Goals of film analysis
Aesthetic approach – refers to a set of assumptions about traits shared by different artworks, about
procedures spectators go through in understanding all artwork, and about ways in which artworks relate
to society
Method – a set of procedures employed in the actual analytical process
Two ways analysts decide to work on a film
1. Centered on an approach
2. On the film itself
Troubles of applying a preexisting method -> doesn’t bring us any farther, just self-confirming
When the film piques our interest, we analyze it in order to explain
Neoformalism is an approach to aesthetic analysis based fairly closely on the work of the
Russian Formalist literary theoretician-critics.
Neoformalist analysis has the potential to raise theoretical issues.
Neoformalism builds itself this need for instant modification. It implies a two-way interchange
between theory and criticism. It is not a method as such. Neoformalism as an approach does offer a
series of broad assumptions about how artworks are constructed and how they operate in cueing
audience response. But Neoformalism does not prescribe how these assumptions are embodied in
individual films. Rather, the basic assumptions can be used to construct a method specific to the
problems raised by each film (method).
Neoformalism jettisons a communications model of art. Three components: sender, medium,
receiver. Main activity: passing on a message
Art is assumed not to communicate ideas, but to exist for the pleasure we experience in our
reactions to it.
For neoformalists, art is a realm separate from all other types of cultural artifacts because it
presents a unique set of perceptual requirements. Films and other artworks plunge us into a
nonpractical, playful type of interaction. They renew our perceptions and other mental processes
because they hold no immediate practical implications for us (someone is about to die -> you are not
going to rescue. It’s fake)
Artworks are of vital importance in our lives. The nature of practical perception means that our
facilities have become dulled by the repetitive and habitual activities inherent in much of daily life. ->
mental exercise. The renewed or expanded perceptions we gain from artworks can carry over to and
affect our perception of everyday objects/events/ideas.
Artworks engage us at every level and change our ways of perceiving, feeling and reasoning
Art defamiliarizes our habitual perceptions of the everyday world
Constant need to avoid automatization also explains why artworks change in relation to their
historical context and why defamiliarization can be achieved in an infinitive number of ways
Form-content split – formal components of the artwork
Four basic levels of meaning: (can tribute to the defamiliarizating effect of a film)
1. Denotation can involve REFERENTIAL meaning, in which the spectator simply recognizes the
identity of those aspects of the real word that the work includes.
Aesthetic approach – refers to a set of assumptions about traits shared by different artworks, about
procedures spectators go through in understanding all artwork, and about ways in which artworks relate
to society
Method – a set of procedures employed in the actual analytical process
Two ways analysts decide to work on a film
1. Centered on an approach
2. On the film itself
Troubles of applying a preexisting method -> doesn’t bring us any farther, just self-confirming
When the film piques our interest, we analyze it in order to explain
Neoformalism is an approach to aesthetic analysis based fairly closely on the work of the
Russian Formalist literary theoretician-critics.
Neoformalist analysis has the potential to raise theoretical issues.
Neoformalism builds itself this need for instant modification. It implies a two-way interchange
between theory and criticism. It is not a method as such. Neoformalism as an approach does offer a
series of broad assumptions about how artworks are constructed and how they operate in cueing
audience response. But Neoformalism does not prescribe how these assumptions are embodied in
individual films. Rather, the basic assumptions can be used to construct a method specific to the
problems raised by each film (method).
Neoformalism jettisons a communications model of art. Three components: sender, medium,
receiver. Main activity: passing on a message
Art is assumed not to communicate ideas, but to exist for the pleasure we experience in our
reactions to it.
For neoformalists, art is a realm separate from all other types of cultural artifacts because it
presents a unique set of perceptual requirements. Films and other artworks plunge us into a
nonpractical, playful type of interaction. They renew our perceptions and other mental processes
because they hold no immediate practical implications for us (someone is about to die -> you are not
going to rescue. It’s fake)
Artworks are of vital importance in our lives. The nature of practical perception means that our
facilities have become dulled by the repetitive and habitual activities inherent in much of daily life. ->
mental exercise. The renewed or expanded perceptions we gain from artworks can carry over to and
affect our perception of everyday objects/events/ideas.
Artworks engage us at every level and change our ways of perceiving, feeling and reasoning
Art defamiliarizes our habitual perceptions of the everyday world
Constant need to avoid automatization also explains why artworks change in relation to their
historical context and why defamiliarization can be achieved in an infinitive number of ways
Form-content split – formal components of the artwork
Four basic levels of meaning: (can tribute to the defamiliarizating effect of a film)
1. Denotation can involve REFERENTIAL meaning, in which the spectator simply recognizes the
identity of those aspects of the real word that the work includes.
