WiSe 22/23: Cinematic Atmospheres
Steffen Hven
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One of the most attractive features of cinema is indisputably its ability to embed its audience in atmospheric worlds or affectively charged virtual environments. To conjure up the desired atmospheres, films carefully use ambient soundscapes, music, colorations and filters, camera movements, mise-en-scène, framings, rhythmical editing, and many other ‘atmospheric’ techniques. Yet, what precisely do we mean when we speak of atmosphere in cinema? How can we define atmosphere as a concept and an aesthetic practice? What value might this concept have for our understanding of cinema and its immersive and world-making capacities? And how are we to study it? This course examines the fundamental elements that underline the cinematic production of atmosphere, from studio designs to soundscapes, guiding the students into an exciting new area of film studies. Through a study of the atmospheric design of selected films—e.g., The Lighthouse (Eggers, 2019), La ciénaga (Martel, 2001), The Elephant Man (Lynch, 1980), Chungking Express (Wong Kar-Wai, 1994), Holy Motors (Carax, 2012) and The Big Sleep (Hawks, 1946)—we will attempt to derive at a conceptual clarification of cinematic atmosphere and demonstrate its value for understanding cinema as an artform invested in the creation of felt environments. Drawing upon the growing body of literature on atmosphere, including works of Gernot Böhme, Hermann Schmitz, Tonino Griffero, and Giuliana Bruno, the aim is to cultivate a form of film analysis that regards the works less as texts to be read than environments to be explored and felt. Apart from feature films, we will also be examining how cinematic techniques related to atmosphere production have ‘relocated’ (Casetti) into new media environments from the use of slow-motion in video assistant refereeing (VAR) in modern football to retro-filters on image-sharing platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. Has cinema, in an age defined by the pervasive circulation of audiovisual imagery, become the ‘atmosphere’ through which we perceive, feel, and think?
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Regular appointments