Vagabond, Agnes Varda (1985)

The scene from the picture above was one of my favorites in this film because it showed the two "outsider" people bonding. One of the main themes that i got out of the film was loneliness, and that no matter if you are married or young or old or have kids or are a homeless person, essentially everybody is a certain degree of loneliness. We talked about this film being a feminist film and i can see how it would be that in a way because of how all the way up to the end of the film the girl is alone. She doesn't need a man to take care of her (although maybe she does, she did die in the end-JK JK!)

Let The Right One In, Tomas Alfredson (2008)

One of my favorite things about this film was the use of the color red up against the blue/grey color scheme of the entire movie. Almost every shot had a striped down color palette and then one little shot of red in the background or on a persons clothing. This deep red color was obviously a correlation to the girl being a vampire and blood which is associated with vampires. It was also interesting how the first scene of the boy looking out the window began and ended the film. My interpretation of that is that the beginning of the movie was actually the end, all the events had already occured and the boy was thinking back on them.

High School, Fred Wiseman (1968) and The Devil Never Sleeps, Lourdes Portillo (1994)

Since last weeks post was a very quick and short minded post, I will put extra effort into this weeks posts on documentary's. This weeks theme is difficult for me because Shelley keeps reiterating that we should think of these films as a form of cinema and editing rather than on if they are realistic or not. This is difficult because while watching the films, the entire time I was wondering how factual they really were! It is an odd concept that I can watch a regular narrative film and not worry if it is real or fake but when it is in documentary style I feel the need to know if it is real or not. Once I discover a documentary that I am watching is not "real" i am instantly less interested in it. I dont really know exactly what that means about film and documentary style films, but I find that interesting! High School had elements of editing that I liked such as the extreme close ups of specific details. For example, the mother nervously touching the chair, or the deans big ring. Not only did that put attention on those things, but also it, in a way, made what the people were saying less important because the focus was on other details. Below is a great shot from the film, showing a high school girl being entraped by the walls of her high school, like a prisoner.

The Devil Never Sleeps was an interesting documentary because it ended in the same way it began. She did not discover or come to an end with her uncles death and it was still left a mystery. Portilla used lots of eye catching filming techniques. The film seemed almost experimental in the ways that she combined different images such as the toy boat in the water, or the reflection of the interviewee in her glasses.

Lastly, I saw the midnight movie at the Rio which was Edward Scissorhands, and had to comment on it! First off, that movie looked completely different to me on a big screen, versus the small screen from my television at home, and in a good way! Now that I have some basic knowledge on the making of a film, I really noticed and appreciated the mise-en-scene of this film. Tim Burton did an exceptional job with the pastel colors of the neighborhood to give off a Leave It To Beaver , happy happy joy joy vibe. Furthermore, everything from tables to light shades to appliances were all set back into the time period from the movie. I have more respect for this film now that I see its deeper meaning which I believe is that everything is not always what it seems to be. For example, Edward wears all black and has scars and is pale, however he is the character with the purist soul rather than the materialist women who try to seem perfect. I loved how the first line of the film was "snuggle in sweetie, its cold out there" -clearly not just referring to the weather but rather to the harsh criticisms in our society.

Sink or Swim, Zu Friedrich (1990) and The Smell of Burning Ants, Jay Rosenblatt (1994)

Experimental films are crazy! It was interesting how in class the TA Logan knew that we were going to be bored because these are experimental films. It was funny how before we even began to watch the films he was preparing us for boredom. The fact that he had for seen that must tell us something about experimental films. I personally like experimental films because of how they break all the filming "norms" that are used in practically every movie we see in theaters.

Chungking Express, Wong Kar-wai (1994)

I know this blog is not supposed to be a film review, but i cannot help but state the fact that I adore this film! I found it interesting that the two stories were not related at all, and that characters from the second part could be seen in the background in the first story. For example, in the first story the woman with the wig is walking by a store and in the background Faye can very subtly be seen walking out of a store holding a giant Garfield which she gives to Cop 663 in the second story. This is almost a hint that the two stories are happening more or less simultaneously. Another thing I found beautiful about the film is that it gives a take on love that is different than what our society generally depicts as 'love'.
I found this video that I liked because I love passion pit and they covered the song Dreams by The Cranberries which is in the film...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxYFlLY3KiE

Blackmail, Alfred Hitchcock (1929)

This still shot from Blackmail by Alfred Hitchcock is a favorite of mine because of the Jester painting in the background. The Jester from this film is a metaphor for many different things. One of which being that he is like the man who painted it (the dead guy). Near the end of the film there is a shot of the Jester and in a way it reflects the dead man laughing at Alice because she never got to have a voice. In a way he sort of got away with his crime. Throughout the entire film the audience wants to shake Alice to make her speak up and tell her side of the story.

Hiroshima Mon Amour, Alain Resnais (1959)

This weeks film, Hiroshima, Mon Amour, showed many different examples of this weeks theme, editing and montages. The picture above shows how the editor used a close up shot to reveal intimacy between the unnamed characters. Furthermore, in the beginning of the film there was a montage of many different shots of people, places, etc. to give the audience an idea about the events that occurred in Hiroshima. I also noticed from the examples in class and from the movie that a lot of the time when montages occur, there is music playing, probably to create a more fluid transition between the different images. In this film during the montage there was music playing in the background on top of a woman's voice narrating.

His Girl Friday, Howard Hawks (1939)

This weeks film was His Girl Friday by Howard Hawks and the focus of the film was editing. With this being the first time I have ever studied film, i never realized how many cuts there were in an entire film. And that is a good thing! The main point in editing is to create a fluid series of shots that are aesthetically pleasing to the viewer. For this film I noticed a lot of scenes that had a fade-out into another scene. This is an old film and I am wondering if they still use those as often today as they did in 1939 because I can't recall seeing many faded out scenes in today's movies like I did in this film. I also was very aware of the use of the 180 degree rule. One last technique that clearly stood out to me was when the reporters found out that Williams was hiding in the table, there were an extreme amount of cuts, most likely to show chaos.

The Piano, Jane Campion (1993)

The week we saw the film, The Piano, our focus in the class was cinematography. After learning about different filming techniques it was easy to spot them, especially with this film. There were many many extreme close up shots of the main characters hands. This is ironic because of the series of events that occur ending with the woman's finger getting chopped off. If I was to see this film again it would be obvious to me that something bad involving her hands was going to happen in the end. The end of this movie is an ending that I just can't stop pondering about. Someone brought up the idea that her getting pulled into the ocean with her piano could have been a dream and I never thought of that before. They mentioned the idea that she died in that scene and then the last scene where she is learning to speak wasn't real. The piano was very symbolic of the woman's voice, since it was how she expressed herself.

Do The Right Thing, Spike Lee (1989)

There was a very apparent Mise-en-scene in this film. The point that stood out the most to me was the coloring. There were very saturated, bright reds, yellows and greens, probably a connection to the emphasis on African Americans in the film. Spike Lee did a wonderful job in showing heat by creating a yellow/orange haze in the scenes throughout the film. I could literally feel the heat they were experiencing throughout the day. This also later came to be a foreshadowing of the fire that was to occur in the end with Sal's Pizzeria. He also did a wonderful job by showing the tension between the Italians and African Americans by having Mookie, the main character in a Robinson jersey, and the white male walking down the street in a Larry Bird Jersey. Robinson was the first black baseball player while Larry Bird is a very white, Irish basketball player.

In class we talked about how directors and cinematographers have created visual metaphors for the audience to subconsciously feel more connected to a film. For example, in The Graduate the mother in the film is wearing a leopard coat to resemble her ferocious, sexual character as she tried to seduce the boy.