Formalist Film Theory - Ideological Formalism

Ideological Formalism

Ideologues focus on how socio-economic pressures create a particular style, and auteurists on how auteurs put their own stamp on the material. Formalism is primarily concerned with style and how it communicates ideas, emotions, and themes (rather than, as critics of formalism point out, concentrating on the themes of a work itself).

Two examples of ideological interpretations that are related to formalism:

The classical Hollywood cinema has a very distinct style, sometimes called the Institutional Mode of Representation: continuity editing, massive coverage, three-point lighting, "mood" music, dissolves, all designed to make the experience as pleasant as possible. The socio-economic ideological explanation for this is, quite crassly, that Hollywood wants to make as much money and appeal to as many ticket-buyers as possible.

Film noir, which was given its name by Nino Frank, is marked by lower production values, darker images, underlighting, location shooting, and general nihilism: this is because, we are told, during the war and post-war years filmmakers were generally more pessimistic (as well as filmgoers). Also, the German Expressionists (including Fritz Lang, who was not technically an expressionist as popularly believed) emigrated to America and brought their stylized lighting effects (and disillusionment due to the war) to American soil.

It can be argued that, by this approach, the style or 'language' of these films is directly affected not by the individuals responsible, but by social, economic, and political pressures, of which the filmmakers themselves may be aware or not. It is this branch of criticism that gives us such categories as the classical Hollywood cinema, the American independent movement, the New American independent movement, the new queer cinema, and the French, German, and Czech new waves.