously prepared film. The cinematographer must be in command of all these processes. The best cinematographers give a motion picture a visual style that is uniquely their own.
Editor
The process of trimming and piecing together lengths of film in order to make an artistically concise and complete motion picture is certainly the most obvious technique of film language and the one most often discussed. The terms editing, cutting, and montage are often applied interchangeably to the process. In montage the emphasis is on the juxtaposition of ideas resulting from this process; cutting stresses the physical work with the actual strips of film; and editing encompasses both.
A single shot (i.e., the length of film exposed at one time, without interruption, by one camera) makes a visual and aural record of some segment of the physical world; by effective editing, this record can be taken apart, restructured, and shaped into an imaginative world or a discourse about the world. While all viewers presumably notice that a film is made up of a number of scenes, few realize that even relatively sedate fiction films contain on average approximately 600 cuts, one every 10 seconds. Editors strive to hide their work by cutting on action, so that the movement of a character’s arm in one location flows into another such movement elsewhere, masking the change of shot. More important is the principle by which an editor anticipates the spectator’s line of inquiry. By releasing information just as the spectator needs it, the editor constructs a natural drama whose seams are invisible.
Probably the most common convention of this sort is the “accordion” sequence, wherein, for example, a drawing room conversation between two people is introduced in an establishing shot of the setting and the actors. The editor will cut to a full shot of the actors once they begin their dialogue, because their speech gives them prominence over the setting. To help viewers understand the nuances of the dialogue, the editor will move in for a medium shot, showing both characters from the waist up.
Like camera work, editing is a function that is ordinarily hidden from the audience, but it is vital to the finished picture. It is the editor’s job to judge the length of each shot, choosing the exact moment to end a segment on the basis of the amount of detail it contains, its scale, its dramatic impact, and its context in relation to the shots that precede and follow it. The impact of the finished film depends on how well edits are made.
The director generally views the day’s rushes (i.e., advance prints of the film shot that day) and, in consultation, selects what is to be used. Some directors spend a good deal of time in the cutting room; others spend none at all. Often the editor is influential in rearranging shots, discarding them, or even ordering reshooting or additional shooting. An important factor in the work of the editor is the cutting ratio—the proportion of film shot to that used in the final film. Some directors shoot as little as 3 times as much as is required, while others may shoot 10 times as much or even more. In its widest sense, editing includes mixing the sound and correlating it with the visual film.
Editing permits highly dramatic effects that could never be staged in a single shot. In the American western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), for example, the title characters are seen cornered by lawmen on a high cliff overlooking a river, into which they make an almost suicidal leap to their escape. Actually, the shots involving the two leading actors on the cliff and those of the dives were filmed weeks apart, and they involved different crews and even different rivers, yet the audience readily accepts the illusion created by the editing. The Stunt Man (1980) takes such editing as its very theme. The main character is engaged in the rigged dangers and tricks involved in making a movie, while the audience is fooled by the greater tricks of the film that it is watching. Editing opens up a bagful of ingenious tricks of substitution, tricks that allow a marvelous or tragic experience to appear as a natural occurrence in the filmed world.
A single shot (i.e., the length of film exposed at one time, without interruption, by one camera) makes a visual and aural record of some segment of the physical world; by effective editing, this record can be taken apart, restructured, and shaped into an imaginative world or a discourse about the world. While all viewers presumably notice that a film is made up of a number of scenes, few realize that even relatively sedate fiction films contain on average approximately 600 cuts, one every 10 seconds. Editors strive to hide their work by cutting on action, so that the movement of a character’s arm in one location flows into another such movement elsewhere, masking the change of shot. More important is the principle by which an editor anticipates the spectator’s line of inquiry. By releasing information just as the spectator needs it, the editor constructs a natural drama whose seams are invisible.
Probably the most common convention of this sort is the “accordion” sequence, wherein, for example, a drawing room conversation between two people is introduced in an establishing shot of the setting and the actors. The editor will cut to a full shot of the actors once they begin their dialogue, because their speech gives them prominence over the setting. To help viewers understand the nuances of the dialogue, the editor will move in for a medium shot, showing both characters from the waist up.
Like camera work, editing is a function that is ordinarily hidden from the audience, but it is vital to the finished picture. It is the editor’s job to judge the length of each shot, choosing the exact moment to end a segment on the basis of the amount of detail it contains, its scale, its dramatic impact, and its context in relation to the shots that precede and follow it. The impact of the finished film depends on how well edits are made.
The director generally views the day’s rushes (i.e., advance prints of the film shot that day) and, in consultation, selects what is to be used. Some directors spend a good deal of time in the cutting room; others spend none at all. Often the editor is influential in rearranging shots, discarding them, or even ordering reshooting or additional shooting. An important factor in the work of the editor is the cutting ratio—the proportion of film shot to that used in the final film. Some directors shoot as little as 3 times as much as is required, while others may shoot 10 times as much or even more. In its widest sense, editing includes mixing the sound and correlating it with the visual film.
Editing permits highly dramatic effects that could never be staged in a single shot. In the American western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), for example, the title characters are seen cornered by lawmen on a high cliff overlooking a river, into which they make an almost suicidal leap to their escape. Actually, the shots involving the two leading actors on the cliff and those of the dives were filmed weeks apart, and they involved different crews and even different rivers, yet the audience readily accepts the illusion created by the editing. The Stunt Man (1980) takes such editing as its very theme. The main character is engaged in the rigged dangers and tricks involved in making a movie, while the audience is fooled by the greater tricks of the film that it is watching. Editing opens up a bagful of ingenious tricks of substitution, tricks that allow a marvelous or tragic experience to appear as a natural occurrence in the filmed world.
Sound Engineer
It is the function of the sound engineer to select and modify sound as the cameraman selects visual images. Since the noise of crockery, cutlery, or paper or the chirping of crickets would be intolerable transferred in full volume to the screen, the sound engineer must tone them down. Treble and bass must be balanced. In other cases, in order to get the effect needed, sound has to be built up and orchestrated as if it were music. Creative use of sound in motion pictures can lend remarkable delicacy, richness, and variety by using such devices as asynchronism—that is, contrasting the sound with the visual image. Sound libraries put most conceivable sounds readily at the disposal of filmmakers. Instruments and voices can be modified, overlapped, echoed, or given a resonance and volume that transform them. Dialogue can be crystal-clear, bringing the audience far closer to an actor than in the theatre, or it may be nearly inaudible by design.
Screenwriter
Although conventions vary from one country to another, the script usually develops over a number of distinct stages, from a synopsis of the original idea, through a “treatment” that contains an outline and considerably more detail, to a shooting script. Although the terms are used ambiguously, script and screenplay usually refer to the dialogue and the annotations necessary to understand the action; a script reads much like other printed forms of dramatic literature, while a “shooting script” or “scenario” more often includes not only all of the dialogue but also extensive technical details regarding the setting, the camera work, and other factors. Moreover, a shooting script may have the scenes arranged in the order in which they will be shot, a radically different arrangement from that of the film itself, since, for economy, all the scenes involving the same actors and sets are ordinarily shot at the same time.
Generally, more elaborate productions require more elaborate shooting scripts, while more personal films may be made without any form of written script. The script’s importance can also vary greatly depending on the director. Griffith and other early directors, for example, often worked virtually without a script, while directors such as Hitchcock planned the script thoroughly and designed pictorial outlines, or storyboards, depicting specific scenes or shots before shooting any film.
Some scripts are subsequently modified into novels and distributed in book form, such as the best seller The English Patient (1996), by Michael Ondaatje. In the instance of Dylan Thomas’s The Doctor and the Devils (1953), a script became a literary work without ever having been made into a motion picture.
Adaptation from other art forms to motion pictures must take into account differences of complexity and scale in film. A film often must omit characters and incidents in the novel from which it is adapted, for example, and the pace usually must be accelerated. Ordinarily, only a fraction of a novel’s dialogue can be included. In an adaptation of a play, the curtailment is less severe, but much dialogue still must be cut or expressed visually.
Well over half of all fiction films made during the 20th century after 1920 were adapted from plays or novels, and it is understandable that certain formulas came to be tacitly accepted to facilitate the remaking of literature into moving pictures. Adaptation has been thought of as an aesthetically inferior exercise, because most such films merely illustrate the classics or reshape a literary text until it conforms to standard cinematic practice. The particular qualities that made the original interesting are often lost in such a process. Certain films and filmmakers, however, have achieved an aesthetic premium by accepting the literariness of the original and then confronting this with the technology and methods of the cinema (The French Lieutenant’s Woman, 1981; Adaptation, 2002).
Generally, more elaborate productions require more elaborate shooting scripts, while more personal films may be made without any form of written script. The script’s importance can also vary greatly depending on the director. Griffith and other early directors, for example, often worked virtually without a script, while directors such as Hitchcock planned the script thoroughly and designed pictorial outlines, or storyboards, depicting specific scenes or shots before shooting any film.
Some scripts are subsequently modified into novels and distributed in book form, such as the best seller The English Patient (1996), by Michael Ondaatje. In the instance of Dylan Thomas’s The Doctor and the Devils (1953), a script became a literary work without ever having been made into a motion picture.
Adaptation from other art forms to motion pictures must take into account differences of complexity and scale in film. A film often must omit characters and incidents in the novel from which it is adapted, for example, and the pace usually must be accelerated. Ordinarily, only a fraction of a novel’s dialogue can be included. In an adaptation of a play, the curtailment is less severe, but much dialogue still must be cut or expressed visually.
Well over half of all fiction films made during the 20th century after 1920 were adapted from plays or novels, and it is understandable that certain formulas came to be tacitly accepted to facilitate the remaking of literature into moving pictures. Adaptation has been thought of as an aesthetically inferior exercise, because most such films merely illustrate the classics or reshape a literary text until it conforms to standard cinematic practice. The particular qualities that made the original interesting are often lost in such a process. Certain films and filmmakers, however, have achieved an aesthetic premium by accepting the literariness of the original and then confronting this with the technology and methods of the cinema (The French Lieutenant’s Woman, 1981; Adaptation, 2002).
Actors
Of all the artists involved in films, the actors and actresses are closest to the audience. The public more often goes to see a motion picture for its stars than for any other single reason. The divergent techniques of stage and film acting are well understood, and there are many leading players who excel in both. But the greatest film stars have a talent peculiar to the screen alone. This talent often seems to be related not to how well they act but to the sort of person they appear to be.
Film acting requires restraint. “Don’t act, think” was the advice of the eminent German director F.W. Murnau. While stage actors may be praised for a performance that is highly wrought, film stars usually must appear to be themselves. Close-ups accentuate the more intimate relationship the actor can establish with a film audience, an audience that has often followed the actual life of certain actors whom the industry promotes as “stars.” The German theorist Walter Benjamin argued that the image of the star compensated the film audience for the loss of direct access to live performance. For this reason film actors from movie to movie are likely to be cast in similar roles, as the case of John Wayne makes clear.
Some actors, however, deliberately try to avoid being typecast. Robert De Niro, for example, was well known for the violent, obsessive characters he played in such films as Taxi Driver (1976) and Raging Bull, but he was equally effective in quieter, more controlled roles, such as the charismatic hero in The Deer Hunter(1977) or the sneaky political consultant in Wag the Dog (1997). In his films, De Niro downplayed his own personality to “become” the characters he portrayed, even transforming himself physically by gaining excessive weight for his role in Raging Bull. Actors who have been strongly identified with one role have found it harder to change their image. Sean Connery, for example, appeared in more than 40 films, playing such diverse characters as an eccentric poet in A Fine Madness (1966), an Arab chieftain in The Wind and the Lion (1975), a medieval monk in The Name of the Rose (1986), and a Prohibition-era Chicagopoliceman in The Untouchables (1987), but he remains most identified with the sophisticated British secret agent James Bond, whom he played in seven films.
A motion-picture performance can be synthesized bit by bit, by the joint efforts of the actor, the director, the cameraman, and others. The conditions of film production, however, are such that some actors find them trying. They may have to put up with long hours on the set and endless repetition; they must adapt to shooting scenes out of sequence; and in close-ups they often have to respond to the camera rather than to another actor. They require a talent different from, but equal to, that of theatrical performers.
Throughout the history of the art, acting styles have frequently led to major revolutions in film style. Most of the shifts in acting have been toward what is deemed a more “realistic” approach. Often this realism is the result of the studied application of acting precepts, as when Marlon Brando brought toOn the Waterfront (1954) the lessons he had digested at the Actors Studio (the professional workshop in New York City). In the 1960s several successful Czechoslovak films featured effective performances by what appeared to be average citizens, but in truth the players’ long silences, their bumbling, and the foibles that seemed so natural were the result of lifelong practice and endless rehearsals. Some films, however, have exploited the documentary power of the medium to reveal the behaviour of untrained but expressive individuals. Many of the masterpieces of the postwar Italian Neorealist movement relied on absolute amateurs, who were frequently picked up off the streets by the casting director.
Side by side with the never-ending quest for naturalness in acting, an opposite impulse has brought to the screen both stylized and histrionic performances of great power. Cinematic Expressionism (largely identified with German films from the 1920s but also evident in Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible) depends on contorted bodily and facial gestures, which are amplified by decor and camera angle. Eminent actors, including Laurence Olivier andOrson Welles, have shown that some types of films thrive on expansive theatrical voicing and gesture.
Comedy requires other considerations. The impassive visages of the silent star Buster Keaton and the French comic Jacques Tati helped transform their bodies into expressive machines that interacted with the greater machine of the films they starred in. The Marx Brothers, on the other hand, depended on loose cinematic construction and dialogue and on zany spontaneous action. In short, there can be no single theory of film acting.
Film acting requires restraint. “Don’t act, think” was the advice of the eminent German director F.W. Murnau. While stage actors may be praised for a performance that is highly wrought, film stars usually must appear to be themselves. Close-ups accentuate the more intimate relationship the actor can establish with a film audience, an audience that has often followed the actual life of certain actors whom the industry promotes as “stars.” The German theorist Walter Benjamin argued that the image of the star compensated the film audience for the loss of direct access to live performance. For this reason film actors from movie to movie are likely to be cast in similar roles, as the case of John Wayne makes clear.
Some actors, however, deliberately try to avoid being typecast. Robert De Niro, for example, was well known for the violent, obsessive characters he played in such films as Taxi Driver (1976) and Raging Bull, but he was equally effective in quieter, more controlled roles, such as the charismatic hero in The Deer Hunter(1977) or the sneaky political consultant in Wag the Dog (1997). In his films, De Niro downplayed his own personality to “become” the characters he portrayed, even transforming himself physically by gaining excessive weight for his role in Raging Bull. Actors who have been strongly identified with one role have found it harder to change their image. Sean Connery, for example, appeared in more than 40 films, playing such diverse characters as an eccentric poet in A Fine Madness (1966), an Arab chieftain in The Wind and the Lion (1975), a medieval monk in The Name of the Rose (1986), and a Prohibition-era Chicagopoliceman in The Untouchables (1987), but he remains most identified with the sophisticated British secret agent James Bond, whom he played in seven films.
A motion-picture performance can be synthesized bit by bit, by the joint efforts of the actor, the director, the cameraman, and others. The conditions of film production, however, are such that some actors find them trying. They may have to put up with long hours on the set and endless repetition; they must adapt to shooting scenes out of sequence; and in close-ups they often have to respond to the camera rather than to another actor. They require a talent different from, but equal to, that of theatrical performers.
Throughout the history of the art, acting styles have frequently led to major revolutions in film style. Most of the shifts in acting have been toward what is deemed a more “realistic” approach. Often this realism is the result of the studied application of acting precepts, as when Marlon Brando brought toOn the Waterfront (1954) the lessons he had digested at the Actors Studio (the professional workshop in New York City). In the 1960s several successful Czechoslovak films featured effective performances by what appeared to be average citizens, but in truth the players’ long silences, their bumbling, and the foibles that seemed so natural were the result of lifelong practice and endless rehearsals. Some films, however, have exploited the documentary power of the medium to reveal the behaviour of untrained but expressive individuals. Many of the masterpieces of the postwar Italian Neorealist movement relied on absolute amateurs, who were frequently picked up off the streets by the casting director.
Side by side with the never-ending quest for naturalness in acting, an opposite impulse has brought to the screen both stylized and histrionic performances of great power. Cinematic Expressionism (largely identified with German films from the 1920s but also evident in Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible) depends on contorted bodily and facial gestures, which are amplified by decor and camera angle. Eminent actors, including Laurence Olivier andOrson Welles, have shown that some types of films thrive on expansive theatrical voicing and gesture.
Comedy requires other considerations. The impassive visages of the silent star Buster Keaton and the French comic Jacques Tati helped transform their bodies into expressive machines that interacted with the greater machine of the films they starred in. The Marx Brothers, on the other hand, depended on loose cinematic construction and dialogue and on zany spontaneous action. In short, there can be no single theory of film acting.
Scenic Design - Scenographer
Under the heading of design, all the elements of a picture’s setting may be included—art direction, scenic composition, set design, costume, and makeup. At its simplest and most naturalistic, the camera can choose and frame ordinary people in a real location. At its most elaborate, motion-picture production may involve the expenditure of vast sums to put up gigantic sets that require building houses, ships, churches, and monuments or re-creating lost cities, bygone landscapes, or ancient battles and dressing thousands of extras in period costumes. Thunderstorms, tornadoes, snowstorms, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tidal waves may be simulated, or monsters, spaceships, and cities of the future created.
Film sets are constructed more solidly than stage scenery but of the lightest, cheapest materials that will both look authentic and photograph well. Whether for black and white or for colour, their shades, proportions, and shapes are chosen for the camera rather than the eye. The camera can deceive the viewer about scale, however, and the model makers and special effects technicians can reproduce virtually anything in miniature, from the aurora borealis shining on an igloo to a tempest destroying the Spanish Armada. A whole series of film monsters have attracted goggle-eyed audiences since the French pioneer Georges Méliès’s formidable man-in-the-moon of 1902. Miracles can be achieved in film, either in the colossal form of the crossing of the Red Sea by the children of Israel in Cecil B. DeMille’s epic The Ten Commandments (1956) or in the comparatively simple treatment of angels and miracles in Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) or Warren Beatty’s Heaven Can Wait (1978). Film publicity makes much of the creation of epics such as Cleopatra (1963) or the three-part The Lord of the Rings (2001–03), but, even on a more modest scale, sets can contribute enormously to a motion picture, as in Ken Adam’s sets for Dr. Strangelove (1964) or Anton Furst’s for Batman(1989).
The strongest single artistic influence in motion-picture set design was the German Expressionistcinema of the 1920s, which combined elements ofMax Reinhardt’s theatre, a Wagnerian philosophy of doom, and Expressionist painting and graphics. Expressionist films such as Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1920; The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari), Der Golem(1920), Nosferatu (1922), and Metropolis (1927) created a world of fantasy and horror peopled with menacing, shadowy figures. In other German Expressionist motion pictures, such as Der Student von Prag (1926; The Student of Prague) or Die Nibelungen (1924), there was a baroque beauty of architectural, woodland, and floral settings. The influence of Expressionism can be seen in later cinema in the work of directors Orson Welles and Carl Dreyer and in many gangster movies.
Subject matter and how it is treated are reflected in all the elements of design in a motion picture. In the hectic atmosphere of a horror movie or a thriller, a studio set may pass unnoticed, even though it would seem disconcertingly artificial in another film. In a musical everything may look artificial: a chambermaid’s bedroom may be a model of daintiness and taste. Some films, however, depend on realistic sets for dramatic effect. Accordingly, some directors, especially the French master Jean Renoir in his 1930s films, went to great lengths to be authentic, avoiding the use of rear screen projection, or process shots (i.e., those in which new action is filmed in front of a screen on which previously filmed background footage is projected). All the train sequences in Renoir’s La Bête humaine (1938; The Human Beast), for example, were shot on a moving engine, except the final scene, in which the hero, played by Jean Gabin, leaps to his death. Another French director of the same era,Marcel Pagnol, had his cast and crew construct the farmhouse for his masterpiece,Angèle (1934), not to save production money but to increase the naturalness of their behaviour on the set during shooting.
In historical epics, such as Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), and science-fiction films, such as Blade Runner (1982), settings vie with actors and story for the viewer’s attention. In carefully constructed intimate dramas, such as those by Robert Bresson (L’Argent, 1983) or Jim Jarmusch (Stranger than Paradise, 1984), the setting can embody the tone of the film. Numerous stylistic options are attached to decor: its richness or sparseness, its naturalness or artificiality, its contemporaneity or period look, its cleverness or simplicity. Because all these factors are related to the full conception of the film, the set designer is one of the first artistic collaborators called in by the director in the quest for a strong, forceful production.
Film sets are constructed more solidly than stage scenery but of the lightest, cheapest materials that will both look authentic and photograph well. Whether for black and white or for colour, their shades, proportions, and shapes are chosen for the camera rather than the eye. The camera can deceive the viewer about scale, however, and the model makers and special effects technicians can reproduce virtually anything in miniature, from the aurora borealis shining on an igloo to a tempest destroying the Spanish Armada. A whole series of film monsters have attracted goggle-eyed audiences since the French pioneer Georges Méliès’s formidable man-in-the-moon of 1902. Miracles can be achieved in film, either in the colossal form of the crossing of the Red Sea by the children of Israel in Cecil B. DeMille’s epic The Ten Commandments (1956) or in the comparatively simple treatment of angels and miracles in Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) or Warren Beatty’s Heaven Can Wait (1978). Film publicity makes much of the creation of epics such as Cleopatra (1963) or the three-part The Lord of the Rings (2001–03), but, even on a more modest scale, sets can contribute enormously to a motion picture, as in Ken Adam’s sets for Dr. Strangelove (1964) or Anton Furst’s for Batman(1989).
The strongest single artistic influence in motion-picture set design was the German Expressionistcinema of the 1920s, which combined elements ofMax Reinhardt’s theatre, a Wagnerian philosophy of doom, and Expressionist painting and graphics. Expressionist films such as Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1920; The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari), Der Golem(1920), Nosferatu (1922), and Metropolis (1927) created a world of fantasy and horror peopled with menacing, shadowy figures. In other German Expressionist motion pictures, such as Der Student von Prag (1926; The Student of Prague) or Die Nibelungen (1924), there was a baroque beauty of architectural, woodland, and floral settings. The influence of Expressionism can be seen in later cinema in the work of directors Orson Welles and Carl Dreyer and in many gangster movies.
Subject matter and how it is treated are reflected in all the elements of design in a motion picture. In the hectic atmosphere of a horror movie or a thriller, a studio set may pass unnoticed, even though it would seem disconcertingly artificial in another film. In a musical everything may look artificial: a chambermaid’s bedroom may be a model of daintiness and taste. Some films, however, depend on realistic sets for dramatic effect. Accordingly, some directors, especially the French master Jean Renoir in his 1930s films, went to great lengths to be authentic, avoiding the use of rear screen projection, or process shots (i.e., those in which new action is filmed in front of a screen on which previously filmed background footage is projected). All the train sequences in Renoir’s La Bête humaine (1938; The Human Beast), for example, were shot on a moving engine, except the final scene, in which the hero, played by Jean Gabin, leaps to his death. Another French director of the same era,Marcel Pagnol, had his cast and crew construct the farmhouse for his masterpiece,Angèle (1934), not to save production money but to increase the naturalness of their behaviour on the set during shooting.
In historical epics, such as Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), and science-fiction films, such as Blade Runner (1982), settings vie with actors and story for the viewer’s attention. In carefully constructed intimate dramas, such as those by Robert Bresson (L’Argent, 1983) or Jim Jarmusch (Stranger than Paradise, 1984), the setting can embody the tone of the film. Numerous stylistic options are attached to decor: its richness or sparseness, its naturalness or artificiality, its contemporaneity or period look, its cleverness or simplicity. Because all these factors are related to the full conception of the film, the set designer is one of the first artistic collaborators called in by the director in the quest for a strong, forceful production.
Lighting Designer
In a medium consisting of the projection of impressions on a light-sensitive material, lighting is of special importance. Daylight is the readiest, cheapest, and strongest source of lighting. Hollywood was said to owe its preeminence as a motion-picture production centre to its sunny climate. Even in daylight shooting, however, artificial aids may be necessary to reduce the highlights or to lighten the shadows.
Lighting, a facet of camera work, is under the control of the chief cameraman or lighting cameraman. In black-and-white films, lighting is of paramount importance in giving the overall light or dark tone of the scene and in providing for dramatic contrasts or emphasis within the scene. In colour, the lighting works indirectly to bring out or modify the colour. Lighting in the cinema is a method of composition, used to complement and reinforce the dramatic situation. Generally, dark lighting is associated with tragedy and bright lighting with romance or comedy, but overlighting gives ghastly or unearthly effects, as in the memory sequence at the beginning of the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman’s Gycklarnas afton (1953;Sawdust and Tinsel, also called The Naked Night). Lighting an actor from above gives his face a spiritual effect; from below, an uncanny or evil appearance. Front lighting blurs faults but takes away character; side lighting gives relief and solidity but may show wrinkles and defects. Lighting from behind tends to idealize a subject and give it an ethereal quality.
Fashions in film lighting have fluctuated through the years. Early films tended to be flat and uniform. Later, especially in German Expressionist films of the 1920s and film noir of the 1940s and ’50s, strong contrasts of light and shade were favoured for their highly dramatic effect. Still later, this tendency was modified toward more balanced lighting. Even in dramatic scenes, the centre of interest now tends to be more discreetly emphasized.
Occasionally, different types of lighting are used for dramatic effect in a single film. For his Shakespearean adaptation Henry V (1944), Laurence Olivier employed uniform bright light for the sequences modeled on medieval book illustrations, but in the contemplative sequences (Falstaff’s death and Henry’s solitude the night before the battle) he used single-source lighting from the side, which allows extensive gradation of light and shadows, making the images look like paintings by Rembrandt. The elegiac humanity of the latter scenes contrasts with the brittle, eternal quality of the former. More often, directors choose a single look. Stanley Kubrick’s decision to film Barry Lyndon (1975) in candlelight is a notable example.
Related to lighting is the development of the print in the laboratory, where sections of film shot under different conditions can be modified to avoid a violent contrast where none is desired. Finally, the lighting of the projector that shows the picture and the brilliance of the screen are important. As light sources for the projector, both the traditional carbon arc and the modern xenon lamp have advocates; what matters most is that the light be powerful, brilliant, and unvarying throughout the projection of the picture.
Lighting, a facet of camera work, is under the control of the chief cameraman or lighting cameraman. In black-and-white films, lighting is of paramount importance in giving the overall light or dark tone of the scene and in providing for dramatic contrasts or emphasis within the scene. In colour, the lighting works indirectly to bring out or modify the colour. Lighting in the cinema is a method of composition, used to complement and reinforce the dramatic situation. Generally, dark lighting is associated with tragedy and bright lighting with romance or comedy, but overlighting gives ghastly or unearthly effects, as in the memory sequence at the beginning of the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman’s Gycklarnas afton (1953;Sawdust and Tinsel, also called The Naked Night). Lighting an actor from above gives his face a spiritual effect; from below, an uncanny or evil appearance. Front lighting blurs faults but takes away character; side lighting gives relief and solidity but may show wrinkles and defects. Lighting from behind tends to idealize a subject and give it an ethereal quality.
Fashions in film lighting have fluctuated through the years. Early films tended to be flat and uniform. Later, especially in German Expressionist films of the 1920s and film noir of the 1940s and ’50s, strong contrasts of light and shade were favoured for their highly dramatic effect. Still later, this tendency was modified toward more balanced lighting. Even in dramatic scenes, the centre of interest now tends to be more discreetly emphasized.
Occasionally, different types of lighting are used for dramatic effect in a single film. For his Shakespearean adaptation Henry V (1944), Laurence Olivier employed uniform bright light for the sequences modeled on medieval book illustrations, but in the contemplative sequences (Falstaff’s death and Henry’s solitude the night before the battle) he used single-source lighting from the side, which allows extensive gradation of light and shadows, making the images look like paintings by Rembrandt. The elegiac humanity of the latter scenes contrasts with the brittle, eternal quality of the former. More often, directors choose a single look. Stanley Kubrick’s decision to film Barry Lyndon (1975) in candlelight is a notable example.
Related to lighting is the development of the print in the laboratory, where sections of film shot under different conditions can be modified to avoid a violent contrast where none is desired. Finally, the lighting of the projector that shows the picture and the brilliance of the screen are important. As light sources for the projector, both the traditional carbon arc and the modern xenon lamp have advocates; what matters most is that the light be powerful, brilliant, and unvarying throughout the projection of the picture.
Make-Up
Film makeup differs significantly from that of the stage, where heavy lines are required to convey a characteristic expression to the audience. By means of the camera, the motion-picture audience can study the actor’s face quite closely. The makeup must be flawless to stand up under such scrutiny, but, since it need not be applied nightly for several months running, as in theatre, elaborate preparations are feasible. Many of the greatest filmmakers, such as Carl Dreyer and Robert Bresson, have favoured naturalism in makeup—the unadorned lines of old age or a face caked with dust, running with perspiration. Whatever the style of makeup, its purpose is to make the face a more photogenic object, whether monster or ingenue. The efforts of wig makers, dentists, and plastic surgeons, as well as cosmeticians, are aimed at a heightened reality.
The cosmetics industry grew up in the 1920s alongside motion pictures. Max Factor’s fame owes much to the work his company did in modifying makeup to adjust to new types of film and lighting, including the shift to colour cinematography. With changing audience perceptions, caused by television and other factors, more natural makeup styles became just as popular as the “idealized” methods applied to the great studio stars. Ironically, the “natural look” is often the result of extensive makeup tests.
While makeup generally is meant to remain unnoticed or to play servant to the beauty of a face, in science-fiction and horror films it may take centre stage. Although it is an art as old as society itself, makeup, like other aspects of cinema, is subject to technological development. Advances in contact lenses, prosthetics, and chemistry made possible magnificent and startling displays such as those in Planet of the Apes (1968), Time Bandits (1981), and The Lord of the Rings and those creating the never-ending flow of creatures that terrorize horror-film audiences.
The cosmetics industry grew up in the 1920s alongside motion pictures. Max Factor’s fame owes much to the work his company did in modifying makeup to adjust to new types of film and lighting, including the shift to colour cinematography. With changing audience perceptions, caused by television and other factors, more natural makeup styles became just as popular as the “idealized” methods applied to the great studio stars. Ironically, the “natural look” is often the result of extensive makeup tests.
While makeup generally is meant to remain unnoticed or to play servant to the beauty of a face, in science-fiction and horror films it may take centre stage. Although it is an art as old as society itself, makeup, like other aspects of cinema, is subject to technological development. Advances in contact lenses, prosthetics, and chemistry made possible magnificent and startling displays such as those in Planet of the Apes (1968), Time Bandits (1981), and The Lord of the Rings and those creating the never-ending flow of creatures that terrorize horror-film audiences.
Costume Designer
Actors in motion pictures have been dressed in noticeable and often significant ways since the beginning of film history. The Italian epics made before World War I displayed Roman and Egyptian styles that the public had come to expect from popular paintings and stage plays dealing with these ancient subjects. After World War I, Ernst Lubitsch gained fame directing historical dramas, such as Madame Du Barry (1919), that were termed “costume dramas” even in their own day. From the 1920s to the 1950s various national cinemas, but particularly those in France and the United States, vied with one another in using the cinema to promote fashion. Christian Dior’s rise in the world of haute couture was accelerated by his experiments with, and his advertising of, costumes in motion pictures. In Hollywood a motion picture was often an opportunity for an actress to wear one gorgeous costume after another, and many screen designs initiated popular offscreen fashion trends. After World War II the Italian Neorealist movement proved that audiences could also be drawn by authenticity of dress. Since then, many films attempting to convey a realistic effect have been outfitted not from the costume shop but from secondhand-clothing stores.
Costume also once played a more important role in an actor’s identity. Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Mae West, and other stars of the 1920s and ’30s all created characters in which costume was an integral part of the total identity. Audiences were often able to discern the type being portrayed—hero, villain, comic foil, romantic rival—simply by regarding the character’s clothing.
Costume also once played a more important role in an actor’s identity. Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Mae West, and other stars of the 1920s and ’30s all created characters in which costume was an integral part of the total identity. Audiences were often able to discern the type being portrayed—hero, villain, comic foil, romantic rival—simply by regarding the character’s clothing.
Text on this page from Encyclopedia Britannica. Written by: Robert Sklar