Niagara: Notes on Image and Portfolio Opportunity #3

 

Two crucial pieces of information to take from today's lecture on Image:
1) Image, in a vague sense, is that which names the lynchpin between speech and thought in their dissolution into the perception of language within the reader and the poet’s consciousness (this phenomenon of dissolution is certainly different for both reader and poet), and a similar paradigm can be applied to film in order to derive a critical sense of Image for the medium.
2) A study of Image is a building block that must be addressed, or considered at least, in any basic exegesis of a poem or, for our intents and purposes, a film.

So to begin to get the wheels turning about how to appropriate the language of literary analysis for use with film, let's turn to the movie we watched today, Niagara.

                   When we see Monroe, near the start of the movie, walking away from the camera, the bob of her hips that almost seems hyperbolic, is this an Image? The answer is a steadfast No. What we receive from this "shot" is just this: Monroe's character -- although, to say "Monroe's character" in this particular context certainly means Marilyn Monroe herself, as well -- is drop-dead sexy, consummately objectified. Instead, this Image is completed a few minutes later when Jean Peters turns to walk off camera, and the director frames her walking away, much as he did with Monroe. Now, take this shot of Peters out of context, and what is there? We see a dour, mild-mannered woman -- certainly attractive in her own right but not in the sense that Monroe is -- who is walking off screen, casually and without affect. But, brought back into context with the shot of Monroe, this is not how we react. In fact, many of us laughed. Why? We were suddenly made privy to the relationship and the discrepancy between these two women (the characters, certainly, but the actresses, too, in a meta-sense), Monroe as the pin-up and Peters as the moderate every-woman. I'm unsure whom the butt (no pun intended) of the joke is -- if the hyperbole of Monroe has been born bare, if it's the plainness of Peters, or if they are equally a part -- or if it is a joke at all; regardless, the Image is, in a sense, completed through this juxtaposition.
                   In class today, a question from the P.E.P.P. was quoted. It reads, “Is an image, in short, a kind of bearer of sensuous immediacy and presence, or a relationship formed by the conjunction of two different words and their associated vocabulary? Is it a mode of apprehension or a rhetorical device?” In the case of the walking women, the Image is the latter of both questions. It is a conjunction of parts and their own resonances that provide a new, slanted understanding or reaction. Image, in general, manifests in this fashion often (but not always) as a juxtaposition of two things. Sometimes this juxtaposition can be just as Niagara demonstrates -- an accentuation of the relationship between two physical things -- other times, in poetry, it can be a juxtaposition of a particularly descriptive passage with purposeful, lyric music, etc.
                   Lastly, something that may be a bit confusing about the juxtaposition of the walking women being called an Image is that the shots in the movie do not run together; they are not continuous as there is a break between when we see Monroe walking and when we see Peters. In our sense of Image, is it not static or, at least, fixed in some temporal framing? Or, can it just jump through time to make connections? Well, it did and does. This idea is one of the beautiful components of Image -- that it doesn't have, really, temporal restraints, that it can exist outside of time. More on this later.



Portfolio Opportunity #3 (To be made separate from the film responses):

                   Sadly, we did not get to finish watching Niagara today, but let's make the best of it. For credit as one of the five portfolio opportunities that you must complete, write a short screenplay (4-5 pages) that finishes the movie. In this screenplay, take into consideration not only the plot and the characters but also the imagery and thematics of the film leading up to the end. You are more than welcome to use this as an opportunity to "fix" something in the movie that troubled you -- for instance, you might want to give the bell-tower caretaker (who is the only Black character in the whole movie and by the movie's merit, possibly the only Black man in all of Canada) a larger role to play at the end of the film -- but, please, no spaceships, etc. So, more Raiders of the Lost Ark than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, please. This should be an exercise, in part, on emulation (or, well, approximation) not obfuscation. Please attach a single spaced page that details the images you decided to include as well as your reasoning behind why you concluded the film as you did.

Below are some excerpts from screenplays as to give you a general idea of what to aim for as far as formatting and style is concerned:

The Social Network
True Grit
Rabbit Hole
The King's Speech

Due 2/18