10/27/2021
In her article “Theorizing in/of Ethnographic Film” (2020), Jenny Chio contextualizes the genealogical relationship of observational-sensory films in the history of ethnographic film via the anthropologic debate of thick/thin or thick vs thin description. The notion of ‘thick description’, as introduced by Clifford Geertz in his influential essay “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture (1973), emphasizes the importance of analytical interpretation of the anthropologic observation and thereby claims that observation alone serves only as a thin starting point, a factual account devoid of meaning. 40 years after Geertz’s use of the notion of ‘thick description’, John Jackson, in his seminal book “Thin Description: Ethnography and the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem” (2013), critiques (the limitations of) ethnography in his contemporary challenge to “thick description”. He argues for the value in thin description that Geertz, in his assertions about thick description, deemed inadequate for meaningful interpretation. Thinness then, according to Geertz as interpreted by Jackson, becomes “raw and baseline empiricism, the necessary starting point for social investigation but not nearly enough all by itself” (13). Jackson posits, however, that thick description is not always as thick as it is made to seem; that “thick description, in a sense, has always been thin” (5).
Chio then contextualizes arguments made for the thickness of the film image within the larger debate on thick/thin description, as supported by Jackson’s argument for the thickness of previously perceived thin description and particularly in consideration of Jackson’s point against Geertz’s thick description in the idea that “seeing through another person’s eyes is not the same thing as actually seeing that person” (15). Chio primarily considers ethnographic filmmakers Lucien Taylor and Silvio Carta’s perspectives on visual anthropology. Taylor argues a material extension to Jackson’s argument, that “film does not say but show… does not just describe, but depict…it offers not only ‘thin descriptions’ but also ‘thick depictions’?” (qtd. in Chio 31). Carta’s perspective, which seems to compliment Taylor’s perspective on the thickness of the visual, notes that ethnography “gives us something of what is left out of any [thick written] description of the world in purely third-person terms” (qtd. in Chio 32). In pointing out the natural grouping of Jackson’s, Taylor’s, and Carta’s perspectives on the thickness of the visual, Chio is able to argue that the “wide-scale disciplinary adoption of” observational cinema and “the filmic version of sensory ethnography…as the new ‘thick description’ of ethnographic filmmaking” have allowed these two visual genres to become the “dominant conventions of what constitutes a visual representation of ethnographic fieldwork and knowledge” (32).
Both borne from a tradition of observational documentary, the genres of observational cinema and sensory ethnography share filmic conventions such as the long take, an avoidance of interview or voice-over narrations, and a meticulous focus on detail. Given their related conventions, Chio also notes their differences. Chio utilizes Anna Grimshaw’s and Amanda Ravetz’s perspective on observational cinema, as iterated in their book “Observational cinema: Anthropology, film, and the exploration of social life” (2009), to contextualize and theorize the conventions of observational cinema and its dominance in the field of ethnographic film. Grimshaw and Ravetz note that observational film “emphasizes unassuming, modest and painstakingly detailed depictions of humanity and the everyday” and the acts of observation that create such depictions are also deeply embedded in the understanding of a cornerstone mode of ethnographic fieldwork: “participant-observation” (Chio 33). In their conceptualization of the notion of observation within both ethnographic film and ethnographic fieldwork, Grimshaw and Ravetz note that the art of (ethnographic) observation may open into an “observational sensibility”, or a reflection of “the relationship between observer and observed” (Chio 33). Chio herself then notes a connection of Grimshaw and Ravetz’s conceptualization of such a “reflexive praxis, a way of doing anthropology that has the potential to creatively fuse the object and medium of inquiry” (qtd. in Chio 33) to Jackson’s ideas of thin description and Carta’s “argument for film as a ‘subversive empirical practice’” (qtd. in Chio 33). Grimshaw and Ravetz ultimately “propose that observational cinema be considered an example of phenomenological anthropology, with a focus on lived experience” (Chio 33). Thus, conventions of observational cinema, like the long take and an avoidance of interview or voice-over narration, reveal an expected benevolence in the true depth of the relationship between the observer (as both the filmmaker and the film audience) and the observed (as the profilmic world).
Chio utilizes Lucien Taylor’s professional work as an ethnographic filmmaker and as the director of the Sensory Ethnography Lab (SEL) at Harvard University to describe the institutionalization of the genre of sensory ethnography. Like observational cinema, Chio also notes a connection between sensory ethnography and a phenomenological anthropology via Taylor’s arguments on the thickness of the visual as well as his engagements with SEL, “each [of which] insist on the crucial role of the body and the senses, the visceral and the palpable, in any engagement with and representation of the world (Irina Leimbacher qtd. in Chio 33). Thus, Sensory ethnography, while it shares many of its conventions with the genre of observational cinema, differs as it extends its observations to consider the humanity of the non-human via its cinematography and places greater emphasis on the role of sound in the creation of tension and execution of disclosure (34). These differentiating filmic aspects were conventionalized namely by films of Taylor such as Sweetgrass (2009) and Leviathan (2013) – both of which were made in conjunction with SEL, and the latter of which “cemented SEL as a recognizable name with a recognizable aesthetic” (that aesthetic being the genre of sensory ethnography). Visually, Leviathan was focused moreso on the process and materials of fishing, and less so on the people who were doing the fishing – in this sense, Taylor embodied this convention of considering the humanity of the non-human via the painstaking depiction of the detail of his (non-human) subject. To capture this painstaking detail, the use of body-cameras and underwater cameras allowed for the capture of close-up shots, or shots that really got in the middle of the mess of commercial fishing, allow for the capturing of the chaos of the process. In addition, the constant unplaceable yet uncomfortable sound of what seems to most appropriately be heavy metal in the middle of the ocean befits the visual turmoil and creates an insane tension within the viewer, and thus and immersive depiction of chaos.
We just spoke of genre conventions, or the filmic elements that commonly occur within a genre of film, but for a genre to be conventional itself means that the genre must commonly occur within a certain scope. Chio considers the genres of observational cinema and sensory ethnography as conventional within the world of ethnographic film as she believes them to be the type of “ethnographic filmmaking and ethnographic film theory dominating anthropological discourse at the moment” (30). Chio argues that the “conventions of “observational-sensory” film continue to dominate discussions of ethnographic filmmaking and theorizing at the expense of other possibilities”, thus making “observational-sensory” film itself conventional within the field of ethnographic film (37). Chio utilizes the films of Maurizio Boriello, Jennifer Deger, Ben Russell, and Alisi Telegut to exemplify the potential in non-conventional modes of visual representation of the ethnographic, which she argues are just as thick as the “observational-sensory” convention.
Chio’s ultimate intention is to “illustrate in what follows how the “observational-sensory” convention now constitutes a terrain upon which new experiments, and new insights, in ethnographic filmmaking have emerged” (33) – in other words, she means to challenge the current conventions of the dominant form of ethnographic filmmaking (that is observation-sensory film) to explore how alternative films can engage (new) ethnographic knowledge. Take Alisi Telegut and her hand-painted animations of Mongolian ethnography, for example. Chio argues that Telegut’s animated films - while existing far outside the conventions of “observational-sensory” film, particularly in the mediums inability to engaging with the long take – are by no means lacking in thickness as the lack of the long take, which is instead replaced by numerous hand-drawn frames that require an “extensive engagement from both the artist and the viewer”, actually reveals the depth of Telegut’s engagement with ethnographic description in the “thickness of the textures and edges of every painted mark making up a single image that quite literally resonates and radiates when animated” (37). Chio maintains throughout her argument that “theorizing ethnographic film should result in boundary pushing, not boundary maintenance” (37). In an effort to push the boundaries of ethnographic film as we understand it today, she challenges the dominant conventions of ethnographic film, which she deems is “currently encapsulated within what I have dubbed an “observational-sensory” mode of filmmaking”, in order to make an argument for the thickness of and create space for a more diverse breadth of ethnographic visual representation (37).
Works Cited
Chio, Jenny. “Theorizing in/of Ethnographic Film.” The Routledge International Handbook of Ethnographic Film and Video, 2020, pp. 30–39., https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429196997-4.
Jackson, John L. Thin Description: Ethnography and the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem. Harvard University Press, 2013.
10/26/2020
“The mind is a universe and can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”
― John Milton
Notions of Heaven and Hell are often explored in Western films, particularly (and perhaps most obviously) through the Utopian and/or Dystopian genres. The concept of a utopia is often interchangeable with the general notions of heaven; conversely, the concept of a dystopia is also often interchangeable with the general notions of hell. A utopia is an imagined version of society that exemplifies the ideal - “imagined ideal” being the key phrase in this definition as the ideal represents what is perfect or most desirable, but unachievable or unrealistic. While a utopia may look (slightly) different in the eyes of each individual, imagined utopias in literature and film tend to come from one of three grounds: speculation, practicality, or satire (“Utopia”). On the other hand, a dystopia exists as the polar opposite of a utopia, or an imagined version of society that exemplifies what is most flawed and undesirable (“Dystopia”). Given the lack of realism in utopian and dystopian concepts, these films often take the form of science fiction or fantasy narratives. Though most science fiction/fantasy narratives may direct focus to only one of the two concepts or to the strict dichotomy between the two, some films stray into a realm that blurs the line between utopia and dystopia. The film Yesterday (2019) utilizes pop songs to question this dichotomy between utopia and dystopia, or heaven and hell, by exploring points of intersection between the heavenly and the hellish.
The film follows protagonist Jack Malik, an English man in his late 20s of South Asian descent who aspires to be a musician. Jack lives with his parents in his childhood home in Suffolk, England and works at the local discount-store after giving up his full-time job as a schoolteacher in order to pursue his dream of singing and songwriting. After years of persistence with less than commendable success, however, Jack is nearly ready to give up on his dream when suddenly he gets hit by a bus while riding his bike home from another unsuccessful gig. Jack wakes up in the hospital to a seemingly normal life, until he realizes that he has woken up in a world without his favorite band, the Beatles. Armed with all the Beatlemania knowledge he can remember, however, Jack soon finds himself on a path to success. The juxtaposition between Jack waking up in an alternate reality where a lot of things that were once grounded in normalcy no longer exist and Jack eventually finally finding massive success in a musical career places him in a state of confusion - Is he in hell or is he in heaven? Has he landed in a utopia or a dystopia? While Jack’s perception of this alternate reality may sway between hell and heaven from time to time, there is a case to be made for the idea that the pop songs used in Yesterday actually function to establish a musical dystopia with the potential for a utopian outcome (as opposed to the inverse statement found in the prompt). It is the subtlety of the way in which the pop songs are woven into the sound design and larger narrative, however, that help to establish this utopia/dystopia dynamic within the storyline.
Though it may seem as if music, especially non-diegetic music, is the most unrealistic, or ‘non-realist’, component of most films, in the case of the film Yesterday, the music is actually the most important film technique used (Finch 83). The reason for this is that the pop music in Yesterday embodies the theory of emotional reality, or the idea that “music can convey and clarify the emotional significance of a scene, and the true, ‘real’ feelings” Jack (Frith 83). The pop music, especially the music by The Beatles, sung by Jack speaks for him and reveals emotional truths about his character. The biggest example of a pop song functioning under the notion of emotional reality is the song “Yesterday”, which actually foreshadows the trajectory of emotions that Jack will encounter and grapple with until the resolution of the film. The fact that the title of this song also functions as the title of the movie already suggests its importance, but what we can interpret from the song that Jack sings is:
Yesterday
all [his] troubles seemed so far away
now it looks as though they’re here to stay
Suddenly [he’s] not half the man [he] used to be
there’s a shadow hanging over [him]
Oh, yesterday came suddenly
Yesterday
Love was such an easy game to play
Now [he] need[s] a place to hide away
Oh, [he] believe[s] in yesterday
Why she had to go, [he doesn’t] know, she wouldn’t say
[He] said something wrong, now [he] long[s] for yesterday
Yesterday
Love was such an easy game to play
Now [he] need[s] a place to hide away
Oh, [he] believe[s] in yesterday
This song speaks of one man’s sadness, sorrow, distress, and regret; within the context of this film, that one man is Jack. Jack feels sadness because he is “here to stay” in an alternate reality that he didn’t choose and one that he does not know how to escape from. He feels sorrow because “he said something wrong” and messed up his chances with Ellie, the love of his life. He feels distressed as if there’s a “shadow hanging over” him because he feels as if his success in this alternate reality is based on a lie (which in many ways it is). He feels regret for how he is leading his life in this alternate reality, and at his lowest point only “believes in [the] yesterday” of his previous reality.
The truth that music can reveal under the notion emotional reality is “a different sort of reality than that described by visual images… as it signals what is underneath a film’s observable gestures” (Frith 83-84). As much as the film could have attempted to convey Jack’s emotions via the images on screen - most likely via mise-en-scene and acting - this song is able to relay that emotional information to the audience in a way that the image never could because this song has an existing connection with the audience that the image never will. Everyone can relate to feelings of confusion about where one stands in the present while yearning for a better time from the past, but to be able to relate to those themes through an established and comfortable medium like a famous song is incomparable. Thus, one could say that the utilization of pop songs, especially widely known and beloved songs, under the notion of emotional reality functions as a very subtle yet effective action meant to establish a deeper emotional connection with the audience - something that the image could not do.
In addition to functioning under the notion of emotional reality, the song “Yesterday” functions as a potential counterargument to the idea that the pop songs in the film function to establish a kind of musical utopia with the potential for a dystopian outcome. Jack’s initial realization that he may be in an alternate reality immediately places Jack in a potentially dystopian state - his own personal hell - as he is the only one who seems to remember who The Beatles are. Similar to how The Graduate combined rock and roll and film proper, Yesterday combines pop music and film by allowing “diegetic sounds to overlap a recording, interfering with the audience’s perception of the song” (Knobloch 62). As he spirals into a rabbit hole of google searches on the internet, a comically hellish non-diegetic score plays in the background periodically overlapping with Jack’s diegetic expressions of exasperation and disbelief. If Jack’s initial experience with this alternate reality is hellish, or flawed, and if Jack’s emotional journey function as a reflection of the larger mood of the world around him, then it may appropriate to argue that the pop songs in the film function to establish a musical dystopia of Jack’s own making. Furthermore, if the song “Yesterday” foreshadows Jack’s emotional journey until the resolution of the film, then it may not be so far-fetched then to suggest that the massive lie that Jack was hiding behind in terms of passing the music of The Beatles as his own is the source of the dystopian hell that Jack is living through. It is only once Jack decides to share his truth with the world and release all The Beatles music for free that he is able to find happiness in his own identity as an artist and as an individual. The use of Ed Sheeran’s song, “One Life”, as non-diegetic music while Jack gets his happy ending, functions to solidify this idea of release from his lies and interdependence on the music of the Beatles to feel successful in life.
Yesterday shows that, ultimately, the utopia/dystopia dynamic is a matter of choice as much as it is a matter of circumstances. The pop music in this film, particularly the songs of The Beatles, function to establish this choice as a musical dystopia of Jack’s own making with the potential for utopian outcome. Though circumstances beyond his control led Jack this alternate reality, it was his own choices that led to the cataclysmic dystopia that made him feel as if “Now [he] need[s] a place to hide away… [because he] believe[s] in yesterday.” However, it was also Jack’s choice to break away from the hellish circumstances and create a heavenly space (or a space that he felt free) amongst the chaos.
Bibliography
“Dystopia.” Encyclopedia.com, Encyclopedia.com, 2020, www.encyclopedia.com/literature-and-arts/literature-english/english-literature-20th-cent-present/dystopia.
Frith, Simon. “Mood Music: An Inquiry into Narrative Film Music.” Screen: Incorporating Screen Education, vol. 25, no. 3, June 1984, pp. 78–88, https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/25.3.78
Knobloch, Susan. “THE GRADUATE AS ROCK’N’ROLL FILM.” Spectator (Los Angeles, Calif.), vol. 17, no. 2, University of Southern California, Division of Critical Studies, Spectator, Apr. 1997, p. 61–73.
Yesterday, Directed by Danny Boyle, performances by Himesh Patel, Lily James, Ed Sheeran, Kate McKinnon, Joel Fry, Sophia Di Martino, Harry Michell, Sanjeev Bhaskar, and Meera Syal, Universal Pictures, 2019.
“Utopia.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 2020, www.britannica.com/topic/utopia/Satirical-and-dystopian-works.
09/20/2020
In his article entitled “The Bug in the Rug: Notes on the Disaster Genre”, author Maurice Yacowar details the disaster genre (specifically its types and conventions). Often the disaster genre is mistaken for or incorrectly associated with the science fiction genre (as if disaster only occurs in science fiction films) – and while the conventions of the disaster genre is seen in many sci-fi films, disaster can happen outside of the science fiction realm as well. The disaster genre is actually a very versatile genre of film as its conventions can work harmoniously with the conventions of many other film genres to create a truly unique and effective story. According to Yacowar at the heart of the disaster genre is a “situation of normalcy [that] erupts into a persuasive image of death” (261) – an idea that can unsurprisingly be associated with other film genres. Thus, what makes the disaster genre so distinct is perhaps also the reason why the conventions of the disaster genre tend to be mistaken for other genre(s) it is interacting with (especially from an audience’s perspective).
In his article, Yacowar details the eight different types of disaster films. Yacowar then proceeds to delve into the numerous conventions found within the disaster genre. While there are many different types of disaster films and while this diversity in types or subgenres of the disaster genre only reconfirms the disaster genre’s ability to work hand-in-hand with many other film genres, the conventions of the disaster genre are what bind the disaster genre together. Of all the conventions that Yacowar writes of, one could argue that the first two (and especially the second) conventions are the most important to the areas of sound and sound design within the disaster genre, and even perhaps more broadly within the general field of filmmaking. The first convention that Yacowar details is that there is that, “except in the historical/fantasy type, no distancing in time, place or costume” in the disaster genre so that the audience of the film consider themselves the threatened society. This convention connects to the second convention that Yacowar details, which says that:
“given this immediacy (between the film and the audience found through the first convention), it is difficult to define an iconography for the disaster film as one can do for the Western, the gangster film, even the musical…more than by its imagery, then, the genre is characterized by its mood of threat and dread” (268).
If this is true, if the disaster genre is characterized by the mood it creates more than the imagery it shows, one could then argue that the sound design of a disaster film is more important to the conventions of the disaster genre than the production design of a disaster film.
Film has four core components: Mise-en-scene, cinematography, film sound, and film editing. However, sound as a core component of film was a development that came after the establishment of its counterpart components of mise-en-scene, cinematography and film editing. At the turn of the 20th century, the combination of the three visual core components made film what it was - a new and revolutionary technology and art form. When studying the history and art of cinema, one of the first notions that a person may learn about is the concept of medium specificity, or idea that any specific art form can do certain things that are central to its nature, but not central to any other art forms’ nature – thus giving that particular art medium some specificity. The idea of medium specificity in relation to film refers to the qualities of film that make it (the results of the filmmaking process) film (or a result that is only found through the medium of film). There have been many arguments throughout the history of cinematic academia concerning medium specificity in the context of film. Some argue that sound is either not specific to film (as it is experienced in many other art forms like music, theater, performance art, etc.), or is less specific to film than cinematography or editing. On the other hand, popular film theorists, like critic André Bazin, have argued that sound gave films the opportunity to maximize the utilization of the medium of film as it helped to build the film’s meaning through sound’s ability to evoke certain moods or highlight visual aspects or aesthetics of a shot or scene. Other theorists, like filmmaker Vsevolod Pudovkin, have made some good indirect arguments for the importance of sound to film. Pudovkin is known for his theory on editing, stating that editing is not just structural, but is also (and most importantly) a method of guiding the emotional response of an audience. If one were to put Pudovkin’s theory in the context of sound design, then one could argue that sound mixing is as important to film as the visual editing of a film, and thus sound becomes as important to film as its visual components as the editing of those individual components and the marrying of both those components are what create the final product – the art itself.
It is thus interesting to note the timeline of sound and its role in as well as its perceived importance to the art of cinema. It seems as though at the beginning of the 20th century sound started as a component of film that was secondary to visuals components of cinema, and then as the decades of 20th century progressed, sound would eventually become as important to filmmaking as those visual components. The turn of the 20th century, however, has brought about the notion that sound may even be more important to certain film genres than its visual components - which is basically what Yacowar is stating when discussing the conventions of the disaster genre. Towards the end of his article, Yacowar states that “the main purpose in defining a genre is to establish a context for the approach to an individual work”. That is perhaps to say that the concept of a “genre” exists to categorize the common visual or sonic elements found between certain films in order to organize cinema, which from a psychological perspective make sense as humans begins find a certain comfort in organizing things for two reasons: 1) to feel like they better understand the thing being organized, and 2) to feel like they have some power over the thing being organized. In other words, “genre” represents the “generic” (this is not to say that the generic is bad, it’s just established). Even the creation of new genres is generic in itself as genres are defined by their conventions – conventions must already exist and be common to a set of films (and thus already be generic to a degree) before those films can be categorized into a genre. That being said, if “genre” is generic, and if sound is an important convention of the disaster genre, then sound has without a doubt become a generic (or established) aspect of film. Thus, it can be stated for certain, through the careful analysis of film genres like the disaster film, that sound has become a core component of the art of cinema.
In my opinion, one must know a genre - its conventions, tropes, aesthetics, etc. - in order to break it or reverse it or go against it. In other words, to create something truly revolutionary one must create something new, but in order to create something new one must understand the what is already established. Thus, it is important to understand genres and their conventions as key aspects of critical cinema studies. It is possible that the argument of “what is generic to film can be found through the study of film genres” could be applied to filmic components other than sound in order to establish them within the field of cinema, especially in the face of future cinema and new cinematic forms such as cinema 4D, AR/VR technologies, and other immersive technologies (should these forms eventually become a common practice in filmmaking). Though only time will reveal what new and revolutionary components of film may be created and establish, the journey to these new components seems film seems promising and exciting.
Bibliography
Yacowar, Maurice. “The Bug in the Rug: Notes on the Disaster Genre.” Film Genre Reader II, edited by Barry Keith Grant, University of Texas Press, 1995, pp 261-279.