Watching “The Man Who Fell to Earth” gave me a familiar feeling upon first viewing. I was taken back to a time when a friend of mine, who is deep in knowledge of the cinematic medium, criticized “Pulp Fiction” stating that it was a shameless and terrible carbon copy of “Breathless”, Jean-Luc Godard’s medium redefining film released in 1960. I proceeded to watch “Breathless” and caught a drift for what he was talking about along with a growing intrigue within myself for the French New Wave. Upon viewing “The Man Who Fell to Earth”, I was taken back to “Breathless” and the techniques and concepts exhibited throughout that film and I understood why Breathless was such an inspirational film during it’s time, as elements of Breathless and the French …show more content…
Roeg uses situational montage to essentuate the severity of a situation. When Thomas faints on the elevator, Mary-Lou must frantically rush the old school elevator to the 5th floor where Thomas is staying in the hotel. Roeg jumps from a shot of Mary moving the elevator dial, looking up at the floor count, and looking at Thomas to make sure he is ok. This rapid editing can be traced back to Godard using this technique to essentuate the shooting of a police officer where Godard goes in on a close up of Michael, his arm, his gun barrel, and finally the trigger. In Godard’s case he left out important information in that incidence, did the cop die or where did he get shot. For Roeg, he uses this technique to put us in Mary-Lou’s frantic but caring mindset. Much like most of the early experimentations of the French Wave, concepts are improved upon in later “re-experimentations” of the concept. The two starting sequences of both Breathless and The Man who Fell to Earth run parallel in regards to intention and execution. When Roeg wants to establish that an alien has landed on earth, he uses rapid cuts between the earth, a lonely lake, and NASA footage of a space ship launch to show this arrival in the world that he has created. The same concept is used on Michael by Godard when Michael’s reckless driving is shown through the cross cutting of cars passing by and the demeanor of Michael in the car. “The time that is lost between the edits is salvaged within the imagination of the viewer.” David Jenkins declares when speaking about The Man who Fell to
Guess what!? I had just watched “ParaNorman” and it was pretty good, Its great for all ages. This movie is an animation, adventure, and comedy. “ParaNorman” was directed by Chris Butler and Sam Fell, it is rated PG and has a runtime of 1 hour and 32 minutes. ”ParaNorman” stars a string of great actors, such as Kodi Smit-McPhee, Anna Kendrick, Christopher Mintz-Plasse,and Tucker Albrizzi. This 2012 movie is still being enjoyed by young and old people.
In “A Century of Cinema”, Susan Sontag explains how cinema was cherished by those who enjoyed what cinema offered. Cinema was unlike anything else, it was entertainment that had the audience feeling apart of the film. However, as the years went by, the special feeling regarding cinema went away as those who admired cinema wanted to help expand the experience.
The Black Balloon directed by first time feature film director, Elissa Down, is a clever combination of two types of story, the coming of age romantic comedy, and a family drama with disability. The film was released in Australian cinemas on 6 March 2008. The Black Balloon is a movie about Thomas Mollison whom is about to turn 16. His family have just moved into a new home in New South Wales in the early 1990s. It begins with Charlie, his autistic brother, banging a wooden spoon on the grass with their new neighbours staring and pointing. His dad 's in the army, his mother is pregnant, and Charlie his brother is autistic as well as suffering from an attention deficit disorder. Thomas is anxious because he has to start at a new school, and all he wants is to do is fit in and be considered in the same way as everyone else. Thomas is devoted to his brother and shows affection, but often feels isolated, as it seems as if his mother gives his brother more attention. Thomas finds Charlie an embarrassment in public, so when Thomas is attracted to Jackie, a girl in his swim class things become complicated. The purpose of the movie, The Black Balloon is a movie about a family struggling to cope with autism and learning to accept autism and people for who they are.
The final scene of Jean-Luc Goddard’s Breathless (1960) is one of the most memorable scenes of the film. Not only does it portray the conventions of new wave cinema but it also depicts the existentialist themes that are presented throughout. New wave cinema was typically low budget and this is presented in the climactic scene of Breathless. The scene was shot on location and included a lot of jump cuts and disjointed editing. However, despite appearing to be unprofessional and unpolished, Breathless evokes a sense of harsh realism that is present in contemporary relationships. The final scene also symbolises the end of Michel (Jean-Paul Delmondo) and Patricia’s (Jean Seberg) ill-fated partnership and signifies the end of their attempt to find happiness and love within one another.
One Night the Moon (Rachel Perkins) is a marvellous portrayal of the conflict between the white settler and the Indigenous Australian, at the heart of which, is their attitude to the land and what it represents. The film demonstrates the conflict created through opposing views of land ownership due to misunderstanding and stubbornness over opinions, and highlights the mistreatment the Indigenous people have suffered over this confusion. The film follows a white settler, Jim Ryan, and an indigenous police officer, Albert, and their actions surrounding the disappearance of Jim’s daughter, Emily. The film depicts the conflict caused by their opposing attitudes towards the land, particularly Jim’s territorial view towards ‘his’ land. Perkins attempts to bring the similarity between their conflict in the 1930s and our society now to the fore by subtly hinting at the subconscious of the audience to cause them to consider their own ideas and values.
Empire Falls, written by Richard Russo, encompasses several concepts of the American identity and what it means to be an American. Russo focuses on the small town life in New England, illustrating a compelling story while narrating the lives of several different characters. While these characters seem to be different at the surface, they actually share several similarities. The characters of Empire Falls share the same outlook of life. Despite the American freedom they have, they will typically follow the path of life that they were born into and never question why. Overall, Empire Falls is a town of acceptance, accepting ones place in society as it is. The citizens of Empire Falls do not question their path of life and simply accept the basic truth of their lives. This speaks volumes for our country. Are we a country that will simply accept our set path of life? Or rather fight for what we believe in, despite the negative connotations it may bring. Through extensive analysis of the protagonist Miles Roby and other important characters in the novel, we will begin to what it means to be an American through a different perspective.
A red Camaro sits somewhere rusting in a police lot, a tree having grown up in the middle of it, yet still oblivious as to the grief it has caused. Sometimes it’s something as little as a car to make people do things as atrocious as taking another life. In his film, Into the Abyss, Werner Herzog does more than just explore the murder case against two boys, Michael Perry and Justin Burkett, but rather take into account the complexity and reasoning behind the murders, along with the morality behind the death penalty. The film refuses to use any graphic images or over-the-top scenes to drive its point across, but rather creeps along with its own unique imagery, complex subject matter, and Werner’s ethical compassion about how people and their motivations.
The film Rocks with Wings opens with an image of Shiprock on the Navajo Nation Reservation. This geographical formation holds a huge importance in the culture of the Navajo, as it is told that the first Navajo people were carried on a large bird that landed on that site, with the people jumping off and the bird’s wings forming the rock (Rocks with Wings). The site has two different names, with Shiprock being the name that Anglos gave it, while the Navajo called it Tsé Bitʼaʼí, literally translated to Rock with Wings (Rocks with Wings). This difference between the naming of a sacred site for the Navajo people is a signal of a different struggle that they face, the one between preserving their native Navajo culture and accepting more of the white American culture. This battle plays itself out when it comes to basketball being played on the Reservation.
“Inside Man” was released in 2006 and would later become the highest grossing film for the director Spike Lee. The film is a crime-drama, located primarily in a bank in New York City run by multi billionaire Arthur Case. Although the film is a thriller and contains bits of action and suspense, the movie focuses heavily on the difference between good and evil. The movie begins with a shot in medias res of Clive Owen’s character Dalton Russell explaining the difference between being stuck in a tiny cell and being in prison while he moves around a small room
This film analysis will delineate the diverse directorial decisions of The French New Wave cinema movement, and how they have been utilised and developed to challenge and subvert the typical Hollywood filmmaking conventions and techniques of the 1950s and 60s Hollywood cinema, in François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (1959). Hollywood produced films of the time used a very limited variation in film techniques such as camera, acting, mise-en-scene, editing and sound. This can be mainly attributed to the low innovative thought of creative and expressive camera movements, angles, etc… due to technological hindrances. In particular, this film analysis will de-construct the filmmaking elements of the revelatory French New Wave movement in Truffaut’s The 400 Blows ending scene (01:34:42 – 01:39:32) portraying the main character Antoine Doinel’s escape from juvie and trek to the bespoken beach.
The French New Wave, or Nouvelle Vague, is among the most revolutionary film eras in the history of cinema. Spurred as a result of major shifts in economic, social and technological norms within post-WW11 France, the New Wave conceived a renewed mode of expression across various creative industries. Francois Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (1959) and Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (1960) are two films, which despite major disparities, would go on to exemplify integral characteristics of the movement in the following years. Perhaps, the best way to truly appreciate the fervor of New Wave cinema is to examine the context of its inception. Both the stylistic and thematic qualities of French New Wave works directly reflect the implicit values, virtues and vices possessed by the emerging youth culture of the late 1950s, which consequently posed a fundamental challenge to the institutions, ideas and attitudes of the past.
The movie Falling Down portrays many examples of the movie reflecting, influencing, and changing society. The movie reflects society's many flaws such as inflation of prices and unneeded budget spending. The movie also influences others to point out society’s flaws by using force. Finally, the movie changes society by showing the movie in the point of view of a person that is classified as a realist.
The 1960 film Breathless by Jean Luc Goddard tells the story of small-time Parisian hood Michel Poiccard, who is frantically trying to collect enough money to flee the country with Patricia, his American love interest, after he murdered a policeman who tried to pull him over and became the subject of a city wide man hunt. Michel is an interesting character whom evokes a wide range of reactions from a very diverse audience. He tries to be like his hero, the suave and courageous Humphrey Bogart, to the extent he imitates his mannerism (tracing his lips with his thumb), but he falls short for he lacks the charisma of a heroic protagonist, as he does an antiheroic pathos. Michel’s quest to emulate his hero, as well as other instances sprinkled
In the movie Crash, the director Paul Haggis interweaves multiple connected stories about race, class, family, and gender in Los Angeles, California after the 9/11 event. All the characters are shown to have life changing experiences with their conflicts of stereotypes, prejudice, and racism within a span of 36 hours. This movie has won three Oscars and was deemed “expertly written” and “Best Picture Oscar-winner … sprawling and ambitious, episodic and contrived” by Cynthia Fuchs, a professional movie critic. So, how did this movie become so well-known and popular in the U.S., even though there are already so many movies with similar themes?
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a mental disorder that is associated with reoccurring thoughts (obsessions) and uncontrollable thoughts that drives the patients to repeat something over and over again. The Aviator movie is trying to depict this disorder through the character Howard Hughes. The story captures the real-life experience of Hughes who was a successful filmmaker and aeronautic engineer in Hollywood between 1920s and 1940s. He was both rich, talented and notoriously eccentric. Hughes showed symptoms of OCD which were very severe and incapacitating at some points. His conditions deteriorated progressively from bad to worst throughout his lifetime, though in most parts of the film he is depicted as functioning relatively normally. This paper will focus on Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and how it has been depicted in The Aviator movie through the character Howard Hughes.