Coursework Six: Hollywood & the Holocaust - A Critique of Schindler's List

The Holocaust is regarded as one of the darkest events in human history, which remains in most of people’s consciousness. During the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, one of the diarists, Emmanuel Ringelblum questioned: “Does the world know our suffering? And if it knows, why is it silent?” The word ‘Holocaust’ simply means ‘complete destruction of life, usually by fire’, however since the Second World War, its meaning has been associated with the mass extermination of Jews by German Nazis (Rothlein 2011). Nazi policies towards Jews aimed at killing everyone, whose families were Jewish for the previous three generations.

Many people cannot imagine how terrifying it was to be Jewish during these times. Despite a large number of books that discuss the Holocaust, some people require more evidence on these events and in recent decades they have become a topic acceptable for film. Marc Ferro (cited in Loshitzky 1997)  claims ‘cinema and television modify our vision of History.’ Films are a powerful route into the collective mind and help to shape popular attitudes-social, political, and cultural. Moreover Doneson (2002) claims that ‘film can create and revive memory’, because when it uses ‘Holocaust’ as its main theme, it has a potential to educate, albeit often is an attenuated manner. Consequently an increasing number of filmmakers started to produce various films, which show different dimensions of the Holocaust.

Holocaust film can be defined as ‘a film that captures elements of the earliest persecutions of the Jews in Germany’ (Doneson 2002). Unquestionably the best example of a Holocaust film in the last thirty years is Schindler’s List, directed by Stephen Spielberg in 1994 that has been repeatedly given awards and has received seven Oscars at the Academy Awards ceremony in the same year (Cole 2002). Based on Thomas Keneally’s ‘Schindler’s Ark’, Spielberg’s film can be regarded as an enormous masterpiece, as he draws on ‘historical, literary and filmic representations of the “Holocaust” from the last thirty years’ in making Schindler’s List. Once it was released, almost 25 million Americans in the cinema and 65 million on television have seen ‘Schindler’s List’, which can suggest that the film had an important educative role among the society, because it provided important information on the Holocaust events in Europe (Cole 2002). 

Schindler's List is a film about an individual who has changed the course of history. The main character, Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), whose commitments prove that an average single person matters and can change a lot.  The film presents Schindler's transformation, which is the crux of the philosophical call for the responsibility, for an ethical response to the horror of the Holocaust. He is changing from being a loyal and money-driven Nazi industrialist to caring and sensitive person, who decided to build his own camp and to pay for each of Jew, thus sacrificing his own monetary desires and material needs (Kowalski 2008). 

Schindler’s List was produced without pointless special effects, which are a typical feature of Holywood films. Subsequently that film seems more ‘realistic’, which is further reinforced by the fact that Spielberg uses black and white pictures to recall the films and newsreels of the period with which people are familiar. These unique methods make this film more interesting and offer something new to the viewer, a film, which has a character of a documentary, which, via the implication of black and white, was actually filmed ‘at the time’.

Polish Girl screaming 'Goodbye Jews'

What is more, Schindler’s List presented a Holywood interpretation and representation of the Holocaust events in Poland under the Nazi (Doneson 2002). Surprisingly, very often people believe that Spielberg had a very good understanding of this topic (Institute for Historical Review), although there is considerable controversy because there are a number of scenes presenting Polish-Jewish relations with a negative connotation.  That can be illustrated by one of the scenes with Polish people throwing stones at the Jews walking to the new Ghetto, with one little girl screaming at the Jews  “GoodbyeJews!”  The clear implication, rooted in the girl’s evident anger and hate, is that Poles were happy, by and large, to see the Jews rounded up. Another scene has a young boy giving a throat-slitting gesture to a Jewish women looking out of a train that is soon to leave for Auschwitz. The implication is that Polish people were always and largely anti-Semitic and places them in a negative light. It is certainly true that some Poles collaborated with Germans in identifying Jews and there was widespread, low-level anti-Semitism in Poland (and there was across Europe and in the UK). However Spielberg chose not to present any examples of Poles helping Jews. For example, the director might have mentioned someone like Irena Sendler, who ‘arranged for Jewish children to be smuggled out of the Ghetto and for secure places to be found for them with non-Jewish families in Warsaw’ (Paldiel 1993). 

Likewise, Jewish groups were also involved in criticisms of the film not because it presented a moving story of a ‘righteous Gentile’ who helped Jews but rather because the film focused on and popularized an image of the Holocaust with hope and a relatively happy ending in the midst of horror.  In that sense, it was a very typical Hollywood/American film with a message of hope and triumph over disaster.  Jewish groups were quick to point out that that was in no way the normative experience.  For many people, the film represented the only chance to see the Holocaust being presented.  For some Jewish groups this was the problem – these people only saw a film with a message of hope not utter despair and death. Many of these groups argued that Schindler’s List in itself was not problematic if it was seen in a wider context.  In other words, they argued that viewers of this film of hope by Spielberg needed to be seen in the context of other darker films such as Shoah the 1985 French documentary by Claude Lanzmann which took eleven years to make and is largely comprised of interviews with survivors of Chelmno, Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Warsaw Ghetto and Treblinka. In particular it contains interviews from the only two people to survive the gas vans of Chelmno. 

Spielberg uses a various number of symbols through the play of colours in the film. Kowalski (2008) identified three scenes in the film, which used different colours to underline the meaning.  These relate to the candles ending the Jewish Shabbat at the start of the film, the girl in the red coat during a clearance of the Krakow Ghetto and the coda of the film when the actors meet survivors of the Holocaust whom they represented in the film.

Beginning Scene showing Jews praying together

At the beginning of the film, the Jewish prayer ends with a candle being snuffed out at the end of the Shabbat. The smoke dissolves into the smoke of a train, arriving with Jews in Krakow.  They are numerous Jews, and we see them in close-up as they approach the Nazi list-takers. Spielberg uses Levinas’s concept of the face in the film, which is a central encounter with otherness that derives directly from what he sees as the negative ‘othering’ of Jews by the Nazi (Kowalski 2008). Again there is an emphasis on the face as a way of representing a real person and, in particular, a good person.  The whole scene revolves around the juxtaposition of real people, via their faces, with their faceless names typed by the Nazis. Thus, their names, which give them identity are separated from their bodies (their faces) and reduced to meaninglessness in the long, endless list of others soon-to-die. Normally, the audience associates names with identity – a person is their name – but in the scene people (the nameless faces) are given names only to be stripped of them as their names are torn from them and put onto paper.  

Girl in a Red Coat-walking among people

Girl in Red Coat- dead

They become no more than letters on a page and, when one recalls the start of the scene, soon to be no more than smoke rising from the chimneys of the crematoria. The film literally comes to life (in bright, primary Technicolor) when Schindler looks over the crowds of the Ghetto and sees one loan girl.  She becomes ‘real’ for Schindler (and the modern audience) when her coat comes alive.  Although at a distance, the coat’s colour jumps from the screen and pulls the eye immediately to her in exactly the same way the audience is meant to understand that Schindler is drawn to her.  At the same time the audience cannot pretend that the red clearly reminds them of the blood which is soon to be shed.  The girl is quite literally wearing a coat drenched in her own blood.  The circle is neatly closed when the coat is seen on a pile of discarded clothing – still red but the audience is left surmising that the red may now indeed be blood.

The coda has echoes of the film Shoah in focusing on the survivors but these are a different type of survivor. According to Loshitzky (1997) Schindler’s List is about survival rather than death, redemption instead of annihilation. These people were saved by the action of an outsider, a ‘righteous Gentile’, a German.  The survivors in Shoah survived in spite of the outsiders (their guards), the Gentiles (who abandoned them) and Germans.  Also, in good Hollywood style, the focus on the survivors is shared with the really important people – the actors and stars of the film.  This blurs the boundary between the reality of the survivors and the dramatized ‘reality’ of the cinema.  Thus, the film fundamentally has a ‘happy’ ending.  This is, after all, Hollywood.  But, in reality, the Holocaust had no happy ending or endings.  Even those who survived were scarred with the horror of their memories, those they left in ditches, stuffed into gas chambers, consumed in crematoria.  The survivors remain haunted by their memories and the guilt of survivors – indeed that phenomenon was only truly identified after the Holocaust. 

Jewish real survivors along with actors

Others who were troubled by the film have be critical about the focus on a ‘righteous Gentile’ who started out as a committed Nazi and only eventually decided to help save some – while still benefiting from the labour of many.  Jewish organisations, among others, have argued that there were numerous other ‘righteous Gentiles’ who from the outset protected Jews often at the cost of their own lives.  Again, the implication is that the film – the media by which many will come to the Holocaust – presents a uniquely distorted version of the Holocaust.

To conclude, Schindler’s List has been a successful Holocaust film, as it was one of the first film productions that became a modern Holywood representation of Jews and Holocaust in the interwar Poland/Europe. Film delivers an interesting message, which shows that a single person (Oskar Schindler) can change the world and save many lives. Undoubtedly Spielberg has achieved his goals through the unique film style of the black and white documentary. Despite Spielberg’s professional approach to the subject matter, he should have considered making the film more objective and reshape the image of the Polish nation a which was presented as being in corporation with the Nazi Germans. Typical Hollywood ‘happy ending’ does not fit into the film, because for most of Jews, Holocaust did not mean the survival, but death, which in the film was not enough emphasised.

References:

COLE, T., 2000. Selling the Holocaust. New York, NY: Routledge. Available from Google Books [Accessed 23rd April 2013]. 

DONESON, J., E., 2002. The Holocaust in American Film. New York: Syracuse University Press. Available from Google Books [Accessed 23rd April 2013]. 

INSTITUTE FOR HISTORICAL REVIEW. 'Schindler's List': A Review. Available online:http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v14/v14n3p-7_Raven.html [Accessed 23rd April 2013]. 

IMDB. Liam Neeson. Available from: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000553/ [Accessed 23rd April 2013]. 

IMDB. Shoah (1985). Available from: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090015/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 [Accessed 23rd April 2013]. 

KOWALSKI, D., A., 2008. Steven Spielberg and Philosophy. Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky. Available from Google Books [Accessed 23rd April 2013].

PALDIEL, M., 1993. The Path of the Righteous. Gentile Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust. US: Library of Congress. Available from Google Books [Accessed 23rd April 2013].

LOSHITZKY, Y., 1997. Spielberg's Holocaust. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Available from Google Books [Accessed 23rd April 2013].

ROTHLEIN, L., KELLY, M., 2011. Holocaust.  Westminster, CA: Teacher Created Resources. Available from Google Books [Accessed 23rd April 2013]. 

Bibliography:

BARTOV, O., 2005. The "Jew" in the Cinema. From The Golem to Don't Touch My Holocaust. Available from Google Books [Accessed 23rd April 2013]. 

HALTOF, M.,2012. Polish Film and the Holocaust. Politics and the Memory. Available from Google Books [Accessed 23rd April 2013]. 

Indelible Shadows. Film and the Holocaust. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Available from Google Books [Accessed 23rd April 2013]. 

KERNER, A., 2011. Film and the Holocaust. New Perspectives on Dramas, Documentaries, and Experimental Films. London: The Continuum International  Publishing Group. Available from Google Books [Accessed 23rd April 2013]. 

Videos: 

Spielberg S., 1993. Schindler's List: "Candle Prayer" Scene. Available from YouTube [Accessed 23rd April 2013].

Spielberg S., 1993. Schindler's List: "Goodbye Jews"Scene. Available from YouTube [Accessed 23rd April 2013].

Spielberg S., 1993. Schindler's List: "Girl in a Red Coat" Scene. Available from YouTube [Accessed 23rd April 2013].

Spielberg S., 1993. Schindler's List: Trailer. Available from YouTube [Accessed 23rd April 2013].

Coursework Five: Chernobyl Diaries Review

It has become a recent trend in the filming industry that a lot of horror films are set in the mysterious setting of Eastern Europe. 'Chernobyl Diaries' can raise high expectations among horror film lovers, taking into consideration Oren Peli was the originator and screenwriter of the film, who is well known for his other horror film 'Paranormal Activity' (2007).

Unfortunately his fans may be very get disappointed after seeing his recent release, as  it is very predictable and simplistic. The reason may be that inexperienced Bradley Parker was directing this film. Main characters may overwhelm with their irrationality, because they make exactly the same mistakes that we would expect to see in similar low-budget horror film.

However  no other filmmakers came up with the idea to locate a film of this nature in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Abandoned Pripyat was an excellent choice. It was a city created for employees of the infamous Chernobyl Nuclear Plant who had worked there before the 1986 disaster. Certainly this film fulfils its main purpose- it is scary and cliffhanging!

In the foreground (on the right): Uri (Dimitri Diatchenko), background (from the left): Natalie (Olivia Dudley), Zoe (Ingrid, Bolso Berdal), Chris (Jesse McCartney), Michael (Nathan Philips),Paul (Jonathan Sadowski) and Amanda (Devin Kelly)

'Chernobyl Diaries' tells us a story of a group of young American tourists- Natalie (Olivia Dudley), Amanda (Devin Kelly) and Chris (Jesse McCartney) who decide to come to Europe to visit major tourist destinations, such as London and Paris. On their way to Moscow, they choose to stay for a few days in Kiev (Ukraine) to hang around with Chris's brother, Paul (Jonathan Sadowski). While all of them are having a dinner, Paul suggests a little bit of 'extreme tourism' in Prypiat, the depopulated and infected Ghost Town, not far from Kiev. Typical of a film in this genre, it does not take too long for him to convince the rest of the group that this is a great idea.

Consequently Paul recommends that the group  hire his friend, Uri (Dimitri Diatchenko), who is a local tour guide, and two Australian tourists,  Zoe (Ingrid, Bolso Berdal) and Michael (Nathan Philips) decide to join them. Once they arrive to Pripyat, they enjoy being alone in the dead city, while having a few adventures with the wild nature. Nevertheless once they finish sightseeing, they realise that someone has damaged their car engine and they cannot head back to Kiev. That gives them an impression that they are not alone in Pripyat and that someone with a sinister agenda is present also.

The first thing to note in this film is the stupidity and simplicity of the main characters. They do exactly what we expect them to do. It will be difficult viewing experience for the impatient audience, because some of the characters seem to be one dimensional. They are very repetitious, as they ask twice "What happened in Chernobyl?" and use classical statements that are overused in films like these, such as,  "Someone has to know we are out there". Instead of heading back to the zone border, they hang around Pripyat, which could have managed.

In case of 'radioactive native inhabitants'  we can see some similarities to films, such as: 'The Hills Have Eyes' (2006) and 'The House of Wax' (2005). For some people this idea of transforming victims of Chernobyl into ruthless monsters is offensive, however it is not the first film, which relates to the other tragedies, such as: 'Dead Snow' (2009), the film with Nazi zombies, which relates to the holocaust.

There are very few special effects in the film. One of them is a wild bear running through one of the flats and infected fish in the lake. Unfortunately we don't see any monsters throughout the film, because once they got attacked the camera was shaking so the audience see nothing. Although  that may be intentional so that people find it scary and evocative, the director fails to succeed.

It may seem to be a found footage film, because in a number of scenes  it looks like the film is recorded by hand. However it is just a short number, so there are maybe only three minutes or so. The use of camera is not similar to the one in  'Rec' (2007) or 'The Orphange' (2007) and hand-recording does not mean it is next quasi-film. The film simply just uses a number of wide shots and no classic way of cameraman recording. Empty and destroyed flats and  amusement give a flavour of the real Pripyat and Ukraine (which in reality the film was recorded in Serbia and Hungary). While the main characters are running away from 'the monsters' through the long tunnels, while caring a flash light, you may get a feeling of 'Silent Hill' or 'Resident Evil.'

Amanda (Devin Kelly) and Paul (Jonathan Sadowski)

The film gives a feeling of anxiety, because it uses constantly dark scenes, although we cannot see enough, monsters are all the time shaded and we barely see anything moving.

Zoe (Ingrid, Bolso Berdal)

Music was not a big part of the film, unless 'screaming' can be counted as a part of it.  However a good decision was to put Marilyn Manson song at the end credits.

'Chernobyl Diaries' was realised on 24th of May 2012 and now is available on DVDs and BluRay. The film misses uniqueness- from the beginning till the end of the film we know what is going to happen. However if you want to watch a tacky classic horror film, which is more amusing than actually scary, then this film is perfect for you.

References:



IMDB: Berdal Bolso Ingrid [online].[Accessed 9th April 2013].

IMDB: Diatchenko Dimitri [online].[Accessed 9th April 2013].

IMDB: Dudley Olivia [online].[Accessed 9th April 2013].

IMDB: Kelly Devin [online].[Accessed 9th April 2013].

IMDB: McCartney Jesse [online].[Accessed 9th April 2013].

IMDB: Parker Bradley [online].[Accessed 9th April 2013].

IMDB: Peli Oren[online].[Accessed 9th April 2013].

IMDB: Philips Nathan [online].[Accessed 9th April 2013].

IMDB: Sadowski Jonathan [online].[Accessed 9th April 2013].

MOVIEFONE, 2012. 'Chernobyl Diaries' Controversy: Charity Slams Found-Footage Film For Being Insensitive. Available from: http://aol.it/JL6FZY [Accessed 9th April 2013].

SNETIKER, M., 2012. 'Chernobyl Diaries' producers on why it's not 'Paranormal Activity. Inside Movies. Available from: http://bit.ly/JsELjc [Accessed 9th April 2013].

O'LEARY, J., 2012. A Glimpse at the 'Chernobyl Diaries.' The Daily Campus. Available from: http://bit.ly/ZdX5nu [Accessed 9th April 2013].


Videos:

Chernobyl Diaries, 2012: Bear Scene [online]. [Accessed 9th April 2013].

Chernobyl Diaries, 2012: Infected Fish [online]. [Accessed 9th April 2013].

Chernobyl Diaries, 2012: "Someone must know we are out there" [online]. [Accessed 9th April 2013].

Chernobyl Diaries, 2012: Trailer [online]. [Accessed 9th April 2013].

Coursework Four: Implicit and Explicit Ideologies in Film.

To understand what is the significance of ideology in film, it is crucial to understand its defnition.

There are many ways of defining that term, however John Hess defines ideology as 'a body of ideas, attitudes, values, and perceptions, as well as, actual modes of thinking (usually unconscious) typical of a given class or group of people in a specific time and place.'

Depending on a film, each ideology takes a different form either explicit or implicit (or both).

Turner says that not possible to be 'outside the ideology and think about it in a language which is itself free of ideology.' 

Ideology in film can be divided into two categories: 

Implicit: 'the protagonist and the antagonist represent conflicting values, but these are not dwelled upon.' The viewers accept the ideology as normal or as the way the world works. Therefore various ideologies exist in the film, while the audience does not see whole picture (Hughes).

Explicit: 'audience learns these ideologies mainly in adolescence/early adulthood. These ideologues can be learned from top down, such as those of scientific methodology, religion and political ideologies' (Van Dijk). 

Implicit ideologies can become explicit in case of conflict, struggle or resistance (Van Dijk).

Cinema has the power to embolden or represent powerful ideas, and this has its repercussions (Palmer).That is especially reflected in the communist cinematography, where the government controls its people through propaganda.

To gain a better understanding of the differences between implicit and explicit ideologies in film it is worth to look at the very extreme example of film productions in North Korea.  Its film industry is heavily influenced by its leaders,  Kim Jong-Il (who is already dead) and his successor, Kim Jong-Un, who successfully implement their ideology into these films. It is marked in one of North Korean documentary films: 'Kim Jong-Il and Stars.'

Jones says that 'Kim Jong-Il was 'the driving force behind the secretive nation's cinema industry.' It is reflected in his book- 'On the Art of Cinema', which does not suggest, but tells how to do a film. Kim Jong- Il reflected the Lenin's view that ' cinema is the most important of the arts' and he believed that cinema/film is powerful ideological weapon.

Implicit ideologies can be seen in two North Korean productions, such as: 'Comrade Kim Goes Flying' (2012)  and 2 cartoons: 'Clever Racoon Dog' and 'Anit-USA animation.'

'Comrade Kim Goes Flying' tells the tale of a young coal miner (Han Jong Sim) who cheekily defies authority to realise her dreams of becoming an acrobat' (Williams). The film presents implicit ideology, because it depicts the North Korea as a paradise for young passionates and therefore shapes people's positive perception of 'everyday life' in their country, because it tries to show the 'real' image of the North Korea, which in reality is only the imagination of the ruling party. In reality the country  experiences poverty and communist regime, which breaks the human rights.

The next examples,  'Clever Racoon' and 'Anti USA animation' are cartoons broadcasted for the North Korean children. Both cartoons are implicit and explicit (because primarily they are meant to entertain their audience, but unconsciously they try to teach children to hate the U.S.A). To achieve that they use 'violence' and 'weapon' as the main message to reinforce North Korean's willingness to join the army. Nowadays, North Korea maintains 'one of the world's largest standing armies and militarism pervades everyday life.' It suggest that these cartoons remain a political ideology, which effectively influences their young audience.

Finally, 'North Korea Exposses Western Propaganda' uses explicit ideology, because it uses propaganda as a political ideology. Propaganda provides "the audience with a comprehensive conceptual framework for dealing with social and political reality" (Jowett). This documentary presents the Western world from the North Korean dimension in a negative, which consequently ensures their audience that the rest of the world is worse than them. 

To summarise, cinema is an ideal political tool, which can be used to control the society through various ideologues. North Korea is the last remaining country with a strong communist regime and personality cult (Juche ideology), which became a national ideology. Its cinema provides excellent examples of the implicit and explicit ideologies, which uses various techniques to present the ideology in film's framework.

References:

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL USA. North Korea Human Rights [online]. Available from: http://bit.ly/ZTAWJE [Accessed 9th April 2013].

CRISIS WATCH NETWORK. North Korea weapons aftermath. Available from: http://bit.ly/16QMcbO [Accessed 9th April 2013].

JONES, S., 2012. A Cinematic Revolution: North Korea's Film Industry [online]. Asian Global Impact. Available from: http://bit.ly/17qPuW4 [Accessed 9th April 2013].

JOWETT, G., O'DONNELL, V., 2012. Propaganda and Persuasion [online]. Los Angeles; London; New Delhi; Singapore; Washington: Sage Publications. Available from: http://bit.ly/157SR52[Accessed 9th April 2013].

LEE, G., 2003. The Political Ideology of Juche. Stanford University Journal. Available from: http://stanford.io/QrAezr [Accessed 9th April 2013].

HESS, J., 2005. Film and Ideology. Jump Cut. A Review of Contemporary Media [online]. Available from: http://bit.ly/10TaxdN[Accessed on 9th April 2013].

HUGHES,C. Film and Ideology [online].Washington State University.Available from: http://bit.ly/YcPTVo [Accessed 9th April 2013].

PALMER, L., 2011. On Cinema and Ideology. Cultural Warrior [online]. Available from:http://bit.ly/hH0eQF [Accessed 9th April 2013].

TURNER, G., 2006. Film as Social Practice. 4th edition. [online]. Abington; New York: Routledge. Available from: http://bit.ly/10LTueD [Accessed 9th April 2013].

VAN DIJK, T., 2006. Ideology and discourse analysis [online]. Journal of Political Ideologies. 11(2), pp. 115-140. Available from: http://bit.ly/YLie8W [Accessed 9th April 2013].

WILLIAMS, S., 2013. Lights, camera, censorship: inside the North Korean film industry. The Telegraph. Available from:http://bit.ly/WzvHPa [Accessed 9th April 2013].

Videos:

DPRK Cartoon- Clever Racoon Dog. Available online [Accessed 9th April 2013].

DPRK Documentary: Kim Jong-Il and Stars. Available online [Accessed 9th April 2013].

Comrade Kim Goes Flying. Available online [Accessed 9th April 2013].

North Korea Animation against USA Imperialism Invasion. Available online [Accessed 9th April 2013].

North Korea Exposes Western Propaganda. Available online [Accessed 9th April 2013]. 

Coursework Three: Dominant versus Counter Cinema: Comparison

Contemporary cinema is significantly dominated by Holywood films, which seem to continue their success until today. Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson claimed that during the period between 1917 and 1960, the filmmakers have created a distinctive style (so called 'Holywood style'), which has a pragmatic character, because of its global dominance. They also mention that all filmmakers face a decision regarding which way to go, either to accept the 'Holywood style' and follow it or subvert it consciously.

Peter Woolen makes here a point between these two different kinds of filmmakers by defining them as belonging to either dominant or counter cinema. Both of them are characterised by seven features, which help to identify the differences between both cinemas. In case of dominant cinema, he calls them the  'seven deadly sins' or in counter cinema - 'seven cardinal virtues'. 

To help to understand the difference between these two approaches, three examples of films are used to illustrate that: 'Halloween' (1978) directed by John Carpenter and ' The Silence of the Lambs' (1991) directed by Jonathan Demme as the classic Holywood films and 'Inglorious Bastards' (2009) directed by Quentin Tarantino as the one that subverts that classical style.

Holywood Classic Film   versus     Auteur Film                                                        (Domiant Cinema)                    (Counter Cinema)

1. Narrative transivity  versus  narrative intrasivativity 

The main difference here is that films from dominant cinema have a more 'straightforward' structure than the counter cinema films, as they use the casual chain: exposition, complication and resolution. This is achieved through the continuity style and its editing techniques. In case of counter cinema films, they challenge the continuity editing, as they tend to use episodic construction' and it very often provides rhetoric, rather than narrative. 

In 'the Silence of the Lambs' the director has based his techniques on Alfred Hitchock through the cross-cuting technique. To get a better idea of this, one of the scenes in 'Halloween' illustrates this. While we see  Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) sitting in a class and then we are moved to a scene with Tommy Doyle (Brian Andrews) leaving his school, which happens in the same time as the previous one. The opposite pattern can be noticed in 'Inglorious Basterds' where audience is moving in time from scene to scene. 

2. Identification versus estrangement 

In Dominant Cinema, the viewers can establish an emotional relation with the character and therefore identify themselves with them. In case of Counter Cinema, it is connected with the character's alienation and therefore it is distancing the viewers from them.

It is worth to note that the filmmakers use the ‘point of view’ shot to create audience identification with characters in the film.At  the beginning of ‘Halloween’ the audience can see through the eyes of the Michael Myer’s eyes, while he commits his first murder on his older sister and then the camera draws back at the end of the scene to deliver the final shock, the ability to see the children’s eyes from the other perspective, after he killed. Similarly, in ‘Silence of the Lambs’, the sequence of the serial killer 

stalking Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster).

An opposite example is reflected in the final scene in the 'Inglarious Basterds', which does not let the viewer to identify with one person.

3. Transparency versus foregrounding

Transparency is very typical for the classic Holywood films, as the film is a seamless flow of images, which creates a fantasy product, someone's fantasy. To achieve that, filmmakers use a various of techniques to destroy the sense of allusion. In opposite to dominant films, counter cinema concentrates on the production of meaning, as 'the image is given a semantic function within a genuine iconic role'.

In the examples of the Dominant cinema, viewers do not consider these stories as allusion and they easily get absorbed by them. In 'Inglorious Basterds' the filmmaker concentrates on the semiotic signs, which may be understood differently by the audience.

4. Single digesis versus multiple diegesis 

Simplistically saying in Hollywood films everything belongs to 'one world' even if they include such moments as travelling on the other planet, although in case of counter cinema, they tend to have 'more than one world', which is done by using a' film within a film.'

In case of 'Halloween' everything takes place in the same fictional city-Haddonfield and 'Silence of the Lambs', the films take in Quantico, Virginia. 'Inglorious Basterds' takes place during the Second World War and uses a previously mentioned feature by using: the film 'Nation's Pride' (directed by Eli Roth) . 

5. Closure versus aperture

Dominant cinema films are self contained objects and they are harmonised within its own boundaries and Counter Cinema films tend to use such methods as; pastiche, intertextuality or various quotations.

In this case, both examples from dominant cinema differ from each other, as 'Halloween' is the only self-contained film, which was the inspirtation for the other filmmakers, who made its remakes. Although 'The Silence of Lambs' is based on Thomas Harris's book (1988), which questions its belonging to the classic Holywood films.  In 'Inglorious Basterds' the use of intertextuality is very visible, as it inspires and uses the concepts from such films as: 'The Sound of Music' (1965), 'The Dirty Dozen' (1967),  and 'Inglarious Bastards' (1978).

6. Pleasure versus unpleasure 

Holywood films's aim is to entertain their audience and it does not require them to 'interpret' the movie too much, wherea counter cinema tends to provoke their audience and they may create different interpretations of the film.

Undoubtedly, 'Halloween' and 'The Silence of the Lambs' aim to entertain the viewer in many ways, as they easily absorb viewer's attention. Similarly 'Inglarious Basterds' easily entertains the audience, although it uses many provocative scenes, which lead to different interpretations and may not always 'entertain' the audience.

7. Fiction versus reality 

Classic Holywood films tend to depict the fictional characters and the world surrounding them, where 'the oppositional cinema' tends to present something 'real' and has some connection with the real world.

Despite this, all the examples of dominant cinema and counter cinema present fictional events, the 'Inglorious Basterds' relate to the Second World War history by various means, such as the previously 

mentioned reference to Eli Roth's documentary.


To summarise, filmmakers tend to choose either one of the approaches in creating their films, although sometimes it seems that certain features of the films suggest that they both conform and subvert the classic Holywood standards and techniques.



Videos:

Dirty Dozens (1969): Trailer. Available online from YouTube
[Accessed on 3rd of March 2013]

Halloween (1978): Trailer. Available online from YouTube
[Accessed on 3rd of March 2013]

Halloween (1978): Various Scenes. Available online from YouTube 
[Accessed on 3rd of March 2013]

Halloween (1978): Opening Scene. Available online from YouTube
[Accessed on 3rd of March 2013]

Inglorious Basterds (2007): Trailer. Available online from YouTube
[Accessed on 3rd of March 2013]

Inglorious Basterds (2007): Final Scene. Available online from YouTube
[Accessed on 3rd of March 2013]

Nation Pride: Behind the Scenes. Available online from YouTube
[Accessed on 3rd of March 2013]

The Silence of the Lambs (1991): Trailer. Available online from YouTube
[Accessed on 3rd of March 2013]

The Silence of the Lambs (1991): Scene. Available online from YouTube
[Accessed on 3rd of March 2013]

References:

Definitions from Goldberg's website [Accessed on 3rd of March 2013]

Demirbas, Y., 2008. Towards New Understanding of Games: Auteur Game Criticism. Available online from a website.
[Accessed on 27th of February 2013]

Dominant Cinema and Counter Cinema website [Accessed on 27th of February 2013]

FAQ For 'The Silence of Lambs' website [Accessed on 27th of February 2013]

Film Lesson Plans website [Accessed on 27th of February 2013]

Fower, C., 2002. The European Cinema Reader. London: Routledge.
Available online from Google Books [Accessed on 27th of February 2013]

'Inglorious Basterds' Analysis website [Accessed on 27th of February 2013]

More Helpful Film Vocabulary website [Accessed on 27th of February 2013]