Screening Notes #11: Children of Men (UK, Cuaron, 2006)
I have to describe one scene from Children of Men, and I chose the opening sequence. Less than 3 minutes long, it establishes the
environment and tone of the film, setting us on our journey with a bang.
The scene opens in a coffee shop, with dozens of frozen eyes
staring at, presumably, a television screen.
The news is startling, as seen by the expressions on their faces; they
are distraught and discouraged. The face
of Diego, the youngest person on the planet, flashes on the TV, and we now know
the dire straits of this future dystopia.
The main character (Clive Owen) pushes his way through the crowd, and
upon reaching the counter, he orders his coffee—black. He looks hardened, not nearly as taken aback
by the news of “baby” Diego’s death.
Once he receives his coffee, he pauses for a moment to take in the news,
but leaves in the same drab mental state.
Shot in one take, we begin to follow the man as he exits the
café. The year is 2027 and we are in a
future London metropolis. The common
signifiers exist: the double-decker buses, the flashing floor-sized
billboards. Yet, rickshaws zoom buy and
the air seems a low-setting gray, as if a smog had consumed the city, reigning
permanent darkness. Culture has
progressed and regressed simultaneously.
As he continues down the street, he stops at an electrical box, sets
down his coffee, and pulls out a flask of liquor; he needs to strengthen his
black coffee. As he pours the liquor in,
an explosion erupts from the café he just exited, spraying debris out into the
busy traffic. In a guerilla film style
our POV hustles towards the explosion, but all we hear is a piercing siren and
the muffled screams of surviving patrons.
Then it cuts to the title screen: Children
of Men.
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Screening Notes #10: Hugo (USA, Scorsese, 2011)
Here are three things, whether specific moments or recurring
techniques, from Hugo that caught my
attention:
- I noticed throughout the film that Scorsese consciously tried
to dazzle and entertain the audience technically. Much in the vein of George Melies (character
in and ultimate inspiration for this film), Scorsese wanted to transport the
audience to a dream world, inhabited by the enormous sights and sounds of the
clock Hugo tends to. The opening few
minutes, in particular, highlight the strategy to create a dream world. As we fly through the train station, or slide
down the spiraling clock tower, we are entering and even passing through this
spectacle, with digitally enhanced and created atmospheres to make us “feel” in
that moment rather than just “see” it.
- The montage sequence where Scorsese splices together the real
footage from the origins of cinema contrasted perfectly with the elaborately
designed segments meant for 3D. It
served as a foil for the digital sequences, but also helped Scorsese prove to
his audience that the same joy and amazement occurs from these ancient short
films as does from his full-length modern feature. He aimed not to teach his audience, but
merely to present all that inspired him to create dreams through cinema.
- In line with educating the audience on the origins of
cinema, Scorsese brilliantly weaves the realist and formalist techniques used
to first introduce the medium. He showed
how the reality of our world could be captured—the Lumiere Brothers’ train
footage—as well as how we could display our dreams on screen—Melies’ A Trip to the Moon. The entire film is Scorsese tipping his hat
to these influential forces, as he owes their philosophies and contributions
much thanks. Scorsese has aimed to
capture the reality of crime, street life, and the “anti-hero” in his films,
harkening to the Lumiere Brothers’ realism, and in Hugo, he finally was able to thank Melies’ with his own imaginary
world.
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Screening Notes #9: A Single Man (USA, Ford, 2009)
I viewed this film through the lens of cinephiliac
criticism, trying to pick small moments that gave me an emotional or critical
reaction.
- Just a small note: the cousin bearing George’s lover’s
death is definitely Jon Hamm from AMC’s Mad
Men
- When George tries to crack the frozen loaf of bread, it
shows his lack of will, his lost motivation to live, and like he hopes to
accomplish, he wants out of this world; also when he is walking on campus,
talking with the other professor, he dreads the state of the world, wondering
if it is one he really wants to live in
- As George drives on campus, he has the radio on, and it
reports of the Cuban Missile Crisis, an incredibly anxious moment in American
history, but he just turns it off mid-sentence; compared to the personal
problems he faces, the Crisis seems unimportant and secondary
- When George parks at the liquor store, he pulls up to a
graffiti-esque poster for Psycho,
ironically one of the films we have viewed this year, and it continues the
motif of eyes; Ford obsesses over eyes in this film, showing George peering at
them in slow-motion close-up, as if to implore the audience to judge the
characters, or to feel George’s judgment; when George looks into the eyes, he
contemplates if those he peers at live a fulfilling life, and if he can ever
again achieve some semblance of happiness
- Another small thing I noticed Ford inserted into the film
is the pounding of the ticking clock, in two separate instances; first, when
George gives his riveted speech to his English students, only to fall on deaf
ears, as if the silence accentuated each deliberate movement of the clock; second,
at George’s death, we hear a clock ticking to a stop, punctuating his demise
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Screening Notes #8: The Prestige (USA, Nolan, 2006)
- The film kicks off in typical Nolan fashion, delineating
from the standard narrative structure to drop the audience in an unusual place
so that they may put the pieces together; he wants us actively, not passively,
solving the puzzle, if only to leave us more amazed at the end
- He immediately tackles our fascination with illusion,
presenting the climax of the film at the very beginning to allow the narrative
to explain the trick; he gives us the pledge, and the turn, but his visual and
narrative style reveals the prestige; having seen this film before, I noticed
clues he brilliantly leaves along the way to tip his hand, but not show his
cards completely
- In following the auteur theory, I’ve noticed that Nolan
often centers his narratives on a psychological conflict. In this film, he tackles two different
conflicts: the first is the commitment to craft, each magician’s willingness to
sacrifice their well-being for the “greatest” magic trick—which oddly reminded
me of Bale’s weight loss for The
Machinist—and the second is performance as art or sideshow, a conflict that
cinema battles today.
- The narrative style drives the pace of the film; Nolan
offers up a consequence of the magician’s manic passion, then displays its
impact on each layer of the film: the past, present, and future
- Nolan constructs a meta-magic trick; he blinds us with the
fable of magicians “outreaching their grasp,” not in science or magic, but in
the lengths they go to keep up the illusion, but in fact he pulls the magic
trick on us. We should know this after
the first line of the film; Nolan poses a simple question (“Are you watching
closely?”) that acts as his pledge, his
warning that the trick is soon on its way, but we won’t be the wiser.
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Screening Notes #7: Melancholia (Denmark, von Trier, 2011)
- The opening sequence is in super slow-motion (I could see
why cinephiles would love it, as it gives them essentially still images to
examine)
- The speed of action and classical overture in the first
scene remind me very much of other artistic visions of space and orbital
movement (Tree of Life and 2001: A Space Odyssey)
- Von Trier throws us back into the minutia of human-life, starkly
transitioning from inter-stellar collision to basic car problems
- The wedding showcases techniques that set up much about
the film: the handheld cameras give us a POV perspective on the turmoil and
conflict within this family, how Justine’s manic depression affects her and
everyone around her differently, and how the incoming planet has altered
everyone’s moods; we get close-up shots that funnel everything back to human
emotion
- Justine’s depression manifests in distraction; she is
either on Earth with everyone, or in the stars by herself (dream vs. reality)
- The first mention of the rogue planet, Melancholia, is at
the beginning of part II, which examines Claire’s perspective; I believe von
Trier never mentions it in the first part on Justine because Justine does not
care about the end of the world, and it isn’t even a fleeting notion in her
mind. While Claire loathes the impending
doom, researching theories that support the possibility, Justine sees an escape
in Melancholia, a way to end her existence on Earth.
- Justine and Claire are opposite: Claire is composed in the
face of life, while Justine is composed in the face of death; neither can adapt
to the other’s environment
- We talked a lot about the consequences of CGI, but I feel
von Trier uses it brilliantly in this film; it’s best used to add textures to a
true environment
- Finally, the same classical overture we heard in the beginning
sequence reappears frequently throughout, tying the characters back to the
tragic event as it lingers and creeps closer to reality
Screening Notes #6: The Hurt Locker (USA, Bigelow, 2009)
I observed three different moments that exhibited violence,
death, and war in this film, then dissected how Kathryn Bigelow used aesthetic
techniques to project these brutal ideas on screen.
The Opening Scene:
In the first scene, we are introduced to the bomb squad we
will follow throughout the film, and already violence and death make their
impact. The technical flow draws from
other action and war films, with quick cuts and handheld cameras. When the first improvised explosive device
(IED) erupts suddenly, Bigelow completely shifts from raw to stylized
cinematography. She depicts the blast in
super slow-motion, beautifully capturing the simultaneous rise of all that
surrounds the blast: the rocks, the steel on dilapidated cars, and the people. We see very little blood in this scene, only
a brief glimpse inside the dead soldier’s bomb suit, but we fully realize the
impact of the actions that unfold.
The Duel in the Desert:
Throughout, Bigelow distinguishes the difference in the Iraq
War—and subsequently her film—and all other wars. In previous wars, the US military acted as
moving crusaders, sweeping the invaded country to defeat another force. In this war, the US military acts as
peacekeeper and security official, fighting chucks of metal buried in the
ground; they are reactive instead of proactive.
At the moment when they meet the British soldiers and have a stand-off
with insurgents, Bigelow mixes two different styles. The behind-view of the soldiers firing a
large-caliber weapon at their enemy reminded me specifically of news footage
depicting US efforts. Contrasting this
gritty style, she again stylizes death, showing the slow-motion discarding of
the bullet shell, depicting a fired and ultimately successful shot.
Doc’s Death:
One of the more tragic events in the film involves the death
of the psychiatric doctor as he accompanies the troops in the field. Bigelow alludes to this event throughout the
film, but when it finally arrives, she creatively presents a gruesome,
gut-wrenching event using no blood or gore.
Our vantage point is from the military hummer, where a hand-held camera
focuses closely through the windshield as “Doc” strolls outside. The camera dials back, now bringing the other
three troops entering the vehicle to our attention. Its comparison to documentary footage is
incredible: the frantic shifting in focus and zoom, the shakiness, the unusual
cut points. As the IED explodes
underneath “Doc,” there is no cut or shift of the camera, as if we are sitting in
the vehicle witnessing the event unfold.
The camera exits the vehicle with the other soldiers, like a documentary
crew would in such an event, adding to the realism that Bigelow perfectly
intertwines with stylized notions of death and loss.
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Screening Notes #5: Viaggio in Italia (Italy, Rossellini,
1954)
I took one shot from the film and had to analyze it using
three different criteria: denotation, connotation, and myth production. Denotation gives a literal interpretation,
connotation a more implicit one, and myth production a more ideological
one. I chose the first driving scene,
specifically one shot peering through the driver’s side window.
Denotation:
-
The image is a medium close-up, using the window
and front seat of the car as the frame for the shot
-
Katherine, the wife, is in the driver seat and
therefore the closest focus, while Alex, the husband, sits in the passenger
seat
-
It is daylight outside, so the inside of the car
is presumably lit by natural sunlight
-
They are both wearing fancy clothing, and the
background scenery simply shows palm trees whizzing by
Connotation:
-
Some cultural codes:
o
The two are together in a car driving, so the
audience would assume they are husband and wife
o
The fact that she is driving also points to an
equal marriage, the husband does not take complete charge of everything
-
Some specialized codes:
o
Placing them in a car and having the background
moving past implies they are en route to some destination; placing them in elegant clothing displays wealth
Myth
Production:
-
The audience might fantasize that this couple
are on a luxurious getaway, a honeymoon or likewise, and that they are lavishly
touring beautiful countryside (of course, they actually have business as a main
objective)
-
It remarks on gender equality, how post-war
Western life changed, allowing women more freedom to take control and have
independence; her learning how to drive displays her motivation to learn a
skill, and to become a contributing member of a relationship
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Screening Notes #4: Psycho (USA, Hitchcock, 1960)
Some things stick out as purely cinematic at the beginning
of the film:
1) The opening pan
across and zoom-in to Marion’s hotel room window, used to set the stage
2) The musical accompaniment
in the beginning and throughout the film; it directs the audience, cueing
emotions and controlling reactions
- Hitchcock leaves
long spans of the film without any dialogue, probably one of his many suspense
techniques
- He plays out the frantic
pace of the mind through Marion’s conversational delusions, she imagines what
the people she robbed may or may not be saying and doing
- The infamous shower
scene: Hitchcock brilliantly twists the film on its head with an amazing
character swap; the first 35 minutes of the film are devoted to Marion, but he
kills her off and completely redirects our focus on Norman Bates
- Some motifs that
Hitchcock uses: windows, eyes
- There is a lot of following from a distance in this film:
the cop on Marion, Norman’s mother from her house; he tries to create an
environment where everyone is watching everyone, yet the audience does not know
who to watch for
- The final zoom-in
on Norman/Mother is brilliantly shot and acted, the subtle splicing of the
skull over Norman’s face made me rewind 3 or 4 times
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Screening Notes #3: Grapes of Wrath (USA, Ford, 1940)
I was asked to notice things in this film that were unique
to the medium, or things that could be portrayed through film that could not
through photography or theater:
- The transitions from scene to scene have a depth and
authenticity of movement that could only be captured on film; photography
captures the depth and nature, theater captures the movement, but neither can
project both simultaneously.
Two shots specifically acknowledge film’s power to present a
unique visual experience:
1) The montage of the
Caterpillars (CAT's) marching across the Oklahoma pastures that the families
once owned. Ford establishes a tangible
enemy, or at least a force that symbolizes the terrible consequences of
destroying the land.
2) The shot of Tom
and two others peering over the dashboard of their truck, through the
windshield, out at the desert as they pass through California. The camera
points through the driver-side window and the windshield, capturing both the
desolate land outside and the reflections of the men reacting to what they see.
It allows us to observe what they see and feel at the same time.
- During the first 30 minutes of the film, Ford establishes
the importance of the connection between the people and the land, not only is
it the Joad's work and livelihood, it is their home, and it is as much a part
of their family as any person
- This film and its story, more than 70 years old, still
resonate in today's current economic climate; in the scene where Muley's family
is being evicted, he asks who to blame so he can shoot them, but the man
passing the eviction notice has as little clue as Muley. In our recent financial collapse, we too saw
the powers that be (government, Wall Street) deflect blame, all while the
working families faced the financially fatal consequences.
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Screening Notes #2: Midnight in Paris (USA, Allen, 2011)
- The opening sequence combines montage with the traditional
realist film we have been studying; steady-camera capturing the subtle
movements of metropolitan Paris --- reminds me very much of the opening of
Allen's previous film Manhattan, in that it identifies the city as
a character, an active participant in the film
- We discussed Allen's relatively simple camera techniques,
but I noticed some interesting choices in camera movements: one, a single
panning shot as the characters berate Gil's nostalgia shop novel in Versailles,
and another, a tracking shot of the two women walking down the street as they
talk (keeping the camera behind the conversation made me feel like Gil, Owen
Wilson’s character, following the pack, always seeming too "abnormal"
to be taken seriously in conversation)
- Allen presents a dichotomy of philosophy between Gil and
the other characters in present time; Gil lives in his imagination while the
others are steeped in reality (perhaps the conflict of realism vs. formalism
manifested?)
- The overriding topic of this film: Nostalgia
- Allen created this film to react to human instinct to
yearn for a time past, only to miss the wonders their present time offers
- He also crashes the idea of the “golden era;” problems—personal
and social—plague all times
- Allen is critical in this film, but also optimistic about
how our generations cross-over and give way for the new; we may not relate in
context with those in our past, but we can relate our basic emotions, desires
that drive us all
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Screening Notes #1: Masculin, féminin (France,
Godard, 1966)
- This was the first French film I have seen, and it already
appears radically different from modern Hollywood, even other American 1960’s films I have seen
- It
tries to subvert norms; there are long still shots on characters while
off-camera characters speak
- Silence
abruptly interrupts what sounds like natural metropolitan noise
- It
follows the vignette style, not following linear narrative structure
- I’ve
already noticed more insightful dialogue on role of sex, military, and youth in
first minutes of the film than in the entirety of most films
- I
can sense the artistry Godard uses in the white quotations on black background
that connects scenes; he provides food for thought to carry into the ensuing
interactions
- Godard
seems to criticize the Americanization of Europe (Vietnam War, fast lifestyle)
while also quietly idolizing and romanticizing Hollywood
- It
may just be coincidence, but I heard the constant reiteration of gun sounds
throughout; from the actual guns, obviously, but also from randomly-inserted
gunshots along with gunshots coming from seemingly simple objects (doors, car
engines, pool balls)
- Godard
reintroduces exact dialogue and scenes from earlier in the movie, bringing the
audience back to the initial concerns and highlighting the repetition of these
problems in the society he depicts
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