City of God
Movie: 2002, color, 130 minutes
ß Directors: Fernando Meirelles, Kátia Lund
ß Actors: Alexandre Rodrigues, Matheus Nachtergaele and Leandro Firmino
Summary:
The film gives a noncontiguous story of how young boys born in a poor slum transform into hardened young men. The narrator, Rocket, gives the origins of many important characters in his life. All of the people he is surrounded by turn into drug-dealing, power hungry killers, and by the end of the movie there is an all out drug war. Rocket attempts to stay out of the middle of the war by turning to photography. He documents the murder of the lead drug boss and becomes famous for his photographs. He is the only main character who remains alive until the end of the film.
Questions:
1. How does the camera movement reveal emotion in a scene?
The majority of the film is filmed without a tripod and can be very shaky. This mostly is the case when the shot is from the point of view of one of the characters, allowing the audience to feel as though they are there and feel the emotions of the characters. The director does a very good job with the distinction between the crazy jerking of the point of view shots and the stable setting shots, and it audience does not notice the difference for the most part. There is one scene that is shown several times in the movie after the backgrounds of different characters and settings have been revealed, giving the director a chance to reveal them from the perspective of a few different characters. The scene shows a powerful drug dealer, Lil’ Zé, barging into the apartment of a smaller drug dealer, while Rocket is inside. When the scene first happens, through the point of view of the Rocket, the main character. The camera pans many times back and forth, indicating the confusion because Rocket does not know what is happening. It is also very shaky and unstable; Rocket does not know whether to flee or stay. In the second shot, from the point of view of the smaller drug dealer, the camera is focused on him and is a little shaky; he is trying to concentrate on dealing with a possible situation but is nervous. The third scene is from Lil’ Zé’s point of view. It shows a calm stable shot from behind the door, because to him there is no surprise involved and he knows exactly what he is doing. The shaky point of views and fast wild pans show many times the emotions of characters in this fast paced, deadly neighborhood.
2. How is the montage style used to initialize settings throughout the film?
The directors use many quick montage clips to initialize the settings in the film. In the very first scene, introducing the City of God, he uses very fast cuts to show the jist of the setting without having to give a slow panning shot. It expresses the rapid and careless movement that the members of the city have to live by, while also showing some of the things they deal with from day to day life. There are quick shots of guns, chickens, knives, and faces. It reveals the city’s dependence on violence and impulse. There is also a similar montage sequence when three of the older boys go on a holdup at a hotel. There are flashes of sex in all the rooms and the guns that the boys are holding, showing the contrast of what each side of the poverty line seeks for pleasure. There are also small quick cuts to the guest’s faces of fear and the money and jewelry that the hoodlums take. These fast paced close up montage sequences are ideal for the neighborhood that the film takes place in. There is not much time for the characters to wrap their heads around a situation before they are engulfed in the violence.
The 400 Blows
Movie: 1959, black and white, 99 minutes
Director: Francois Truffaut
Actors: Jean-Pierre Léaud, Albert Rémy and Claire Maurier
Summary:
The 400 Blows follows the life of a young French adolescent as he makes his way into a life of crime. His family is dysfunctional and his mom sees him as a pest. His dad tries to protect him but his mom wears the pants in this family. The adolescent, Doinel, struggles in school because of a spiteful teacher, thereby substituting homework and school for lies, carnival games, and petty thievery. After running away multiple times he is eventually caught trying to return a typewriter, which he stole in the first place, and is sent to a juvenile work camp. His illegal activities tear himself further from his family and in the end escapes the camp only to be stopped by the ocean.
Questions:
1. How does Truffaut show Doinel’s proclivity to being caught through the use of the camera?
Doinel frequently attempts bits of petty thievery and acts of rebellion in school; he rarely gets away with it and is constantly getting in trouble. Truffaut uses the camera well, showing the carelessness in regards to these activities. It makes Doinel seem uncaring as to whether he as caught, as well as making it seem as though Doinel may want to be caught. During a school class, a picture of a sexy lady is passed around. The camera pans around the class as students take turns viewer the scandalous photo, but when it is Doinel’s turn, he holds it up and the camera zooms in on the picture. It becomes obvious that Doinel will be the one to get caught with the picture(he is), and it sets a trend as Doinel gets in involved in increasingly worse petty crimes. Later, after Doinel runs away, he is stricken with thirst and the camera shows him eyeing a container of milk. Again, the camera zooms in on the milk, showing Doinel’s extreme concentration on the item he is stealing. When Doinel hides away in his friend’s house, Truffaut uses an interesting camera angle when showing the boys walking from room to room. It is almost an angle in which a security camera would shoot, and it pans as the boys cross the room. It gives the audience that Doinel shouldn’t be there, as well as making it seems as though he is always being watched. Finally, when Doinel and his friend attempt to steal a typewriter, he regretfully attempts to return it and is caught. The camera view during the return is very tight, because Doinel becomes very concentrated on his task and fails to see the security guard come into the picture and catch him. Doinel never seems to get away with anything, and Truffaut uses the camera angles to foreshadow his demise.
2. How is the hopelessness of Doinel’s situation shown?
Even in the very beginning of the film, a tone of hopelessness is established. The first few minutes of the film are panning shots of the city, but from unusual angles. They seem be taken from the road, with each shot starting with a clear view of the Eiffel Tower, and after a few seconds it is swallowed up by apartment buildings. It only appears intermittently between buildings. The slow music also gives this beginning a feeling of little amounts of hope between long periods of dreariness. This ends up being the case for lives of Doinel and his family. Doinel can not stay out of trouble, and during a period of hopelessness, gets a brief relieve of his family arguments as he is taken to the cinema and enjoys a fun evening. But the next day he is back in trouble and it seems nothing will go his way. Much of the film is shot using simple eye-level shots, but the times when the camera angles change are important areas in which Truffaut wants the viewer to notice something. One of the examples is the security camera shot, but it also occurs when the point of view is taken away from Doinel for one of the few times. The camera is on Doinel and his friend ditching school and it pans across the street to one of the other students sneakily viewing them, planning on telling on them. Doinel does not get any help in his situation, even from his fellow students. His situation is bleak from the beginning and only becomes more so as the story progresses.
M
Movie: 1931, black and white, 117 minutes
Director: Fritz Lang
Actors: Peter Lorre, Ellen Widmann and Inge Landgut
Summary:
M is about a child murderer causing fear and hysteria in a German city. He appears as a normal citizen and is very careful in his crimes, turning the police investigation into an all out manhunt. The police raid bars and have constant patrols, causing difficulty in the criminal underworld. They too join on the hunt to find the killer. With thousands of suspects and inaccurate tip-offs and witnesses, the police turn to door to door investigations. As they become closer, the criminal’s plan of using beggars to find the killer pays off when one recognizes the killer’s whistling and follows him to a building. The killer, Beckert, is taken into an underground room of street criminals and beggars for a “trial”. He pleas that he can not control his actions and he must kill. Before he is executed the police break in and put him up in a real trial.
Questions:
1. How does Lang rely on objects and specific shots as much as dialogue to reveal information about the plot?
As a supplement ,or even in place of dialogue, Lang often uses objects to tell stories that have a much more impactful meaning than dialogue. In the beginning of the film, after a child is kidnapped and the mother is shouting in hopes of finding her, there is a sequence of shots that gives the audience an unspoken conclusion. We see the child’s empty chair, an empty stairwell, an empty street, and finally a balloon that was given to her by her killer, floating in telephone wires. Without seeing the result we know that the child isn’t coming home. In the same scene, the clock behind the mother is often shown as she begins to worry, showing the length of time she was been waiting. When the police chief is being asked why he is not getting results, he gives a long-winded explanation of the efforts of the force, but rather than rely solely on the description, Fritz gives a montage of the many investigations and searches by the policemen with only a voiceover of the description. When the underground criminals are first introduced, there is no dialogue suggesting that these people are criminals, but it is in the objects in the room that audience figures out their nature. One man is seen taking several pocket watches out of his pocket, and after that their is a pan of numerous expensive looking items spanning the shelves of the room. Being Lang’s first talkie, he is wise in not overusing dialogue and allowing props to do some of the talking.
2. In what ways are the police and underground criminals portrayed in a similar manner?
Fritz Lang draws were blatant connections between the police force and the group of underground criminals throughout each of their attempts to catch the killer. When the criminals are first introduced, their leader comes into the room and starts making a speech about the trouble the killer has caused. Midsentence, it cuts to the head police chief completing his sentence and going on with it. This is the first obvious clue that leads the audience to see other less obvious connections later. He shoots the meeting of each group in a very similar fashion, as though the audience is sitting at the end of the table watching the head man speak at the opposite end. He also uses the settings to draw comparisons. Each room in which the groups talk in is dark, dreary, and filled with smoke from the cigarettes of each member. At the very end of the movie after the criminals catch the killer and lock him in a room down below, the criminals put him on trial, giving him a defense attorney and a jury. But there was never any chance that he would be found innocent and it was a very biased court. This draws parallels with the trial in the waning moments of the film after the police recapture the killer, as well as any other trial in modern society. It may be trying to show how some trials are very biased and sometimes one side never has a chance.
Cinema Paradiso
Movie: 1988, color, 155 minutes
Director: Guiseppe Tornatore
Actors: Philippe Noiret, Enzo Cannavale and Antonella Attili
Summary:
A young fatherless boy becomes engulfed in the cinema at his local theatre, also run by the church, and learns the tricks of projecting from his friend Alfredo. After Alfredo is blinded by a fire in the projection booth, a local lottery winner rebuilds the theater and puts the now adolescent boy, Salvatore, in charge of the projectionist duties. Salvatore remains good friends with Alfredo, and listens to his advice regarding women and his future. He eventually leaves the town because of Alfredo’s advice and becomes a famous director. In the present, Salvatore returns to his home town because Alfredo’s death, just in time to see Cinema Paradiso torn down. He is given a gift from the deceased Alfredo, a reel of the extracted kissing scenes from the films during the church’s reign of the theater.
Questions
1. How does Tornatore use the foreground and background to enhance the meaning of his shots?
Tornatore uses the foreground and background throughout the film to convey certain attributes of the characters in the shot, as well as giving a certain feeling or essence to the shot. This allows the audience to associate what they see in the corner of their eyes or right next to the character with the shot. Using props or backgrounds in this way is useful in conveying traits of characters or moods without having to use dialogue. In example in the film is when there is a shot of the priest editing one of the films, and in soft focus in front of the priest is a very blatant cross. The cross supplements the priest’s obvious intention of censoring the films. Another example of this tactic is a introductory shot of young Salvatore, shot with bells dominating the foreground of the frame. It gives the audience a premonitory view of Salvatore’s personality, very boisterous and nosy. A few other examples of this technique is when a lightbulb is shown in front of Salvatore, showing his realization of something Alfredo has told him, as well as a cage being shown in front of Salvatore’s love, showing the constriction that she feels in her decision to date Salvatore. It is obvious that Tornatore pays much attention to the background activity, shown by going as far as giving shots to background characters. This allows the viewer to become accustomed to the behavior of the local residents without having the main character encompass all of these qualities. This includes the homeless man that lives in the square and the rude moviegoer in the upper level who enjoys spitting on the guests. These seemingly trivial characters reveal behaviors of the citizens to the audience.
2. How do the films that are watched by the characters in Cinema Paradiso contribute to the film itself.
Salvatore is constantly sneaking into films or watching them with his friends. But Tornatore does not simply cut quickly from these films and concentrate on the reactions of Salvatore and the other members in the crowd. He uses the films played on the screen to add meaning, and chooses very carefully what films are shown. There is a very wide variety of films shown in the cinema. Cinema Paradiso plays movies by Kurosawa to Hercules movies. Actors from Charlie Chaplin to John Wayne can be seen on the big screen. Perhaps this comments on the diversity of the personalities attending the Cinema. There are dedicated moviegoers like Salvatore and his friends, set on watching the films to fuel their fantasies, and working men, attempting to escape their boring jobs or find a good woman. The fact that the residents are restricted from the kissing scenes in the movies because of the priest is a comment on the censorship in everyday life. But when the new manager takes over Cinema Paradiso after the fire the residents are liberated by their ability to see the kissing scenes. It also reveals some of Salvatore’s dreams of what he wants to become and even foreshadows his romance later in life. He learns how to act from the films, and uses his romantic ideas to woo the girl of his dreams. When they make love in the rain, the background contains a fantasy film, showing how the moment is fulfilling Salvatore’s dreams.
8 1/2
Movie: 1963, black and white, 138 minutes
Director: Federico Fellini
Actors: Marcello Mastroianni, Anouk Aimée and Claudia Cardinale
Summary:
Guido Anselmi is a successful director who has lost his drive to create great movies after 8 1/2 films. He is surrounded by a never tiring staff that is constantly demanding another great movie. Aspiring actors and actresses are always trying to get a part in his next film, and he is dealing with a shifting love life between his life and a mistress. Incapable of escaping from this lifestyle, he resorts to fantasies of his past life. Between these fantasies, he must continually deal with the risks of an expensive prop and a writer who is telling him that his ideas are out-dated.
Questions:
1. How is the pace of Anselmi’s life shown through camera techniques?
Director Guido Anselmi is constantly being bothered and questioned by people popping in and out of his life. But Fellini does not simply have Guido constantly bombarded and leave his troubles at that, but uses many techniques to give the audience a sense of what his lifestyle is like. Rather than cut the shots of Guido’s conversations like most director’s do, many of his conversations take place with 3 or 4 different characters, without even a cut. There is simply no break for Guido or the audience, forcing us to pay as much attention to the film as Guido does do his life, making for quite a mentally exhausting viewing. Included in those long takes were many panning shots from Guido’s point of you. These shots were almost never in one direction, moving back and forth as new characters come from all sides to get a word in with Guido, who is always paying attention to each one. Fellini also tends to use a master shot to set up the scene and another character stands up into the frame, becoming a close-up. It is a good representation of how suddenly the peace in Guido’s life comes to a close, as well as how much they absorb. Fellini uses the frame as a guide for the audience to see the intensity that each person brings to Guido’s life. The film is full of close-ups, but not the typical close-up shot. The character’s face tends to fill up almost the entire screen, which must have taken very skilled camera work as most conversations use these almost extreme close-ups. A large portion of the film is shown from Guido’s point of view; throughout the film the audience is constantly bombarded by the presence of his crew and family.
2. How does Fellini contrast Anselmi’s fantasies with his real life?
The film is constantly switching between Guido’s fantasies and his real life. This makes it difficult for the audience to distinguish between the two worlds, but Fellini uses some differences in the shots to show the difference. In Guido’s life it is almost always all about him, constantly being approached and cornered by those wanting his attention. But in the fantasies there are often long pans of other people walking by, with the viewer vaguely aware of where Guido is in the shot. It shows Guido’s desire to simply observe his surroundings, without his surroundings coming to him. This technique is introduced in the very beginning of the film, as Guido’s face is not even revealed until the first scene of his real life. The film opens with Guido trapped in a car with his face shadowed and then into a shot of him floating away with only his lower body in the shot and a rope attached to his ankle holding him down. In Guido’s life, there is often much emphasis on the character’s faces, with many close-ups and crowded frames. But in his fantasies there are often many more long shots, showing a new dispersed bodies, with the faces barely visible. In the scene where young Guido and his friends visit Saraghina, the giant prostitute, they are shown on the beach from a distance, never showing any close-ups of the friends, just of Saraghina to show her size. At times if not paying close attention it may be difficult to tell whether one is viewing fantasy or reality, but Fellini does a masterful job of using subtle differences in his filmmaking for the keen eye.
