Week 5 Discussion

 

This week in class we watched the Wes Anderson film The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. This was my first Wes Anderson film and I'm glad to say that I really liked it! I loved the humor and I thought having a really complicated main character played by the amazing Bill Murray was really interesting. After watching this movie I am really interested in watching more Anderson films like The Fantastic Mr. Fox which I've heard is really good.

I'd like to first take a moment to talk about Murray's character Steve Zissou. For most of the film I didn't really like him. I thought he was a bad leader and very hypocritical. One example of him being hypocritical was how he kind of puts on a facade that he doesn't care at all what people thought of him, but he is constantly throughout the film bugging the reporter about getting certain moments down in her piece. I also thought he was quite mean to Ned, even though he was at times trying to be nice. However, I did feel bad for him when it came to his career and how everyone thought he was a joke, and I did feel happy at the end when the documentary was a success.

In this week's reading, we learned about Mise-en-Scene and my take away was that this concept is basically the arrangement of shots, actors, writing etc in film and how each director has there own certain style. This was the only Anderson film I've seen but one aspect of this film that I feel like is unique to him and his style as a director is kind of the animation of the sea creatures. I thought it was really unique and something I didn't expect in this movie, which makes me appreciate it. 

Week 4 Discussion

This week in class we watched Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window. This was my first time watching a Hitchcock film and I thought it was okay to be quite honest. The best part of the movie for me was when Thornwald finally fault L.B Jeffries looking at him towards the end of the movie. I loved how the slow burn of the whole movie and all the build up had a good pay off with that moment, specifically with how Thornwald caught Grace Kelly's character pointing to the ring on her finger and how the camera pans to Thorwald making eye contact with Jeffries.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-etZtN9Stc

I can see why this film was so popular at it's time. It was interesting how it feels like we are never really leaving Jeffries apartment, and everything we know about the outside world is from the view of the window. I thought it was really claver how the camera was used and how it really feels like we are spying on the neighbors. I also find it impressive that something like this has never been done before, and I applaud Hitchcock for being innovative.

There was one glaring thing I didn't like about the movie though at that was the final encounter between Thorwald and Jeffries. I understood the special effects weren't what they are now, but I just thought that writing was that it was so stupid that Thorwald just kept lumbering towards Jeffries without covering his eyes despite Jeffries obvious attempts to blind him. Like he's literally in a wheel chair and he can't hurt Thorwald, so I don't know how Hitchcock decided that was the way to go.

Story and Film Form Discussion

 From this reading I was really interested by the narrative form the screen play. I thought it was interesting how I'm not really a film person but by looking at the example in the reading I could understand everything going on, like the setting and what the characters are doing in the scene. I thought the author made a nice analogy of how a screenplay is kind of like explaining what is going on in a show to your roommate who isn't paying attention as efficiently as possible. Another thing I thought was interesting from the reading was the narrative structure, and I started to apply it to films that I have seen. Like in Into the Spiderverse, the protagonist is a young Miles Morales and the antagonist is Wilson Fisk. His obstacles include finding a way to stop Fisk from destroying New York while at the same time trying to figure out how to be Spiderman. The structure is extremely simple but I think that's why it works so well.

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This scene is one the pivotal moments in the movie, where Miles faces his obstacle of figuring out how to be his own Spiderman. The whole movie up until that point is Miles struggling with his identity and not viewing himself as someone worthy of being Spiderman. But in the scene he literally takes a leap of faith to be that Spiderman and believe in him self, and overcome that obstacle to save the ones he loves.

Film Story Narrative

           It is a sunny August day, and I am in the backseat of my black 2011 corolla cruising down

 the highway with my family. I'm in the middle with my 6 year old to my left and my mom to my

 right. My other sister was in the front so my parents didn't have to deal with the inevitable 

fighting that would occur between us if we had sat next to each other. I'm also in a horrible mood

 because we just wasted half the day at the dentist. 

I never liked the dentist, but what made it worse for me is we would drive an hour all the way to Gurnee for our appointments.  I didn't understand why we had to drive this far just for a routine cleaning, since there were multiple dentists closer to home. When I asked, my parents said that these dentists were good friends of theirs, but that never justified the trek we would make. In my opinion, no friend is important enough to warrant driving an hour for them to stick metal things in your mouth for half an hour. We would also always drive past the Rainforest Cafe on the way there, but my parents would never stop there, which only poured salt in the wound.

 So while I am hating my life as we drive back home, I start to hear a strange noise outside our car. It sounded like a noise in movie when the bad guy would appear. Just a loud deep noise that just forebode bad things to come, which of course, it did. After not thinking much of the noise, our tire suddenly blew out.

            We immediately start swerving, like a roller coaster. My mom instinctually put her  arm in front of my sister and I as we quickly served from lane to lane. Somehow, my dad regained control of the car and we safely pulled to the side of the road. After a few moments of pure shock, we finally got out of the car. My dad made a call and half an hour later a mechanic put a spare in and we were back on the road like nothing happened.

 

            Flashforward about 10 years later, and to this day I still have absolutely no idea how we didn’t hit anyone while we were swerving. It turned out we drove over a nail on the highway and that was the reason the tire blew out. In the moment, it all happened so fast that I forgot how cranky I was, but now that I’m thinking about it now the whole experience still doesn’t feel real, almost like a movie. It was just so random, and I will never forget about the noise. It sounded like the noise that played in Into The Spider verse (best animated movie of all time btw), when the Prowler would come on screen and it was just this kind of deep loud noise that screamed something bad is going to happen.

            Although this moment felt really random, I think it does have a meaning in which we should always value life because it is so fleeting and could be gone in literally any moment. There was a very real possibility that my family and I wouldn’t have made it home that day, and that goes to show that we should never take anything for granted and we should learn to appreciate life and everything around us.

 

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari Discussion

I thought this movie was really interesting. One thing that I thought was really well done was the music. I'm someone that really thinks the music is really important in movies and shows and I think it can really elevate scenes. That is exactly what the music did here. Since there were no voices in the movie it would have been really easy for me to get bored, yet the music had me engaged throughout the whole movie. One example of this was with the reveal of Cesar the Sonumbulist, and I really how the music built up, and then stopped for a moment when the door opened and he was revealed. I also like how the music played when his eyes opened.

An addition aspect of the film I thought was unique was the dialogue. It's cool how the directors adapted without the technology we have now and how they used so little dialogue but were able to communicate what was happening effectively. One way the dialogue did this was with how they introduced the names of the characters. I don't know if it is just me, but so many times when I watch a movie today I could watch a whole movie and forget most of everyones names. I didn't have that problem here, and maybe it has to do with me reading the dialogue as opposed to hearing it, but I knew who was who which was interesting.

All in all this film is very interesting and I can see why it was so important for its time and why it is relevant today.