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Poetry of the Screenwriter: Exploring Image Systems in Chinatown (1974)

In this lecture, Professor Daniel Cutrara discusses the poetry of the screenwriter, focusing on the use of image systems in the film Chinatown (1974) written by Robert Towne. Learn how image systems enhance expressivity and create depth and complexity of aesthetic emotion. Explore external and internal imagery, categories, and the relationship between the screenwriter and director in crafting a film's image system.

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Poetry of the Screenwriter: Exploring Image Systems in Chinatown (1974)

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  1. Lecture 12:Poetry of the Screenwriter Professor Daniel Cutrara Chinatown (1974) Written by Robert Towne

  2. Previous Lesson Point of View Adaptation Assignments

  3. This Lesson Poetry of the Screenwriter External and Internal Imagery Chinatown Assignments

  4. Poetry of the Screenwriter Lesson 12: Part I Chinatown (1974) Written by Robert Towne

  5. Poetry • According to McKee, poetry means an enhanced expressivity. Whether a story’s content is beautiful or grotesque, spiritual or profane, quietistic or violent, pastoral or urban, ethnic or intimate, it wants full expression.

  6. Enhanced Expression Enhanced expression is created through image systems. An image system is a strategy of motifs. These motifs are a category of images embedded in the film. 6

  7. Image Systems According to McKee, these motifs repeat in sight and sound from beginning to end with persistence and great variation, but with equally great subtlety, as a subliminal communication to increase the depth and complexity of aesthetic emotion. 7

  8. Audience Reception • Audiences react to visual or auditory cues as part of a symbolic system. • We sense that each object has been selected to mean more than itself so we have a connotation to every denotation. • Examples: • When we see Mercedes, we think rich. • Harley-Davidson, dangerous. • Red Trans Am, problems with sexual identity. 8

  9. Image Systems in Context Chinatown (1974) Written by Robert Towne Like all works of art, a film is a unity in which every object relates to every other image or object. 9

  10. Categories • Category means a subject drawn from the physical world that's broad enough to contain sufficient variety. • For example: • A dimension of nature-- animals • The seasons-- light and dark • A dimension of human culture-- buildings, machines 10

  11. Categories - 2 According to McKee: This category must repeat because one or two isolated symbols have little affect. Variety and repetition drive the image system. Most important, a film's poetics must be handled with virtual invisibility and go consciously unrecognized by the audience. 11

  12. Two Types of Image Systems • External Imagery • Internal Imagery Rocky IV (1985) Written by Sylvester Stallone 12

  13. External and Internal Imagery Lesson 12: Part II 13

  14. External • According to McKee, External Imagery already has symbolic meaning outside the film. This meaning is brought inside the film. • Crucifix, religious meaning • Spiderweb, entanglement • American flag, patriotism 14

  15. External - 2 • Rocky IV, Rocky wraps himself in an enormous American flag after defeating the Russian opponent. 15

  16. Internal Imagery • According to McKee, Internal Imagery takes a category that may or may not have symbolic meaning and brings it into the film to give it an entirely new meaning appropriate to the particular film in that particular film alone. 16

  17. Chinatown Lesson 12: Part III Chinatown (1974) Written by Robert Towne 17

  18. Chinatown - The Story • In Chinatown, Jack Nicholson plays Jake Gittes, a private detective. He is hired to spy on what appears to be an adulterous husband. It turns out that he’s been used. Stakes are raised when the husband is found dead. Jake’s investigation uncovers corrupt business dealings, and an incestuous father. 18

  19. Four Image Systems Chinatown (1974) Written by Robert Towne • According to McKee, Chinatown has four image systems: • Two external • Two internal 19

  20. Internal Systems • Primary internalized system: Motifs of blind seeing • Windows, rearview mirrors, eyeglasses, particularly-broken spectacle, cameras, binoculars, eyes • If we're looking for evil out in the world we’re looking in the wrong direction. It is in here, in us. 20

  21. Motif Examples • Pause the lecture and watch the clips from Chinatown. 21

  22. Motif Examples - 2 • The first clip- seeing and binoculars • The second clip- windshield and rear-view mirror • The third clip- photography, the lens 22

  23. Secondary Internalized System • Political corruption becomes social cement • False contracts, subverted laws, acts of corruption 23

  24. External Systems • First externalized system--water versus drought • Second externalized system--sexual cruelty versus sexual love 24

  25. Subliminal • An image system must be subliminal. • Symbols touch us and move us as long as we don't recognize them as symbolic. • Awareness of a symbol turns it into a neutral, intellectual curiosity; powerless and virtually meaningless. 25

  26. Screenwriter as Poet • The screenwriter should begin the film's image system and the director and designers finish it. • The writer first envisions the ground of all imagery- the story’s physical and social world. 26

  27. Assignments Chinatown (1974) Written by Robert Towne Lesson 12: Part IV

  28. E-Board Post #1 Describe the image systems you have put in place or would like to put in place in your script. 28

  29. E-Board Post #2 Choose at least one of your peers to offer suggestions or ways to create their image system. 29

  30. End of Lecture 12 Next Lecture: Sacrifice, Nothing is Wasted Juno (2007) Written by Diablo Cody (Frame from a deleted scene)

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