Stanley Kubrick's Monolith: The Sixties

This paper was prepared for Introduction to Film History, Module 1 Homework Assignment, taught by Professor Stephanie Sandifer.

Topic: Thesis statement: Sequence analysis, film form and style as depicted in the film, The Matrix.

The Matrix film is a 1999 American science fiction action movie written and directed by The Wachowskis’, it is unique and intriguing hence it is known for popularizing a visual effect known as "bullet time", in which the heightened perception of certain characters is represented by allowing the action within a shot to progress in slow-motion while the camera's viewpoint appears to move through the scene at normal speed. In the film there several crucial perspectives of how the world is viewed and some of these being the concepts of two different worlds that are in contrast with one another, this essay shall explore more of these ideas and issues that are portrayed in the film by means of sequence analysis, film form and style.

How does the director Steven Spielberg, use film techniques to convey one or more themes in his film, War of the Worlds?

At a young age of eight, David Fincher’s passion for cinema grew when he saw the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). Born in 1962 Denver, Colorado, David Fincher moved to Ashland, Oregon in his teens, where he graduated from Ashland High School. Much of his time here, he directed plays, designed sets, and managed lighting after school. Until one summer, he and a friend attended the Berkley Film Institute’s summer program, where he hoped to learn film as a true art form but instead learned only the technical production. Either way he was happy to engage is this and as his early film industry career started, he was a production assistant at his local television news station. Years went by as he directed propaganda films then moving on to becoming a well-known music director before his first movie feature debut Aliens 3 in 1992. However, the American director David Fincher didn’t become a modern 21st century visionary until his creation of the film Se7en (1995). The huge success after this film started Fincher’s popularity in the film industry. From there he continued to make ironic movies we know today, such as: Fight Club (1999), Zodiac (2007), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), The Social Network (2010), Gone Girl, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

“Kubrick’s work reveals deeper evidence of the personal involvement which distinguishes the true auteur. His develpment has been remarkably consistent through an apparently heterogeneous range of projects, and each film’s meaning becomes more confidently definable when one places it in relation to its fellows (page 561 paragraph 2).”

Jake Rodriguez Language Arts - Period 4 May 13, 2015 The Boiling Point of the 1960's The 1960's hid a series of unresolved issues that exploded rebellion and revolt in the American society. One of those issues was alcoholism. In the movies, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest directed by Miloš Forman and The Best Years of Our Lives directed by William Wilder, citizens are portrayed to use alcohol in order to repair themselves.

Now this has all happened, the audience can recognise what genre of film this is, a typical ‘Mission Impossible’ or ‘James Bond’ film. In the trailer for ‘Gladiator’, there are lots of good techniques used. To start with, there is a close up of Russel Crowe dressed in Roman clothing, then it fades out to a plain black screen that has, “The General” written on it. It then super-imposes back to a camera shot of Crowe walking through a line of slaves.

All films, regardless of their intended purposes, tend to capture a piece of history and culture within them. Film’s ability to capture images and produce a visual is truly unique, as other methods of storytelling, such as writing a book, fail to truly encapsulate the human experience. Using an aesthetic lens, film directors essentially preserve time, and bring us back to our roots. Through masterful manipulation of the aesthetic properties of film, Milos Forman succeeds in illuminating the historical and cultural significance of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, making it worthy of placement in the National Film Archive.

It had been a hot, midsummer day when Jacques Kubrick bestowed a camera upon his son, Stanley. It had been an old, Graflex camera, and from that day forward, young Stanley could be seen lugging around his father’s gift everywhere he went. He spent much of his time snapping still photos and creating home movies depicting the Bronx, his hometown, in all its glory (Uhlich). No one could have predicted that this gift was one that would affect the world. That day - July 26th, 1941 - had been renowned American filmmaker, director, and screenwriter Stanley Kubrick’s thirteenth birthday, and it had been a ripple in time, the simple start of a visionary whose future work would one day be celebrated on various platforms by more than one generation. As

A Comparison of Cinematography in Two Science Fiction Classics Metropolis (1927) directed by Fritz Lang is one of the first science fiction films ever made, but The Matrix (1999), directed by Lana and Lilly Wachowski, has one of the biggest cult followings in movie history. Each film has a strong character driven narrative that is supplemented by camerawork. The audience members can only go so far as the camera angles and shots allow, leaving a lot to be revealed throughout each piece. Metropolis was made in a time of major innovations for filmmaking. However, the shots all appear quite simple.

Stanly Kubrick had grew up and was raised in The Bronx, in New York City, USA. And he went to William Howard Taft High School from the years 1941 to 1945. Though he only gotten about average grades, Kubrick displayed a large interest in literature, in photography, and film from then a young age on, and he had taught himself all aspects about film production and directing, then after he had graduated from his high school. After he had worked as a photographer for Look Magazine in the late 1940’s and the early 1950’s, he then began making short films on a tight budget, and then he had made his first major Hollywood film, The Killing, for The United Artists in the year 1956. This was then continued with two other collab’s with Kirk Douglas; Paths of Glory in the year (1957) “and the Historical Epic Spartacus in the year (1960)”. His reputation as a filmmaker in Hollywood had increased, and then he was approached by Marlon Brando to film what would become One-Eyed Jacks in the year (1961), although Brando had eventually decided to

2001: A Space Odyssey is just that: a long wandering voyage of the body and mind. Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clark collaborated brilliantly. In examining both works, the film and the novel, there are certainly differences, yet the theme and overall idea coincide thoroughly. That this was made in the 1960's augments both accomplishments. The visuals, seen in 2004, are still captivating. What they must've seemed like in 1968! I flout those who received this movie poorly in those days. Would I have received it as well without having a preconceived idea of its greatness? I can only hope I would have known what I was watching.

This paper will focus on the film techniques used by Cameron in his three most known movies, Titanic (1997), Avatar (2009), and Terminator series. Mise-en-scene according to John Gibbs is used in film studies in the discussion of visual style. Translated literally it means “To put on stage”, but for the purpose of students, it is defined as the contents of the frame and the way they are organized (p 5). In addition, a director’s style can be identified only through the arrangement and orchestrations of the film’s mise-en-scene (Nelmes, 425).The films Titanic, Avatar, and Terminator series were successful

The Analysis of Saving Private Ryan by Steven Spielberg Analyse he methods used to make the opening sequence of ‘Saving