ENG 178: Introduction to fi lm

studies

Reading
Bong Joon-ho’s
Parasite (2019)
with Dr Dawid de
Villiers

Aims:
- Increasing your awareness of how films work as texts.
- Expand or consolidating your grasp of the
terminology used to discuss films.
- Developing your ability to analyse filmic texts by
engaging with Bong Joon-ho’s powerful film, Parasite.
Whom to contact:
- Questions concerning Film Studies and Parasite: Dr Dawid de Villiers ([email protected])
- Questions concerning Film Studies and the short films: Dr Wamuwi Mbao ([email protected])
- Questions concerning English 178: Dr Wamuwi Mbao ([email protected])
- Don’t forget your tutor!

What to watch:
- Parasite (available on SUNLearn) Things to know
What to read:
- All notes (see “Film Terminology” document) and slides provided
- Brzeski, Patrick. “Making of ‘Parasite’: How Bong Joon Ho’s Real Life Inspired a Plot-Twisty Tale of
Rich vs. Poor.” The Hollywood Reporter 8 November 2019.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/making-parasite-how-bong-joon-hos-re
al-life-inspired-a-plot-twisty-tale-rich-poor-1252015/
.
Other resources:
- Park, Minju. “A Guide to Korean Cultural Details in Parasite.” https://fluentkorean.com/parasite/.
- Park, S. Nathan. “‘Parasite’ Has a Hidden Backstory of Middle-Class Failure and Chicken Joints.”
Foreign Policy 21 February 2020.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/21/korea-bong-oscars-parasite-hidden-backstory-middle-class-c
hicken-bong-joon-ho/
.
More things to
know

NOTE 1: For your tutorial this week, watch at least the first 8
minutes of the film and work through the tutorial worksheet on
SUNLearn before class. You will be discussing the opening
scenes in more detail in your tutorials, so ensure that you take a
copy of the worksheet to class with you.

NOTE 2: Since Monday 5 August follows a Friday timetable, the

Parasite lecture for that week will take the form of a PowerPoint
presentation with voice notes, uploaded to SUNLearn.
I don't care about the subject
matter; I don't care about the
acting; but I do care about the
pieces of film and the photography
and the sound track and all of the
technical ingredients [...]. It wasn't
a message that stirred the
audiences, nor was it a great
performance [...]. They were
Alfred Hitchcock; interview with Francois
Truffaut,by
aroused 1962
pure film. (282-83)
 Basic stages

Preproduction: planning and Basic elements

(See Roberts and Wallis)
preparation

Mise-en-scène
Production: actual shooting of the What is placed in front of the recording
equipment (e.g., the camera).
film on the sets, at the locations, and
with the actors prepared during
Cinematography
preproduction How the camera is set up and what it does
during filming.

Postproduction: involves the editing

of the footage accumulated during Editing
How the (selected) recorded material is
production arranged and combined, manipulated,
modified and supplemented.
 Basic elements
Debating the terminology

Robert Spadoni, in A Pocket Guide to Analyzing Films, arranges the discussion of the elements as
follows: mise-en-scène, cinematography, editing and sound.

Barsam and Monahan, in Looking at Movies: An Introduction to Film, point out that, “[a]s a
scholarly matter, some critics and instructors, including us, consider sound to be an element of
mise-en-scène. Other scholars consider mise-en-scène to be only the sum of visual elements in a
film. Because of its complexity, we will discuss sound separately” (165). Moreover, they also
treat acting as an element onto itself, rather than as an aspect of mise-en-scène.

James Monaco, in How to Read a Film: Movies, Media, Multimedia, argues that “[t]hree questions
confront the filmmaker: What to shoot? How to shoot it? How to present the shot? The domain of
the first two questions is mise-en-scène, that of the last, montage” (179).

The Media Insider identifies “five key elements of film,” namely cinematography, editing, mise-
en-scène, performance and sound (https://www.youtube.com/live/Hrp2azKjGUI).
 Mise-en-scène
• “[M]eans literally ‘placed on stage’”; i.e. “what is to be filmed” (Roberts & Wallis
3)

• “Everything you see on the screen was put there for a reason: to help tell the story.
In the critical analysis of movies, the term refers to the overall look and feel of a
movie—the sum of everything the audience sees, hears, and experiences while
viewing it. A movie’s mise-en-scène subtly influences our mood as we watch, much
as the décor, lighting, smells, and sounds can influence our emotional response to a
real-life place.” (Barsam and Monaham 164-65)

• The elements of mise-en-scène are:

1.setting
2.set design & props
3.costume & make-up
4.figure (a thing/person that moves), expression and movement (e.g. acting)
5.lighting
6.diegetic sound (all sound emanating from the world represented on screen,
incl. dialogue)
Cinematography

• “literally: writing in movement”; “how it is filmed” (Roberts & Wallis 3)

• “The shot is defined as a single, continuously exposed piece of film—

however long or short—without any edits or cuts” (Roberts & Wallis 24).
A take is one attempt at capturing a satisfactory shot (i.e. from “Action!”
to “Cut!”).

• The most important question facing the cinematographer is how to

frame the shot, i.e. what to include and what to exclude.

• Framing involves the way in which mise-en-scène is shot; it focuses our

attention on certain things and excludes others, and often reinforces
composition. Framing can be closed or open, which Monaco relates to
“the filmmaker’s attitude toward the limit of the frame” (185).
• Note: the term frame also designates the smallest unit of
a shot, of which there are typically 24 in 1 second of film;
when printed as a photograph it is called a still.
Cinematography Framing
The Shining (Dir. Stanley
Kubrick 1980)

Closed form Combination

(predominantly closed)
Cinematography Framing
Pulp Fiction (Dir. Quentin
Tarantino 1992)

Open form
 Hitchcock directing The
Mountain Eagle, c. 1926
Cinematography Shooting (Auiler 450)

Shooting (producing shots) involves making

the following decisions with regard to framing:

• the relation of framing to the

composition of the mise en scène
(e.g. open or closed)
• camera distance (see static shots
relating to distance)
• camera angle
• camera height
• focus (deep or shallow) and lens type
• camera point of view (with reference
to cinematic conventions)
• camera movement (see mobile shots)
Shooting Parasite’s second scene:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/making-
parasite-how-bong-joon-hos-real-life-inspired-a-plot-twisty-tale-rich-
Cinematography Distance

Static shots relating to distance include

• extreme long shot (often an ‘establishing’ shot – to set
the scene)
• long shot – includes full body of figure(s) and some of the
surroundings
• medium long shot – one or more figures, usually from
the knees up, with some background; the two-shot clarifies
figures spatial relationship;
• medium shot or mid-shot – usually from the waist up;
registers facial nuances;
• medium close-up – from middle of chest to top of head
(usu. one or two figures)
• close-up – typically, from a ‘head and shoulders’ to ‘chin
to eyebrow’
• extreme close-up or detail– tighter than a close-up
 Dune (Dir. Denis Villeneuve
2021)
Cinematography Distance

Psycho (Dir. Alfred Hitchcock 1960)

long
shot

Rear Window (Dir. Alfred

Hitchcock 1954)

extreme long
shot medium
long
shot
 Cinematography Distance

Psycho (Dir. Alfred Hitchcock 1960)

close
up Get Out (Dir. Jordan
Peele 2017)
Un chien andalou (Dir. Luis Bunuel 1929

medium shot
extre
me
close
 Dutc Modern Times (Dir. Charles Chaplin
h
Cinematography Angle angl
1936)

Camera angles include: e

• eye level – the camera is level with the action (this
angle tends to be the most neutral)
• high – the camera is above the action, looking down at
it.
• low – the camera is below the action, looking up at it.
• canted (Dutch angle) – the camera is canted over to
one side
Metropolis (Dir. Fritz Lang Blade Runner (Dir. Ridley Scott
1927) 1982)

high low
angl angl
Cinematography Depth of fi eld

Citizen Kane (Dir. Orson Welles The Shining (Dir. Stanley

1941) Kubrick 1980)

deep focus
 Cinematography Depth of fi eld

shallow depth of field

Kill Bill Vol. 1 (Dir. Quentin

Tarantino 1992)

The Silence of the Lambs (Dir. Jonathan

Cinematography Point of view

Shots relating to point of view include:

• point of view shot – the camera assumes the point
of view of a particular character, or group of
characters, in the film.
• omniscient shot – the camera does not adopt the
point of view of any recognisable character in the
film; it presents the information as a third person
narrator might (allows us to “be there” without
being “complicit”).
• over-the-shoulder shot – a kind of omniscient shot
that closely aligns itself with the point of view of a
character, e.g., the listener in a conversation.
• aerial shot (bird's-eye-view shot) – a shot taken
from the air, usually omniscient, providing an
overview of the scene below.
 The Birds (Dir. Alfred
Hitchcock 1963)

Cinematography Point of view

aerial shot (or
bird’s-eye-view
shot)

Pulp Fiction (Dir. Quentin

Tarantino 1992)

Metropolis (Dir. Fritz

Lang 1927)

point-of-view shot

over-the-shoulder
Fargo (Dir. Joel Coen
Cinematography Basic camera
movements

Mobile shots include:

• zoom – the camera remains stationary; lens adjustment
creates the impression of moving into a scene (zooming in)
or away from it (zooming out).
• pan – the camera swivels horizontally, from left to right, or
vice versa.
• track, dolly, or crane shot – the camera follows, or moves
closer to or away from, the action, by means of a track,
dolly, or crane.
• tilt – the angle of vision is changed by the camera
swivelling vertically (up or down)
 Editing

• Involves shot selection, manipulation and compilation, and the addition of

special effects and the soundtrack.

• Shots may be of (or be cut to) varying lengths, and their combination creates
a certain rhythm.

• The transition from one shot to the next is called a cut, of which there are
various kinds:
o the straight cut – gives an instantaneous jump from one image to the
next
o the fade – the image fades out to black (fade-out) or fades in from black
to an image (fade-in)
o the dissolve – one image is slowly brought in beneath another one; i.e. a
simultaneous fade-out and fade-in
o the wipe – one image pushes or “wipes” the previous one off the screen
o the iris – the shutter of the lens is gradually closed to form an ever smaller
 Editing
• Other conventions of editing include:
o cross-cutting (or parallel editing) – cutting between two sequences occurring at
the same time in different locations
o shot/reverse shot – editing pattern of alternating over-the-shoulder shots
during conversations, etc
o matching – “according to action, subject, or subject matter,” for purposes of
continuity or bridging (Roberts & Wallis 38). “Matching on action can often be
used to smooth the transition between one period of time and another,” by
having the same action performed, e.g. going from child dancing to adult
dancing (39); graphic matching “involves a smooth visual transfer (not an
absolute match) from one shot to the next” (39).
o compilation shot – “a series of shots spliced together to give a quick impression
of a place, […] [or] of a situation” (Roberts & Wallis 39).
o montage – may refer simply to editing, but could also refer, more particularly, to
Eisenstein’s sense of it as “in opposition to straight narrative”: “If shot A and
shot B were to form an entirely new idea, C, then the audience had to become
directly involved” (Monaco 442); Roberts and Wallis simply call it “a rapid
succession of shots juxtaposing images so that the overall effect is greater than
 Cinematography and Shot conventions
editing

Psycho (Dir. Alfred Hitchcock

1960)

shot / reverse shot

(with camera height
adjustment)
Cinematography and Playing with shot
editing conventions

Psycho (Dir. Alfred

Hitchcock 1960)

shot / reverse shot

with high and low
angles
Editing Debating the
terminology

“In the U.S., the word for the work of putting together
the shots of the film is ‘cutting’ or ‘editing’, while in
Europe the term is ‘montage’. The American words
suggest a trimming process, in which unwanted
material is eliminated. […] ‘Montage’, however,
suggests a building action working up from the raw
material.” (Monaco 216)

“In general parlance, ‘montage’ is used in three

different ways. While maintaining its basic meaning, it
also has the more specific usages of:
 a dialectical process that creates a third meaning out
of the original two meanings of the adjacent shots;
and
 a process in which a number of shots are woven
together
For Alfred to communicate
Hitchcock’s a great
discussion of editing, seedeal of information
this interview:
 Editing The Kuleshov Eff ect
(1918)

Hunge
r

Sadne
ss

Lust
Parasite: Opening
scene
Parasite: Opening
scene

1a 1
b

1c 1
d
Parasite: Opening
scene

1e 1f

1 1
g h
Parasite: Credit
sequence
Parasite: Opening
scene

1i 1j

1k 1l
Parasite: Opening
scene

1m 1
n

1o 1
p
Works cited

Barsam, Richard and Dave Monahan. Looking at Movies: An Introduction to Film.

5th edition, Norton, 2016.
The Media Insider. “How to Analyse a Film: The Complete Beginner’s Guide.”
YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/live/Hrp2azKjGUI
Monaco, James. How to Read a Film: Movies, Media, Multimedia. 3rd edition,
Oxford UP, 2000.
Roberts, Graham and Heather Wallis. Introducing Film. Arnold, 2001.
Spadoni, Robert. A Pocket Guide to Analyzing Films. U of California P, 2014.
Truffaut, Francois. Hitchcock/Truffaut. Simon & Schuster, 1966.