Relationship between painting-phorography and theatre-cinematography? Proof?

[Nikolas]

Hello.

I come in need, as I've come so many other times! 

I'm trying to establish that there is a connection between painting and photography. That there is a relationship. Similarly I'm trying to establish that there is a connection between theatre and cinematography.

And I need to find a solid way to do this, through bibliography, or named quotes, or something. It does seem logical, since they are much alike, but logic is not enough in academia. I don't have access anymore to the university of London library, simply because I moved back in Athens. But names, links, name books, etc, would be hugely useful (quotes maybe, as well?)

Deep thank you all!

[Dudeman Thingface]

In terms of theatre and cinematography:

Take a movie, for example "Reservoir dogs". In the movie, there is a scene with Mr. White and Mr. Pink, they are talking in the bathroom and the camera is in the other end of the hallway through the doorway. This physical distance in watching them as if you are a voyeur is one of the key concepts in theatre. The concept that the audience is watching what unfolds out on stage as a voyeur looking through an invisible fourth wall, it's a key element in that its adherence is what determines story structure. As every story, in both theatre and movies, starts off expecting you to not know who any of the characters, because you don't know, because you're watching this as a voyeur who slowly understands what's going on and who the characters are. This is all slowly introduced to you (or quickly, depending on the story), but the point is that you are treated as a voyeur, only getting so much information and expecting to enter the story with none (information that is).
For example, take my Reservoir dogs example and Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
In Reservoir dogs you have that scene in the hallway, they are talking to each other and ignoring the camera because the fourth wall makes you the ultimate voyeur. Slowly, over the course their conversation, and the entire movie, you begin to understand what happened with Mr. Orange. But you know nothing at the start, and even then, the beginning only really introduces you to the characters.

The same occurs with Hamlet in the intro. Two guards talk about a problem, then Horatio enters and you begin to learn about a problem with King Hamlet, in particular, his ghost. Over the course of the movie, (and much like Reservoir Dogs, this is a pivotal



Also, in theatre you have something called "levels" which is the physical height from the ground and suggests status. It's not in all theatrical productions and is mostly used at the discretion of the actors and directors. For example, a king would stand higher than a lowly maid, and this may be given backstory. Maybe the maid has a bad back in cooking and cleaning for the king, and because the king has many luxuries he need not strain his back and thus stand taller. It might even be seen in someone in a position of power yelling or otherwise displaying an act of power and those who are lower than s/he would take a step back and slightly crouch, becoming immediatley in lower status to the person of power.
But what has this got to do in cinematography? Well, in cinematography they have things called low and high-angle shots that are used on exactly the same principle. Low-angle shots are used to suggest a character/s have high status or power, and high-angle shots are used to suggest the opposite. They both use the same principle of a significant difference in height (either literal in theatre or suggestive in cinematography) to create the same effect.

For example, in the beginning of The Dark Knight you have the Joker talking to the guy from the bank who got shot in the leg. The Joker walks over to him and takes off his maks and says "I believe that whatever doesn't kill you makes you ... stranger." The shot of him taking off his mask and saying that is a low angle shot, albeit from the perspective of bank teller guy, but still used to achieve the same effect. To suggest a power over the bank teller by the Joker.
In theatre, this may be seen in Ruby Moon. It starts off (once again, in the very beginning - maybe I have a thing for intro's) in which "Sylvie [sits] in the armchair" and “Ray stands”, Ray then “shakes his umbrella” which startles Sylvie and she quickly asks in fear “What was that?”. The short scene demonstrates that, even for that short moment as Sylvie sits and Ray stands, that Ray has the power, as his physical level his higher than hers. In a production, one might even have Sylvie stand as she gets startled, and the fear takes her question, and her status, to that of equal to Ray, forcing him to answer “It’s only me, baby. I’m home.”

I hope that helps.

[Andail]

I'm trying to establish that there is a connection between painting and photography. That there is a relationship.

This is an incredibly vague and abstract formulation of a question, for being an academic project.

In what perspective? By what standards, what measures? Are you writing an essay on semiotics, art history, or the theory of picture composition?

It's impossible to start without some sort of benchmark, some kind of framework. Please elaborate!

[paolo]

I'm trying to establish that there is a connection between painting and photography. That there is a relationship.

In what perspective? By what standards, what measures? Are you writing an essay on semiotics, art history, or the theory of picture composition?

I rather suspect this might be one of those essay questions of the form "Painting and photography are connected. Discuss." which would mean that it is open to a wide range of interpretations. Yuk. I always hated those sorts of essays.

Well, of course you can discuss realism in painting, and the even stronger link given by photorealism. If you want a name here, check out the work of Chuck Close.

Has photography ever aimed to imitate painting? I think you could say that it has. That might be an interesting angle worth exploring.

[Nikolas]

I'm trying to establish that there is a connection between painting and photography. That there is a relationship.

This is an incredibly vague and abstract formulation of a question, for being an academic project.

In what perspective? By what standards, what measures? Are you writing an essay on semiotics, art history, or the theory of picture composition?

It's impossible to start without some sort of benchmark, some kind of framework. Please elaborate!

This is not even a question to begin with, dear! [/joke]

No, really.

I'm doing a PhD in music composition, so, by no means, I will not spend too much time on the above questions, just thought I'd like to see if there's some form of bibliography I can base on to keep going towards my "theory" or hypothesis, even better.

What I'm trying to say is that if there is a connection between painting and photography and theatre and cinematography, it wouldn't be completely absurd to claim that there is a similar kind of connection between music and recorded music. (<-which seems logical, but logical is not enough).

If the above paragraph stands, then we could try and see the nature of this connection between each pair. Leading to the simple question: cinematography and photography are independent arts. Why isn't recorded music independent as well?

I have found something on an Art article: "..For now, the two mediums [contemporary painting and photography] seem locked in an endless dialectical two-step: erase one and the other would appear to be saying less... the liaison seems symbiotic...". Anyone wanting to expand on this quote, they should go and read the whole article (bibliography will be given). It's not up to me to prove that the two mediums are locked, etc... It's enough that for that guy they are and ergo connected. Finding a similar quote for cinema and theater would also solve my hands. And since I'm talking about "classical music" (concert hall music), mainly the recorded music is by default... a recording of a performance, no tempering not much else. So it's self explained, by default, to be connected.

Sorry I didn't expand too much in the earlier post.

Dudeman Thingface : Thanks ^_^

[Ali]

In early european cinema (particularly French, and some German if memory serves) a number of production designers / art designers and a few directers moved over from careers in theatre. I'm afraid I can't produce any names I'm confident of, but looking for a book on the history of cinematic production design would no doubt pull up many parallels.

[LGM]

There are some film theorists from the early 20th century that relate film to paintings. I can't think of a specific name for the life of me, but I feel a google search of "film theory painting" might yield something useful.

[paolo]

I have found something on an Art article: "..For now, the two mediums [contemporary painting and photography] seem locked in an endless dialectical two-step: erase one and the other would appear to be saying less... the liaison seems symbiotic...". Anyone wanting to expand on this quote, they should go and read the whole article (bibliography will be given).

Sorry, but this sounds like typical arty-farty nonsense to me. If you can just fill your essay with ten pages of this kind of pretentious waffle, you're sure to get an A

Seriously, though, I'd be suspicious of an article about art that doesn't know what the plural of "medium" is - anyone who's studied art seriously will know that it's "media" (as in "mixed media"). "Mediums" are fortune-tellers and people who wear medium-sized clothes.

[alex]

I'm new here but I wasn't born yesterday, so I hope I am taken both seriously and with a grain of salt (after all this is only my perspective after all, which is one of many different perspectives I could choose to own).

Everything is related.  The strength of the relationship diminishes with distance.  In the case of different paradigms, distance may be a combination of the displacement in time between the practices, or the displacement in terms of technologies used, perspectives employed, and basic understandings.  In simple terms, bouncing kittens down stairs is in most respects more distant to calculating an exponential function than calculating a logarithm.

It makes sense that painting is more closely related to photography than say, passing wind noisily at a party and attempting to ascribe the behavior to the hosts wife.  Let's look at the similarities between painting and photography:
1. They both involve light reflections within a spectrum visible to the human eye.
2. They both take into account things like focus, depth of field, perspective, composition of elements, contrast, etc etc
3. Appreciating both a photograph and a painting more than likely stimulates similar regions of the brain.
4. Painting is a more primitive technology.  It is the "olde worlde" of photography.  The oldendays people didn't have cameras, so they had to paint to represent the world around them as they saw it.  The fact people painted their perspectives may come down to some basic human urge to share how we see things and to be understood.  Photography fulfills the same desires early cave painters had, but with newer technology.

In much the same way as I would imagine theater and cinematography share a relationship.

Ultimately, everything is related to a greater or lesser extent.  If you look hard enough you can find ways in which any two things share similarities and differences.  So the question you have posed in itself is quite general and open to any kind of interpretation.

If you wanted to get an A, I think you need to ask yourself, not "what is the true, correct approach" but "what does teacher expect".

[GarageGothic]

I'm so happy my days of studying hardcore film theory are over, but one thing which did stick in my mind (vaguely) was Hugo Münsterberg's "The Photoplay" from 1916. His main argument is that, even at that early stage, film was a medium with an aesthetic of its own, setting it apart from the theatre. Nevertheless, for a discussion of similarities between the two media, you cannot really turn a blind eye to this text. It can be found online at: http://vlp.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/library/data/lit38804/index_html?pn=1 (download the PDF, the online reader sucks).

Also take a look at André Bazin's "What is cinema?" if you can find a copy, if I recall correctly he also talks at length about the relationship between film and theatre.