The Berlin School Films Are Worth Watching Many Hollywood movies are obvious about the direction the film is going to go. Plots are usually straightforward in the sense that the goals of the protagonists are clear, and there is a linear progression towards their objectives after each overcome obstacle. To have the audience absorbed into the world of the movie is the ambition. If the audience is captivated, then most likely they will think that the movie was good. The Berlin School challenges the conventional approaches to film making. Films from this school try to prove that movies can be well received without adhering to pre-established techniques. The way the limits are tested is by exploring the character’s motives, the means they use to satiate those desires, and why. To do this Berlin school films implement characters with complexity. Meaning that the characters have a series of layers of emotions and thoughts that are often conflicting with each other. These thoughts and emotions are going to be withheld from us though. Therefore, the audience is delegated the task of interpreting sometimes subtle hints from dialogue, facial expressions, the setting, and events to inference why things are happening, rather than only what is happening. The viewers take on the role of detached observers. As a result, the character’s interactions with the world, now whilst considering their motives) becomes the plot device of choice. A downfall to this demanding approach is the potential
To support this idea, Bordwell illustrates how art cinema motivates its narratives differently, through two principles: realism and authorial expressivity. Firstly he proposes the notion that art films reflect realism in their characters, space, and time. Psychologically complex characters are present in real worlds dealing with true-to-life situations. Art cinema is concerned with the characters ‘reaction’ to these situations, rather than their ‘action’. Thus it bares an element of psychological subjectivity as the characters survey the world they are in, which aids the realisation of the distress of
Movies have the ability to transport people to different times and places and distract them from ordinary everyday reality. They allow for a range of emotions to be experienced. At their core, movies examine the human condition. There are plenty of deeper truths woven into screenplays and plenty of lessons to be learned, even when an individual is solely seeking entertainment.
Modern day directors use a variety of methods to hold ones interest. Ethan Hawke and Kenneth Branagh’s created versions of Hamlet that shared some similarities, but ultimately had many differences in respects to an audience’s appeal. An appealing movie is one that has an alluring ambiance and an intellectual stimulus. With these two movie versions, a setting and a mood forced an audience to acquire specific emotions, but Ethan Hawke’s version generated emotions more strongly and effectively. Also, these movies had extremely different uses of music and visuals, but both movie versions incorporated them well for the ambiance it tried to obtain. Finally, both movie
Throughout this course, you have been compiling a blog and writing essays that analyze various elements of film such as theme, cinematic techniques, and genre. It is now time to combine those elements into a comprehensive analysis of one movie.
Viewers of films usually expect certain aspects to be included in the film for instance love, war, and crime. The expectations of the viewers and their attitude at the end of the film usually define the genre, to which the film will fall. In most cases, the purpose of the films and the attitudes developed by the audience as the plot of the film grows, will help shape the genre to which the film will be categorized. Even though these expectations exist, it would be unfounded for the film to follow an individual ideal like communicativeness and knowledge that defines the genre. The shifts in these genres between combat and romance, for instance, are used to facilitate the conceptualization of the purpose and the representations used in the film.
Film and literature are two media forms that are so closely related, that we often forget there is a distinction between them. We often just view the movie as an extension of the book because most movies are based on novels or short stories. Because we are accustomed to this sequence of production, first the novel, then the motion picture, we often find ourselves making value judgments about a movie, based upon our feelings on the novel. It is this overlapping of the creative processes that prevents us from seeing movies as distinct and separate art forms from the novels they are based on.
A set of practices concerning the narrative structure compose the classical Hollywood Paradigm. These conventions create a plot centering around a character who undergoes a journey in an attempt to achieve some type of goal (). By giving the
In the recent decade films have grown to be very popular, I believe that the reason is due to the fact that a movie gives the audience watching a visual experience with diverse emotions and feelings that they would not receive while reading a book. A movie is rated on its ability to suspend reality and immerse the audience in the world the movie. Baz Luhrman the winner of the AACTA Best Director/film has mastered the art of immersing the audience to make them feel like they are part of the movie. He achieves this through cinematic techniques; Baz Luhrman’s ability to immerse the audience has greatly evolved from his debut movies ‘Strictly Ballroom’ to his latest movie ‘The Great Gatsby’. Baz use camera angles and lighting in both movies to firstly hook the audience and secondly to put emphasis on character’s role.
The producers will develop a test and the audience will tell the producers whether it is something they want to see or they are not going to see. This can affect the next text to be produced in an attempt to conform to the audience demands. Looking at the development of different types of genres and the development of films within the same genre, it’s possible to look at similarities and differences and identify changes in society and audience ideologies and tastes.
In the films, Even in the Rain by Icíar Bollaín, The Namesake by Mira Nair, and The Great Escape by John Sturges, I will be discussing chapters: One “Looking at Movies”, Two “Principles of Film Form”, and Four “Elements of Narrative”. These three directors employ the techniques of narrative and film form to create movies about morality, identity, and freedom. In chapter one: “Looking at Movies” of Looking at Movies, Richard Barsam and Dave Monahan discuss the effects of expectation on film. “Even the most general knowledge affects how we react to any given film” (page 13).
In service of this argument, the essay unfolds in three parts. The first section sketches an appropriate framework for understanding how cinema marshals and moves viewers by engaging them in a fully embodied experience.4 The second section offers a brief overview of the film's plot before turning to an analysis of its triptych narrative and affective development. The third and final section considers the methodological, critical, and theoretical implications suggested by the preceding analysis.
Understanding movies comes from describing and analyzing the cinematic, theatrical, and literary elements that combine to create meaning. These steps create a basic understanding of the artistic and technical elements found in moviemaking. In addition, the major characteristics of different film genres and classic movies will be analyzed. The purpose of this paper is analyzing the Academy Award winning film Chicago. This paper will describe the six steps that a person should think about when watching a movie. These steps include, (1) analysis of the narrative: story, plot and meaning; (2) theatrical elements, (3) cinematography, (4) editing, (5) sound and the (6) complete package.
For our second assignment, we are assigned to watch one international film and study it thereafter. We are to identify its genre and its particular conventions such as themes, sub-themes and etc. However, the main idea of this assignment is the film theory. We are to apply one of the nine film theories into our film choices and analyze it thoroughly in terms of mise-en scene, narrative structure, character interaction and any other criteria.
Analyze This is a hilarious, feel good movie about two men from different backgrounds living completely opposite lifestyles. Through a series of very funny, random and bizarre moments they form a memorable friendship together. The movie came to theatres in 1999, was directed by Harold Ramis and included a cast full of some of Hollywood’s brightest stars. It begins with two gangsters leaving a café, discussing their plans to attend a meeting involving the countries major crime bosses. One gangster goes back in the café to get a toothpick and at the same time the other gangster is killed from a drive-by shooting. The movie’s plot is based upon the surviving gangster seeking out a psychiatrist to help with his emotional
The evaluation of a film assigns some form of value to a film and the experience you encountered while watching the film. Evaluation can imply the criteria and standards that you can argue about to place value on a film. Thus, giving people a reason to question a film to develop reasons, make such standards are met and to understand the film. These standards can stem from the classical evaluation and pluralistic-category method which has given viewers a blueprint of how you should properly evaluate a film. There are certain ways that you can go about judging a films effectiveness. For instance, the classical evaluation method imposes the use of cinematicity within three concepts that all films should have. Like medium specificity, cinematicity allows film to distinguish itself from theatre with the use of close-ups, camera movement, etc.; thus, creates a universal structure for critics to judge a film. This is based on the creative style of the director and how much the viewers admire the way the has stuck with its cinematicity. However, the pluralistic-category does not base its evaluation on style and opinion. In all, these types of evaluations are used in different ways which will be further explained throughout this essay.