Form and style (Homework 4)

Form and Style

1. What is the term form in the context of form and style?

The term ‘form’ in the context of form and style is used to denote the shape or mode in which realist texts exist but also refer to the ‘arrangements of parts’.

2. What does the term style refer to?

‘Style’ refers to the aesthetic devices used by film makers and the artistic choices they make.

3. What are the four levels of social realist form to be considered here?

Social realism is a form of realism, it is different as in it focuses mainly on British cinema including characters that are linked to a place or environment. The next conception of form is the variety of artistic forms which employ social realist practices and techniques. Another conception is for some film theorists is that social realism is a ‘form’ is purely a way to distinguish from fantasy, experimental film, animation… The final form is social realist texts are structured in the way that makes them differ from mainstream texts for example the narrative structures ion social realist texts tend to operate episodically and that the future is rarely bright.

4. What do form and style refer to?

Form and style refer to elements within the texts, though they can be informed by practice, politics and content.

5. What is the main purpose that social realist texts work towards?

Social realist texts work towards extending the representations in art and popular culture of previously under-represented groups and deal with issues and problems mainstream cinema has shied away from or avoided.

6. What are the arguments for whether any distinction should be made between the television and film and social realism?

For some like James Park, British cinema has failed because its ambitions are too small, and too televisual. For John Hill any distinction between television and film might be abandoned since all cinema has become dependant on television and video for funding and revenues.

7. Why is television an important medium for social realist texts?

Some film maker see television as an important medium for social realist texts as television is a widely popular way of viewing the realist texts and gives the film maker a chance to show the newly growing realist texts. For Ken Loach part of the importance of the Wednesday play season was precisely because it was on television, directly after the news.

8. What was Loaches statement? 

Loaches statement was “we are very anxious of our plays not to be considered dramas but more continuations of the news”.

 

Style

9. What is ‘style’ in the terms of British social realism?

British social texts were associated with exhibiting a distinct preference for content over style , this might be considered ‘naturalism’ to some.

10. What is meant by the label ‘Kitchen sink’?

The ‘kitchen sink’ is a term to describe their perceived drab representations of working settings and characters. 

11. What are social realist texts described as?

Social realist texts are often described as ‘gritty’ a term which can describe the surface realism of the landscapes in which characters inhabit.

12. What is meant by the term ‘sociological realism?

Sociological realism privileges a documenting of situation of events and a style of social realism sometimes referred to as ‘poetic realism’.

13. What did film critic Roger Manvell call ‘industrial romanticism’?

According to Roger Manvell ‘industrial romanticism' was the poetic realism of the British new wave films transforming the scarred industrial landscapes of northern England.

14. What was the poetic realism of Anderson, Richardson and Reisz influenced by?

The poetic realism of Anderson, Richardson and Riesz was influenced by the work of Humphrey Jennings, whose own work is a good example of what Andrew Higson sees as ‘an undercurrent to the educative sociologistic tendency within the documentary movement which acknowledged and foreground the aesthetic aspects of the texts’.

15. What was the outcome of social realist styles becoming involved with film?

Social realist style has been employed across a range of genres, for example, horror, comedy, and science fiction, and some of the techniques are consequently part of mainstream cinema, such as hand-held techniques, exemplified and represented in the film Jaws.