The Neon Demon: Second Rate or Sensational?
Sex, sparkles, and scandal. All three of these elements find themselves in Nicolas Winding Refn‘s film The Neon Demon. It’s a beautifully shot, yet confusing movie. The plot follows an aspiring sixteen year-old model named Jesse in the city of Los Angeles. Her beauty and youth generate intense fascination, and jealousy among many members of the fashion industry. Jesse soon faces the wrath of ruthless models who despise her fresh-faced beauty. On top of that, she must watch out for a seedy motel manager, and a creepy photographer. As Jesse starts to take the fashion world by storm, her small town innocence turns into narcissistic confidence. Every scene in the movie is perfectly color coordinated, and saturated in symbolism. The entire film is an audio and cinematic masterpiece with its noir, neon lighting, and it’s eerie, yet hypnotising electronic soundtrack. Unfortunately, the films aesthetics didn’t save it from the critics who felt that the movie was full of shallow characters, and a strange script. The film has gotten many mixed reviews over the past year and a half. It’s definitely a film you either love or hate.
It’s no secret that Nicolas Refn is an artistically experimental film maker. Many of his movies like Drive or Only God Forgives prove this statement. All of these films share unique camera angles, dramatic lighting, and twisted concepts like torture, or seual assault. These experimental way of making a movie have
In the film industry, there are directors who merely take someone else’s vision and express it in their own way on film, then there are those who take their own visions and use any means necessary to express their visions on film. The latter of these two types of directors are called auteurs. Not only do auteurs write the scripts from elements that they know and love in life, but they direct, produce, and sometimes act in their films as well. Three prime examples of these auteurs are: Kevin Smith, Spike Lee and Alfred Hitchcock.
Wes Anderson is a world-renowned filmmaker known for creating vividly colorful films that are consistent with his auteur signature. Though he has only directed 7 films (not including his upcoming film and two short films), he is a perfect example of how even a small body of work can demonstrate auteur theory. Anderson’s films have frequent themes, visual and methodological style and he even uses a lot of the same actors in most of his films. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) is a great example to demonstrate Wes Anderson’s stylistic use of pastel color schemes, symmetrical shot composition, and thematic use of story elements such as trust, acceptance, child-like
The Devil and Daniel Webster Movie In the movie and the short story, "The Devil and Daniel Webster", written by Stephen Vincent Benet, there is illustrated the battle between the forces of good and evil. Although the story allows the reader to mentally picture the scenes and the movie does the depicting for the viewer, there are several similarities in each script. Some of these similarities are the way the characters are depicted and the final scene. There are several incongruous scenes between the short story and the way the movie unfolds. The differences are the amount of time that is spent on the character development, also there are some scenes added into the movie such as the harvest dance and the reminder of the
the first of its kind to be made with a small budget, unknown cast, and limited resources. This proves that this film is unique by showing how differently the director and actors
Auteur Theory is based on three premises, the first being technique, the second being personal style, and the third being interior meaning. Furthermore, there is no specific order in which these three aspects must be presented or weighted with regard to a film. An Auteur must give films a distinctive quality thus exerting a personal creative vision and interjecting it into the his or her films.
In the early 1900’s silent films amazed audiences with images, later talkies impressed with sound, today we have 3D. As technology continues to evolve so too will film genres. Genres, while having some shared characteristics, also differ in terms of stylistic devices used. For instance, the dramatic film “The Notebook” effectively uses color to reinforce theme and has plausible performers as the two main protagonists.
The creation and consumption of films are a common favorite pastime for many people and have been for hundreds of years, but while some films can seem deceptively simple, many elements go into creating a scene, much less an entire movie. Directors use these elements which include, but are not limited to style, mood, composition and special effects to create a product that we often don’t acknowledge without looking deeper into the film. These components together are called Mise en Scène (Ebert). Of course, film can be enjoyed leisurely but there are so many more aspects of film to be explored and analyzed such as the composition of camera movement, lighting, color, sounds and music. In this case, I chose to analyze the “Redrum” scene from the renowned film, The Shining directed by Stanley Kubrick. In this scene, Danny Torrence, a five year old boy wanders around his mother’s room with a knife in hand, muttering the word “Redrum” over and over again before scrawling it across the door. I feel that a lot of this scene’s mood and style relies heavily on the camera work of the scene, the lighting and colors, and the music incorporated into the segment.
This paper takes two steps to have a brief view on The Demon Lover, from New Historicist point of view.
The events in Elisabeth Bower's 'The Demon Lover'; can be explained naturally. The story being as vague as it is leads most to concur with the title of the story and imagine that there is a supernatural aspect in the story. In the short story, Kathleen has returned to her home in London that has been abandoned during the bombing of World War II. She is not expected, yet she finds a letter addressed to her on a table in the hallway. Twenty-five years has past since the leaving of her former lover during World War I. Kathleen's lover is had been presumed dead after months of being missing in action and she has moved on. She is now married to a William Dover and living the countryside with her immediate
In "The Demon Lover," by Elizabeth Bowen, Kathleen Drover returns to London from her house in the country in order to gather some things that she and her husband had abandoned during the bombings of the war. It is a humid, rainy day in late August and her once familiar street is now mostly deserted. The caretaker of her house is supposed to be out of town for a week and her arrival is assumed unknown. Mrs. Drover enters the old musty house and discovers a letter addressed to herself and it is marked with the present date. Curious to know if the caretaker is back in town and a little annoyed by the letter seeming to have no urgency in being mailed to her, she proceeds upstairs to her old bedroom to read it. In utter shock and complete
Wes Anderson has been recognised as one of the most successful directors in the cinematic world with a distinct authorship towards his work. The auteurs approach of analysing films include the more important elements that makes up a film such as: editing, cinematography, lighten, casting, themes, story line, art direction and aesthetic style (Rosenberg, 2010). Anderson’s films all possess distinct techniques that he was heavily involved in producing. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) featured many of his signature techniques such as using the recurring themes, filming styles, type of music and backdrop to give audiences a better understanding of the film and imprinting a certain tone throughout the film.
Furthermore, Vant Sant makes statements which are just as strong through his use of camera angles and shots. Together with the film’s cinematographer, Jean-Yves Escoffier, he creates a mise-en-scene which is striking and powerful
In this essay, I will explain why a documentary is always more realistic than a fiction film. I will show my thesis by exploring elements that influence how realistic a film is: film editing and format, genre, and transparency. I will use the documentary of Armadillo (2010), by Janus Pedersen, and the fiction film of The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (1968), by Danièle Huille as examples.
All three versions of “The Demon Lover has the same common messages: to be careful in trust, be careful of the vows you make, and that the decisions of the young often come back around negatively. All three pieces exemplify these messages heavily. Of all of the works maintaining these themes, Elizabeth Bowen’s “The Demon Lover” displays these messages the most vehemently. Bowen’s version of “The Demon Lover” take on the principles of Harris’ “The Demon Lover” and makes the ideals more noticeable to the novice reader.
At night, beyond the public eye, the rooftop comforts me, provides me a my safe haven. I hear the wind whispering my name to escape: but I do not listen. Being in my own world ushers a feeling of fright, yet also comes as a relief. With no one there to judge me; I sit alone, with the company of my inner demons.. I close my eyes, my demons have assailed me all day, midnight is their time. The void of judgment has remained. It’s dark, but at the end you see a flash of light. So, I walk in the obesity of my mind where the darkness has taken over. The sense of being paralyzed comes to my mind, my fears are woken up and the sense of neglect is off. I smell fear all around. I do not smell the smoke from the burning wood I left. The smell of fear and sweat are much more dominant,I feel my hands are getting sweaty, my body frozen, paralyzed. My heart beats faster than ever before. My Demons have become vigorous. An explosion of fear, rage, sadness and anxiety overwhelms me, but I cannot wake up. Powerless, my demons pull me into the darkest depths of my mind where I try to hold on for dear mercy.