MYST Post #3: Apocalypse Now

After watching The Deer Hunter, I discussed it with my dad, and he really recommended Apocalypse Now. Both movies revolve around the Vietnam War and the physical and mental struggles that people went through. I also thought it would be a good movie to watch because we had just discussed Marlon Brando with his New York school based acting and Dennis Hopper in class, and both of these actors are in the movie.

I thought it was a nice coincidence. 

My attention was captured from the very first scene. From the sounds of helicopters fading in and out coupled with the close-up shots of the helicopters' blades passing through the frame, to The Door's "The End" playing while napalm burns in a Vietnamese forrest, I knew I was in for an interesting film. (This opening scene was part of the Best Music Moments in Film on Shortlist and I agree completely.)

One of the recurring themes throughout the movie was the sad attempt to normalize the situation in Vietnam. General Kilgor, played by Robert Duvall, demands one of the soldiers from southern California to go surfing during combat. The general is adamant that he surfs, all the while bombs are exploding all around them and bullets are whizzing by. (I also liked the cowboy hat Kilgor wore--a nice connection to Dr. Strangelove)

One of the interesting things Coppola does in the film is juxtapose images/actions of complete savagery and killing with images/actions of compassion, sweetness, and innocence. For example, the boat carrying Captain Willard up the river into Cambodia to find a rouge colonel, Kurtz, stops a vietnamese boat to search it. It is the protocol, but Willard is upset they are stopping because that was not part of the mission. Lance goes on the boat to search it, and he obviously can't handle it. He starts violently rummaging through the barrels of rice and other goods, and one of the young soldiers has a machine gun turret constantly aimed at the Vietnamese people, creating a very tense situation. Lance is shouting incomprehensible words to himself, and all of a sudden one of the Vietnamese women runs to the back, and the young soldier opens fire, shooting everything and everyone. Lance goes to the back of the boat to try to see whatever the woman was running to protect, fully prepared to find ammunition and other weapons for the Vietcong. Instead, he finds a Yellow Labrador puppy. A puppy. All of the savage, violent killing for a puppy, the epitome of innocence. These splices do a very good job in emphasizing the absurdity of the war. 

Going into the movie, I had no idea it was based on the book Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Kurtz, in both forms of media, was once a respected, brilliant, successful person. In the book, he was in the Ivory business, and in the film, he was a colonel. Both Kurtzs are said to have gone insane, breaking off from normalized society, conquering natives with savagery. The movie also shares the book's river theme. Instead of going down the river through the Congo, the river in Vietnam is the setting. The narrator also telling the story as it has already happened is shared amongst the film and book. 

The similarities between the book and film bothered me in one way. I feel the book shows the absolute domination of a people, and in this case, the Africans during the colonization/ivory business in Africa. The movie, on the other hand, shares some of this, but this wasn't its main purpose. The film, in my opinion, had a lot of anti-war sentiments, not just for America, but world-wide. This is where the similarities fall short between the book and movie. This is bothersome because the book and movie didn't share the same purpose, but they had the same story. Maybe I would've felt differently if I hadn't read the book this year in my lit class, but my opinion was already tainted going into the movie. 

The cinematic elements used in the film were very cool. As the film went on, the scenes and shots got darker with more contrast, and the few scenes with Kurtz exemplify this perfectly. His whole face would be obscured by shadow, only parts of it being illuminated by red light, giving him the creepy, powerful aura Coppola was going for. As I mentioned earlier, there was a lot of juxtapositions of contradicting images, disorienting the viewer. I also noticed some good use of some dutch angles, like when Willard and Lance go out to get some of those "damned mangoes" and they are walking through a thick part of a forest when a tiger all of sudden jumps out and seriously frightens them. The dutch angle was perfect for this scene because it reflects the absurdity of the situation; both men were expecting people, the Vietcong, to stalk them, not a tiger. 

This was a really cool movie that connected with a lot of class related topics this year for me, which made it special because I felt I had a basis for critiquing it. Overall, I give it 4 out of 5 stars. 

MYST Post #2: The Deer Hunter

This is not your typical Friday night flick you just throw in DVD player and watch. Oh, no. The Deer Hunter is one of the most intense movies I've ever seen. I've been wanting to watch this movie for a while now, and it's become one of my favorites.

Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, and Meryl Streep deliver outstanding performances, truly doing this film justice in that it conveys a very difficult subject, the Vietnam War. The layout of the film takes you through three parts: Pre-war, during the war, and Post-war.

I don't want to go to much into depth about the plot because you've seen it Mr. D, but I would also be writing pages because so much happened throughout the movie. To quickly summarize, a gaggle of Russian-American guys live in a little industrial town in Pennsylvania and some go off to war. The story follows them through a wedding of one of their friends, hunting up in the mountains, combat during the war, and then the aftermath of everyone's lives.

The wedding party scene took up a good chunk of the first part of the movie, and it took five days to film. This vibrant scene was action-packed in that it conveyed a whole range of emotions. It is a happy time, but there it a lot of tension built in this scene. One of the characters hits his girlfriend for dancing with another guy, and De Niro's character, Michael, drunkenly flirts with Meryl Streep's character, Linda, who is with Christopher Walken's character, Nick. After watching the film, I think this scene is so important because of the characterization it provides. These Russian-American people are still very connected to their Russian heritage, and yet some of these people go to Vietnam to fight for a country that is not truly their own, no matter how much they want it to be. They may live and work in America, but wedding/recpetion scene still shows their strong Russian connections. All the old ladies are seen wearing babushkas speaking with heavy accents.

Despite their Russian culture, these people are willing to accept the American way, showing this by going off to fight in Vietnam. But, (and I really don't want to give too much away because I think this film is important for people to see) Walken's character, Nick, loses faith in the American way of life, choosing to stay in Vietnam going AWOL, playing suicidal Russian Roulette games with the Vietnamese.

The one scene I want to pay specific attention to is the piano bar scene. I loved this scene. It provided a very, very sobering effect among all of the drunkenness up until now. The group of friends goofed around, drinking heavily at the wedding, going deer hunting, etc, and this is the first scene in which the viewer can feel the heavy sadness, finally seeing the guys acknowledge their imminent involvement in the war. The viewer sees this in the silent exchanges between Michael and Nick, a sort of acceptance. Close-ups on a character's face, with the piano being played in the background also provides this feeling of utter sadness. The camera pans across each person's face, and it is evident all of their minds are thinking about the Vietnam War.

This scene provides a short break from all the craziness and tension of the wedding/recpetion/deer hunt, and it was very important in that it conveyed the raw feeling of sadness--but also acceptance--of the Vietnam War. The scene then cuts straight to combat in Vietnam, being the first of a whole host of gut-wrenching scenes to follow.

The film's sound stood out to me. In Pennsylvania, I had a hard time hearing everything that was being said amongst all of the background noise. In vietnam, it was eerily quiet, and everything could be understood. I'm not sure if this was just a default of the time period in which this film was made, but I really noticed the sound. The music had a big hand in conveying feeling. During the deer hunt, church music was played, giving the hunt a sort of noble, godly feeling towards the feeling, perhaps providing contrast to the pointless killing in Vietnam. The acting was superb. Meryl Streep was said to have improvised many of her lines, and this is the first time I've seen how much expression she has in her face. I'm used to seeing her in the Devil Wears Prada, and in that movie she is an ice queen, and I haven't seen her in many other films. Robert De Niro was excellent as always, and out of all his films I think this was his best performance. During the roulette scenes it is said that De Niro suggested putting one bullet in the chamber to enhance the actors' emotions, but the gun was always checked to make sure that bullet would not be fired. Either way, that shows tremendous dedication to acting.

The controversy surrounding this film is deep. Many critics say that there are no documented cases of the Vietnamese playing roulette, and that they were unfairly portrayed in the film. From my history classes throughout the years, I've learned about the Vietnam War and that U.S. involvement didn't do anything for anyone. Our involvement was pointless. That being said, the vicious, nauseating past time of the Vietnamese handling their POWs in the film was a pointless, superfluous act. The game reflects just utter, pointless killing, providing Cimino's sentiments and commentary towards the war. There has been documented savagery towards all different kinds of people in the Vietnam War, and this film is one way of representing a person's journey through the serious physical and psychological effects of the war and how he handles it.

I still can't describe how I felt watching this movie, and I was left with an uncomfortable, clammy feeling (to emphasize this I watched Seven right after it and actually felt better). I'm still amazed at how many different emotions The Deer Hunter evoked in me, and it is by far one of the most riveting, gut wrenching movies I've ever seen, and I highly recommend it.

4.5/5 stars.

1935 Film Project- "Cantilevered Lies"

Plot: Our two main characters live a high profile life in futuristic London, England, and the husband (Val) works as an architect. His new boss (one of Val’s old professor’s during his final year in design school,) comes in after an unexpected death of the former boss. This is the quiet reserved Feodor Chaliapin. An otherwise low stress, successful work ethic of Val is disrupted by the new boss, Mr. Kafkes (Feodor) when he begins sabotaging his business and personal life. These evil sentiments are based upon the fact that 20 years ago when he was brand new to the industry Val secretly stole one of Kafkes' designs. It is sinister and uncalled for, but it is the movie. Kafkes seduces Val’s wife, and screws up his work as an architect, creating chaos...

Days later we find Kafkes dead on the ground floor of Val’s most famous building, the one he stole from Kafkes, after part of the building’s structure collapses onto him.  This reveals to Val, but no one else, that it was Kafkes’s own design flaw that caused his own death.  Since Val has taken credit for this building, the design flaw ruins his career as an architect.  Val debates whether to tell the general public that the building was not, in fact, his, which would clear his name but also be admitting to stealing the plans, ruining his career. Either choice ruins his career; Val is trapped. The movie ends with Kafkes' funeral, with a monologue from Val describing the irony of the situation.  By dying, Kafkes finally got what he wanted.

The message is simple; don't cheat in life, because it will come back and haunt you.

This will work well for an audience of 1935 because it is a bit unlike the normal movie of 1935. It is more involved, and could be the set up for the Film Noir genre coming in the 40s, because the protagonist, the 'hero', Val, is flawed, much like Humphrey Bogart's character in Maltese Falcon. He cheated his professor out of his original plans, using them to become a rich and famous architect.

This is also appealing to audiences of 1935 due to the many genres that fit our film. It is a drama, romance, and maybe even a psychological thriller, due to the moral dilemma at the end. The Hays Code made films a little more boring during the 30s, so our film provides a refreshing new perspective, especially since it is filmed in Europe. The main actors and actresses are also the key to this successful film. Both Laurence Olivier and Vivian Leigh are English, and Feodor Chaliapin is Russian. These people bring an exotic aspect to the film, appealing to many average joe's and the critics alike. Olivier and Leigh have such amazing chemistry on set, I wouldn't be surprised if they end up getting married!

The studio we chose is special. United Artists is such an amazing place for more avant-garde, artistic films, and we thought that they would be perfect for this film. But, we needed a bigger budget since we are shooting out of the country, so we are in conjuncture with 20th Century. 20th Century has been great, too. They are only being supportive, leaving United Artists to their work. 

I've already discussed the cast, so onto the crew:

Our director will be James Whale because of his English roots as well as his eye for horror. He was very successful with Frankenstein in 1931, and we think his expertise in the horror department will give a creepy, semi-deranged feeling, perfect for a stark contrast with the clean, sleek feel of the architect lifestyle in Cantilevered Lies.

Our cinematographer will be Gregg Toland. We've seen some of his smaller work among his creative and innovative ideas, and we think that this film will be the perfect debut to showcase his skills as a cinematographer.

To appease the Hays Code we will not show any sex scenes, simply the before and after. Kafkes' death will also be implied; we won't show the violence of it, only the aftermath.

We will be using new technology for the deep focus techniques and lighting. Toland explains that to achieve this, he will be closing down the aperture coupled with more powerful lighting and clearer lens, allowing for better light transmission.

I honestly would not do anything different. The people I've been working with have been great. They have contributed really good ideas, and we haven't disagreed on anything. I am happy with the product. (The only thing I would do would be to touch up the poster a bit. It was my first time using Paint and I could've cut out the heads better.)

Formal Film Study: Satires of the 60's

For my formal film study I chose three satires, Jean-Luc Godard's "Weekend", Federico Fellini's "8 1/2", and Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove Or, How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb".

All three films were made in the 1960s and all three poke fun at something.

Historically, the 60s were a tumultuous time. The Cold War was a constant issue for the entire world, political parties were heating up, and overall there was change in the air. Studying three satirical films from this era was appealing to me because I expected that there would be a lot to good material to satirize.

For instance, Dr. Strangelove makes light of a very serious issue, namely nuclear warfare. There are instances of sheer hilarity throughout the entire movie, up until the iconic ending of a U.S. Air Force pilot, Major Kong, riding a nuclear warhead like a bucking bronco down into Russia. The constant recurring mantra "Peace is Our Profession" at a U.S. military base is the epitome of irony as bullets fly through the air, killing U.S. and Russian soldiers alike. The slogan is also hung in the office of General Jack Ripper (an ironic name if you remember the bloody serial killer Jack the Ripper), and it is ever present in the scene when he discusses matters of carrying out warfare. Perhaps one of the most absurd quotes in the film is a man crying "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!" 

The film obviously has a problem with how the world treated Nuclear bombs because scene after scene showed carelessness and casualness over the subject of the bomb. One scene in particular (watch this--it is truly funny) pokes fun at the President of the United States and the leader of the Soviet Union, "Dimitri". You are constantly shaking your head, hearing both men battle over who is "sorrier." The premise of the phone call was to warn Dimitri that his country was about to be blown off the face of the Earth, and he is worrying about why the President never calls to say "Hello".

Towards the end of the movie, we come into contact with Dr. Strangelove who is exceptionally creepy. The doctor, explaining a solution for the human race following the triggering of the Doomsday Machine, corrects himself more than once for addressing the president as Fuhrer, and he has to control his right arm from doing the Nazi salute. So, this film also has commentary on the Nazis and their role with the bomb. The doctor's solution (the human race would live underground for 100 years) only then becomes appealing to the room full of men when he states that in order for the human race to continue, there would be ten women for every one man. This is social commentary on gender discrimination, and when taking a step back and looking at the film as a whole, there is one woman in it, and she is in the movie for approximately 5 minutes, tops. 

Lastly, the movie ends with a sequence of detonations with a song playing in the background with lyrics, "We'll meet again". This is the last commentary of the film, showing that humans will always have violent, destructive tendencies, and will ultimately destroy themselves. 

This film shows humankind's obsession with money and material things. Although I was a mildly shocked multiple times and maybe even a bit freaked out at the end, I enjoyed the film. The film's plot is based around a couple traveling to the woman's parents' house and what they encounter on their journey. Both are plotting each other's murder because they have liaisons elsewhere. There are countless allusions to class parties, namely communism and fascism. The film won a Bambi award in 1969 for best international film. 

Also on their journey, car wreckage is a constant. There is continuous debris and fire with dead, bloody bodies scattered. In one scene, we hear a series of piercing screams, then a woman cries in French, "My Hermes purse!" She is not worried for herself, but rather her designer bag. This obsession with materialism is also evident in how the couple regards the dead strewn among the wreckage. Throughout the progression of the movie, we see the couple's clothes become adorned with more articles from the dead. The woman doesn't bat an eye at the bloody body as she rips the trousers off for herself. 

Stylistically, the scene composition stood out the most. There are long, drawn out takes, sometimes lasting 10 minutes. These were a bit hard to sit through, but it made the viewer drink in everything Godard set up. The absurdity of the film was best presented in the huge traffic jam scene (watch it if you dare), when the camera follows the couple as they pass car after car after truck after car, eventually coming upon a horrendous car accident. I connect this traffic jam scene to the opening scene in "8 1/2" with the sense of suffocation and absurdity, both providing a claustrophobic feeling. As they pass, we see caged animals, a random sailboat on a trailer, old people playing chess, a group of schoolchildren singing, all the while incessant honking is heard. This lends itself to the idea that there is order within disorder, and provides stark contrast between the honking and the grim accident. 

Another stylistic element that was especially noteworthy was the juxtaposition of random text in between scenes. One I remember was  "FAUX TOGRAPHE". "Faux" means "false" in French, and the French word for "photograph" is "photographe", so I interpreted this text as a false picture. This emphasizes one of the underlying themes of surrealism and the absurd; nothing is as it seems. The couple ends up taking a full week to make their journey to her parents' house encountering different people, a journey that should've taken an afternoon. The entire movie is very disorienting, from the very beginning of what seems like anarchic behavior to the lengthy description of a sexual scenario to poets prowling the forest, to fortune tellers commandeering a car at gunpoint, to the end when the couple is captured by cannibalistic hippies. 

There are continual references to political parties/classes in the movie. There is a man dressed as a French revolutionary, spouting ideas from the revolution. He describes the French Revolution's idea that freedom is bad; weekends are bad (one can note the Revolution's idea of a ten day work week), which is ironic because the movie is titled Weekend. There is also an instance when a character says "Aimez-là ou Quittez-là" (translation: Take it or Leave it), a slogan of a socialist party in France today. There is also a clear class struggle between the working class and the bourgeois. Our main couple is of the bourgeois class, and there seems it be negative commentary towards the bourgeois. 

This movie shares the same feelings of surrealism with Weekend. 8 1/2 is about a director, Guido, who is having trouble making another movie. 8 1/2 is reflective of Fellini's life as he is making his eighth-and-a-half movie, showing a theme of self reflection through out the movie.. Guido is also plagued by his love life, and there are countless flashbacks and moments when the imagined is mixed with the real. This movie won two Oscars for best foreign language film and best costume design. 

Every scene was beautifully crafted, showing elements of deep space composition akin to those of Citizen Kane. Roger Ebert discusses that "few directors make better use of space", and I concur. Every character is shot in way that makes them appear so graceful and polished, and every scene is stylistically interesting. This one scene in particular was especially captivating. There are funny elements coupled with tense moments paired with nostalgic flashbacks filled with emotion. This one was one of my favorite scenes (please watch it all!!).

A cool thing I picked up on in 8 1/2 was a dance scene that was very much like the dance competition scene in Pulp Fiction. "Maya", the woman in 8 1/2, had short black hair and performed the same dance moves as "Mia" in Pulp Fiction. I am not surprised by this because Tarantino loves making homages to other films in his own.

The one element that stood out in all three movies was the music. In Dr. Strangelove, a classic American war song accompanied every scene of the airplanes carrying the nuclear bombs. This reiterated the inevitability of doomsday because of the constant nature of the music; the planes' journey toward their targets was also lingering in the back of our minds as we watched the film.

In Weekend, the music was almost a nuisance. Either the I was cringing at how loud it was, drowning out some dialogue, or I was noticing the absence of it among the scenes like the traffic jam when the only sound was incessant honking. In the scenes when music was present it would begin to boil, becoming louder and louder until it was so dramatic and disorienting I couldn't understand what was being said. Then, it would calm itself, only starting the cycle over. 

In 8 1/2, the music was spectacular. The scene I linked above gives you a taste of how the music was used to create feeling, as the music in the other films did. The music changes from bold orchestral movements to simple, stunningly beautiful notes during the flashback of the bathing/sleeping scene when Guido was a child. 

All three of these movies left me feeling a tad bewildered and thinking, "what just happened?" but in my experience of watching movies, the ones that leave you feeling this way are the ones you can watch again and again and find something remarkable each time. 

MYST Post #1: Fracture

I am a huge Anthony Hopkins fan, so when my friend mentioned this movie, Fracture, to me--a combination of one of my favorite actors and one of my favorite genres, crime--I definitely made an effort to watch it with the intention of blogging about it later. 

I was not surprised to find that the director, Gregory Hoblit, also directed another one of my favorite movies, Primal Fear, with Ed Norton and Richard Gere. Most scenes are visually interactive with shadows and lighting, offering stark contrast, a technique very suitable for the crime and thriller genres. 

Anthony Hopkins does a fantastic job as a disgruntled, highly intelligent structural engineer who shoots his wife for having an affair, and (spoiler alert) almost gets away with it. I am a huge fan of Hopkins as sociopath Dr. Hannibal Lecter, and he definitely brings some of that creepiness into his character in Fracture. One scene in particular was very successful in making me lose track of time (here). Ryan Gosling's character (the prosecuting attorney) was having an interview with Hopkins' character and Hopkins went on to discuss how each egg, no matter how perfect it may seem, has a flaw. The setting is dark, and as the two characters interact their faces move in and out shadow, creating drama as well as tension. The most captivating part of the scene is when the camera has a close-up on Hopkins' hands. There is an oval shaped pool of white light, placed against the dark metal table, and his hands have a sort of fluid motion going as he describes this childhood revelation. Soft, spooky music starts to play and overall it creates an eerie feeling. The low angle on Gosling exposes him, just as he exposed himself to the high powered intellect of Hopkins. The audience now has a better feeling about who Gosling's character really is. It was a very captivating scene and was well done. 

As I've mentioned before, the overall lighting is dark with a lot of low key lighting meant to emphasize characters' faces. The lighting also reflects the utter darkness of the plot of the film... a man shoots his wife because she cheated on him. I just watched Constant Gardner in my AP Lit and Comp class and this film really reminded me of certain cinematic motifs, namely the recurrence of people being partially obstructed by something. This technique reflects much of the plot lines of both films. There are common themes of deception and the search for truth. 

Overall I give this movie 4 out of 5 stars. The acting was superb, and although the subject matter was heavy, I found myself laughing at a few dry jokes, which was refreshing. Gosling's transformation from a young, cocky punk of a lawyer into someone who learns to care for something bigger than himself was one story line known only a tad too well, but all the same it was nice to see. The ending was also pretty cool. During the movie I was thinking about what the social commentary could be, and I thought it was showing the flawed legal system. In way it did show this, but the ending also showed how this system can work, too. There was superb acting, interesting cinematic techniques, and a somewhat surprising plot line.