Although done in a subtle way, the motif of mirrors, symmetry and shiny surfaces is reoccurring throughout the movie. One may not notice it during the first viewing, but when you start to look at the movie in a more analytical and technical way, the motif becomes clearer and clearer. Often doors and mirrors are shown combined. For example, the shot of Jack and Wendy’s apartment in the hotel, where the camera shows a big mirror in the bedroom that blends with the doors to Danny’s bedroom. Also, in that same mirror we later see Jack (with Wendy during breakfast, and later with Danny on his lap) and in the end of course when the camera zooms in on that same mirror when it reveals that “redrum” spells “murder.” Also, when we are first allowed a glance into room 237, we directly look into two mirrors on the doors, which create the feeling that that room also has two sides.
10/10/12 Film and Technology Film as Door “If one conceptualizes the cinema experience as the entrance into another world, then the distance that was the basis of the idea of the cinema as window and frame diminishes (page 37, Film Theory).” This quote pretty much sums up my experience with movies and why myself and I’m sure most people enjoy watching film. It’s because it brings us into an entirely new world with all kinds of different adventures and characters. It is a way for us to interact and connect with the movie on so many different levels without actually being there. It goes hand in hand with open scenes. In the film Saving Private Ryan’s opening scene, there are soldiers running by the camera, bullets flying by and explosions going off left and right.
Yahweh Matuguinas Instructor: Graham Bell English 111 31 January 2012 A Summary of the Essay “Sit Down and Shut Up, or Don’t Sit by Me” In the essay, “Sit Down and Shut up, or Don’t Sit by Me,” Dennis Dermody states his observations of some of the audiences’ bad behaviors before and while watching a movie in a theater. Dermody also classifies some groups of people according on how they behave inside the movie theater. He calls them the “chatterers”, “krinklers” and “unending box of popcorn people” (183-184). Dermody describes the readers his habit of making it to the movies at least half an hour before it starts. He does that just because he gets amused by observing how the audiences choose a place to sit along with their bad behaviors the movie.
Prof. Helen Roulston ENG 313: History of Cinema 3. Explain why one or more films have been important in the development of the cinema. Griffith Is to Film as Plato Is to Philosophy In my second week’s journal entry, I wrote out a commentary and reflection to our watching Birth of a Nation. It really struck me how much of an effect this film had on both its culture and on the history of cinema. Both factors are incredible to fathom.
In a movie theatre, where the room is dark, the picture is large, and the sound is of high quality, people become absorbed in the details of what is in front of them. When you walk into this space you automatically know what to do, where to walk, where to sit, and what to focus your attention on when sat all due to socially norms, but what if you never seen this space before and didn’t understand it? This than raises many questions on what is socially correct and what is weird, wrong, and isn’t acceptable to the norms. You don’t usually go into the theatre and think about the arrangement of the space, about the colour, shape, positioning of the objects it is made up of, what is there and what is not there. What we want to know about the space is, what details of the space say?
Firstly I’d like to discuss a sequence where the director employs a non-linear way of piecing the story together, and how the use repetition and subtle manipulations of speech and phonetics are utilized. In a pivotal moment leading up to the finale of the film we see three characters frolicking in a pool and we begin to hear Alien ask ‘Ya’ll wanna do this or what?’, with Candy and Brit teasing him back saying ‘You’re scared aren’t ya? Scaredy pants’. What follows is a sequence that is structurally more reminiscent of a pop song than a linear narrative film. The dialogue is repeated and becomes somewhat of a motif, or a chorus, while scenes flow in and out of each other.
His direct gaze into the camera intensifies the relationship between the viewer and character and dually develops the double irony. We, the film audience, and The Truman Show viewers are both watching the show. The opening scene, more importantly, exemplifies the theme of restraining personal space and the lack of privacy. The intercutting of Truman with the credits and interviews Can you imagine being the star of a show – but you only don’t know? I know I can’t.
HIS212 – History and Film Compare any two films which are produced in Hollywood, and which represent warfare or conflict in the Third World. Comment on the political and cultural messages in these films, and explain how they reflect the politics of the time when they were made. Film as a media has always managed to be one of the most easily accessible, both for the public and also producers as a means for conveying messages and entertainment. Many different aspects of human nature and history is detailed and documented in this fashion across many different fields, such as politics, religion, love and, with often the most poignant and obvious imagery, war. War itself has been an ever-present around the world across thousands of years and has, as the years progressed, evolved and shaped the world in many ways.
In the 1920s structured order meant filmmakers followed an unwritten set of rules that determined plots, protagonists and the genre of successful films. Vertov was part of a movement called the Kinoks who challenged original cinematic techniques that the extremely controlled cinema industry followed. The Man with the Movie Camera is a perfect example of a film that has broken free of conventions and challenged the walls of cinema. This essay will analyse the use of editing in creating meaning and how important it is. As well as assessing Vertov’s beliefs and drive to make such a film.
When discussing a film, audiences will recall its story line or characters to exemplify what the film was about. With an audience so focused on narration, a film’s structure is not decided on lightly. According to Luhr and Lehman, because a film’s narrative is crucial to its success, directors “have mastered a long-established and highly profitable tradition of narrative filmmaking- the classical Hollywood style” (29). The classical Hollywood style of narration requires that a film’s “plot should have a clear forward direction” (Luhr, Lehman 29). Every event should lead cleanly into the next to join in a unified whole.