Ideology Net

Ideology • Define ideology

Ideology • A body of ideas reflecting the social needs and aspirations of an individual, group, class or culture • These are present in any human enterprise including filmmaking

Ideology • Art to give pleasure vs. art to teach – Examples • • • •

Documentary Propaganda Commercials Pretty Woman

Ideology • Even the most lighthearted film has an ideological perspective - one side is right, more attractive than the other

Ideology • What varies in films is how explicit the ideology is presented

Leni Riefenstahl directing Triumph of the Will

Ideology • Neutral – Entertainment for entertainment’s sake

Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle

Ideology • Implicit – Slanted but nobody spells out the moral of the story – Must infer what characters stand for – Majority of films

Splash

Ideology • Explicit – Job is to teach and persuade besides entertain

Ideology • Stars can tell us what the value system of a film is

Dirty Harry Training Day

Ideology • Left - Center- Right

Philadelphia, Cinema Paradiso & “Rambo

Ideology • Left – – – – – – – –

Collective and communal Human behavior is learned and can be changed Flexible in judgments Religion & sex are private - often skeptical or critical of organized religion Future = hope Cooperative effort to make progress Identify with poor and disenfranchised - romanticize gangsters & outsiders Global perspective

Ideology • Right – – – – – – – – –

Emphasize the difference among people - respect authority Character is inherited Absolute in judgment Religion accorded privileged status Veneration of the past Open market and competition as opposed to collective effort Identify with the establishment Patriotic Family is sacred

Ideology • Center – Can learn from both sides

Cinema Paradiso

Ideology • Other factors: – Culture

Censored in the Middle East: Syriana & Brokeback Mountain

Ideology • Other factors: – Culture

Husbands and Wives & Madea’s Family Reunion

• Other factors:

Ideology

– Religion

The Last Temptation of Christ, & The Chronicles of Narnia & The Passion of the Christ

Ideology • Other factors: – Ethnicity

Ideology • Other factors: – Feminism

Thelma & Louise

Ideology • Other factors: – LBGT Sensibility

As Good As It Gets, The L Word, The Talented Mr. Ripley & To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar

Ideology • Tone – Manner of presentation and general atmosphere

Elf

Ideology • • • •

Acting style Genre Voice-over Music

L.A. Confidential & Battle of Algiers

Ideology • • • •

Acting style Genre Voice-over Music

Goodfellas & Dances with Wolves

• • • • • • • • • • • •

Ideology

Degree of explicitness? How to tell the good guys from the bad? Use of stars? Cinematic techniques? Is protagonist left, center or right? Cultural values? Ethnicity? Religion? Sex? Women? Genre conventions? Does the film reinforce the character’s beliefs or mock them?

Ideology •Network, 1976 •Directed by Sidney Lumet & written by Paddy Chayefsky, both of whom worked extensively in television - not a satire according to them •Film starts out looking like a documentary and get “slicker” as it goes along •United Artists thought the film “too controversial” but ended up coproducing it w/MGM •One of two films to win three Oscars for Acting - also won Best Screenplay •Peter Finch’s role declined by Gene Hackman & Henry Fonda