Louis Malle’s “Elevator to the Gallows” is a film surrounding the lives of Florence Carala and

While they are taking one of their many jaunts around Paris, the pair come across a newspaper describing a ghoulish unsolved case involving the murder of a woman: Lady L’Espanaye and her daughter Camille. It seems the Madame was found with her neck so ravaged, her head just fell off when moved. Her daughter cruelly contorted and shoved up a

Last but definitely not least, lighting. I recognized the effectual usage of lighting as a factor in expressing the theme of this video. To demonstrate, in the scene where neighbors ensembled in a house when the “boom” went off, we can see the utilization of lighting. As I’ve used this scene in previous examples, we can tell its an important catalyst. Anyways, this scene captures the flickers and loss of lighting due to an electrical shortage from the “boom”, and we can infer from people’s faces that everyone is in panic mode. For more than half of the video after the “important catalyst” scene, the lighting remained dull and gloomy which resembled the darkness and

“William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet”, as portrayed in Luhrmann’s 1997 film, reveals that the cause of love will always lead to the consequence of death. Luhrmann focuses on highlighting this connection through the usage of props, costumes, and symbols, the foreshadowing of Romeo’s and Juliet’s fate, and Romeo’s compassion for his friends and family throughout the film. These aspects of the film emphasize the connection of love and death and explore the harsh realities and truths relating to this connection.

Shakespeare’s classic Romeo and Juliet has been reimagined many times across different mediums. One interpretation that stands out among the rest is Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 film of the same name. The most shocking and powerful difference between Luhrmann’s work and other films or stage productions of this piece, is the movie’s setting. Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet is set in the modern city of Verona Beach, New York, ruled by two powerful business families, the Montagues and the Capulets. Themes, language, and ideas remain the same, while places, props, and wardrobes are updated to the twentieth century. This compelling change helps emphasize the violent, fast-paced, and chaotic society of the play, which comes to precipitate the tragic demise of the two main characters.

At first glance, Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour,” Susan Glaspell’s Trifles, and Henrik Isben’s A Doll House seem to have nothing in common. However, the short story and plays have many similarities. Particularly, five women from these tales— Louise Mallard, Minnie Wright, Mrs. Peters, Mrs. Hale, and Nora Helmer—make drastic decisions that appear to be motiveless. Without context, any reader could be confused by Louise’s death, Nora’s departure, and Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale’s unanimous effort to cover up the murder that Minnie Wright committed, which also seems to lack serious motive. However, all of these women’s settings, situations, and lives have connections that make their motives similar. Emotion motivates all five women—not just

In these two movies, the right music and visuals had to be chosen in order to get the ambiance Hawke and Branagh tried to obtain. Each director chose different music and images that were very visual and auditive for an audience’s appeal. In Hawke’s version, visuals of New York and Times Square were appealing to an audience. Modern music at the beginning of the film caught the interest of the younger generation. As well, close ups of Hamlet were revealing to an audience and it was easy to feel infatuated by the character’s nihilistic despair. Branagh’s version used supernatural and dark visuals of ghosts, statues, and castles to produce feelings of awe and fear. The scene of the ghost was quick and staggering, and it created an automatic feeling of anxiety and fear. As well, the traditional use of classical music did a skillful job of creating suspense. Both directors appealed to an audience by using music and visuals that created an ambiance the directors desperately

He was trying to make the skyscrapers tower over the audience, not make the audience feel as if they were a part of the building. Despite the differences between the sets of these films, they all attempt to share lessons and to tell their individual stories. What sets the films from the period of Poetic Realism apart from the rest is the immersive, almost panoramic experience the viewer becomes a part of when they watch such films. Sous les Toits de Paris (Under the Roofs of Paris), created in 1930, was praised by French film critic Marcel Carné for creating an interpretation of life in Paris that was “more real than life itself.” Clair, the filmmaker of Sous les Toits de Paris, created such a realistic portrayal using many techniques that were contrasting to those used in the history of film (Andrew). He used long, continuous shots to immerse the reader in the scene and make them feel as if they are a character in the scene, going about their daily life in Paris. This was quite different from the previous montage technique that used quick cuts to provide excitement and entertain the viewer. Clair also recorded many scenes of the film without sound and then later layered the sound

Revenge can be analyzed, as it becomes the exhibited behavior of the Widow resulting from a number of causes. First cause is the harm done to her family; second cause is the Widow’s perception of violence during that time; and the third cause is her aggression toward the killer of her son. The first cause of her revenge is the most obvious reason why she avenged the death of her son, and this is because the killer caused pain to her family. Any mother would be committing the act especially that her son was the only company she has. The second cause pertains to the Widow’s perception of revenge during that time, and because at the time, wars and feuds were still evident in the French society, bloodshed for the Widow is not something to be scared of, given any means. This story was only successful in showing to its readers how the society thinks of death during those times, which can be achieved through any means, by which losing one’s life was not something to be thought of carefully. This just proves that during that time, morality was not given high regard as it is now. Death by any means can be accomplished by anybody, regardless of age, gender, and status in society. The third cause of the Widow’s behavior is her aggression toward the killer of her son, which was not literally shown or described in the story, but was evident based on

It is my intention to compare the book, Dangerous Liaisons by Choderlos de Laclos, to its modern movie version, Cruel Intentions starring Sarah Michelle Gellar. I intend to examine how the original French text was modified in reference to plot, character, morals/values, and themes. I also plan to discuss how these transformations change the meaning of the story and reflect different cultural/historical contexts. There are some major differences between these two works, if only because of when they were written.

Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller ‘Rear Window’ (Hitchcock, 1954) begins with the immediate use of mise-en-scène in order to establish a sense of atmosphere, equilibrium and the mundane, soon to be disrupted as the events of the film unfold and are observed through the eyes of the voyeuristic protagonist, Jeff. Setting, cinematography and various other expressive mise-en-scène techniques work together to influence the overall appearance of the film. Though, by taking a closer look, these techniques reveal the significance of the narrative and characters. In the opening sequence, Hitchcock’s original visual style provides signposts for the audience to recognize what will be significant in the future: instead of establishing what is only happening in the moment in time; mise-en-scène is used to suggest what is to come. This arrangement of the “Classical Hollywood” narrative - starting with the setting and characters in a state equilibrium - acts as a seemingly all-purpose, archetypal opening by establishing location and introducing character. Simultaneously we can see that this sequence is vastly different from the rest of the film: it is leading the viewer into a false sense of security – the calm before the storm – as Jeff soon happens to piece together information leading to the possibility that one of his neighbors murdered their wife. This sequence is one of the only moments in the film we see things the protagonist does not, thus this carefully constructed opening is preparing

While avant-garde most easily comes to mind as following a cinema of attraction model, with its much smaller focus on narrative, even Hollywood films apply this same sense of attraction with their use of special effects, CGI, and other tools with what Gunning called a “cinema of effects,” (234). Demolition of a Wall in many ways is one of the first elements of special effects, or an illusion of some sort, in cinema. More importantly than the first special effects, this is arguably the first film to use in camera editing. It stresses what is possible within the realm of cinema, the manipulation of time. Since this film’s release, both special effects and time manipulation in film has advanced considerably. In David Lynch’s tribute to the Lumiere brothers, there is another form of time manipulation at work in the form of cuts to different scenes. Instead of reversing time, Lynch is jumping to different points in time, and location, showcasing the true power of editing. While it is easy to point to figures like Eisenstein, and D.W. Griffith for their impact on montage, and continuity editing, it would be foolish to leave out the Lumiere’s despite relying mostly on single shots. This ability to put fundamental rules of nature, like time and space, in the hands

The French New Wave was a style of film used during the 1950s through the mid 1960s by French directors such as Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard. During the French New Wave, directors used an independent style of filmmaking called cinéma-vérité to portray a very realistic outlook on the lives of people who were living in France during the era of the New French Wave. In Francois Truffaut’s The 400 Blows, we see right away in the opening scene a prime example of cinéma-vérité. The opening scene depicts the view of a young, mischievous child Antoine Doinel, looking out of a car window while driving through the beautiful city of Paris, France. We see the elegant buildings along the side streets of Paris while seeing the Eiffel Tower in

Another aspect of sound in this film was how it affected the story. By using sound dramatically in certain parts and not using it at all in other parts, sound gave this story an entity of its own. For example, during long stretches of film with mostly dialogue, there was no music played in the background, only a phone ringing in the distance, or the men's voices during their deliberation. These long silences also took place during editing shots of the town and images that surrounded this German city. This dramatic difference in sound was a revelation of how mood can be made by images and sound put together to make an incredible component.

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.

An analysis of how cinematography, editing and mise en scene creates meaning and response in the Blood Bath scene of Taxi Driver (d. Scorsese 1976) Taxi Driver was directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader, in the film the director explores the journey of Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) and his slow descent into madness and eventually to murder. In the final scene of the film Travis goes to a brothel to murder the people inside and save the young prostitute, Iris (Jodie Foster). Meaning and response is provoked by lighting, shots, editing and costume and I will discuss how this relates to the context of the time. The scene opens with Travis parking the taxi, the colours in the scene are muted and desaturated creating a dismal atmosphere.