Film Theory & Aesthetics Of ' The Music Video ' Died For Love '

Music videos are often seen as the parts of the song’s story that an artist has trouble putting into words. Sometimes these details are unnoticeable at first glance, while some are essential to giving us vital information on what the song is actually about. Michael Jackson’s famous “Thriller” music video is often viewed as a Halloween binge watching classic, but judging by both the visual and audio components, it may be more than just a crowd of dancing zombies. There are quite a few moments throughout the video that can easily be seen as symbolisms of abuse, stalking, and rape/sex. By viewing the Thriller music video with this thought in mind, I hope to help you see the true evil lurking in the dark.

Through distinctive images composers develop interest, drawing the responder in and thus providing insight into the experiences of others. This is demonstrated in Amanda Lohrey’s novella ‘Vertigo’ as Luke and Anna find themselves in a new and disorientating environment as they attempt to build a new life and in the ‘The Red Tree’ composed by Shaun Tan, through the nameless girl’s journey as she attempts to find herself and her place in the world. Meaning created by distinctive images creates interest thus permitting the responder to gain a greater understanding on how the experiences help shape one’s self.

The concept of contrasting social class is manipulated using innovative cinematic techniques, including non-diegetic sound, mise-en-scène, bright lighting and various camera techniques and angles. The scene instigates with calm and composed music being played during the beginning of the

Surrealism is a movement that built off of the burgeoning look into art, psychology, and the workings of the mind. Popularly associated with the works of Salvador Dali, Surrealist art takes imagery and ideology and creates correlation where there is none, creating new forms of art. In this essay I will look to explore the inception of the surrealist movement, including the Surrealist Manifesto, to stress the importance of these artists and their work in the 20th century and beyond. I also will look to films from our European Cinema course to express how films incorporate the influence of surrealism both intentionally and unintentionally.

David Bordwell wrote his article ‘The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film’ in an effort to convey the main idea that “art cinema” can be considered as a distinct mode of film practice, through its definite historical existence alongside other cinematic modes, set of formal conventions, and implicit viewing procedures. Rather than searching for the source of the art, or what drives the art in film, Bordwell compares art cinema to the classical narrative cinema, and highlights the differences in narrative structure. Bordwell makes the assumption that it defined itself against the classical narrative mode; especially with the way it deals with space, time, and the cause and effect link of events.

Through studying and analyzing ‘Maestro’ ,written by Peter Goldsworthy, and by viewing and analyzing the film ‘Edward Scissorhands’ directed by Tim Burton, it is evident that the composers of these texts allow the audience to see distinctive experiences with our eyes as well as with our minds through distinctively visual. The many visual, written and literary techniques have the ability to create a significant and impacting visual.

Through the use of techniques and themes, a composer is able to create distinctively visual images when describing the setting and characters in detail which help us to understand and form meaning of what the composer is trying to convey in their texts. The use of techniques such as body language, symbolism, lighting, music and photographic background slides create distinctively visual images same with themes that are being used within the texts such as truth which is evident in the dramatic text ‘The Shoe-Horn Sonata’ by John Misto, the song ‘Lose Yourself’ sang by Eminem, and the film ‘The Eye’ directed by David Moreau and Xavier Palud featuring Jessica Alba. These three texts demonstrate how the responders are impacted and what is

Many composers use various techniques in which they communicate the distinctly visual. John Misto’s ‘The Shoe-Horn Sonata’ and Alexander Kimel’s ‘The Action in the Ghetto of Rohatyn, March 1942’ represent significant issues in our world by using various literary and dramatic techniques. Through using these techniques it is evident that the composers of these texts allow the audience to ‘see’ with our eyes as well as with our minds. The many literary and dramatic techniques have the ability to create a visual that

The use of distinctively visual images allows an audience to perceive and distinguish the composer’s specific representation. From these distinctive visuals, the audience’s perceptions force them to respond in a particular way. In ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’, Ang Lee utilises a range of film techniques to position his audience through a combination of quiet, dramatic scenes and choreographed action sequences. In his painting, ‘Third of May, 1808’ Fransisco Goya conveys meaning exclusively with distinctively visual techniques. Both the composers are able to effectively convey their message and

“All my life I’ve been a lonely boy.” Vincent Gallo’s Buffalo 66 is a peculiar, surreal film to analyze. As a semi-autobiographical work, Buffalo 66 greatly exaggerates the events in the film and makes the viewers suspend disbelief on more than one occasion. Yet despite this, the main focus of this film is a broken Billy Brown’s emotionally raw journey seeking revenge but instead finding unconditional love through Layla in the end, and the formalist film techniques used here enhance this. Through the deliberate use of photography, staging, and movement, Buffalo 66 works as a formalistic classicism film, a predominantly classicism film with strong elements of formalism, on the style continuum.

In the music video, many rhetorical strategies were used to enhance the experience of the audience. For example, one scene in the video introduced the protagonist –Mika, who is a high school kid that gets bullied by his classmates. And by his depress expressions; we can’t help but to create sympathy to the character. Meanwhile, such idea to play on audience’s emotional feeling is exactly the rhetorical strategies of Pathos. Secondly, an interesting shot of Mika and Ariana Grande were presented by them mixing a pot of rats, and poisons.

In the first scene of Paul Morrissey’s 1968 film Flesh, the viewer is taken on a brief journey through the streets of New York City. The perspective taken is that from a passive observer looking into the life of the main character. The camera does not tamper with the images nor try to impose new meaning on them – we see the sequence of events as it actually unfolds. Throughout the film clip, a main theme is centered on the banality of the protagonist’s existence, and his restless state is reflected within both technical and organic aspects of the clip.

The way in which composers convey their ideas is dependent on their use of distinctive visuals. Amanda Lohrey’s “Vertigo”, Tim Burton’s “Edward Scissorhands” and Bruce Dawe’s “Homecoming” show how the composers use the distinctively visual concept to portray a greater understanding to the audience of the themes and ideas presented in their work.

“The most exciting moment is the moment when I add the sound… At this moment, I tremble.” (Akira Kurosawa) Sound is arguably the most important concept in cinema studies, being there ever since the beginnings. It can radically change the way a motion picture is looked at and it can render what the director may sometimes find hard to depict using only his camera. Looking upon silent cinema one discovers an era which wasn’t at all silent, but rich in sound of different forms, from the simple narration of the images shown on screen, accompanied by a piano, to the complex score later composed specifically for that film. An example of that complex score is shown in Sunrise, a film by F.W. Murnau, which lies at the border between silent cinema and sound cinema. Considered to be one of the first films with an actual score, Sunrise is a great example of the multitude of dimensions and effects sound can have.

Music can be extraordinarily influential in films, as it has the ability to evoke emotion not displayed by on-screen action. Music used in films can play many roles; it can depict time and place, mood, atmosphere, character, and can be used to underscore the onscreen drama and titles. Alan Silvestri and John Williams successfully manipulate the use of music in film to establish characters (along with their personality, actions and changing emotions), as well as underscore the mood for the entirety of their given films. The contrasts of Silvestri’s “The Feather Theme” with Williams’ “Batman Theme” exemplify the power of music in film.