Un Chien Andalou

Michael George

10/30/2010

Un Chien Andalou

Total Running Time: 00:16:00

Director: Luis Bunel

Language: (silent)

Awards: This better not have won any...

If not the most "WTF?!" short film of all time...

    Ok, I know that film can sometimes be an expression of art, but...this just really had no point. I'll give it props for being made well for 1929, but that is as far as it will go and is the only favorable thing I will mention. This was a surrealist film that catored to the avant-garde movement as well as Freudian theories. While researching Un Chien Andalou for this blog, I read that both the lead actors killed themselves after the film was created. I don't doubt it, nor do I blame them after being in this.

     In 1974 Bunuel told the Oxford University Press: "Nothing, in the film, symbolizes anything. The only method of investigation of the symbols would be, perhaps, psychoanalysis." Now, don't get me wrong, I can have a sick sense of humor or a twisted mind at times, but I don't think I would create something like this.

     I'll close the blog with the legacy of the "eyeball cutting scene" and stills from the film. Then I'll never think about this ever again. I know it was shown for weird Halloween purposes, and I guess the shock value was achieved because the film was just creepy and confusing to watch.



#10 in "The 25 Most Shocking Moments in Movie History" (Premiere)

#65 in "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema" (Empire) ...How?

Beauty and the Beast (1946 version)

Michael George

10/30/2010

Beauty and the Beast

Total Running Time: 01:33:00

Language: French

Director: Jean Cocteau

Awards: #26 in Empire Magazine's "100 Best Films of World Cinema" (2010)

     Beauty and the Beast or La Belle et la Bete is a French film from 1946 that was directed by Jean Cocteau. It portrays most of the elements from the animated Disney movie we all saw as children, but there were several differences. The live action version we watched seems to be much darker with more emphasis on death, betrayal, and for the most part, overall stupidity. This film also didn't have any musical numbers, thank god. While it was mentioned in class that some see Beauty and the Beast as a feminist film, I tend to disagree. Feminist views and theories usually deal with female empowerment and enlightenment. Beauty and the Beast is the exact opposite of this, in my opinion. Belle is a slave to her family at first, pretty much subservant to men, and only gains wealth and self esteem after finding a man who loves her and is bestowed with a huge castle and treasures. If anything, I would see more Marxist and Formalist Theories in this film based on its motion of the plot and the new advances of "special effects" showcased here.

     Two articles I used researching this film can be looked at here and here. I chose these articles because they focus on the special effects, writing,  and acting of the film, with the first article being in favor of the production and the second article praises these things, while not liking pretty much everything else. The first article starts off by talking about the make-up job on the Beast. Apparently, his beastly mask was very progressive for the time and the author comments on how the eye brows were able to move, along with the mouth, and was able to give Beast the opportunity to showcase various emotions through almost primative special effects. It then talks about the arm ornaments and people in the wooden furniture and how it was progressive as well. Then it mentions that Beast hands would smoke every time he kills something. I never picked up on this in the film. The second article starts off mentioning that one of the theme's of the film is staring death in the face, yet transforming it into something positive and beautiful. It also states that the score of the film played a crucial role in creating the atmosphere and the DVD even has bonus tracks on it. Just like the first article, credit is given to the production values of this film.

     These two articles relate to the Marxist and Formalist Film Theories. I'm still baffled by how they made the magic mirror effects happen. We would probably do that with green screen, but I know film makers certainly didn't have that back then. So, how did they do it? Angles? Beauty and The Beast defnitely showed the advancements in film making. These special effects almost seemed like a character in the film that drove the plot more than the boring acting. I can't forget to mention that they steared the plot away from most Feminist theories in, in my opinion, as magic doesn't have a sex so it can't favor one gender over the other. Still, I think Beauty and The Beast can also be seen as semi-auteristic based on the directions of production they chose which differed from an even more original version written several years earlier. I didn't catch some of the themes mentioned in both articles, so they were interesting to think about while typing this up.

     I guess this film was ok. I started getting bored into sleep for the first 20 minutes because the film was very dull, not much was going on, and I guess I need flashy things on screen to entertain me. Once I came out of my slumber for the last hour of the movie I was actually entertained by the special effects. I think it was these new advancements that really sold the film. Could you imagine trying to watch the film without them? It would be even more terrible. I didn't like the acting; the under acting at points made certain moments weird to watch. When you see something scary, you expect the actor to be scared. When they don't act that way, you question why. This movie is a good example that should be used for film history purposes, but should be sealed away in vault and not watched after that.

SOURCES:

"Beauty And The Beast." Matt Langdon. 12 February 2003. Film Critic. http://www.filmcritic.com/reviews/1946/beauty-and-the-beast/

"Beauty And The Beast." Christopher Lloyd. 2 August 2010. http://www.thefilmyap.com/2010/08/02/beauty-and-the-beast-1946/

Let The Right One In

Michael George

10/27/2010

Let The Right One In

Total Running Time: 01:54:00

Director: Tomas Alfredson

Awards: "Best Narrative Feature," Tribeca Film Festival, "Best International Film, " Saturn Awards

PLOT: Let The Right One In is a Swedish film released in 2008. The film focuses on the relationship between a bullied 12-year-old living in Stockholm, Germany, and a young vampire who moves into town.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN BOOK AND MOVIE: I've never read the book before, but after viewing the movie I hopped on the internet to search sources for a specific "attention to writing." In this case, the most common attention to writing is the differences between the events depicted in the book (released in 2004) and the movie that was released four years later. Apparently, as seen in most cases, the book has a lot more plot points and characters than the movie does. This was probably done because of time and budget restraints.

I think the biggest difference of all is how much the film was toned down. The film looks G rated compared to some of the things I read that appear in the book. The biggest difference I can tell from reading reviews is that the book is a lot more sexual than the movie. The young vampire, Eli (who was originally a boy), lives with a caretaker who is a pedophile and makes unwanted advances, if not flat out taking what he wants, on the young girl. Sexuality between adolescents is depicted in the book, as well as possible incest, as well as the whole transgendered debate. I have a feeling this was toned down for the big screen because that would be a big no-no for audience members and the people who rate movies because of the content being directed towards two children. The main character, the bullies boy Oscar, is also much darker in the book than on camera. In the movie he collects a scrap book of violent newspaper articles and other grim things, but is mostly quiet and somewhat cowardly. It was noted that his character is much darker and sinister in the book. Examples of this are that in the book he contemplates being a serial killer and an arsonist.

Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon

Michael George

10/14/2010

Rashomon

Total Running Time: 01:28:00

Language: Japanese

Director: Akira Kurosawa

Awards: "Golden Line," 1951 Venice Film Festival, "Honorary Award," 24th Academy Awards

     Rashomon is a 1951 Japanese film that tells the story of a rape of a woman and the murder of her husband from four different perspectives; the bandit, the woman, her husband, and a woodcutter. Each story is different during various parts, but each story also contains a bit of a truth about what really happened. Several types of film theories are displayed in Rashomon. I feel the two biggest theories present in this movie are psychoanalysis and marxist. The psychoanalitical theory tends to lean more in the direction of the film acturately portraying human nature. Rashomon obvoiulsy portays human nature in the ways that it shows the evil that people do to each other, the fact that everyone lies, and while there are lots of horrible people in the world, there is still some hope for change in humanity in the future. The marxist theory states that the plot of the film is moved around by the groups of characters in the film, not just by the central, main character. The bandit in this film is who I feel is the main character, as the events seen in Rashomon come directly from his poor choices. However, the the husband and wife have the same equal value, and the woodcutter and priest also add to the plot of the movie through their little side plot.



     Also visible in this film is the feminist view, as well as the formalist view. I think that maybe the film maker was trying to show how weird the treatment of women is in Japan. I just didn't understand the whole "I've been raped, please kill me, husband," situation and thought it was silly. Maybe he was trying to play this silliness off as a way to poke at the almost nonvaluable opinions towards women at the time. The formalist theory was pointed out to me in class on wednesday. Formalist theories play more into production values such as lighting, sound, shots, etc. The use of the music which would almost fit into a western and the "first ever" shot of the sun in film was used for a specific purpose.

     The two sources I used for Rashomon can be viewed here  and here. The first article talks about how "ground breaking" Rashomon was because it was proof that foreign films could survive in other markets around the world. An interesting production note is that in some shots Kurosawa tinted the rain black with ink. Next, it talks about how Rashomon left the ending up to viewer interpretation. Its next main point is how another underlying central theme of the film is ego and that having an ego your whole life is one of the hardest things to redeem yourself from. In the second article, it gives a breakdown of the opening scene where the woodcutter is walking through the jungle. The picture below is described by some as "among the most sensuous moving camera shots in cinema history." If one were to break down the woodcutters walking scene by direction, it becomes clear that he is walking in circles. This plays into the theme of lying and embellishing so much that you get caught up in your own lies.



     The two production notes I learned from my two articles only proves more that Rashomon can be classified as a formalist film. Again, a formalist film being one that focuses on production techniques as a way of telling the story. The black tinted rain relates directly to the mood of the story, the lies each man was telling, and the despair that the priest felt towards humanity as a whole. The walking scene was a subtle way of relating actions to themes in the film, something I think very few people have actually realized. Stumbling onto the church  during the rainstorm could be a big metaphor for the woodcutter finding the truth in life. Once the rain stops, he decides to raise the baby unselfishly. Again, the production of rain in the film was directly related to a character's thoughts and actions.

     Compared to 400 Blows, I really liked this film. It was slow at first and I almost didn't understand what was happening until the second side of the story was told. The "Rashomon Effect" was mentioned in class, and I think I've seen this done in other films before. For example, because we're so close to Halloween, The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005) has a similar plot as the trial of a deceased woman is shown from the perspective of the priest, the girls father, and by legal officials. Three stories on the same tale, all of which are different but have some bit of truth. As I stated above, the only real downside of this movie was the Japanese culture and their treatment of women. I kind of wanted to be the obnoxious one in the theatre and be like, "Kick his ass!" or "Don't let your husband look at you like that." I'm kind of an equal opportunist type of guy. Either way, the film made me have some sort of reaction which is what film making is all about.

SOURCES:
"Into The Woods: A Rashamon Sequence Analysis." Pacze Moj. 23 February 2009. http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/391
"Rashamon." Patrick Tatara. http://www.tcm.com/thismonth/article.jsp?cid=136021&mainArticleId=160926

Truffaut's 400 Blows

Michael George

10/09/2010

400 Blows

Total Running Time: 01:39:00

Language: French

Director: Francis Truffaut

Awards: "Best Director Award," 1959 Cannes Film Festival, "Best Original Screenplay," 32nd Academy Awards

     400 Blows is a French film from 1959 that chronicles the events of a young boy, Antoine Doinel, as he seemingly digs himself deeper and deeper into a life of lies, robbery, and loneliness. This film is noted as being one of the defining films of the French New Wave, which was a new style of film making that rejected the normal cinematic form that movies were currently being made in. However, I feel that 400 Blows speaks to several different models of film theory. First of all, it fits into the realist theory as the movie didn't turn out all happy and bright like most films are made out to. In reality, there are juveniles at a really young age who have no hope of living a normal life because they simple don't care. The realist theory portrays cinema as it would appear in real life, and Antoine's situation is an example of real life portrayed in film.

     Secondly, 400 Blows falls into the auterist theory. 400 Blows is based somewhat on experiences that Truffaut had as a child. In this theory, the vision of the film belongs more to the author or artist behind the camera instead of the normal processes of film making. Finally, this film falls into the ideology theory. The ideologist theory is a set of beliefs about society and the world. 400 Blows is an obvious example of this theory as, while researching the film to prepare this blog, I read that it was made by Truffaut as a way to show the injustices towards juvenile delinquents in France during the late 1950s.

    Two sources that I used for this blog can be found here and here. The first article brings up again how this film was almost autobiographical film because it portrayed certain aspects of his life. Almost as a journal, the film is credited as a camera-to-pen style and cites "cinema in the first person singular." The article also touches on his homelife as a child, where his parents wanted little to do with him, he had to break into movie theatres so he could find solice by being wrapped up in films. He even told his teacher that his father was captured by the Germans as an excuse to get out of skipping class.We know this to be different from the film, as he told the teacher his mother was dead. It also gives a lot of credit to the last freeze frame. My second article is done by Roger Ebert who is probably one of the most recognized critiquers of films. His review provides even more insight into Truffaut's life as a child. He says that the film is dedicated to Andrew Bazin, a film critic, who took Truffaut under his wing when he was either going to turn down a darker path or turn his life around. Roger Ebert says that another important theme of 400 Blows is paternity. Maybe if his parents invested time in his childhood, he wouldn't have had the early troubles in adolescence that he did.



   When we first watched this film, I really thought it was a film about nothing and the ending made me look around the room and think, "really?" I just felt like it was a huge waste of time. But, that was looking at it as a viewer instead of dissecting it in terms of film theories. Once I did that, and looked up articles, I came to the conclusion that the film was very well made and important based on the time period it was created in. I was able to see and understand a lot more plot points and film devices than when I first saw it in class. It was a relatable film back then, and is still relevant today. It may not be a film that most are used to seeing, which was my initial problem, but its appeal to the ideolistic film theory proves that sometimes there are more underlying layers to a film than people realize. 3 out of 5 stars.

SOURCES:
"The 400 Blows." Annette Insdorf. 8 April 2003. http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/528
"The 400 Blows." Roger Ebert. 8 August 1999. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19990808/REVIEWS08/908080301/1023