I hadn't heard of this word before, though evidently it is a fairly common film word. Have any of you heard of it?
I read an article by a film critic who said it is the world's least specific adjective because theater-goers throw it around willy-nilly. Supposedly it reflects Brecht's notion of Verfremdungseffekt, which he called the "V-effect," in English meaning the alienation effect.
The normal technique of cinema and theatre is to try to involve the audience to the point where they forget that they are watching an entertainment and feel somehow as if they are part of the action or perhaps witnesses to real events.
Brecht's technique was , by various stage devices (odd settings, long asides to the audience delivered in a different style, modern pastiches of a Greek Chorus etc), to ensure that the audience were always aware of the division between themselves and the actors, that they never felt "involved" and so viewed everything dispassionately. I've never been convinced by it. It's too stylistic and if the play isn't extremely good too easy for the audience to become bored and distracted.
Maybe though it's just because when I've tried to watch in English the translations have been less than perfect and when I've tried to watch in German my language skills haven't really been up to it.
Brecht adapted his term Verfremdungseffekt 'distanciation, alienation effect' from the Russian Formalist Viktor Shklovsky's term ostrenanie 'defamiliarization, estranging'. "The purpose of art, then, is to lead us to a knowledge of a thing through the organ of sight instead of recognition. By 'estranging' objects and complicating form, the device of art makes perception long and 'laborious'. The perceptual process in art has a purpose all its own and ought to be extended to the fullest. Art is a means of experiencing the process of creativity. The artifact itself is quite unimportant." [V. Shklovsky, Art as Device, 1917]
Well, thank you very much, jheem! And, welcome to wordcraft! You obviously have a lot to add to our board! We are a relatively small group, but we are friendly and quite dedicated to language. We hope you stay with us!
Thanks, Kalleh. I'm looking forward to reading and getting to know folks. I've been in love with words since I figured out that all those squiggles on a page meant something.
I figured out that all those squiggles on a page meant something. ____________________________________________ They DO? They don't usually in my case, but I'm happy to see someone here who translates squiggles! Welcome to the asylum!
This has been enlightening. I've heard the expression "Brechtian" used and just nodded, sagely. "Ahhh, yes, isn't it?" I'm sure I can't be the only one who's done that!
Next up--someone REALLY explain what 'mis en scene' is?
WinterBranch-- Mise-en-scene was originally a stage theatrical term meaning how actors, props, and scenery are "placed in the scene" (the phrase's literal French meaning) or on the stage. So, it's partially setting and blocking (where actors are to be located at certain times during a scene). In film theory, it came to have a slightly more specialized meaning. Growing out of theoretical / critical writings that the future New Wave directors(e.g., Godard, Truffaut, Rohmer) did for Andre Bazin's journal Cahiers de Cinema. It was a style of film editing that was reacting against Eisenstein's montage and Hollywoood's coupage americaine (American editing). Mise-en-scene tended to favor long shots of actors acting with little or no cutting. Hollywood did, and still does, favor a kind of editing where a scene is shot first as a continuous master shot (usually a long shot) from beginning to end, and then a bunch of coverage, from medium shots to close ups, over the shoulders of listening actors, etc. This allows the director / editor to have a lot of different choices when in the editing room. Hope that helps.
They don't usually in my case, but I'm happy to see someone here who translates squiggles! Welcome to the asylum!
