Culture shiz,Myth Legend, week 4

TIME
-Some of the way in which time is manipulated by the film text
-Why this manipulation occurs

I ROBOT
Cut between locations
D.W Griffiths
When car crashes, goes to slow mo.

Hopefully (for the film’s sake) you shouldn’t have noticed a thing.
So why is this important?

Films, plays etc utilise techs that r self-effeacing.
(The keeping of oneself out of sight or in the
background).

2. If the Form (i.e.: aspects of an object’s construction) is Effaced (i.e.: hidden)
and the conditions within and through which the Object is consumed are Elided
(overlooked and obscured), then the Content of the Object will appear to Occur
Naturally.
So this sequence should appear to unfold Naturally with each edit and transition,
each camera movement appearing to be Motivated by the demands of the
sequence.

Le Voyage Dans la Lune 1902
Existance Began 1895

Little editing

The trip to the moon is truncated. Why?
removes dead time.
(Dead to narrative)

we see rocket land twice.
Locating us.
Need to see twice

BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN
(Sergei Eistenstein, 1925)
Odessa steps sequence.

Eistenstein’s Theory of Montage (Editing): the collision of elements could manipulate
the audience and lead to the creation of ‘film metaphors’. This involves the
deliberately non-naturalistic cutting within a shot, to extend the time specific actions
take to occur.

Why?

Should we consider the relationship between
Subjective Experience and an Objective
View?

STRIKE
(1925)

Includes Nondiegetic material
• What happens to the film’s narrative during this moment?
• Are we confused by this moment in the film? Is it clear?
• What happens when a text acknowledges the presence of its audience?

Eistenstein

KILL BILL
How is Time Manipulated?
• What Techniques are Used?
• What Reasons Explain Their Use?
• Is the Audience (i.e.: you) Ever
Confused?
Most Importantly …
• When did we learn to ‘read’ these
techniques?
• What would happen if the film used
different techniques?

Pre school tv teaches
Object Permanence


Conventional: Relating to, or of the nature of, a convention, compact, or
agreement; settled by a convention or compact between parties.
Arbitrary - To be decided by one's liking; dependent upon will or pleasure; at the
discretion or option of any one; discretionary, not fixed; not based on the nature of
things.

Language is conventional and arbitrary

KEY POINTS
film involves manipulation of time

Manipulation occurs within the diegesis to foster a greater sense , protagonist, narraitive
I ROBOT
less freq, time manupulated outside diegesis of film.
STRIKE



STORYTELLING MYTH AND RITUAL
"Let my playing be my learning, and my learning be my playing.“
Johan Huizinga

Homo Sapiens
• Reasoning
• The Knowing human
• Capable of abstract reasoning, language, introspection and
problem solving
• Creating complex social structures
• Seeking to explain and manipulate natural phenomena
through philosophy, art, science, mythology and religion
• Have a marked appreciation for beauty and aesthetics
• Development of advanced tools and skills

Homo Faber
• Latin for "Man the Smith" or "Man the
Maker“
• It refers to humans as controlling the
environment through tools
• Man as the tool‐making animal
• Man the creator

Homo Ludens
Man the Player
ludis- latin = ludere - to play =Ludic - playful

play is older than culture
Animals know how to play
Civilisation has added no essential features to the general idea of Play.

Very Important Point
• Even in its simplest forms on the animal level, Play is more than a mere physiological
phenomenon or a psychological reflex. It is more than purely physical or biological
• It is a significant function – there is some sense to it

In play there is something 'at play' which transcends the immediate needs of life
Non materialistic quality

Attempts to determine function of play.
s
Attempts to determine the function of Play, its utility and place in the scheme of life
have been generally taken for granted
• Many tried to define its biological function
• Some explained as the discharge of superabundant vital energy
• Training for the young ones for serious work that life will demand later
• As the satisfaction of some “imitative instinct”
• Or simply a need for relaxation
• To exercise a faculty, to compete or to dominate
• A fiction designed to keep up personal value

All these hypothesis have one thing in common: They start from the assumption that play must serve something that is NOT Play.
• They only accept the existence of play in relation to something else that is not Play
• It would be perfectly right to accept all the explanations, but they are all partial
solutions of the problem
• They left out the central element of Play – Pleasure (FUN)


Why children play with pleasure?
whhy does the gambler lose himself in his passion?
Why is a huge crowd absorbed in frenzy in a rugby match?


In acknowledging play, we acknowledge mind.
Thinking is doing.

Play is diff. than ordinary life

We shall observe people’s action in play itself and thus
try to understand Play as a cultural factor in life

Now in Myth and Ritual the great instinctive forces of civilized life have their origin
• Law and order
• Commerce and profit
• Craft and art
• Poetry
• Wisdom
• Science
All are rooted in the primeval soil of Play


First thing children do before they play?
They set up rules