Intro to Film 2025 • Professor Gregory Zinman • Emory University

Author: Beatriz

  • Politics, Spectacle, and RRR

    Resource: Simon Abrams, “The Man Behind India’s Controversial Global Blockbuster RRR” – The New Yorker (interview with S. S. Rajamouli) https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/the-man-behind-indias-controversial-global-blockbuster-rrr-s-s-rajamouli

    For my Searcher post, I chose a New Yorker interview with S. S. Rajamouli, the director of RRR. I like this piece because it goes way beyond the usual “wow, what a fun action movie” take and really sits in the tension between RRR as a joyful, maximalist anti-colonial fantasy and RRR as a film loaded with uncomfortable politics. The interviewer brings up criticisms from Indian writers who see the movie as a kind of Hindu-nationalist, caste-flattening rewrite of history, especially in how it elevates Raju (from a dominant caste) over Bheem (an Adivasi leader) and in who gets celebrated in the patriotic finale. Rajamouli, meanwhile, keeps insisting he’s “just” making entertainment, distancing himself from ideology, and framing himself as someone who cares mostly about audience emotion and spectacle.What makes the resource especially worthwhile is that it kind of exposes the gap between what a filmmaker thinks they are doing and what their film actually ends up doing in the world. Rajamouli talks a lot about craft—how he builds action set pieces from emotional stakes, his love of epics like the Mahabharata and Ramayana, his admiration for Braveheart, Ayn Rand, and James Cameron, and his obsession with watching his movies repeatedly with audiences to read their reactions. At the same time, the article refuses to let him off the hook: it reminds us of his father’s work on an R.S.S.-commissioned film, the selective use of nationalist icons in RRR, and the way some viewers see Bheem as a “noble savage” figure. I think that tension—between Rajamouli’s self-image as an apolitical entertainer and the very political ways people read his films—is what makes this interview so useful. It’s not just a fan piece; it’s a reminder that style, myth, and spectacle are never neutral, especially when a movie is as massive and globally visible as RRR.

  • Understanding Continuity Editing

    The Film Art’s content on continuity editing emphasized my viewing of All that Heaven Allows as more than a melodrama but also as a film built through seamless and meticulous editing – almost invisible. The book’s chapter 6 specially emphasizes Hollywood concentrates their traditional editing means in maintaining spatial clarity across axis of action, using eyeline matches, and shot-reverse-shot patterns to anchor the viewer within that fictional world. To that end, Sirk’s movie is a great example of a film grounded in visual logic. 

    My overall impression of the movie and its editing was that Sirk uses continuity editing to preserve spatial and logical continuity but he uses the mise en scene and camera distance to create a contrast between freedom and confinement. This can be evidenced when comparing the framing of scenes inside Cary’s house ( full of mirrors, glass, rigid lines, feels claustrophobic) and Ron’s mill (openness and natural flow). 

    Chapter 6 also talks about graphic matches and rhythmic editing which Sirk uses for both clarity and emotional pacing (as tension builds up). The cutting rhythm in Ron’s scenes are slow and patient while they are noticeably tighter, more abrupt and faster paced when it comes to Cary’s scenes with her children specially. Match-on-action cuts ensure that Cary’s emotional journey remains smooth. 

    Richard Brody’s point that melodrama “risks laughter at the moments of greatest passion” finally made sense: continuity editing is what keeps those potentially “too much” moments sincere. It stabilizes melodrama so that emotional intensity reads as real rather than ridiculous. Laura Mulvey’s “dialectic between high art and trash” is literally visible: continuity gives the film its classical control, while the heightened emotions push it toward excess. 


    This week’s movie + reading reminded me of Challengers. Guadagnino’s film about a love triangle between three professional tennis players also relies on continuity editing principles. The axis of action is incredibly important in the match scenes. But what’s interesting is that Challengers often deliberately test the boundaries of continuity—using whip-pans, extreme close-ups, and rhythmic cutting to accelerate tension—whereas All That Heaven Allows uses continuity to smooth emotion.

  • Reading ideology through visual form in Do The Right Thing

    Resource: John Berger / Ways of Seeing , Episode 1 (1972)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-4LwAuTw7k&t=1381

    For this week’s theme of ideology and critique I turned to John Berger BBC series Ways of Seeing, something I watched in middle school and never forgot. Even though it came out more than 10 years before Spike Lee’s movie, Berger’s central argument (that every image embodies a way of seeing) helped me understand the film not just as a narrative about a neighborhood but as an ideological construction that challenges how we read images, bodies and power on screen. 

    This first episode focuses on painting and photography but its core message applies directly to cinema: images are never neutral. This also reminds me of a second youtube video I watched as I searched something for this post that said “Every single film is political”. Images reinforce values, hierarchies, ideological assumptions of the society that produces them. Berger shows how perspective, framing, and even “realism” itself are cultural choices shaped by power. He says that every image contains an argument, as in Do the Right Thing Lee uses visual form not just to tell a story but to reshape the viewer’s way of seeing race, space, and conflict in America.

    Berger also talks about how images can be manipulated or recontextualized to change meaning — a point that immediately reminded me of the Wall of Fame in Sal’s pizzeria. The photographs are curated, selective, aspirational, and ideological: they reflect Sal’s claim to cultural authority in a space that is not culturally his. When Mookie pins the photograph of Malcolm and Martin at the end, it functions exactly the way Berger describes the “reframing” of images: it shifts the entire power dynamic of the space. A wall that once reinforced Sal’s control becomes a site of resistance, a new way of seeing public/private space through a Black political lens. 

    Beyond that, I found that  the cinematography and mise en scene of the movie do a great job together by creating such aesthetically pleasing images in a way that deepens its politics. Berger argues that style is never separate from meaning. The saturated reds and yellows, the symmetry of the block, the theatricality of the heat, the way the camera moves like it’s part of the neighborhood’s rhythm — these choices aren’t ornamental. They construct a world where tension is visible in the color palette.

    Finally, Berger’s insistence that viewing is always shaped by context made me rethink how Do the Right Thing ends. The film leaves us with two quotes — Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. — that embody two different ideological “ways of seeing” violence and resistance. Berger would say that Lee is showing us the impossibility of a single, stable interpretation. The film, like an image, changes depending on where you stand. That ambiguity isn’t a flaw; it’s the film’s political strategy. This movie is an intervention on how we see American race relations,

  • Week 11: Documentary – constructing reality

    Before watching this week’s screening, chapter 10 of film art reshapes how I understand what makes a film a documentary. This section of the book is focused on emphasizing how documentaries do not simply capture reality but construct the way it wants us to perceive reality through a series of choices. And after reading the article about Livingston’s film it makes me reflect how the ballroom scene will inevitably blend observation and persuasion rather than just showing things as they are. 

    One of the themes that stood out to me in indexicality and the book describes it as the physical link between what the camera records and what existed before it while emphasizing that link is not the same as objectivity and accuracy. Just because images are real it does not mean that they are neutral and non staged. 

    The reading also explores two major types of organization: categorical and rhetorical form. Categorical form groups information thematically ( like a scientific or sociological study for example) while the rhetorical form uses facts and emotions to persuade the viewers of a viewpoint. 

    Finally, Bordwell and Thompson remind us that documentaries often stage or structure events (editing interviews, adding narration, asking subjects to repeat actions) to shape meaning. This idea complicates how we judge truth in non fiction and how can we discern reality from construction. 

    When I think about these ideas in relation to the documentary film The Salt of the Earth (a personal favorite) by Wim Wenders, the tension between documentation and interpretation becomes even clearer. This film relies heavily on indexicality as the photographs used in it are literal traces of real suffering, displacement and resilience. Yet the filmmakers use sound design, narration, and editing to guide our emotional response, transforming the images into a rhetorical form that advocates for compassion and ecological awareness.

    Formally, The Salt of the Earth alternates between still photographs taken by Sebastiao Salgado (the subject of the film) and present day footage of his travels creating something close to categorical form. But as the film progresses, it moves into rhetorical form as it persuades viewers to see beauty in devastation. This shift makes visible what Film Art calls “the filmmaker’s argument”: the shaping of real material to express a worldview.

    My questions for this week are: 1. Does Paris is Burning use both  categorical and rhetorical forms to shape meaning similarly to The Salt of the Earth? 2.  Can a film ever truly let its subjects speak for themselves or if it is always going to be an act of shaping reality?

  • Entertainment VS. Exploitation in NOPE

    I went into this week’s screening thinking that maybe this would be the day where I would start liking terror or at least understanding why so many people love it. Long story short, it wasn’t… But it got me thinking that maybe this is the point. Keke Palmer herself says that “Nope is not a movie that you can really explain, It’s a movie that is meant to be perceived. It’s a movie meant to make you think and bring out some of your innermost thoughts of your subconscious and trigger you“. 

    Going into that idea that this is a movie meant to be perceived, my perception is that Nope e is not about the horror or the scary things we don’t know about reality, it’s about people’s greater desire to be a part of something greater, a spectacle. To that end, Peele exposes this desire as he connects it directly to Hollywood’s history of turning people and animals into objects of consumption. Jordan Peele is throwing at our faces at all times a parallel between Jean Jacket and Gordy, and how these 2 characters have been pushed into performance roles that are outside their nature.  In essence, it is hard to learn about a thing when you are learning about it in a context where it shouldn’t be in in the first place, which is the case for the chimpanzee in the sitcom and Jean Jacket in the Starlight lasso show. Gordy is made to act human and JJ is turned into a profitable attraction – both stripped of autonomy in the name of entertainment. 

    Both Gordy and Jean jacket are creatures that cannot be controlled. Peele suggests that once you turn something uncontrollable into a product of mass viewing, you invite destruction. Hollywood in this sense is the real monster. Which is why I understand both creatures to be symbols that represent Hollywood in this context, and this idea that the spectacle pays off. Hollywood is this unpredictable beast, and spectacle is always a currency of high value. 

    Besides Gordy and Jean Jacket, all of the other characters also serve as symbols. The TMZ reporter and the cinematographer are also unmistakable symbols for this obsessive culture and the neverending gaze for the perfect shot. In contrast, OJ is the only one who sees animals not as tools but as living beings and he is therefore the only one who’s able to “tame” JEan Jacket as he understands the creatures mechanisms. 


    Ultimately, Nope becomes a criticism of the exploitation disguised as entertainment. A movie that uses the conventions of horror, sci-fi and western genres to critique the industry that birthed them.

  • Emilia Pérez: When Representation Turns into Performance

    When I go to watch a movie, I always try to enter the theater with the mindset that I’m going to like it, doing my best to block out outside opinions (although, with a film as talked about as Emilia Pérez, it’s impossible not to go in with some bias).

    Emilia Pérez is an extremely ambitious vision from Jacques Audiard who, in my opinion, “bit off more than he could chew.” When you set out to tell a story that, while not the central focus of the narrative, involves themes that are so relevant and current in society, it’s essential for the filmmaker to study each of these themes in depth.

    And that’s where the film fails, in my view. How can a man who’s been on hormone therapy for two years still have a beard? Small details like this don’t align with the reality of a transition and bothered me throughout the story.

    Now, speaking from a musical perspective the film Emilia Pérez left a LOT to be desired. I’ll admit that I liked the first two songs, but as the movie went on, the songs felt increasingly out of place, as if they were an afterthought by the director, disconnected from the story. Their lyrics, unlike those of a good musical, didn’t complement the plot; they were shallow and repetitive.

    The duet between Zoe Saldaña and the doctor hit me as a failed attempt at “wokeness,” something that critics somehow bought into, believing they were promoting the kind of “diversity” long demanded by major awards (and honestly, that’s the only explanation I can find for the number of nominations this film received). 

    I also LOVED the choreography, especially in the benefit scene, which was, by the way, very well directed.

    Given the massive controversies surrounding the film, especially Karla Sofía Gascón, it’s hard to praise her—but it’s undeniable that her performance made the film powerful in many moments. I also can’t watch it without imagining how difficult it must have been for her, as a trans woman, to have to dress and act as a man in several scenes; the dysphoria must have been intense. (I’m not excusing the outrageous things she said, just pointing out something I found interesting.)

    Lastly, we can’t ignore the blatant stereotypes the film brings—not only about Mexican culture but also about trans issues—something that bothered me but also prompted important reflections about how certain clichés still dominate the minds of critics and voters today. How can these people realize that this isn’t reality when they live in an “Americanized” bubble where that’s the only perspective they know?

    Anyway, these are things I feel like the Academy will have to think about moving forward if it truly wants to represent the diverse realities that exist beyond such a limited lens.

  • The beach as more than a backdrop in Portraif of a Lady on Fire

    Portrait of a Lady on Fire at Beach of Port Blanc - filming location

    In Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Schiamma uses cinematography to build an emotional world and this becomes very evident in the beach, a place with open framing and stunning landscapes that captures the brief freedom felt by Marianne and Heloise. A place where they can exist outside of the ticking clock that separates their romance and see each other freely. 

    The beach is more than a backdrop, it’s a constructed space that reflects freedom and intimacy. In contrast with the interior shots (tightly framed and dim lighting), the beach opens up into wider shots with natural lights and horizon lines. This shift in visual style matters as it crafts part of the tone of the narrative. It represents how their relationship is constrained indoors by social norms and surveillance while on the beach the cinematography offers expansiveness, mirroring their sense of freedom. 

    Additionally, the contrast between lighting can also be read into as one of the key features that build these converging atmospheres of freedom and constraint. On the beach, the light is diffuse, natural and less mediated, with a softness around characters. Compared to the effects of firelight indoors. The natural illumination makes their intimacy feel purer and almost utopian even though we know that this cannot last. 

    The beach is also a place for mutual observation where the female gaze becomes visible. The camera in these scenes mirror the equality through a centered framing. Staging also tends to be symmetrical and altogether this adds on to the utopian feel of that ambient where the characters can be seen without fear. 

    In essence, the beach in Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a visual embodiment of freedom, love and memory. Through open framing, natural lights and longer takes Schiamma transforms that landscape into an emotional space. When they return indoors the tone shifts back to restraint and surveillance, reminding us that what happens on the beach is real and temporary. A space of possibility that lives only through memory.

  • Sound fabrication as a choreographed dance

    As we began to overview sound it is interesting to understand the extent to which it is naturally occurring or if its being artificially fabricated. The mini documentary “The unsung art of Foley” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UO3N_PRIgX0 exposes how foley artists replicate noises in such a realistic manner. The mixer Mary Jo Lang refers to this process as a dance which made me think of how sound is not purely recorded, rather, it is performed. The so-called “natural” sounds we hear in a movie are just a combination of layers meticulously thought of. 

    This idea directly resonates with the week’s feature Singin in the rain that exposes Hollywood’s obsession with synchronization and illusion. Additionally the sound in the movie is hyperbolized in every sense and there would be no way to grasp that solely from recording the movie. for example: even though the iconic song was recorded on a real water flooded set, the audio was recorded separately. Foley artists lend authenticity to images that would otherwise feel empty or flat — just like Kathy Selden “ghost-voices” Lina Lamont. 

    In the documentary, Alyson Moore says: “People take sound for granted, but you would miss it if it wasn’t there”. This emphasizes how if well done, sound is meant to be unnoticed. The layering process is an effort towards achieving  the most natural noise possible, and in musicals, layering parallels harmony as multiple elements bled together in a single experience. In musicals layering is exaggerated through dialogue, song, dance, ambient sound, rhythm and more. 

    In essence, both dancers and foley artists rely on rhythm, timing and a combination of movements to succeed. Foley artists dance behind the scenes mirroring the dances on the screen (as exposed on the documentary). By recognizing sound as a choreography we begin to understand that what feels natural in films is sometimes the most artificially constructed elements.