visual metaphor in film : analogical juxtaposition is an idea, a feeling or a story represented in an object. like horcrux
What is the meaning of visual culture? I will separate it as two words, ‘visual study’ and ‘ culture study’. Visual study means the visual forms like drawing, comic, advertisement, movie, animation or a video. Culture study involve many subjects like Sociology, anthropology, biology and art history, etc. Then put visual study and culture study into one word, Visual culture study, which means using different forms of visual carrier to study or express the culture instead of only using words on the books.
In this blog, I will use different aspects to explain how they can express and describe the culture on a visual production, especially the movie.
1: Mise-en-scene
Mise en scène is the arrangement of scenery and stage properties in a play. Translated from French, it means “setting the stage” but, in film analysis, the term Mise-en-scene refers to everything in front of the camera, including the set design, lighting, and actors. A good example from Boogie Nights. It’s a opening scene, the light sign, the car, people’s dress style, the way of people talking and acting, the stage, they all make the atmosphere of the night life in the last 70s. And it is a long take shot, very impressive.
2: Visual metaphor
Visual metaphor also known as Analogical juxtaposition, it is an idea, a feeling or a story represented in an object, it’s kind of like Horcrux. Except you don’t put yourself in the object, you put a concept in your object. A very good example from American Graffiti, Richard has graduated from high school, he friend and him are at a school dance, but he has step out of the dance and think. He tried to open the locker but it didn’t work. The locker is that object, it represents his past life. As he continues walking, he smiled, and now we know that he was amusing that he even tried to open his locker is the first place, he realized the past is over and there really is no going back. These are beautiful and seemingly ideas being communicating very simply and effectively with no dialogue.
3: Aesthetic of colour
The influence of color is not only in the color itself, but also in people’s association with the picture, as well as the emotional expression and psychological state reflected behind the color. As one of the important components of film art, color aesthetics is the most appealing visual language, which brings reality into fantasy and enriches the aesthetic and expression in the film.
The Truman Show: Blue sky and blue sea, create the beautiful and fantasy the Tureman’s world.
The Grand Budapest Hotel: Bright and lively colors, perfect integration with the romantic tone of the old age in European.4. Rhythm
The rhythm in the movie is normally include the rhythm of narrative, performance, sound and editing. The rhythm of narrative is reflected in the change of the story. If the story is daily life and pays attention to details without any change, it is slow. What is not daily, full of contradictions, unknown and change, is fast. For examples affectional movies have slow rhythm of narrative, but Si-fi and action movies is fast. The rhythm of performance means the movement of characters or objects have different rhythm on the scene.
The rhythm of the sound also is easy to understand, the music in the action scenes are more exciting than the normal scenes. The last one, is the rhythm of editing, here i will use two example to show it. I can’t said which is good or bad, because those different types of rhythm gave different feelings to the audients, each has their own aesthetics.