Description
- Abstract:
- This study provides a conceptual overview of the filmed human figure as a variable object of systematic inquiry. The word “figure” and not “body” is used to specify something that is visible and exterior; to emphasize the relation of figure to ground; and to hint at the epistemological stakes involved in an object, the human figure, that one tries to “figure out.” Four guiding concepts are used to make sense of this object: the natural, the pictorial, the institutional, and the fictional. They are explored through critical-historical studies of four researchers in the history of film study, respectively: Ray Birdwhistell (US, 1918-1994), a scholar in the post-WWII communication sciences concerned with “kinesics” (i.e. “body motion communication”); Victor Freeburg (US, 1882-1953), an early film theorist and pedagogue who attempted to apply the perceptual psychology of beauty to films of the silent era; Hortense Powdermaker (US, 1900-1970), the cultural anthropologist who studied Hollywood production practices from 1945 to 1946 with a particular emphasis on the labor of actors; and V. F. Perkins (UK, 1936-2016), co-founder of the journal Movie, mise-en-scène critic, and theorist of film as fiction. In every case, the writer’s guiding premises and mode of observation are jointly considered to show how they result in a particular kind of film interpretation and, consequently, a particular kind of human figure on film. It is maintained that one and the same film, even one and the same figure, can satisfy all four concepts successively or simultaneously. Though these studies deal only with Anglo-American authors and, consequently, with Anglophone films from the period 1915 to 1975, it is hoped that the insights generated therefrom will have broader application in the study of cinema.
- Notes:
- Thesis (Ph. D.)--Brown University, 2017
Access Conditions
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- In Copyright
- Restrictions on Use
- Collection is open for research.
Citation
Watter, Seth Barry,
"The Human Figure on Film: Natural, Pictorial, Institutional, Fictional"
(2017).
Modern Culture and Media Theses and Dissertations.
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://doi.org/10.7301/Z0NK3CGS
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Modern Culture and Media Theses and Dissertations
Theses and Dissertations for the Modern Culture and Media department....