When you ask someone why they "like" something, you sometimes get the response indicating that the person simply likes something because. Because..because what? The question of aesthetics of an object, a film, a person, is something I found myself exploring in more depth in my first year of studying film in the IB.
There are many things that I find myself drawn to because of its aesthetics. With perfectly symmetrical lines and the repetition of minimalistic patterns, comes a rather odd sensation experienced by the viewer. A sense of peaceful tranquility and satisfaction.
Artists, architects and film makers (cinematographers) aim towards communicating this sensation through their works. However, it is not only the visual aesthetics which can sooth the hasty mind of the stressed human. Aesthetics can branch out into all of the five senses, taste, touch, smell, visual; this idea of something being aesthetically pleasing is not owned by the creators of visual content.
The reason for this posts is due to my current IB Film Independent Study topic.
I have chosen to look at a specific aspect of film through the lens of film theory. "Christian Metz and the semiology of film" was the title of a task assigned to me by my film teacher. Upon further investigation into the theory of semiotics in film, I found myself opting to choose this for my IS.
If you aren't familiar with the requirements for this assessment, you probably wondering what on earth I'm on about. Don't worry, the sole focus of this post won't be the assessment, so to those of you who were worried about being throw into some in depth discussion on the Independent Study, don't be :)
The assessment is an A/V script of a documentary written for an audience of 15 year olds (because 15 year olds love watching documentaries about the semiotics of film..right?) The task states that students at higher level (thats me) have to analysis four films, ranging from two different cultures; forming their analysis based on the film history/theory they chose. I'm not 100% set on the four films I have chosen, but thats mainly just because I haven't done too much research into them.
These are the ones I'm planning on using:
1. Battleship Potemkin - (1925)
2. Moonrise Kingdom - Wes Anderson (2012)
3. Amélie - Jean-Pierre Jeunett (2001)
4. Dolls - Takeshi Kitano (2002)
The reasoning behind this film selection was partially due the suggestions my film teacher had given me.
Now to the actually point of all of this. My teacher and I were browsing youtube to find trailers of the films I was not familiar with, and only a few seconds into the trailer of Moonrise Kingdom I was amazed. This sensation of tranquility and satisfaction hit me like a wave of fresh air. My immediate reaction to the carefully composed, aesthetically pleasing mise en scène was genuine pleasure. The symmetry of the frame composition and the colors was just incredible.
I could have taken the majority of the frames in the trailer and individually printed them out as works of art in and of itself. It is exactly this display of meticulously framed shots lined up one after the other, which contributes to the aesthetically pleasing nature of the film.
This is what leads me to the relevance of choosing this film to analyse in my independent study. The idea behind the theory of semiotics in film, is that signs and symbols are communicated through aspects such as composition and framing, color and continuity. In turn, these symbols act as the components which eventually lead to the meaning of the film. Symbols and signs are the building blocks of film language. It just depends on the viewer's interpretation of these signs that make up their understanding of the visual of a scene. Subsequently linking to the meaning of what these signs represent, enabling the viewer to make sense of the visuals in context in relation to its meaning.
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