The Revenant: Film Analysis

The vision Christopher Nolan had for The Prestige (2006) was to add to the outbreak of street magician film, whilst playing a large dramatic subplot equal in grandeur to the magical performances within the film. In the final sequence of the film, I will analyse how the cinematography and sound resolves the plot so that it summarises the themes present in the film, whilst also invoking a response from the audience. Nolan predominantly uses close up shots, non-diegetic sound (music) and dialogue collaboratively to convey the dramatic, personal subplot of the characters and their relationships, whilst appealing to the audience bringing forth an emotional response from the audience. The heavy, slow, dramatic atmosphere of the ending sequence uses various techniques to summarise and uncover the underlying mysteries of the events throughout the film and consolidate themes introduced during the exposition.

In the film, Night of the Living Dead, the movie starts with two siblings, John and Barbara, driving to their father's grave to drop off flowers. John is reluctant to be there and is eager to leave while Barbara is trying to pray. John teases her like when they were children saying “They’re coming to get you, Barbara!” when they both see an unknown man. Barbara goes to apologize to the unknown man but it seems he is dazed and kills John. Barbara escapes and finds herself at an empty house. In the house, she meets Ben, who borders up to the windows after taking down 3 undead. After a bit of listening to a radio for the current status of the state of emergency, Harry and Tom come upstairs. We learn that two men, two women, and a child had been in the basement of the house during Barbara’s and Ben’s struggle with the undead. After much argumentation on if the basement or upstairs was safer between Harry and Ben, Harry went back downstairs to his wife and child. Tom and his wife, Judy, stayed upstairs with Ben believing they could properly border up the windows together. After much convincing from Helen, Harry’s wife, Harry and she join the others upstairs. While listening on the radio, they are given more updates of the state of emergency. The radio announcer suggests instead of staying in place, to now go to one of the designated “safe areas”. When places are announced, Tom says that one of the

The Australian cinema in the 1960’s failed to communicate with the audience due to their lack of promotional messages that weren’t disseminated. Media is formed by cultural, political, economic and social conditions. These influenced or even directed its characteristics and its intended meaning. After a devastating blow to the film industry in the 1960’s, filmmakers of Australia had stopped creating and making quality Australian films. However, the Australian New Wave brought a revival of the Australian film industry during the 70's, 80's and 90’s. It introduced Australian qualities into film, including larrikinism, mateship and a classless social hierarchy. The Castle and Gallipoli confirm, promote and explore features of Australian identity

The California Gold Rush affected the 49ers in a numerous amount of ways that could either mean life or death. The California Gold Rush started back on January 24, 1848 and ended somewhere in 1855. 49ers are people who left home to travel to California and become rich. The 49ers had a difficult time during the California Gold Rush because they faced many challenges such as having to travel the long distance to California, the horrible diseases they encountered along the way and there, and the majority of 49ers didn’t make enough profit.

The 1996 film of The Crucible is a historical drama inspired by the Salem witchcraft trials. The film has won a multitude of cinematic achievements and continuously blows audience members away with the accuracy of the historical events and portrayal of the characters by the actors and actresses. The profound work of Arthur Miller is also expressed within the written play of The Crucible. However, the film did the best job of portraying characters that were both historically accurate and believable to an audience member. One main character from The Crucible that is both historically accurate and extremely believable in the film is Abigail Williams. Winona Ryder, the actress of Abigail Williams, did an impeccable job portraying her character and became widely known for her work through several achievements and film reviews. The recognition that she and the rest of the cast received due to the characterization in this cinematic production is what made the film do the best job of portraying characters as historically accurate and believable to an audience member instead of the written play. Although the written play describes the actions and thoughts of the characters very precisely, the film did the best job of portraying characters as historically accurate and believable to an audience member through the achievements and film reviews received from actors and actresses such as Winona Ryder, the recognition the cast as a whole earned, and the actions and emotions the actors and

The movie “Gone with the Wind” is about a rich southern girl named Scarlett O’Hara and her life hardships set during the time-period of the Civil War. In the story, Scarlett is forced to watch helplessly as her family’s wealth and lives fade as the confederacy loses the Civil War. Even though, the movie is mainly centered on the dilemmas of Scarlett’s love life, there are many historical accuracies that immerse the viewer in the southern mindset as well as the timeframe. The portrayal of class structures and the confederate attitudes before the Civil War are both accurate and engaging details that the movie successfully implements. In the film, these examples are displayed mainly through the dialogue and setting.

The film, the Untouchables, was directed by Brian De Palma. It was set in the prohibition era, which was right at the start of the 1920’s. Prohibition can be described as a law that made selling and manufacturing alcohol illegal. By putting this law into effect, it actually increased the amount of crime and violence throughout cities in the US. This was ultimately due to the rise in organized crime, also known as gangs. In the movie specifically, it was centered around the rise of the Mafia in Chicago. By looking at the production of the movie, we can see how during prohibition, the Mafia controls everything and the violence ultimately it leads to.

Behind every great movie, comes a storyline that is derived from a book however, most of the books to the movies have a great number of deviations. The screenwriters and other staff members to include the director come up with these deviations to enhance the plot in the attempt to make it a more interesting film to which in turn can make a better profit. The majority of differences that is found in films main objective is to enhance the mind. For example, when a scene has the ability to get a particular feeling out of a viewer, it is imperative to be able to understand the reasons for those feelings. The dialog and the visual effects of a scene sets a tone that differs from that of the book that it was taken from. Also, screen writers and

In my rhetorical analysis I stated in my first paragraph that one of the main themes was the strong will to survive. The fight or flight response as defined by Ben Martin in the article Fight Or Flight is “a sequence of internal processes that prepares the aroused organism for struggle or escape. It is triggered when we interpret a situation as threatening.” This meaning that when we feel a threatening situation in our brains we then need to decide whether we want to fight or flight “get out.” In the movie the revenant Hugh Glass had to make this decision when he was attacked by a bear. Did he want to survive or did he want to lay down and die? Hugh Glass chose to fight because he was taught to have a strong will to survive. After Glass was

The ideas of what a utopian society should look like changes when talking to different people in different parts of the world. More often than not most people would say that violence is not a part of this utopian ideal and that man has found a way to work past that and find a better solution to the violent issues we have seen in the past. Films in a sense are a way for artists to explore these utopian and dystopia ideals and present them to the public as a looking glass into what the world could look like. For many of us we live in a capitalistic society or a society with at least some forms of capitalistic ruling. Film makers in Latin America have used their position to critique and analyze the different forms of capitalism and how the

Since the beginning of the Industrial Age, Americans have idealized the journey towards economic success. One thing people do not realize, however, is that that journey is not the same for every individual. For Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles), the main character of Citizen Kane, directed by Orson Welles, the path towards riches and a fulfilled life is being well liked. He serves to please others. He strives for that attention. This view cost him his happiness in the end. In this man’s rise and fall through prosperity, Welles shows the futility of striving solely for likeability.

The idea of heroismhas been traced back to centuries of years throughout history. Greek Mythology is the father of this concept of heroism and this concept has continued to grow and develop through stories, writings, and films over the years. Humans have always been intrigued with the idea of heroism which is why many movies, books, and stories are written after this very idea. In Linda Seger’s “Creating the Myth”, she argues there are 10-points into creating every “hero myth”, using Luke Skywalker in Star Wars as her hero myth example; in the film Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry follows Seger’s 10-point system of creating a

The Red Turtle is a film records the life of a young man who becomes marooned on a desert island about fate and family. The life lived by the man in this film seems so alien to us because they live in direct contact with their environment without any mediation from language, technology, clothing, and they all desire to find companionship and love, fulfillment and family. The director Michaël Dudok de Wit utilizes several artistic techniques to make the film insightful and interesting. Although the film is in entire silence, no dialogue, context, or even names, the artistic production and aesthetics produce information that breaks silence.

Edmonson, J. (2009). Let's be clear: How to manage communication styles. T & D, 63(9), 30-31.

The film Atonement directed by Joe Wright evokes various emotions in the viewer such as frustration and irritation, grief and forgiveness. These emotions are aroused by a range of cinematic techniques. Sound effects and the repetition of scenes provoke the feelings of frustration and irritation within viewers. The successful use of these cinematic tools targets these emotions towards the antagonist Briony Tallis. Viewers also experience a large amount of grief during the film as this emotion is effectively conveyed as a product of the combination of dark lighting and symphonic music. Wright also cleverly utilises camera shots to persuade the audience to forgive the antagonist Briony Tallis in the final scenes regardless of her actions. Through this variety of cinematics devices Wright arouses numerous contrasting emotions within the audience.