FAMST 96 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Sensory System, Establishing Shot, Cognitive Map
9 May 2018
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"Narration and Space" Bordwell pgs. 99-146
Constructivist theory
"The film proffers cues upon which the spectator works by applying
those knowledge clusters called schemata. Guided by schemata, the
spectator makes assumptions and inferences and casts hypothesis
about story events." (Pg. 100)
The audience is actively working to indicate certain spatial
relations
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"We can start our analysis of spatial representation by assuming
that the spectator works upon cues supplied by the medium and
stylistic conventions" (pg. 101)
Remember the medium specificity of cinema… there is a
specific way that cinema deliberately constructs space
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Conscious choice to represent space in a specific way
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"A constructivist account would propose that we come to the image
already 'tuned', prepared to test spatial, temporal, and 'logical'
schemata against what the shot presents." (Pg. 112)
Audience is trained in the art of viewing
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Helps us understand what spatial cues mean
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Spectator is always active in creating hypotheses about what is
happening
Also always going back and reassessing what is being seen
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"My concern here is with the scenographic space: the imaginary
space of the fiction, the 'world' in which the narration suggests that
fabula events occur." (Pg. 113)
Excluding the excess
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Shot space
"in most cases, these work in an involuntary, 'bottom-
up' manner…" (Pg. 113-114)
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Automatic recognition of spatial relations (creating
hypotheses about what we see)
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Editing space
"the perceiver constructs intershot space on the basis
of anticipation and memory, favoring cause-effect
schemata creating a 'cognitive map' of the pertinent
terrain" (Pg. 117)
Sense of space we get once we start cutting
i.e. shot/reverse shot; establishing shot
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"… the cheat cut illustrates how hypotheses favor
object recognition and narrative factors and how
schemata work from the top down" (Pg. 117)
Our expectations aren't disturbed
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We already have a hypothesis about what's going
on in a shot, so the next shot doesn’t affect what
we have already been set to believe
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Sonic space
"… for spatial information, sight outranks hearing in the
human sensory system." (119)
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Sonic space is subordinate to visual space
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Seeing is believing
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What we see takes precedent in how we construct the
onscreen space
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Offscreen space
Nondiegetic and diegetic
Diegetic: in the world of the story (what
characters know what is going on)
It can be offscreen
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Nondiegetic
Nondiegetic offscreen space: we know the
space outside of the world of the characters
i.e. there is a camera crew (think of
The Third Man when Anna is walking
towards the camera and then has to
slight away from it)
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Celebrity in Badlands
Cops enamored by Kit
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Kit constantly compared to James Dean
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How he nearly becomes a celebrity in America by the end (infamously)
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Space in Badlands
Deep focus in the beginning of the film, starting in Holly's room
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CLIP: 1hour and 10Mins to 1Hour and 13Mins -- Clip of the two in the car
whit the strong illumination on just their faces, pitch black behind them
The blackness creates an abyss and anticipation in the audience
We want the camera to pull out so we know where they are□
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A lot of things coming from the right of the frame - showing us
that there is more space offscreen to the right
Movement to the right is tied to the entire movie of them
travelling from East to West (South Dakota to Montana)
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Endlessness
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Light looks like spotlight and not car lights
Offscreen nondiegetic space□
Spotlight clearly looks unnatural because is from above□
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Section 5 Notes
Tuesday, May 1, 2018
12:50 PM
