Having at last got a classroom which lets us use a computer I planned a class which would make use of this straight away.(Its a good thing it was working - otherwise we wouldn't have had a class!)
I could see however, that some of you were disappointed. You had probably hoped that we would just watch a movie from the beginning to the end, and so were not very happy when we just looked at bits and pieces and you had to answer questions.
This class is, unfortunately Dramatic Criticism and not Watching Movies. The purpose is not only to tell you more about Drama - it's history and techniques - its to enable you to know the difference between a good and a bad movie and also to learn what the purpose is behind different movies.
You might still think that the purpose of a movie is purely entertainment. By looking at the way different movies are made and directed, by learning to "read" everything from the costumes to the scenery to the dialogue however, you soon become aware of the message behind every single movie that is ever produced. And, believe me, there is one. It is all part of the propaganda that is used to get us to think in a certain way. Hollywood itself has changed the behaviour and influenced the thinking of generations of people. If you want to make sure you are using movies (as recreation or entertainment or even education) you have to be able able to judge whether or not, instead, the movies are using you (to get you to think or act or simply accept a certain point of view)!
Nowhere have I ever been made more aware of the propaganda value of movies than here in China. For the majority of students, as well as the people in the shops and businesses, their whole idea of countries outside of China is based on American movies. So, for a start they think that every Western country is just like America: American products, American speech, American manners, American food - for them that is what everyone in the West is familiar with. Many people are shocked (and slightly disbelieving) when we (non-Americans) tell them that these movies are as "foreign" to us as they are to the Chinese.
However, the main propaganda value of these movies is that most Chinese people only see the "Block busters" or best seller - usually romantic comedies or movies about American High Schools or kids. Thus they think all foreigners are wealthy, live in large houses, drive big, shiny new cars, and wear beautiful clothes. Nothing wrong with that, you might think?
But it does have an effect: - it makes sure that everywhere foreigners go there are two prices for everything: a Chinese price and a Lou Wai price. Even street vendors will charge us 5 RMB for something that costs only 2RMB for everyone else!
But, most of all, these movies sell a fantasy world where everyone is young and beautiful and slim and falls in love forever. The fact that America itself has the largest proportion of fat people in the world, a divorce rate which now effects one out of every 2 marriages, and American cities have the highest percentage of Street People (homeless) than any other First World country is not reflected in the kinds of movies that make it to China. But it IS a good illustration of what I mean by propaganda: each of those movies is selling a fantasy world that hides the real problems.
So, to-day's lesson was about Beginnings. Every story or narrative in the world is constructed in the same way: it has a beginning, a middle and an end. And it is in the beginning of a movie that we first get an idea of what we are going to see: - another fantasy world of beautiful, happy people...or reality? We also get our first idea of the Directors own particular intention or idea; of what s/he himself thinks about life and what particular idea or interpretation s/he has and which s/he wants to pass on to us.
The first movie was the original old black and white movie that was made of the classic English story Pride and Prejudice. It taught us a number of things: We could tell it was an old movie - not just because it was made in the days before colour, but because the credits came on First. And they were very, very long. In the days when movies were a new form of entertainment; when they were a treat; when people actually got dressed up in their best clothes to go to a movie, putting the credits first added to the excitement and built up the anticipation. It all added to the experience.
To-days audiences, often watching at home with a remote control switch in their hand, would be bored senseless and probably switch off or fast-forward through those credits to get to the action.
Also, until movies, most people got their entertainment and fantasy from books. It was a reading culture. Even the opening of the movie was written about in order to tell us where we were...both the other movies, however, used film itself to convey that information. We didn't need to be able to read to learn that we were in the country, we were going to deal with both Upper Class (Bingham and D'arcey) and upper Middle class (the Bennets) people - and that it was probably going to be a love story with, no doubt, a few twists and turns.
The idea of a love story, a light plot and a little excitement was, on the other hand, conveyed to us in the first movie by music. Silly, light, completely forgettable music probably composed by one of the studio hacks [writers or musicians employed by the movie company to write or compose solely for movies. Not, in fact, actual professionals)
We also could judge, in those opening scenes, how the movie would be handled. In the first one no attempt was made to show reality. The women were all wearing "Hollywood" dresses, designed merely to show us that we were in another time and to show off the actor's figures. They were also all wearing make-up and had plucked eyebrows: very 20th century innovations [new things]. The fact that they twittered[the high-pitched noises birds make] together in a way that showed them to be rather silly and thoughtless was also quite unrealistic but audiences of the time would have just imagined that was the way women behaved in those long ago times.
The choice of opening the movie with this scene - with no leading male characters - very firmly set this as a chick-flick [movies made solely for women audiences], and also illustrated for us that, at the time this film was made, women writers were considered to be inferior to men and incapable of producing anything other than love stories. The fact that the book the film was based on is a Classic of English Literature would not have been taken seriously then.
The second movie, with Winona Ryder in the main role, reflected a different interpretation and also showed how the world had changed. To start with Ryder was not shown in a silly dress, wearing make=up or with her hair beautifully styled. She was, in fact, quite messy and untidy. She was also, quite sensibly for a country girl, wearing boots. As soon as she gets home the focus switches from her and we see her father and mother together. The father in this movie is untidy, a little eccentric, - exactly as the book would have us believe he was: a country gentleman without much money and with a household full of people to support.
The music was a recognisable piece of classic music showing that this movie was of a recognisable classic piece of literature. It did not advertise itself as a chick-flick but as a story which, for anyone not knowing the story, could go in any direction yet. It also made clear one of the most important points of the book: the poverty of the Bennetts was what set them apart. Money was one of the biggest causes of both pride and prejudice in England at that time and we were in no doubt that, while they may have been forced to live a certain life=style because of the class they were born into, they were, in comparison to others of their social class, poor.
However, this movie too was American. It reflected a modern American outlook and we realised we were in a fantasy land again. Ryder and the other merely behaved as modern Americans but were plonked down[put down rather carelessly] in their foreign setting.
With the final beginning, the BBC movie, we realised we were going to see not just a movie based on the book, but the book itself in visual form. The first sight of Elizabeth drew giggles from some of you: those horrible curls! Yet that is exactly what a young girl of the time was made to look like. She wasn't beautiful either: and nowhere in the book is Elizabeth described as beautiful. After all, realistically, how many people really are? Elizabeth's attraction in the book was not apparent at first to D'arcy: it was her character he began to love. So, we suspect, it will be in the movie.
Her clothes, too are authentic, as is the way a young English girl of her social class and time behaved and held herself. Not like Ryder's modern American 20th century girl who curls up on couches and walks like a labourer, but as a lady. Which is what the book is also about - the silly restrictions that were put on girls at that time.
In contrast, the two men, seen right at the beginning, were free to thunder around the countryside, racing on their horses, getting covered in mud, pleasing themselves and going where they wanted. The fact that Pride and Prejudice focuses on this inequality between the sexes from a woman's point of view is the whole reason behind the fact that it is regarded as part of our English heritage. That's what made it a classic. So, from the very first opening shots of the last movie we realise we are in good hands: we aren't going to see a chick-flick, or an American idea of an English book. At last we know we are going to see Pride and Prejudice, the movie.
I could see however, that some of you were disappointed. You had probably hoped that we would just watch a movie from the beginning to the end, and so were not very happy when we just looked at bits and pieces and you had to answer questions.
This class is, unfortunately Dramatic Criticism and not Watching Movies. The purpose is not only to tell you more about Drama - it's history and techniques - its to enable you to know the difference between a good and a bad movie and also to learn what the purpose is behind different movies.
You might still think that the purpose of a movie is purely entertainment. By looking at the way different movies are made and directed, by learning to "read" everything from the costumes to the scenery to the dialogue however, you soon become aware of the message behind every single movie that is ever produced. And, believe me, there is one. It is all part of the propaganda that is used to get us to think in a certain way. Hollywood itself has changed the behaviour and influenced the thinking of generations of people. If you want to make sure you are using movies (as recreation or entertainment or even education) you have to be able able to judge whether or not, instead, the movies are using you (to get you to think or act or simply accept a certain point of view)!
Nowhere have I ever been made more aware of the propaganda value of movies than here in China. For the majority of students, as well as the people in the shops and businesses, their whole idea of countries outside of China is based on American movies. So, for a start they think that every Western country is just like America: American products, American speech, American manners, American food - for them that is what everyone in the West is familiar with. Many people are shocked (and slightly disbelieving) when we (non-Americans) tell them that these movies are as "foreign" to us as they are to the Chinese.
However, the main propaganda value of these movies is that most Chinese people only see the "Block busters" or best seller - usually romantic comedies or movies about American High Schools or kids. Thus they think all foreigners are wealthy, live in large houses, drive big, shiny new cars, and wear beautiful clothes. Nothing wrong with that, you might think?
But it does have an effect: - it makes sure that everywhere foreigners go there are two prices for everything: a Chinese price and a Lou Wai price. Even street vendors will charge us 5 RMB for something that costs only 2RMB for everyone else!
But, most of all, these movies sell a fantasy world where everyone is young and beautiful and slim and falls in love forever. The fact that America itself has the largest proportion of fat people in the world, a divorce rate which now effects one out of every 2 marriages, and American cities have the highest percentage of Street People (homeless) than any other First World country is not reflected in the kinds of movies that make it to China. But it IS a good illustration of what I mean by propaganda: each of those movies is selling a fantasy world that hides the real problems.
So, to-day's lesson was about Beginnings. Every story or narrative in the world is constructed in the same way: it has a beginning, a middle and an end. And it is in the beginning of a movie that we first get an idea of what we are going to see: - another fantasy world of beautiful, happy people...or reality? We also get our first idea of the Directors own particular intention or idea; of what s/he himself thinks about life and what particular idea or interpretation s/he has and which s/he wants to pass on to us.
The first movie was the original old black and white movie that was made of the classic English story Pride and Prejudice. It taught us a number of things: We could tell it was an old movie - not just because it was made in the days before colour, but because the credits came on First. And they were very, very long. In the days when movies were a new form of entertainment; when they were a treat; when people actually got dressed up in their best clothes to go to a movie, putting the credits first added to the excitement and built up the anticipation. It all added to the experience.
To-days audiences, often watching at home with a remote control switch in their hand, would be bored senseless and probably switch off or fast-forward through those credits to get to the action.
Also, until movies, most people got their entertainment and fantasy from books. It was a reading culture. Even the opening of the movie was written about in order to tell us where we were...both the other movies, however, used film itself to convey that information. We didn't need to be able to read to learn that we were in the country, we were going to deal with both Upper Class (Bingham and D'arcey) and upper Middle class (the Bennets) people - and that it was probably going to be a love story with, no doubt, a few twists and turns.
The idea of a love story, a light plot and a little excitement was, on the other hand, conveyed to us in the first movie by music. Silly, light, completely forgettable music probably composed by one of the studio hacks [writers or musicians employed by the movie company to write or compose solely for movies. Not, in fact, actual professionals)
We also could judge, in those opening scenes, how the movie would be handled. In the first one no attempt was made to show reality. The women were all wearing "Hollywood" dresses, designed merely to show us that we were in another time and to show off the actor's figures. They were also all wearing make-up and had plucked eyebrows: very 20th century innovations [new things]. The fact that they twittered[the high-pitched noises birds make] together in a way that showed them to be rather silly and thoughtless was also quite unrealistic but audiences of the time would have just imagined that was the way women behaved in those long ago times.
The choice of opening the movie with this scene - with no leading male characters - very firmly set this as a chick-flick [movies made solely for women audiences], and also illustrated for us that, at the time this film was made, women writers were considered to be inferior to men and incapable of producing anything other than love stories. The fact that the book the film was based on is a Classic of English Literature would not have been taken seriously then.
The second movie, with Winona Ryder in the main role, reflected a different interpretation and also showed how the world had changed. To start with Ryder was not shown in a silly dress, wearing make=up or with her hair beautifully styled. She was, in fact, quite messy and untidy. She was also, quite sensibly for a country girl, wearing boots. As soon as she gets home the focus switches from her and we see her father and mother together. The father in this movie is untidy, a little eccentric, - exactly as the book would have us believe he was: a country gentleman without much money and with a household full of people to support.
The music was a recognisable piece of classic music showing that this movie was of a recognisable classic piece of literature. It did not advertise itself as a chick-flick but as a story which, for anyone not knowing the story, could go in any direction yet. It also made clear one of the most important points of the book: the poverty of the Bennetts was what set them apart. Money was one of the biggest causes of both pride and prejudice in England at that time and we were in no doubt that, while they may have been forced to live a certain life=style because of the class they were born into, they were, in comparison to others of their social class, poor.
However, this movie too was American. It reflected a modern American outlook and we realised we were in a fantasy land again. Ryder and the other merely behaved as modern Americans but were plonked down[put down rather carelessly] in their foreign setting.
With the final beginning, the BBC movie, we realised we were going to see not just a movie based on the book, but the book itself in visual form. The first sight of Elizabeth drew giggles from some of you: those horrible curls! Yet that is exactly what a young girl of the time was made to look like. She wasn't beautiful either: and nowhere in the book is Elizabeth described as beautiful. After all, realistically, how many people really are? Elizabeth's attraction in the book was not apparent at first to D'arcy: it was her character he began to love. So, we suspect, it will be in the movie.
Her clothes, too are authentic, as is the way a young English girl of her social class and time behaved and held herself. Not like Ryder's modern American 20th century girl who curls up on couches and walks like a labourer, but as a lady. Which is what the book is also about - the silly restrictions that were put on girls at that time.
In contrast, the two men, seen right at the beginning, were free to thunder around the countryside, racing on their horses, getting covered in mud, pleasing themselves and going where they wanted. The fact that Pride and Prejudice focuses on this inequality between the sexes from a woman's point of view is the whole reason behind the fact that it is regarded as part of our English heritage. That's what made it a classic. So, from the very first opening shots of the last movie we realise we are in good hands: we aren't going to see a chick-flick, or an American idea of an English book. At last we know we are going to see Pride and Prejudice, the movie.
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