20 Camera Shot for 6 Seconds of Film
Remarks on cinema of the 90s. Excerpt from the book 'Movies of the 90s', by Jürgen Müller
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In the battle scene at the beginning of Ridley Scott's Gladiator (2000, p. 726), the cuts come so quickly that we get no intimation of the significance of a fragment of a second that decides between life and death. At the same time, we are aware of the sudden burst of speed in the sequence. First the legionaries are making meticulous preparations for the battle. Then on the command to attack, the film speeds up and takes us to the heart of the battle, where nothing is thought out in advance, and everything happens intuitively. Such scenes are an assault and a strain on the senses in equal measure. The viewer is all eyes, his intellect suspended.
Remake?
The video recorder has long been viewed as the enemy of the cinema, as though it would corrupt the pure science of film. In an ironic twist, there is an echo of this criticism even in a successful 1990s film. Nora Ephron's You've Got Mail (1998, p. 570) contains the caricature of an art critic who claims in a TV interview that, from a technological point of view, our world is out of kilter. Just think of the video recorder, he says: the idea of a video recorder is that you can record a TV programme if you're going out, but to his mind, the fact that you're going out shows that you don't want to watch the TV programme. As far as he is concerned, the only medium that can be justified is the radio. With his self-absorbed monologue, the critic tries to convince us that television and video are equally absurd. He maintains that both should be abolished. It becomes clear how serious his assessment is, however, when he casually asks his girlfriend whether she is actually recording the interview. Ephron's film may be dismissed as a romantic comedy, but even so the film poses the important question of the authenticity of the media. Can a love letter be taken seriously when it is sent as an e-mail? Do new technological means of communication make us lose our true personality? Are the contents only credible when they are written on paper? In a crucial scene, the heroine of the film clutches her copy of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, as though her identity might be concealed in this book. Thus the film not only tells a love story, but also constantly questions our relationship with the media. These are not just electronic devices that transmit or record specific information, and they are not neutral records of a technical nature. They are rather part of our identity, because we are not just what we stand for, but also what we like, read, listen to and watch.
Ephron's film bears a faint resemblance to Ernst Lubitsch's classic The Shop Around the Corner from 1940. Both films tell a love story where the couple get together only by a convoluted route. But fundamentally You've Got Mail does not have much in common with the classic film.
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
In the battle scene at the beginning of Ridley Scott's Gladiator (2000, p. 726), the cuts come so quickly that we get no intimation of the significance of a fragment of a second that decides between life and death. At the same time, we are aware of the sudden burst of speed in the sequence. First the legionaries are making meticulous preparations for the battle. Then on the command to attack, the film speeds up and takes us to the heart of the battle, where nothing is thought out in advance, and everything happens intuitively. Such scenes are an assault and a strain on the senses in equal measure. The viewer is all eyes, his intellect suspended.
Remake?
The video recorder has long been viewed as the enemy of the cinema, as though it would corrupt the pure science of film. In an ironic twist, there is an echo of this criticism even in a successful 1990s film. Nora Ephron's You've Got Mail (1998, p. 570) contains the caricature of an art critic who claims in a TV interview that, from a technological point of view, our world is out of kilter. Just think of the video recorder, he says: the idea of a video recorder is that you can record a TV programme if you're going out, but to his mind, the fact that you're going out shows that you don't want to watch the TV programme. As far as he is concerned, the only medium that can be justified is the radio. With his self-absorbed monologue, the critic tries to convince us that television and video are equally absurd. He maintains that both should be abolished. It becomes clear how serious his assessment is, however, when he casually asks his girlfriend whether she is actually recording the interview. Ephron's film may be dismissed as a romantic comedy, but even so the film poses the important question of the authenticity of the media. Can a love letter be taken seriously when it is sent as an e-mail? Do new technological means of communication make us lose our true personality? Are the contents only credible when they are written on paper? In a crucial scene, the heroine of the film clutches her copy of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, as though her identity might be concealed in this book. Thus the film not only tells a love story, but also constantly questions our relationship with the media. These are not just electronic devices that transmit or record specific information, and they are not neutral records of a technical nature. They are rather part of our identity, because we are not just what we stand for, but also what we like, read, listen to and watch.
Ephron's film bears a faint resemblance to Ernst Lubitsch's classic The Shop Around the Corner from 1940. Both films tell a love story where the couple get together only by a convoluted route. But fundamentally You've Got Mail does not have much in common with the classic film.
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