Film form: an argument for a functional theory of style in the individual film - Style in Cinema

Similarly, when we speak of the form of a film, this has overtones of the systematic - of there being some formula(e), or rule(s), or guiding principle(s) in operation. This connotation of systematicity is entirely lost in the descriptive account of film form, for it deals in the totality of relations of the film with no principle of selection. The functional account, by contrast, does connect film form to underlying motivations. In that sense, it preserves the intuition of systematicity, especially in cases where forms are co-ordinated hierarchically to secure overarching purposes.

Earlier we noted that a strength of auteurism is that it acknowledges the deep association between style and expression. This acknowledgment is equally a strength of the functional account, since displaying expressive properties or expressive content is a widely recognized point or purpose of films. Thus, formal analysis is often dedicated to disclosing the choices that make the manifestation or communication of expression possible in the individual film. At the same time, however, since not all films make expression their point or purpose, the functional account, as outlined above, is more comprehensive in its reach than analytic frameworks that would make form and expression necessarily co-relative terms.

The functional account of film form is dynamic in that it ties form to the motive force - the points and purposes - that explain a film's constellations of choices. In this sense, the functional account contrasts with the descriptive account, which might also be called the structural account, of the individual film. Because such accounts provide no inkling of the impulse behind the form of the film, they are static. Admittedly, the functional account is teleological. But it is not strange to treat objects of human design teleologically. We assemble such objects in order to fulfill certain purposes. In film analysis, the functional approach is sensitive to this feature; it assumes from the outset that films are the way they are as the result of human design. But this, it is seems to me, is not a problem. For there is no more reasonable nor powerful assumption with which to approach the question of the form of the individual film.(6)

Notes

1 Throughout this essay, I will be using the idea of form in the individual film and style in the individual film interchangeably.

2 The categories on this list and what follows are not intended to be exhaustive, nor are they mutually exclusive; sometimes some of them may overlap in various ways.

3 The concepts of universal style, period style, school style, and personal style are derived from Richard Wollheim's extremely useful essay "Pictorial Style: Two Views." I have added the concepts of genre style and style in the individual film to the list.

4 The alternative way of discussing film form, which is called the descriptive account in this portion of this essay, is extrapolated from Monroe Beardsley, chapter 4.

5 It is important to note, however, that even Bellour's methodology is less strenuous than the descriptive account, as I have stated it, since he advocates primarily tracking repetitions, whereas a full-blooded proponent of the descriptive account would call for an enumeration of all the relations between the parts of the film, not just repetitions (and differences), but more fine-grained ones such as relations of reinforcement, causation, and so on.