this is an interesting point made by Doane. Another thing to consider is the presence of sound before the presence of vision. When a fetus or an unborn organism regardless of its stage in the pre-birth phase, it can hear sounds. Numerous studies have even attributed higher levels of IQs in children that were exposed to specific music in the womb. Sounds, but more importantly, voices create the foundation of consciousness while still in the womb.

This is perhaps one of the biggest qualms that I have with television. Both news and reruns of antiquated television shows such as Forensic Files, America's Most Wanted, Dan Rather Reports, and others tend to resort to narration over an impoverished image. Because I have so heavily associated a screen, regardless of its size, to cinema, watching television irritates my cinematic nerve. Doane argues that there is an intrinsic patriarchal voice that resonates in the information that we receive when consuming television documentary and other poorly produced works. Often times these films or television shows resort to story telling that spoon-feeds the viewer and by proxy creates an ignorant audience, unfailingly creating surface level content - coincidentally bad voice over shows are narrated by men.

The scotomization of the camera and microphone, I think varies greatly. Through different approaches to cinematography a filmmaker can bring the audience a new level of awareness. Lets think about Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood for example. In the inception of the film we are able to see an oil prospector discover oil and begin the process of excavation. In a particular shot, we see soil splatter onto the element of the lens. This, one cannot say is unintentional. It was chosen carefully in an edit room and included in the film. Similarly, we can look at Alejandro Iñarritu's The Revenant. Cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki allowed for the breath of some characters to fog the lens. In turn, this blurs the line between the viewer and the film for it brings a dialectical sense of awareness to the cinematic language. A microphone, despite being a crucial instrument for the creation of a film, cannot present itself in such manner. A character will never breathe into a microphone and the sound recordist won't allow the sound levels to surpasses the decibel limit because it works stylistically. Perhaps it is the traditions that we have been accustomed to in traditional cinema, but there is a level of unawareness that to needs to be retained in the phonetic spectrum.

I believe this area of sound is very important and isn't frequently found in works that lack immersion. One very important aspect of film, for me, is the construction of sound design. I believe that this should play a role in the categorization or description of a film. Does its sound dimension place it in a place that services realism or surrealism?

This is very about sound. The sort of dichotomy that can be found with image and sound is very intriguing. As stated by Chion, a film usually has a limited number of images, whist sounds tends to fall into a much more subconscious realm - a realm where sounds are unquantifiable.

One of the most visceral uses of sound and music can be found in The Godfather Part III. The redundancy of Michael's screams do put one in a state of angst. When one imagines a distressed character in the typical Hollywood film, one can might imagine one long distressed scream, but Coppola's (or Pacino's) choice to withhold his screams, brings to the scene an element of naturalism, one that allows for the audience to process what has occurred - just as Michael is doing it.

Tristan Un Isolde is one of my favorite Wagner songs. Schwarz's discussion on the notion of fantasy can be no better described than when including the works of Richard Wagner. I recall first listening to it in Lars von Trier's Melancholia, a very dramatic and epic film with extremely fantastical and surreal elements.

This is very true. Though it does seem to have become more commercialized around the world, music does seems to have an involvement in all familial, athletic, celebratory and consumeristic events. We go into a store and hear music. I've heard this discussed as a tactic to enhance a consumer's mood. He/she feels better and therefore feels more at ease when deciding to buy more products. Interesting point!

I truly enjoyed the visual choices made by Lang. I believe that the use of the spiral in the optician's shop more closely appealed to the notion of insanity. Within that idea, the image of the policeman guiding a child across the street paints in my head an image that juxtaposes physical reality and a lack of awareness.

I believe that the correlation between the criminals and the police was not singularly associated with visual parallels, but also representative of their individual nature in a world that is comprised of chaos. Both entities strive to achieve the same thing, yet are two opposite forces.

I like that Kuntzel takes this view on film. Rather than attributing the semiotic analysis to more ambiguous facets of cinematic language he states that it should restrict itself only to what we know for certain, thus structuring the semiotic analysis much like that of any other language - focusing on the concrete.

Louis Althusser was a member of the French Communist Party, but also heavily criticized it. Althusserian theory primarily argued against attacks made against the foundational theories of Marxist ideology. The psychoanalytic construction of the subject of patriarchal discourse led to the potential decimation of the theory social antagonism and with it became present the theory of the social individual .

Very well stated. I feel as though living in a very politically charged environment, one can feel the need to defend one's views in order to fit in societally; this can be bad because as opposed to absorbing the sources of oppression, we deflect accusations that are made against people that are like us or share common attributes. We blindly agree on issues that need reflection and a more holistic understanding, especially when not being the oppressed party. In that case, we must, as Gaines' states "...undertake the study of our own 'determined ignorance'".

I've never thought about the manner in which feminist theory reinforces white middle class values by taking gender as a foundational basis. I can see though, how the introduction of other factors, not ones that are solely correlated to gender, can present a much different view of oppression. I am a Mexican-American that grew in a household with a lot of Catholicism and fairly conservative social ideals. I've been able to view the duality of gender relations in Mexico as well as in the modern-day United States. I have been conflicted about the lack inclusion, or discussion, when it comes to women's rights in other countries and therefore agree with Gaines' point on the ideological functions of discussing feminist theory purely on the basis of gender and not other aspects such as religious affiliation, nationality, social status, age, and the like.

I enjoy the fact that Mulvey is able to craft this observation without disparaging the film, but rather constructing from it her point. She is able to discuss the patriarchal superego and its attributes. Mulvey is able to use Vertigo to paint in our minds a portrait of the moral implications of looking in a manner that objectifies the subject, in this case a female.

This was a very large step in cinema as it democratized filmmaking not only in the United States, but also on a global scale. The re-engineering of film cameras during War World II enabled filmmakers to begin producing films with micro-budgets, on a much smaller scale. I think this also plays into the fact that second wave feminism emerged, in part because of a more present proletariat voice in filmmaking.

I find it very interesting how Mulvey is able to extract from imagery and the absence and presence of a woman, the notion of the phallocentric order. I have never come to think of this idea simply based on the inclusion (or exclusion) of a female character and what she believes it symbolizes. I am grateful for this article because I consider myself a very naive film viewer when it comes to my observations of patriarchy - something I think is important for us realize.

Great definition of the type of spectator that cinema needs. I recall Professor Charles Ramirez-Berg (one of my favorite professors) discussing the fact that movies are meant to be seen as an audience. They part of a collective experience that we witness together in a dark room, much like the theater. I feel that we are losing this experience with streaming services.

I like Metz's manner of proposing this ever-present dichotomy. Here we can see one of film's most greatest idiosyncrasies, the fact that it can transcend space and time.

Metz reiterates that film is not "exhibitionist" only to state previously that it is, simply because it is aware of the fact that it is a medium that requires spectatorship. I recall from one of our previous readings that notion that film is not an adaptive art form because it is fixed - it exists only in time and space as it has been crafted and is therefore a piece of art that can be consumed, but not molded. Metz in this section brings that point up once again, but emphasizes the fact that film also aims to remain unaware that it is being consumed or viewed.

Great analogy.

I love that Metz acknowledges that good cinema isn't comprised of gimmicks and producers that were simply out to make money, but is primarily founded on the idea that we are all part of a collective experience. He refers to it here as the orientation of consciousness. Because of the dozens, maybe even hundreds, of films that are produced every year, it's great to read Metz's appreciation for the work that digs deeper and aims to present and discuss the axioms of the human experience, not mechanisms that make plots more engaging or unsuspected.

Interesting idea. Here Baudry references Bataille to state that Projection and Reflection work similarly in the sense that they are often functions that are unaware that they exist and can become effervescently present due to their unnoticeable nature.

Increased augmentation of the possibilities in film exist through the limiting of objective reality and its powers of constraint, according to Baundry. I think that this goes back to Baundry's idea that the acknowledgement of the technical base may create a limited representation of reality, the same can happen when one is aware that there is a reality that has been consciously shaped and idealized for the subject.

Beautifully stated. I too find that film cannot exist without the denial of difference. Its properties, by nature, make it impossible to exist without its negation. More so it's physical properties are a testament to this notion; it fight against the dark every second when watch a film be projected, perpetually forcing itself upon a project and leaving the audience to sit in a dark room for approximately half the time the film is screened (180 degree shutter angle).

Perhaps Baudry believes this because he views the concealment of the technical base as the distortion of idealism and thus a manipulation of reality.

This notion seems to state that the if the work is "concealed" its ideological value is greater than those of works that are transparently presenting an idea. To me, Baudry seems to be stating that the work that more heavily creates a product that is less "readable", but presents a more holistic idea - one that more correctly captures object reality?

This is an interesting take on the idea of "depth of filed". Proposing tom the ready that the region of focus is not a physical, tangible things, but rather a limitation that is self-imposed because of the way that it is constructed conceptually. This approach to the cinematic apparatus reminds me of Derrida's approach to Deconstructionism in which he urges one to consider that there is perhaps another side to the manner in which perceive ideologies - every notion has an alternate framework.

I can see how Hollywood films, or films that simply adhere to the more classical narrative structure, do this frequently. Art house films, or films that deviate from traditionalist narrative structure. Art films tend to hold on moments that don't make the story progress, but enlighten us with details that make us more psychologically and emotionally aware of the character's state.

These essentially being films that aren't afraid to wander and have a loose plot? I feel like Bordwell is referencing films similar to Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master or Thomas Vinterberg's The Hunt. These films. despite having an outcome, the syuzhet's ending is not necessarily precast by convention.

This type of jarring editing was later adopted in the United States during the late 60s by Dede Allen (Bonnie and Clyde) whom was heavily ostracized at first her her editing style.

Popularized by Joseph Campbell in The Hero's Journey? Robert McKee also another large proponent of the ubiquity of this structure in Hollywood is what I have learned in my RTF classes. Other writers such as David Mamet have advocated the idea of disrupting a character's world.

I agree with this statement. Today we can see a clear socio-political shift in what we consider Hollywood. The traditionalist system, though still in existence, is not a prevalent as it once was. The creation of what some call 'Indie-wood' has now become prominent. The acquiring of rights to a feature film after its production is now an existing circumstance, something that was not present in the 1950s. The vertical and horizontal integration of the film industry no longer exists, in my opinion, but that is also a generalization.

It's interesting to see how parallels can be drawn from Marx's ideology to the film industry and the direct representation of the proletariat as crew members.

Reiterates my previous point about the benevolent creation of the studio system and its inevitable destination.

I agree with Ellis on this point. I often discuss with my friends and collaborators the nature of the 'Hollywood System' and often find that it is reduced to sort of a capitalistic machine. Like the creation and inevitable growth of other industries, Hollywood founded itself originally on the idea of breaking away from an entity that was manipulative, but fell into an unavoidable mold that was formed in a capitalist era.

One of my favorite Renoir films.

I believe that Griffith's exposition to Cabiria led Griffith to make more epic films. Griffith's films however, don't rely on heavy set design like Cabiria did, but rather expressed their grandness through time and space, much like Birth of a Nation.

Something that was popularized after The Great Train Robbery by Edwin S. Porter.

Film has always done this more boldly because of its nature as a visual and transitionary medium. It tells a story, gets a viewpoint across, and can critique an idea whilst constructing and manipulating the rules of its own universe. The only thing the audience can do is sit back and watch.

This is something that I had not previously thought about. The idea that a film is consumed by several people, simultaneously, creates a much different type of interaction between the artist and the audience. The control lies in the indefinite and ever-changing audience member. The work will remain unchanged permanently and will therefore be perceived and judged without the means of adaptation.

I have to disagree with this idea. Film's not the first art whose artistic character is entirely determined by its reproducibility, literature is.

I find that the medium of film has a variety of extremely unique voices, voices that one can almost attribute to the existence of specific styles of literature, much like Benjamin is stating in this section. Terrence Malick emulates Thoreau, Ridley Scott bleeds Phillip K. Dick, Paul Thomas Anderson is a mixture, but beautifully creates a hybrid of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Upton Sinclair, and so on so forth.

Really enjoyed this analogy. It makes me think about the current state of film and how the collective experience of watching cinema, in a large dark room with people and in its proscenium nature, is slowly vanishing because of the adoption of streaming services.

I feel like this is a fundamental step in the process of developing one's craft - the idea of replication, founded on the idea of attempting to put one's work on the level of that 'master' whom they admire. I agree that we, now more than ever, see the work of some artists being adopted by corporations for profit. A common theme that I have seen across the board in stores that cater to the millennial demographic, is the use some post-modern artists' work. The works of artist's such as Andy Warhol and Jean Michael Basquiat are featured on t-shirts and posters frequently at youthful consumerist stores.