Film analysis has been the subject of many minds such as Pasolini, Bordwell , Eisenstein, Balazs, and Metz. The debates have led to the establishment of theories on how to interpret films and categorize them. This paper focuses on the works of Pasolini and Bordwell in the cinema art. The two, representing different ages in film development have important contributions to make. Their contributions are linked to other theorists since the works of Croce influenced Pasolini in explaining poetics while Bordwell is also influenced by several theorists in the field of cognitive theory (Keating, 2001; Bordwell, 1989) . This paper establishes a link between the two theorists and their important contribution in the film language and how that language is delivered to the viewers. The two theorists agree as to the use of images as a language in the film . Further, they also agree that the images used must be pre-existing in nature as well as in the viewer's memory. They agree fundamentally that movie has no language of its own and therefore is irrational as per the word of Pasolini. Consequently, this paper attempts to demonstrate that Bordwell lends more explanation to Pasolini's attempt of establishing the intersection platform between the image and reality in the viewers' mind.
Pasolini’s position
Pasolini's position deviated from the common perception of films as being poetic. He establishes a link and deviation between film as poetry and narrative by reviewing the inherent qualities of poetry and narrative in film. In essence, Pasolini attempts to establish the fact that a film is irrational by the virtue that it lacks a pre-established language to be used as a narrative writer would consult a dictionary. Thus, he concludes that films are irrational by virtue that the four languages used are irrational such as the language of gesture, environment, memory, and dreams. Pasolini remains a controversial cinema contributor in his time and today. According to Pasolini, on the subject of art cinema, a film can be considered to be poetic if it satisfies four conditions; if and only if it is concrete, irrational, formal and expresses an individual’s point of view (Keating, 2001). However, films do not meet all these qualifications. All these elements are significant to the viewer’s understanding of the encoded message since the film must communicate.
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Concrete
While commenting on the concrete nature of films, Pasolini argues that all films, at his time, were concrete. He says that the word tree could have two meanings: an abstract and concrete meaning. The abstract meaning is only achievable in the literary writings. A fill maker cannot represent a tree in an abstract form but can only do so in a concrete form through images (Keating, 2001). However, he accepts that continuous use of these images over time may render them abstract.
Irrational
Pasolini establishes the existence of a cinema language; this he argues is true given the inherent ability of cinema to communicate. Surprisingly, he contradicts this statement by saying that cinema does not have a preexisting language like the literary forms to be consulted but relies on other languages (Keating, 2001). Thus, cinema language becomes irrational; Given that the cinema language depends on the four languages noted above, they are irrational, and hence cinema language in totality becomes irrational.
Formal
According to Pasolini's point of view, cinema betrays its capability of being poetic by using objective communication (the language of the environment) rather than subjective communication (the language of a dream) (Keating, 2001). Thus for a film to be poetic, it must be constituted of the language of dreams, but this will be found not to be the case at all times.
An Individual Point of View
Pasolini's rule on the individual point of view requires that a cinema be personal; to communicate to one’s self. However, it crosses this boundary and communicates not to self but many as observed in the narratives and prose. Most cinemas combine dreams, which are personal communications hence poetic and narratives (Keating, 2001). Thus, these two features the formal and individual point of view disqualifies cinema as a form of poetry.
Comparing and contrasting Bordwell theory and Pasolini’s views
The above-articulated views place the film at a great paradox; based on the arguments it becomes difficult to locate a cinema as a poetic or narrative tool seeing that they share some elements. This aspect disposes us to consider Bordwell's theory, which focuses on the cognitive aspect of the cinema world. According to Pasolini, the cinema can be understood by referring to previously understood language, the language of cinema borrows from what is known, and the viewers can only understand the meaning of a cinema by constantly referring to what he already knows. This lack of explanation can only be supplied and explained by considering Bordwell's cognitive theory. Thus, I contend that Bordwell's theory does not contradict Pasolini's views but rather complements them by elaborating on how a viewer uses his visual and mental abilities to understand and interpret a movie scene.
Bordwell, while commenting on the case of cognitive proposes that there is a definite pattern of mental representation involved in film observation and analysis (Bordwell, 1989). He advances three areas that are of special interest in mental representations; content, structure, and processing
Content
According to Bordwell, the content addresses the questions "what is it about.” These are components found within the film, which are the images (Bordwell, 1989). The image involves visual capturing of spatial distances, orientations and the actual objects.
Structure
Structure refers to the arrangement of the images in the scene (Bordwell, 1989). The viewer perceives the objects about each other. Here, the position of the object matters whether it is within the establishing short or the medium short and the nature of the frame.
Processing
In the processing stage, the mental faculty makes interpretations, judgments, and inferences in solving mental problems (Bordwell, 1989). In processing, Bordwell argues that memory relies on pre-established images in the brain. This communication pattern follows four stages as hinted previously; the eye captures the illuminations, the illumination is sent to the brain, which forms a 2D structure. The 2D structure is then converted to a 3D image, which is now presented to other levels of brain function to correlate the image with other earlier versions stored in the brain (Bordwell, 1989). Thus, a person can make meaning out of the image. This view establishes a link with Pasolini's views of cinema art. The cinema art must rely on images already understood; these images are conveyed to the viewer with the aim of stimulating the viewer's mind to interpret just as Bordwell postulated the cognitive theory. Thus, I do not find the two proponents' theories to be in disagreement. The former does not undo the work of the former, but there is perfect harmony in their argument. Arguably, the argument is that images in cinema are pre-determined, are known and are thus used as a language to communicate to the viewers who picks this images as language from his environment and makes meaning of them through mental representations. Looking at this view critically, Bardwell agrees with Pasolini that cinema art is more of narrative in nature and less of poetic and that the language is irrational since it communicates without a language of its own.
Pasolini and Bordwell agreeing again in the film Teorema
This claims located in the movie Teorema. The film constitutes images that follow each other in successive scenes. The images are of animate and inanimate beings who engage in acts and verbal communication to one another. The language images used are common and are obtained from the natural environment; they are objects that people of that time were interacting with on a daily basis with images like houses, vehicles, and people. Therefore, The environment is established as a language of the film. These images, as they occur between the actors, have an impact on the viewer who picks them through visual encoding and later on decoding in the brain. The viewer then relates these images in action form to already established images in the brain and makes a judgment. It can be seen that Pasolini establishes the language of the film and Bordwell educates on how the language reaches the viewers and how it is interpreted.
This movie is one of the most controversial images described by some as departing from the social and religious norms. This information can be picked from viewing the film. The acts of the mysterious being that comes and have a sexual affair with all the family members of the wealthy household are compared to normal situations in life and one can conclude that the acts are not normal. If such language, environmental, was not available or if the director and producer had relied totally on other images that are not known to this world then the viewers would not have been able to decipher the meaning of the film and film would not exist anymore.
Pasolini and Bordwell have made significant contributions to the film industry regarding postulating theories that guide in the analysis, classification, and interpretation of the film. They both agree that a film cannot exist if it were not for other languages, that the film sector relies on the established languages to present its opinions and facts. Thus, without the known world of languages, films would cease to exist. It is therefore sufficient to conclude that Pasolini and Bordwell agree on the language of film and that Bordwell complements the views of Pasolini.
References
Bordwell, D. (1989). A case for cognitivism. In Iris (Vol. 9, No. 1989, pp. 11-40).
Keating, P. (2001). Pasolini, Croce, and the Cinema of Poetry . Scope, June.
