艺术电影

出自Cinepedia

在2008-01-29T00:12:08所做的修订版本

艺术电影 (也称为 “art cinema”、“art movie”, 在美国亦称作“ 独立电影”或“art house film”) 是一种严肃的、非商业性的、独立制作的（independently made film）、瞄准小众需求（niche audience）, 而非以大众（mass audience）为市场诉求的电影。^[1] 电影评论家和电影研究（ film studies）学者以一种“区别于主流好莱坞电影的形式特质”来定义“艺术电影”。^[2] 艺术电影作者时常在一些专门性的影院如“电影之家”（repertory cinemas）、或美国称为“艺术影院 （arthouse cinemas”) 和电影节放映他们的作品。与欧洲相比，“艺术电影”这个术语在美国更为常用，而在欧洲，“艺术电影”这个词也时常与“作者理论、作者电影 ("auteur" films )”及“民族电影（national cinema）”相联系（如德国民族电影German national cinema）。

艺术电影瞄准小众市场(niche market)，这意味着他们难以和广泛发行(widely-released )的主流大片(blockbuster) 一样，获得巨大的经济回报以允许高额制作预算、昂贵的特效、名流(celebrity )演员和大规模广告宣传。

艺术电影导演以制作一种不同形式的电影以弥补这些局限：他们通常使用名气比较小的演员（甚至是业余演员），以及适度的布景制作电影使得电影主要场景集中于意味深长的对话段落等。从宣传上来说，艺术电影依靠电影评论家的评论、艺术专栏作家对这些电影的讨论、电影评论员、和博客(bloggers)，以及观众的口口相传达到宣传的目的。因为艺术电影的初始投资比较小，他们仅仅需要一小部分主流电影的观众来保证经济收入。

“艺术电影”的历史

艺术电影的先行者包括格里菲斯的电影Intolerance (1916年) 和爱森斯坦的影片。^[3]艺术电影同样也受到西班牙先锋电影作者如布努埃尔 和达利的影响，如 《黄金时代》( L'Age d'Or,1930年)和 让·考克托 的《诗人之血》 (Sang d'un poète, Le,1930年）等。上世纪20年代，电影协会（Film Society）开始倡导一种观念：电影可以被分为“……面向大众的娱乐电影和瞄准知识分子观众的严肃艺术电影”。在英格兰， 希区柯克 和蒙塔古 建立了一个电影协会并且引进了他们认为是“艺术成就”的电影，比如“辩证蒙太奇（dialectical montage）的苏维埃电影，和德国宇宙电影公司 (UFA）的表现主义电影。”^[4]

在1930年和1940年代，约翰·福特认为好莱坞电影可以分成“……文学作品改编的艺术性渴望，如Sean O'Casey'的作品 The Informer (1935年) 和 Eugene O'Neill的The Long Voyage Home (1940年)",与赚钱的类型电影，如强盗惊悚片等”。William Siska认为1940年代中期到晚期的意大利新现实主义(neorealist）电影 ，如Open City (1945年), Paisa (1946年), 和 The Bicycle Thief 等可被认为是另一种自觉的电影运动。^[5]

在40年代晚期，美国城市和大学城里艺术影院的发展加强了美国公众关于意大利新现实主义和其他严肃的欧洲影片与好莱坞主流电影大为不同的观念。二战后，“……逐渐有些美国电影观众厌倦了好莱坞主流电影”，他们去新建的艺术影院看“……大街上的电影院上演的不同的电影”。^[6]

这些艺术电影院里放映的电影包括“……英国的、外语的和独立美国电影，包括纪录片和好莱坞经典作品”，Rossellini的Open City 和 Mackendrick的Tight Little Island、 The Bicycle Thief和 The Red Shoes 等影片向美国观众献映。^[7]

术语“艺术电影”在美国比在欧洲更广泛的运用。在美国，这个词被广泛的定义，包括外语（非英语）作者电影（"auteur" film）、独立电影（independent film）、实验电影（experimental film）、纪录片和短片。60年代，艺术电影变成了意大利和法国B级片的委婉称法。在70年代，这个名词被用来描述以艺术为名义的欧洲情色电影（ sexually explicit），如I Am Curious (Yellow)。 In the US, the term "art film" is sometimes used very loosely to refer to the broad range of films shown in repertory theaters or "arthouse cinemas." With this approach, a broad range of films, such as a 1960s Hitchcock movie, a 1970s experimental underground film, a 1980s European auteur film, and a 1990s US "Independent" film all fall under the rubric of "art film."

By the 1980s and 1990s, the term became conflated with "independent film" in the US, which shares many of the same stylistic traits with "art film." Companies such as Miramax Films distributed independent films which were deemed commercially unviable at the major studios. When major motion picture studios noted the niche appeal of independent films, they created special divisions dedicated to non-mainstream fare, such as the Fox Searchlight division of Twentieth Century Fox, the Focus Features division of Universal, and the Sony Pictures Classics division of Sony Pictures Entertainment. Film critics have debated whether the films from these special divisions can truly be considered to be "independent films", given that they have financial backing from major studios.

Deviations from mainstream film norms

Film scholar David Bordwell outlined the academic definition of "art film" in a 1979 article entitled The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice, which contrasts art films against the mainstream films of classical Hollywood cinema. Mainstream Hollywood-style films use a clear narrative form to organize the film into a series of "...causally related events taking place in space and time," with every scene driving towards a goal. The plot for mainstream movies is driven by a well-defined protagonist, fleshed out with clear characters, and strengthened with "...question-and-answer logic, problem-solving routines, (and) deadline plot structures." The film is then tied together with fast pacing, musical soundtracks to cue the appropriate audience emotions, and tight, seamless editing.^[8] Mainstream films tend to use a small palette of familiar, generic images, plots, verbal expressions, and archetypal "stock" characters.

In contrast, Bordwell states that "...the art cinema motivates its narrative by two principles: realism and authorial expressivity." Art films deviate from the mainstream, "classical" norms of filmmaking in that they typically deal with more episodic narrative structures with a "...loosening of the chain of cause and effect".^[9] As well, art films often deal with an inner drama that takes place in a character's psyche, such as psychological issues dealing with individual identity, transgressive sexual or social issues, moral dilemmas, or personal crises.

Mainstream films also deal with moral dilemmas or identity crises, but these issues are usually resolved by the end of the film. In art films, the dilemmas are probed and investigated in a pensive fashion, but usually without a clear resolution at the end of the movie.^[10] The protagonists in art films are often facing doubt, anomie or alienation, and the art film often depicts their internal dialogue of thoughts, dream sequences, and fantasies. In some art films, the director uses a depiction of absurd or seemingly meaningless actions to express a philosophical viewpoint such as existentialism.

The story in an art film often has a secondary role to character development and an exploration of ideas through lengthy sequences of dialogue. If an art film has a story, it is usually a drifting sequence of vaguely defined or ambiguous episodes. There may be unexplained gaps in the film, deliberately unclear sequences, or extraneous sequences that are not related to previous scenes, which force the viewer to subjectively make their own interpretation of the film's message. Art films often "...bear the marks of a distinctive visual style" and authorial approach of the director.^[11] An art cinema film often refuses to provide a "...readily answered conclusion," instead putting to the cinema viewer the task of thinking about "...how is the story being told? Why tell the story in this way?"^[12]

Film theorist Robert Stam argues that “art film” was a film genre based on artistic status, in the same way that film genres can be based on aspects of films such as their budgets (blockbuster movies or B-movies) or their star performers (Fred Astaire movies).^[13] "Screenwriting guru" Robert McKee argues that the phrase art film is "redundant" because all film is intrinsically a form of art.

Timeline of notable films

The following list is a small, partial sample of films with "art film" qualities, compiled to give a general sense of what directors and films are considered to have "art film" characteristics. The films in this list demonstrate one or more of the characteristics of art films: a serious, noncommercial, or independently made film that is not aimed at a mass audience. Some of the films on this list are also considered to be "auteur" films, independent films, or experimental films. In some cases, critics disagree over whether a film is mainstream or not. For example, while some critics called Gus Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho (1991) an "exercise in film experimentation" of "high artistic quality",^[14] the Washington Post called it an ambitious mainstream film^[15]

Some films in this list have most of these characteristics; other films are commercially-made films produced by mainstream studios that nevertheless bear the hallmarks of a director's "auteur" style, or which have an experimental character. The films in this list are notable either because they won major awards or critical praise from influential film critics or because they introduced an innovative narrative or filmmaking technique. For example, Kurosawa's Rashomon used an innovative narrative techique of showing the same events as witnessed by four different people.

1920s-1950s

In the 1920s and 1930s, filmmakers did not set out to make "art films", and film critics did not use the term "art film." However, there were films that had more sophisticated aesthetic objectives, such as Carl Theodor Dreyer's silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), and surrealist film such as Luis Buñuel's Un chien andalou (1929) and L'Âge d'Or (1930). In the late 1940s, UK director Michael Powell and Emeric Pressberger made The Red Shoes (1948), a film about ballet that stood out from mainstream genre films.

In the 1950s, some of the well-known films with artistic sensibilities include Federico Fellini's La Strada (1954), The Seventh Seal (1957) by Ingmar Bergman^[16] and The 400 Blows (1959) by François Truffaut. As well, less well-known films such as A Generation, Kanal, Ashes and Diamonds, Lotna (1954-1959), by Andrzej Wajda showed the Polish Film School style. In Asia, Indian director Satyajit Ray's The Apu Trilogy (1955-1960)tells the story of a poor country boy's growth to adulthood. Japanese directors produced a number of films that broke with convention. Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon (1950), depicts four witnesses' contradictory accounts of a rape and murder^[17] Other Japanese films from this era include Tokyo Story (1953) by Yasujiro Ozu and Ugetsu (1953) by Kenji Mizoguchi.

1960s

The early 1960s saw the release of a number of groundbreaking films. Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless (1960) used innovative visual and editing techniques such as jump cuts and hand-held camera work. Michelangelo Antonioni's L'avventura from the same year is characterized by its slow pacing and unusual narrative structure.^[18] Federico Fellini's seminal 8½ (1963) was an exploration of creative, marital and spiritual difficulties shot in a sumptuous black-and-white by Gianni de Venanzo.^[19]

Robert Bresson's Au Hasard Balthazar (1966) is notable for its religious imagery, spiritual allegories, and naturalistic, minimalist style. Luis Buñuel's Belle de Jour (1967) shocked audiences with its masochistic fantasies about floggings and bondage. At the end of the decade, Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) wowed audiences with its scientific realism, pioneering use of special effects, and unusual visual imagery. In Soviet Armenia, Sergei Parajanov's The Color of Pomegranates, which was banned by Soviet authorities, was praised by critic Mikhail Vartanov as "revolutionary" and in the early 1980s, Les Cahiers du Cinéma placed the film in its top 10 list. In Iran, Dariush Mehrjui's The Cow (1969), about a man who becomes insane after the death of his beloved cow, sparked the new wave of Iranian cinema.

1970s

In the early 1970s, directors shocked audiences with violent films such as Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971) and sexually-explicit and controversial films such as Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris (1972). Nevertheless, other directors did more introspective films, such as Andrei Tarkovsky's meditative, weighty science fiction film Solaris (1972)^[20] Another feature of 1970s art films was the prominence of bizarre characters and imagery, which abound in the tormented, obsessed title character in German New Wave director Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1973), and in cult films such as Alejandro Jodorowsky's psychedelic The Holy Mountain (1973) about a footless, handless dwarf and an alchemist seeking the mythical Lotus Island^[21] The film Taxi Driver (1976) by Martin Scorsese continues the themes that Clockwork Orange explored: an alienated population living in a violent, decaying society. The gritty violence and seething rage of Scorsese's film contrasts with David Lynch's dreamlike, surreal Eraserhead (1977).

1980s

In 1980, director Martin Scorsese shocked audiences who had become used to the escapist blockbuster adventures of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas with the gritty, harsh realism of his film Raging Bull. Robert De Niro took method acting to an extreme to portray a boxer's decline from a prizewinning young fighter to an overweight has-been nightclub owner. Japanese director Akira Kurosawa also used a realism approach to portray the brutal, bloody violence of Japanese samurai warfare of the 1500s in Ran (1985).

Other directors in the 1980s chose a more intellectual path, exploring philosophical issues. Andrzej Wajda's Man of Iron (1981) is a critique of the Polish communist government which won the 1981 Palme d'or at the Cannes Film Festival. Another Polish director, Krzysztof Kieślowski released The Decalogue in 1988, a meditative and melancholy film series that explores ethical issues and moral puzzles. The cult film Pink Floyd The Wall (1982) explored political issues such as fascism and totalitarianism using the progressive rock band Pink Floyd's music and metaphorical images to spin a non-linear storyline.

Another approach used by directors in the 1980s was to create bizarre, surreal alternate worlds. Martin Scorsese's After Hours (1985) is a comedy thriller that depicts a man's baffling adventures in a surreal nighttime world of chance encounters with mysterious characters. David Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986), is a film noir-style thriller mystery filled with symbolism and metaphors about polarized worlds and distorted characters that are hidden in the seamy underworld of a small town. Peter Greenaway's The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989) is an outlandish fantasy/black comedy about cannibalism and extreme violence with an intellectual theme: a critique of elite culture in Thatcherian Britain.

1990s

In the 1990s, some directors created bizarre, surreal alternate worlds, as was done in the 1980s with Blue Velvet and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover. In 1990, Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's Dreams depicted his imaginative reveries in a series of vignettes that range from idyllic pastoral country landscapes to horrific visions of tormented demons and a blighted post-nuclear war landscape. In 1991, director Joel Coen's Barton Fink, which won the Palme d'or at the Cannes Film Festival, told an enigmatic story about a writer who encounters a range of bizarre characters including an alcoholic, abusive novelist and a serial killer. David Lynch's 1997 film Lost Highway is a psychological thriller that explores fantasy worlds, bizarre time-space transformations, and mental breakdowns using surreal imagery.

Other directors in the 1990s explored philosophical issues and themes such as identity, chance, death, and existentialism. The 1990s films My Own Private Idaho and Chungking Express explored the theme of identity. Gus Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho (1991) is an independent road movie/buddy movie about two young street hustlers which explores the theme of the search for home and identity. It was called a "high-water mark in '90s independent film",^[22] a "stark, poetic rumination",^[23] and an "exercise in film experimentation"^[24] of "high artistic quality".^[25] Wong Kar-wai's Chungking Express (1994)^[26] explores the themes of identity, disconnection, loneliness, and isolation in the "metaphoric concrete jungle" of modern Hong Kong. The film uses a symbolism-imbued pop music video-influenced visual style that uses a French New Wave approach. While the British Film Institute called it one of the best Asian films of contemporary cinema, it is considered to be a film for cineophiles, because it is "largely a cerebral experience" which you enjoy "because of what you know about film."

Several 1990s films explored existentialist-oriented themes related to life, chance, and death. Robert Altman's 1993 film Short Cuts (1993) explore themes of chance, death, and infidelity by tracing ten parallel and interwoven stories. The film, which won the Golden Lion and the Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival, was called a "many-sided, many mooded, dazzlingly structured eclectic jazz mural" by Chicago Tribune critc Michael Wilmington. Krzysztof Kieslowski's Three Colors trilogy (1993-1994), which was co-written by Krzysztof Piesiewicz, was called an exploration of "...unabashedly spiritual and existential issues"^[27] that created a "truly transcendent experience".^[28]

Matthew Barney's The Cremaster Cycle (1994-2002) is a cycle of five symbolic, allegorical films that create a self-enclosed aesthetic system that aims to explore the process of creation. The films are filled with allusions to reproductive organs and sexual development, and they use narrative models drawn from biography, mythology, and geology. Abbas Kiarostami's film Taste of Cherry (1997)^[29] about a man trying to hire a person to bury him after he commits suicide is shot in a minimalist style, with long takes. The film won the Palme d'or at the Cannes Film Festival.

Some 1990s films mixed an ethereal or surreal visual atmosphere with the exploration of philosophical issues. Krzysztof Kieslowski's The Double Life of Véronique (1991) is a drama about the theme of identity and a political allegory about the East/West split in Europe which features stylized cinematography, an ethereal atmosphere, and unexplained supernatural elements. Darren Aronofsky's film "Pi" (1998) is a dream-like "...incredibly complex and ambiguous film filled with both incredible style and substance" about a paranoid math genius' "search for peace."^[30] The film creates a David Lynch-inspired,"... eerie "Eraserhead"-like world"^[31] shot in "black-and-white, which lends a dream-like atmosphere to all of the proceedings", which explore issues such as "metaphysics and spirituality"^[32]

2000s

A number of films from the 2000s with art film qualities were notable due to their use of innovative filmmaking or editing techniques. Memento (2001), a psychological thriller directed by Christopher Nolan is about a man suffering from short-term memory loss. The film is edited so that the plot is revealed backwards in ten-minute chunks, simulating the condition of memory loss. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) is a romance film directed by Michel Gondry about a man who hires a company to erase the memory of a bad relationship. The film used a range of special effect techniques and camera work to depict the destruction of the man's memories and his transitions from one memory to another.

Timecode (film) (2000), a film directed by Mike Figgis, uses a split screen to show four continuous 90 minute takes that follow four storylines. Russian Ark (2002), a film directed by Alexander Sokurov took Figgis' use of extended takes even further; it is notable for being the first feature film shot in a single, unedited take.

Several 2000s-era films explored the theme of amnesia or memory, but unlike Memento, they did so using narrative techniques rather than filmmaking and editing methods. Mulholland Drive (2001), directed by David Lynch is about a freshly-moved girl in Hollywood who discovers an amnesiac in her house. Oldboy (2003), directed by Park Chan-wook, is about a man imprisoned by a mysterious captor for 15 years who must then chase his old memories when he is abruptly released. Peppermint Candy (2000), directed by Lee Chang-dong, starts with the suicide of the male protagonist, and then uses reverse chronology (like Memento) to depict the events of the last 20 years which led the man to want to kill himself.

Waking Life (2001), an animated film directed by Richard Linklater uses an innovative digital rotoscope technique to depict a young man stuck in a dream.^[33] Other films include Pan's Labyrinth (2006), a fantasy/war film directed by Guillermo del Toro about a girl who discovers a magical labyrinth of bizarre creatures, and The Science of Sleep (2006), a fantasy written and directed by Michel Gondry.

Some of the notable films from the 2000s that have been considered to have art film-qualities differed from mainstream films in controversial subject matter or in narrative form. Elephant (2003), a film directed by Gus Van Sant, for example, depicting mass murder at a high school that echoed the Columbine High School massacre, won top prize at the Cannes Film Festival. More recently, Todd Haynes' complex deconstruction of Bob Dylan's persona, I'm Not There, was favored by film critics, while the less well-received Southland Tales earned comparisons to Godard in its bizarre political focus and departure from narrative conventions.

Related concepts

Art television

A genre or style of "art television" has been identified, which shares some of the same traits of art films. Television shows such as David Lynch's Twin Peaks series and BBC's The Singing Detective also have "...a loosening of causality, a greater emphasis on psychological or anecdotal realism, violations of classical clarity of space and time, explicit authorial comment, and ambiguity." Other television shows that have been called "art television," such as The Simpsons, use a "...flurry of cultural references, intentionally inconsistent characterization, and considerable self-reflexivity about television conventions and the status of the programme as a television show."^[34]

References

1. ↑ http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_1861685559/art_film.html
2. ↑ http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:dt0bjkF9gCsJ:www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0412/is_3_33/ai_n15944886+%22art+cinema%22+definition&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=9
3. ↑ WILLIAM C. SISKA. The Art Film
4. ↑ WILLIAM C. SISKA. The Art Film
5. ↑ WILLIAM C. SISKA. The Art Film
6. ↑ Barbara Wilinsky. Sure Seaters: The Emergence of Art House Cinema.2001 (Commerce and Mass Culture Series). Review available at: http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:YfgZ-fYl8LAJ:www.upress.umn.edu/Books/W/wilinsky_cinema.html+history+%22art+film%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=46
7. ↑ Barbara Wilinsky. Sure Seaters: The Emergence of Art House Cinema. 2001 (Commerce and Mass Culture Series). Review available at: http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:YfgZ-fYl8LAJ:www.upress.umn.edu/Books/W/wilinsky_cinema.html+history+%22art+film%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=46
8. ↑ http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:BpEMjHdU5uIJ:www.film.ubc.ca/ubcinephile/cinephile/steenberg-framingwar.pdf+%22art+cinema%22+definition&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=40
9. ↑ http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:BpEMjHdU5uIJ:www.film.ubc.ca/ubcinephile/cinephile/steenberg-framingwar.pdf+%22art+cinema%22+definition&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=40
10. ↑ Sight and Sound. Available at: http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:36d45KkF9nIJ:www.bergmanorama.com/sightsound94_elsaesser.htm+%22art+cinema%22+definition&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=38
11. ↑ http://www.bu-london.co.uk/FT316reading6-SocialCinema.pdf
12. ↑ Memories of a Revolutionary Cinema by Allison Arnold Helminski. Available at: http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:sjqrtDAfKUUJ:www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/00/2/memories.html+%22art+cinema%22+definition&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=34
13. ↑ http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:DljIMs_w9BAJ:www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/intgenre/intgenre1.html+%22art+film%22+definition&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=47
14. ↑ allmovie.com
15. ↑ www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/movies/videos/myownprivateidahorhowe_a0b352.htm
16. ↑ In the same year, Bergman also directed Wild Strawberries, a film about an old medical doctor and professor whose nightmares make him reevaluate his life.
17. ↑ In 1952, Kurosawa directed Ikiru, a film about a Tokyo bureaucrat struggling to find a meaning for life.
18. ↑ Other films by Antonioni from the 1960s include L'eclisse (1962), about a young woman who is unable to form a solid relationship her boyfriend because of his materialistic nature; and Blowup (1966), a film about a photographer's involvement in a murder case (and the director's first English-language movie).
19. ↑ Fellini also directed La dolce vita(1960) which depicts a succession of nights and dawns in Rome as witnessed by a cynical journalist.
20. ↑ In 1975, Tarkovsky directed another film which garnered critical acclaim, The Mirror.
21. ↑ This was Jodorowsky's second film from the 1970s. He also made El Topo (1970), a surrealistic western movie.
22. ↑ Filmcritic.com critic Jake Euler
23. ↑ Reviewer Nick Schager
24. ↑ critic Matt Brunson
25. ↑ allmovie.com
26. ↑ Prior to Chungking Express, he directed Days of Being Wild. Later in the 1990s, Kar-wai directedHappy Together (film) (1997).
27. ↑ Critic Emanual Levy, at Emanuallevy.com
28. ↑ Matt Brunson
29. ↑ In 1990, Kiarostami directed Close-up.
30. ↑ http://www.filmcritic.com/misc/emporium.nsf/ddb5490109a79f598625623d0015f1e4/a29bee8a645baf0b882567c0005e8d55?OpenDocument
31. ↑ http://www.filmthreat.com/index.php?section=reviews&Id=997
32. ↑ Critic James Berardinelli
33. ↑ Five years later, Linklater released the science fiction film A Scanner Darkly (2006), which was also animated with Rotoscope.
34. ↑ Thompson. Available at: http://www.kamera.co.uk/books/new_hollywood_cinema.html