Week Three: Women Make Film Episode 3
Tuesday, September 15
Night Three: Conversation, Framing and Tracking
Two Airings on TCM: 8:00 PM and 10:45 PM
Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema Episode 3 wraps up how filmmakers put people into a film’s story world with chapter six on conversation. How people communicate, or not, brings them to life on the screen. Use of an object can focus the conversation or block it altogether. Conversations reveal the truth of characters’ lives.
Episode 3 pivots to the visual aspects of film-making with a chapter on framing. Classical framing is described as “an empty place in which you put stuff.” Other framing techniques rely on a series of spaces adjacent to the story or spaces for the action to enter into. Expressionism and extremism framing echo the world of painting.
Chapter eight examines tracking as the relationship between background and foreground. Tracking allows the viewer to take in the scale of surroundings often creating suspense for what is to come.
Complementary Film Schedule
Airing on TCM, times given in Eastern Time
9:15 PM – Harlan County U.S.A. (1976) directed by Barbara Kopple
12:00 AM – The Virgin Suicides (1999) directed by Sofia Coppola
1:45 AM – Loving Couples (1964) directed by Mia Zetterling
3:15 AM – Zero Motivation (2014) directed by Talya Lavie
5:15 AM –10 to 11 (2009) directed by Pelin Esmer
7:00 AM – Losing Ground (1982) directed by Kathleen Collins
8:30 AM – Strangers in Good Company (1990) directed by Cynthia Scott
Academy Assignment
For individual pondering or sharing via the site comments. Watch one of this week’s films focusing on the use of conversations or examine visual techniques of framing and tracking. Questions to consider:
- How did the filmmaker use conversation to reveal the film’s story world?
- What conversation in the film stands out for you and why?
- How was framing used to show individual emotion or the relationship between characters?
- Bonus: How did the Women Make Film conversation, framing or tracking chapter material influence how you watched this film?
Classic Couple perspectives will be shared before next week’s assignment so check back regularly.