Formalist Film Theory

Formalist film theory is a theory of film study that is focused on the formal, or technical, elements of a film: i.e., the lighting, scoring, sound and set design, use of color, shot composition, and editing. It is a major theory of film study today.

Ideological Formalism

Two examples of ideological interpretations that are related to formalism:

The classical Hollywood cinema has a very distinct style, sometimes called the Institutional Mode of Representation: continuity editing, massive coverage, three-point lighting, "mood" music, dissolves, all designed to make the experience as pleasant as possible. The socio-economic ideological explanation for this is, quite crassly, that Hollywood wants to make as much money and appeal to as many ticket-buyers as possible.

Film noir, which was given its name by Nino Frank, is marked by lower production values, darker images, underlighting, location shooting, and general nihilism: this is because, we are told, during the war and post-war years filmmakers were generally more pessimistic (as well as filmgoers). Also, the German Expressionists (including Fritz Lang, who was not technically an expressionist as popularly believed[citation needed]) emigrated to America and brought their stylized lighting effects (and disillusionment due to the war) to American soil.




http://www.film-philosophy.com/vol6-2002/n9wurgaft


https://www.facebook.com/pages/Formalist-film-theory/138100939544875#

Bordwell, David, "Film Art: An Introduction"; McGraw-Hill; 7th edition (June, 2003).
Braudy, Leo, ed., "Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings"; Oxford University Press; 6th edition (March, 2004).
Gianetti, Louis, "Understanding Movies"; Prentice Hall; 10th edition (March, 2004)

Adolphe Appia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolphe_Appia


David Bordwell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bordwell