Week Ten (Monday 4-7-08)

Frampton's formula for determining what a film is about is an interesting concept. He basically says that a film is about whatever appears most often in it. This can be applied to many films, but I don't think it always works. Certainly, many narrative films are about much more than just what appears frequently in them. However, regarding the films we saw in class this week, Frampton's idea is applicable. In Dorsky's film, Love's Refrain, there is definitely a common thread I noticed. This thread runs throughout the entire film. In many shots, we are shown living things in their various forms - people, animals, and nature. I think this is really what Dorsky's film is about. A good number of his shots contain average people going about their daily lives (almost as if they don't even know they're being filmed). There were also many shots of birds (some perched, some flying). And then Dorsky made use of several nature shots - these were of trees as well as various plants and vegetation. I think he was just trying to capture life from as many different angles, both figuratively and literally. The former was covered by having different types/species of life while the latter was accomplished by using a variety of actual camera angles. In between these shots, there were others that captured such things as buildings. I can't quite remember what else Dorsky shot but I definitely remember that he had a few shots of what looked like apartment complexes. Perhaps these shots supplemented the life shots. First off, in an obvious way, these shots were transitions between the others. Secondly, there might have been a deeper reason for Dorsky to use these shots. Maybe he was trying to show the habitats of the various forms of life. He shows us apartment complexes, which house people. He shows us natural spaces, which house all forms of nature. And he shows us trees and other places were birds perch and make their homes.

I think that these facts do help me understand the film better. Since I have some idea of what Dorsky was trying to do, the film itself has more meaning. It doesn't seem like just a bunch of different shots strung together for no apparent reason. The fact that the film had no soundtrack made watching the images a much more delicate affair. It had a slight calming effect, I think. Overall, I feel like I have a fairly good grasp on what Dorsky was doing with Love's Refrain. And Frampton's formula absolutely plays a major role in that.