The Rhetoric of Cinematic Improvisation

Considering the importance of improvisation for many moder filmmakers, it is surprising that the technique has received so little critical attention. In part this is due to the lack of interest among serious critics in film acting: elements of mise-en-scene, montage, and camera technique have historically occupied a central position in discussions of film artistry. Yet the contributions of actors are also an important part of cinema, now more than ever before when the collaboration of actors, writers and directors has been emphasized by recent films that stress improvisation. What the directors who work in collaboration with actors seem to be striving for is the sense of discovery that comes from the unexpected and unpredictable in human behavior. If we think of art as a means of giving form to life, improvisation can be looked at as one way of adding to our sense of the liveliness of art, a means of avoiding the sterility that results from rote recitations of

Aesthetics · Art · Humanities · Improvisation · Rhetoric · Theology · Visual arts · Art, Politics, and Modernism · Artistic and Creative Research · Cinema and Media Studies · Philosophy

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