Introductie Filmstudies


Some General Notes on Film Studies, by Peter Bosma

These introductory notes are meant for students of art academies and film academies, to stimulate them to get an informed view and fresh perspective on contemporary cinema and film heritage.

Lees verder...

Peter Bosma, Introductie Filmstudies, 17-3-2009 om 16:26 - Nog geen comments


1. Asking the right questions

The internet offers a huge amount of information. Anybody can find something, but only a wise person can select the essential or valuable. There are many resources online for free, but a big part of it is useless or superficial. To survive, you need to be able to ask the right questions. It is a precious gift to do just this: to ask the right questions. It is also a competence everybody can develop. Some people can even make a living of it: professional critics, scientists, curators and artists. I would like this course to be embedded in a general urge of curiosity. I hope to inspire students to continue their search for intelligent questions.

Lees verder...

Peter Bosma, Introductie Filmstudies, 16-3-2009 om 16:06 - Nog geen comments


2. How to get a grip on film history

A traditional way of getting a grip on film history is to start with a division between feature films (fiction) and documentary (facts), with a third smaller division of experimental cinema. One can continue with a division in decades (cinema of the teens, twenties, thirties and so on), combined with an assorted choice of grouping and placing strategies like film style, genre, national cinema.

Lees verder...

Peter Bosma, Introductie Filmstudies, 15-3-2009 om 16:05 - Nog geen comments


3. Exploration of remakes, the second use of stories

Most of the time, a remake has economical reasons: a studio or producer expects to make an easy profit with an existing film script. Hollywood has the inclination to remake successful European films, as is the case with many French movies, but also for instance insomnia (based on the Norwegian film of the same name by Erik Skjoldbjaerg, 1997), vanilla sky (based on the Spanish film abre los ojos, 1998), the vanishing (based on the Dutch film spoorloos by George Schouten, 1988).

Lees verder...

Peter Bosma, Introductie Filmstudies, 14-3-2009 om 16:04 - Nog geen comments


4. The Poetics of Film

A film director can learn the most from studying other films and other directors. Broadly speaking, there are two choices for composing a film, to express emotions or to convey the dramatic essence in the best way possible: staging and editing.

Lees verder...

Peter Bosma, Introductie Filmstudies, 12-3-2009 om 16:03 - Nog geen comments


5. Widescreen and other screens

When you buy or rent a DVD, you have to read the small print very careful because you are shopping for the highest quality and there is a lot of confusion about the rendering of the image and sound. You would want to purchase merchandise which is complete, so you have to check if the jacket promise to deliver the goods.

Lees verder...

Peter Bosma, Introductie Filmstudies, 12-3-2009 om 16:02 - Nog geen comments


6. Cinephilia and the institutional view on film culture

The phenomenon of loving cinema (cinéphilie or cinephilia) has a large diversity, it could be approached from many different perspectives and angles. Provided here is a six points inventory.

Lees verder...

Peter Bosma, Introductie Filmstudies, 11-3-2009 om 16:02 - Nog geen comments


7. Resources for film studies

• Gunning, Tom ‘Making Sense of Film’, on-line available at: historymatters.gmu.edu/mse/film
• The Dutch filmmuseum has the best film library in the Netherlands, website: filmmuseum.nl. The Filmmuseum in Brussels offers a course of film history, check their site, with extensive notes: anatomievandefilm.be.

Lees verder...

Peter Bosma, Introductie Filmstudies, 10-3-2009 om 16:01 - Nog geen comments