Collected Data
"It’s useful to think of a genre as a category having a core and a periphery."
Because I’m interested in how the storytelling strategies of popular cinema, the heist film is a natural thing for me to consider. Refreshing the genre may involve not just adjusting the story world—giving men’s roles to women—but also considering ways of handling two other dimensions of narrative: plot structure and cinematic narration. I argue in Reinventing that Hollywood filmmaking uses a sort of variorum principle, a pressure to explore as many narrative devices as possible within the constraints of tradition. For this reason, the prospect of Ocean’s Eight prodded me to think about how convention and innovation work in the caper movie. It’s also a good excuse to go back and watch some skilful cinema.
One last big job: How heist movies tell their stories
Read: "Pesky brats, adventurous ducks, and jiving swamp critters"
We never need an excuse to write about comic strips or comic books. We’re fans and, just as important, we think of them as having important connections to film. We’re particularly fond of classic funny-animal comics, from Krazy Kat (the greatest) onward. So I got a double dose of pleasure reading Mike Barrier’s Funnybooks: The Improbable Glories of the Best American Comic Books. It taught me a lot about the history of some favorites, and it set me thinking about some overlaps and divergences between film and graphic art.
Pesky brats, adventurous ducks, and jiving swamp critters
"Visual storytelling is seldom purely visual."
The result is nice case study in visual storytelling. It also indicates how even a pure instance needs non-visual elements to be understood.
Visual storytelling: Is that all?
Read: "Intensified Continuity: Visual Style in Contemporary American Film" by David Borwell
Today, most films are cut more rapidly than at any other time in U.S. studio filmmaking. Indeed, editing rates may soon hit a wall; it's hard to imagine a feature- length narrative movie averaging less than 1.5 seconds per shot.
(PDF) Intensified Continuity: Visual Style in Contemporary American Film
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