Neoformalist film analysis

In order to really understand neoformalism I would need some examples because I was not able to fully understand the article. I recognize that neoformalism believes that art should not be a form of communication between people and instead it should challenge what the viewer is use to seeing in the world. I agree with the purpose of the method because it encourages people to thinking critically and challenging themselves.  The method seems very flexible and adaptable to ones personal liking, there’s no right on wrong, one is just encouraged to view films from different angles and make assumptions. I think that behind neoformalism is the idea that people are blindly watching movies and don’t take the time and effort to think analytically and appreciate all the subtle detail and time put in. People should be learning from the movies and see each ones as an experience. I wonder how other film theories perceive this method.

Kristin Thompson: Neoformalist Film Analysis

Although rather dense and hard to follow, Kristin Thompson's article on Neoformalist Film Analysis scrutinizes a rather intriguing perspective of film analysis: neoformalism. The neoformalist approach Thompson discusses revolves around aesthetics of a film. I found Thompson's advocacy for neoformalism to be most interesting because it is not utilized by many film theorists. I agree with Thompson in stating that a film has many aspects to it; each film is its own work of art. Further, because individual films are masterpieces, there are other factors that contribute to the making of the magic. Some of these factors include historical context, inspiration, and other various outside elements aside from aesthetics. Thompson points out that there is not necessarily one fixed method of neoformalist film analysis. Additionally, the neoformalist approach features components that breakdown how film is visually communicated: sender; medium; receiver.  This component of neoformalism is extremely helpful in film analyzation.

Neoformalist Film Analysis

This reading by Kristin Thompson brings forth the concept of neoformalist film analysis which is an approach that derives from Russian formalism. What I found while reading this was that Neoformalism leaves a lot of room for personal interpretation. Something that I thought was important about neoformalism was that it didn't just take art as something permanent, but rather that it recognizes that it can be culturally determined and can mean different things to different people. an aspect of neoformalism that this reading points out as important is that a neoformalist approach roots itself in the historical context of the film, this way norms can be better understood and clearer. There were three aspects of this historical context, or back ground, that was then explained in the reading. The first was the everyday world. I thought that this made sense because having an understanding of the everyday world of the time period in which a film was made would make the choice of wardrobe, and dialogue clear to someone who is even watching the film 40 years after it was released. The second was about other artworks, and the final one was the use of films as advertising and such. Something important that I found about neoformalism was the position in which it placed the spectator or audience of the film. This was important of course to me because this is largely the role that I play in films as I have never been a filmmaker. The neoformalist approach puts the audience as a an active member of the film, and this writing states that as a viewer we actually have a large effect on the final effect of the film. While reading this I associated this idea of having an effect with the award shows which honor films. Largely, at these it events it is up to those who went out and watched the film to have the final say on if that film will go down in award history or fade out. Something that really stuck out to me about this article was the critique of neoformalism in that it applies to an elite group of films that only a certain audience can have access to. To me, I placed films that are placed at the academy awards in this "elite" category. Its argument however, is that this approach can be taken and used towards different types of films and perhaps all films that we watch. From what I gathered, Neoformalism has a main goal of making people return to films with a higher understanding and a more active view on it. From what I gathered about neoformalism from this article, I associated it with what a large audience of people do with todays movies. I think that while there is room to passively watch the films, I think that a majority of film watchers take this approach in some way or another as this approach focuses primarily on how the viewers react to different formal elements of the film to judge a quality of the film.

Neoformalist motivation

I personally found the idea of motivation in film to be one of the most interesting in Thompson’s article. I never really think about what categories motivate the inclusion of different devices and objects within a film. I think I can recognize compositional, realistic and trans textual motivations. I am struggling with the idea and concept of artistic motivation. It seems to be an almost over arching category that all the other theories can fit into, as all decisions are made for artistic purposes in film. The paradox is you can only see it when all the other obvious motivations are not present. I personally think to find artistic motivation would be the most difficult for me in any film. This is also puzzling to me because it makes it seem as though the artist motivates all formal element choices.  This does not account for other elements that may have happened by accident.   

Neoformalist Film Analysis Kristin Thompson

I believe Kristin Thompson’s underlying argument—that neoformalist analysis is the best way to critically approach all films—is well thought out and supported, but honestly the article was so dense and wordy that it was nearly impossible for me to get through. While I believe Thompson included way too many details that were not helping her argument, certain points did stick out to me as being relevant and valuable. I did like her explanation of neoformalist analysis as not being set on a fixed method, and instead an approach that is used differently for each piece of work. I appreciate how neoformalism acknowledges each film as a work of art that must be properly addressed and analyzed on its own terms. Thompson focuses on the idea of an “aesthetic realm” which she argues is extremely important to recognize when analyzing a film. She points out that many film theorists ignore this realm and instead want to use the film to draw larger conclusions that dismiss the smaller specificities of the art. I thought this was a very interesting point to make, and I agree with the fact that people, including myself, tend to explain worldwide values and morals through the analysis of one story.  Thompson, on the other hand, values the neoformalist approach that views each film as its own work of art rather than a some sort of broad life lesson. She further developed this idea by explaining the use of the word “device” in neoformalism. She describes each film as a device, which makes up a small part of a larger system. Therefore, one cannot look at film as a medium, but must actively gain an understanding of the motivation, historical context, and aesthetic realm of a film by recognizing the particular qualities of the individual device being analyzed.  Overall, Thompson had some very intriguing points to make, and I do think neoformalism is a strong and notable approach to film analysis, and one that I hope to successfully utilize this semester.

Neoformalism

I found Thompson’s article to be dense but very interesting to read. I enjoyed how she discussed various types of approaches to studying film and tied those in to her greater idea of Neoformalism. She touched upon how these different ideas of how to look at film have influenced each other and critiqued each other throughout the years. Thompson describes Neoformalism as the 20^th Century’s contribution to aesthetics, and also talked about how it is a communications model of art. Throughout various Communication classes that I have taken, we have learned the communications model to be sender--> medium--> receiver, and I agree with Thompson that this does apply to film analysis and the viewing of any film in general. Thompson makes a point in saying that the film does exist physically when we are not watching it, but all those qualities that interest the analyst result from the interaction between the work’s formal structures and the mental operations we perform in response to them (26). In this communications model of art, it is crucial that we participate as spectators if we want to accurately analyze a film, but it is also crucial that the sender, the creators of the film, create movies of greater substance than merely entertaining movies, and the medium must clearly convey the message in a practical way. If the movie is just made as merely entertaining, than it is not valuable because it gives no service to the spectator. I thought this was an interesting approach to looking at film analysis because of its connection to many of the previous ideas we have learned in Communications courses.

Perception and Location

Thompson’s article, for me, was a little difficult to get through, but there were some points that really stood out and intrigued me. I found it really interesting how on page 8 she discusses how perception in the everyday world differs from the art world. When you are in the everyday world, you perceive things according to what is practical in the moment. I really liked her example of standing on the street corner, for it is something I haven’t really thought about before and did a really good job illustrating this selective perception. Since we need this time for making decisions in the real world, we cannot focus on every sight or smell around us. In the art world, however, we must focus on the details. Since we get to live in a kind of “fantasy world” through film, we can take the time to focus on all of the small things around the characters. I found this part of the article really easy to understand, and it definitely brought new concepts to my attention. While a lot of the neoformalist theory discussed still is murky to me, I look forward to reading the other blog posts in hopes of clearing up other parts of the article.