I'm following up on the mention of my free response made to a Recitation in my entry from earlier (that means read that other entry first so this makes sense to you). I'm posting this now for continuity and someone interested in film might actually learn something from reading it, who knows? Not sure if my citations are all where I need them to be, I'll work that out later before I print out a copy and turn it in to my ENGL 325 professor.
Peter Brunette is the Director of Film and Media Studies at George Mason University. On Wednesday night he gave a lecture on point of view in film. I found it very informative. I appreciated that he made frequent comparisons between film and literature; it made concepts for me much easier grasp. He explained that as it is in literature, first and third person are used in film. There are even a few examples of second person being used; he mentioned one of them as being Lady in the Lake, filmed back in the 1940's (Brunette 1 Oct. 2003). He didn't have a clip to share with us, but he described how second person point of view was achieved in it. You never see the hero unless he is looking into a reflective surface (when he sees himself). You see everything from his perspective, for instance, if he were about to be punched you would see the fist coming toward you. Brunette explained to the crowd that, "By its very nature, film is almost always in the third person" (1 Oct. 2003). Additionally, it is almost always set in the present, even when what we are shown is a flashback.
Brunette discussed what about a flashback makes it interesting: they begin in the first person and shift to the third after it has started. Brunette went on a slight tangent when he instructed his listeners to be constantly judging what they see in film because it doesn't offer a direct representation - it can be manipulated. According to him, it is an "iconic relationship" (1 Oct. 2003). Then he connected this thought back to what he had originally been saying with regard to flashback sequences: sometimes there is cheating when you are let to believe that the person experiencing the flashback saw something he couldn't possibly have seen.
Brunette spent considerable time explaining some important elements within the film grammar that everyone has to learn to accept in order to fully enjoy a film. Perceptual point of view (aka, perceptual subjectivity) is where a character looks outside the frame and there is a cut and you are shown what the he was supposedly looking at. This is a suggestion. A great example he gave of this is in old films featuring cowboys and Indians. It is intended to appear as if occurring simultaneously, when it actuality its two separate strips of film. Eye line matching is where you have a character looking in given direction (let's say up at a kite) and the director, or whoever, cuts to the corresponding angle (looking up at the kite). Steady cam is a large camera strapped to someone's back that is controlled by a gyroscope. It is used to show perceptual subjectivity. Subjective camera is when the camera shows how the character sees things, for instance when his perception is altered by intoxication he sees everything in double. According to Brunette, mental subjectivity is a basic thing in film that doesn't have quite as much importance in film as it does in literature (1 Oct. 2003). Films, like works of literature, rely heavily on narration. Brunette told the crowd that, "Character identification relies on this [narration] and star power and not so much on point of view" (1 Oct. 2003). He enhanced his discussion through the aid of some clips. They assisted me in seeing what was meant by all of these terms he had elaborated on verbally.
I very much enjoyed this lecture - I feel that I got a lot out of it - I'm seriously considering taking his introductory class to learn more about this field.