Intro to Film 2025 • Professor Gregory Zinman • Emory University

Author: Valentin Krenn

  • A documentary as a substitute for school

    I’m currently watching a multi-episode documentary about the Nazi regime and the Second World War. It traces Adolf Hitler’s life from his birth in Braunau am Inn, through his years in the German army during World War I, and on to the rise of both his political career and his party, all the way to his death.


    I came across this article, which discusses the reasons why this documentary was produced in the first place: https://time.com/6985406/hitler-and-the-nazis-evil-on-trial-netflix-story-behind/

    According to the article, the documentary is meant to appeal especially to a young audience through its combination of original archival footage and newly staged scenes. According to surveys, apparently 63% of Millennials and Gen Z in the United States do not know that over 6 million Jewish people were murdered in the Holocaust. The documentary was deliberately created to close this massive knowledge gap, especially among young people.
    However, this makes me wonder: in such a case, hasn’t the education system failed? Shouldn’t it be the responsibility of teachers to convey such a dark and important chapter of human history to students? That does not seem to be the case, and so a by Netflix produced documentary must now take over this job.

    However, I see the problem that films and series cannot treat such a topic in a sufficiently thorough or approachable way. For such an important topic like this they should be used to build on existing knowledge and to gain new perspectives. Simply watching one documentary about National Socialism and thinking that this is enough is a misconception. A subject like this needs to be worked through carefully, and the historical background must be fully understood. I consider this knowledge extremely important, especially now that fascist tendencies in the politics of some Western countries are increasingly resurfacing.

  • Is this the right thing to do?

    Do the Right Thing is a film about idols. In this case, especially those who share the same skin color as the person looking up to them. Sal clearly reveres Italian Americans like Sinatra, Al Pacino, and De Niro. Smiley looks up to Malcolm X and MLK. Mookie seemingly is a fan of Brooklyn Dodgers player Jackie Robinson and the white byciclist who bumps into Buggin’ Out doesn’t mind Larry Bird. This is actually something beautiful. Having a role model or someone to look up to is a good thing. However, here it becomes the trigger for the catastrophe.

    Buggin’ Out wants Sal to put up a picture of a successful black person in his restaurant, because he is bothered that only white people are represented. I then asked myself: Does he do the right thing to demand this?

    This question can be posed to almost all the characters in this film. Did Sal do the right thing destroying the boombox? Did Radio Raheem do the right thing storming into Sal’s restaurant playing loud music? Did Mookie do the right thing smashing the restaurant window, or or by being an unreliable partner and father? And what actually is the right thing to do?

    In my opinion, most of the characters do not do the right thing. They fuel prejudice, hatred, and violence against one another. And yet, the film powerfully allows the viewer to understand the emotions and intentions behind their actions. Concerning the black community largely because of the visible frustration built up by systemic racism. The film shows that throughout the neighborhood, white people own businesses and drive cars while the black community must work for them just to get by. The oppressive atmosphere is further highlighted by the police officers, who are shown looking at the three men against the red wall from their car as if they were about to commit a crime at any moment. Ultimately, the racially motivated murder of Radio Raheem brings everything to a head: Sal and his restaurant become the target of the retaliation.

    All of this violence and hatred, coming from all of the groups, makes communal coexistence increasingly difficult.

  • Editing is Everything

    Alex Gibney is a documentary film director and producer who worked on multiple big projects throughout his career. In this interview, he shows a little bit of the behind the scenes and the thoughts and challenges of making a documentary.

    While watching the interview, I realized how important editing is to a documentary. I’m used to thinking about scripted movies, where the film is mostly captured on set. The editing for those is more like putting a puzzle together when you already have the picture on the box. But for documentaries, this is very different. The story and the film itself are created in the editing room. It feels like the story is actually found and built from the ground up.

    Gibney says that he often discovered new ideas and thoughts when reviewing footage in the editing room. He also highlights the flexibility of documentary work, explaining that because the teams are small, they can easily go film new material if they discover a party of the story they want to tell is missing in the edit. That kind of flexibility is amazing and seems vital for this kind of work.

    According to Gibney, editing plays such a major role because it guides the audience towards the point of view of the author. It’s how they take all that raw footage and shape it into the final message.
    This is connected to a major challenge:
    dealing with people in the story you disagree with. Gibney talked about balancing the obligation he feels towards his subjects with his primary obligation, which is to the audience. He was clear that he’s not there to make a “commercial” for someone, especially if they aren’t being truthful. A directors job is to find and convey the truth.

  • Comedic Elements and the Bitter Truth in Singin’ in the Rain

    While watching Singin’ in the Rain, I couldn’t help but feel as If I were watching a live-action version of a Looney Tunes cartoon. The film’s vibrant colors and playful energy evoke that same exaggerated, animated feeling. In a lot of scenes movement and facial expression seem exaggerated to a cartoonish degree—whether it’s Don’s happy walk after his “Singin’ in the Rain” performance or Cosmo’s slapstick attempt to “fix” his face after crashing into a brick wall during “Make ’Em Laugh.”

    But most importantly, the sound design adds to this cartoon-like feeling. Realistic ambient sounds are rare in the film, and when they do appear, they’re almost muted. The best example of this is when Don and Cosmo walk through the studio set early in the movie. Multiple films are being shot on the same stage while new sets are being built, creating an extremely busy environment—yet we don’t hear a single background noise unless the focus briefly shifts to it. This choice draws all attention to Don and Cosmo’s conversation and pulls the audience out of reality. The scene feels deliberately staged, almost like a performance within a performance. In the end, that’s what Singin’ in the Rain is—a performance within a performance.
    During several musical numbers—but most prominently in Cosmo’s “Make ’Em Laugh” performance—sound is used to emphasize movement and add an extra layer of comedy. Each time he falls, a brief drum roll and crash punctuate the action, transforming his stumbles into part of the rhythm.. Even small gestures, like when he sits on the couch and adjusts his legs, are matched with exaggerated cracking noises.

    Yet, besides all the fun musical numbers and slapstick comedy, the film also addresses the harsh reality faced by some actors when sound was introduced to cinema. Lina Lamont, once a major silent film star, is unable to adapt to the new technology of sound. In the end—though unwillingly—she is forced to end her career. The most famous real-life parallel is probably John Gilbert, whose career declined for similar reasons.
    In this sense, Singin’ in the Rain reminded me a lot of Babylon (Damien Chazelle, 2022), which likewise explores the industry’s transition to sound and the downfall of an actor unable to adjust to it.

  • The Editing Mistakes Behind Bohemian Rhapsody

    This video essay serves as an excellent lesson on how not to edit a scene, and in doing so highlights the mistakes you should avoid. The creator, Thomas Flight, breaks down the editing of a dialogue sequence from the movie Bohemian Rhapsody.

    The three key mistakes Thomas points out in this scene are:

    • Lack of motivation
    • Broken spatial continuity
    • Poor pacing

    Lack of Motivation:
    Thomas shows that many of the cuts in this sequence lack motivation, since they don’t provide new information. Instead, we see the same reactions or actions repeated, which makes the cuts feel redundant and unnecessary.

    Broken Spatial Continuity:
    This scene makes clear how crucial spatial continuity is. Thomas demonstrates this with the example of inconsistent eye lines: characters often look in the wrong direction, or appear to be looking at one person while the next shot reveals someone completely different. He also demonstrates how rearranging or simplifying the sequence of shots can create better spatial continuity.

    Poor Pacing:
    The scene is 104 seconds long and contains 60 cuts, resulting in an average shot length of just 1.8 seconds. For comparison, an action scene from a Transformers – The last Knight is 136 seconds long with 49 cuts, concluding to an average shot length of 2.8 seconds. Therefore, Thomas shows that the pacing of this normal dialouge scene is way to quick, making it feel unnatural and rushed.

    The irony is that Bohemian Rhapsody actually won the Oscar for Best Editing. As this video essay illustrates, awards don’t always reflect quality in filmmaking.

  • Barry Lyndon – It’s a Comedy?

    Today I watched Barry Lyndon by Stanley Kubrick as part of the 1975: A Year in Cinema program.

    Beforehand I looked up the movie to see what it is about and what genre it belongs to. On Google it is listed as “War/Adventure.” Right from the beginning I was surprised by how many comedic moments – both visual and in dialogue – Barry Lyndon has. The first half feels almost like a comedy: Barry acting childish by throwing a glass at Captain John Quin, Barry getting robbed, and Captain Quin’s facial expressions during his duel with Barry.

    The second half, however, is much more serious and features some very dramatic scenes. Here I noticed the use of the main theme as a kind of introduction to death. Each time the main theme is played, somebody dies.

    Another thing that stood out to me was Kubrick’s use of zoom shots. Was he a pioneer in popularizing this technique?

  • Mise-en-scène – Is Lighting Really Everything?

    Mise-en-scène – the art of presenting a scene to the audience.
    There are five components that make up mise-en-scène: lighting, composition, costumes, setting, makeup, and staging. There are hundreds of individual ways to illuminate your stage and therefore evoke certain emotions. It consists of quality, direction, and source, and color also plays a big role when shaping the atmosphere. When reading chapter 4, I was amazed by the focus put on lighting. And as the text states: “No component of mise-en-scène is more important than what Sternberg called ‘the drama and adventure of light’” (p. 132). But is light really the most essential aspect of mise-en-scène? Isn’t every element of great importance? Perhaps sometimes more weight is placed on lighting, in another case on staging, and in yet another on framing.

    As an example of how mise-en-scène can create fear and unease, I want to look at a scene from my favorite movie – Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.
    In this sequence, we follow Danny riding his bike through the corridors of the Overlook Hotel. After riding for a while, he suddenly stops after turning a corner and sees two girls standing at the other end of the corridor, staring at him.

    For the setting, we have the long and symmetrical hallway. The camera is centered behind Danny, focusing on the motionless twins at the far end of the corridor, who are staring at both Danny and the camera. Furthermore, the emphasis on the girls is enhanced by all the vanishing lines leading to them – our eyes are naturally drawn to this point. This setting evokes an uncomfortable and claustrophobic atmosphere.

    The two girls are both wearing old-fashioned dresses, making them appear ghostly and implying that they belong to another time and should not be in this hotel. Additionally, the light-blue color of their dresses match the darker blue carpet and the white/light-blue walls. This suggests that the girls are, in fact, part of the Overlook Hotel (which they are, if you haven’t seen the movie or read the book) and therefore personify the horrors that have happened in the past. Through the color scheme, they visually merge with the hotel. In contrast to them, Danny is wearing a bright red sweater.

    The top lighting, the source of which is part of the set design, also contributes to making the scene frightening. It comes straight from above, is harsh and cold, and creates an unpleasant feeling.

    I would argue that the composition, setting, and choice of costumes are the most impactful aspects of mise-en-scène that make this scene terrifying. Of course, lighting also supports this feeling, but I can imagine many different lighting arrangements that wouldn’t diminish the sense of unease created here.

    Do you agree with me, or do you think I underestimate the impact of lighting in this scene?