familiar, or acquaint us with the unfamiliar; repeat-
ing them emphasizes their content. Shot patterns
can convey character state of mind, create relation-
ships, and communicate narrative meaning. As we
shall see in later chapters, nonnarrative patterns
such as the repetition of a familiar image or a famil-
iar sound effect (or motif from the movie’s musical
score) are also important components of film form.
Fundamentals of Film Form
The remaining chapters in this book describe the
major formal aspects of film—narrative, mise-en-
scène, cinematography, acting, editing, sound—to
provide you with a beginning vocabulary for talk-
ing about film form more specifically. Before we
study these individual formal elements, however,
we shall briefly discuss three fundamental princi-
ples of film form:
>Movies depend on light.
>Movies provide an illusion of movement.
>Movies manipulate space and time in unique
ways.Movies Depend on Light
Light is the essential ingredient in the creation and
consumption of motion pictures. Movie images are
made when a camera lens focuses light onto either
film stock or a video sensor chip. Movie-theater
projectors and video monitors all transmit motion
pictures as light, which is gathered by the lenses
and sensors in our own eyes. Movie production
crews—including the cinematographer, the gaffer,
the best boy, and many assorted grips and assis-
tants—devote an impressive amount of time and
equipment to illumination design and execution.
Yet it would be a mistake to think of light as simply
a requirement for a decent exposure. Light is more
than a source of illumination; it is a key formal ele-
ment that film artists and technicians carefully
manipulate to create mood, reveal character, and
convey meaning.
One of the most powerful black-and-white films
ever made, John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath(1940),
tells the story of an Oklahoma farming family forced
off their land by the violent dust storms that
plagued the region during the Great Depression of
the 1930s. The eldest son, Tom Joad (Henry Fonda),
returns home after serving a prison sentence, only
to find that his family has left their farm for the sup-
posedly greener pastures of California. Tom and an
itinerant preacher named Casy (John Carradine),
whom he has met along the way, enter the Joad
house, using a candle to help them see inside the
pitch-black interior. Lurking in the dark, but illumi-
nated by the candlelight (masterfully simulated by
cinematographer Gregg Toland), is Muley Graves
(John Qualen), a farmer who has refused to leave
Oklahoma with his family. As Muley tells Tom and
Casy what has happened in the area, Tom holds the
candle so that he and Casy can see him better, and
the contrasts between the dark background and
Muley’s haunted face, illuminated by the flickering
candle, reveal their collective state of mind: despair.
The unconventional direction of the harsh light dis-
torts the characters’ features and casts elongated
shadows looming behind and above them. The story
is told less through words than through the overtly
symbolic light of a single candle. Muley’s flashback
account of the loss of his farm reverses the pattern.
The harsh light of the sun that, along with the
relentless wind, has withered his fields beats down
upon Muley, casting a deep, foreshortened shadow
of the ruined man across his ruined land. Such
sharp contrasts of light and dark occur throughout
the film, thus providing a pattern of meaning.
Perhaps it would be useful to draw a distinction
between the luminous energy we call light and
the crafted interplay between motion-picture light
and shadow known as lighting. Light is responsi-
ble for the image we see on the screen, whether
photographed (shot) on film or video, caught on a
disc, created with a computer, or, as in animation,
drawn on pieces of celluloid known as cels. Light-
ing is responsible for significant effects in each
shot or scene. It enhances the texture, depth, emo-
tions, and mood of a shot. It accents the rough tex-
ture of a cobblestoned street in Carol Reed’s The
Third Man(1949), helps to extend the illusion of
depth in Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane(1941), and
emphasizes a character’s subjective feelings of46 CHAPTER 2PRINCIPLES OF FILM FORM