Wes Anderson Themes And Techniques

Indisputably, Tim Burton has one of the world’s most distinct styles when regarding film directing. His tone, mood, diction, imagery, organization, syntax, and point of view within his films sets him apart from other renowned directors. Burton’s style can be easily depicted in two of his most highly esteemed and critically acclaimed films, Edward Scissorhands and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Burton ingeniously incorporates effective cinematic techniques to convey a poignant underlying message to the audience. Such cinematic techniques are in the lighting and editing technique categories. High key and low key relationships plus editing variations evinces the director’s elaborate style. He utilizes these cinematic techniques to

Tim Burton is one of the most unusual and unique directors of our time. He brings characters to life by putting them in a habitat they don’t belong. His movies “Alice in Wonderland”, “The Corpse Bride”, “Charlie and the chocolate factory”, and “Edward Scissorhands” all demonstrate how one of a kind his movies are. Using cinematic techniques, Tim Burton points out the misfit character and shows how different they are then everyone else. His use of camera angles, lighting, and sound give the viewers a different perspective on the movies, and help pick out the individual character.

Tim burton as a director shows mood and tone through cinematic techniques. In the movies Edward Scissor hands and Charlie and the Chocolate factory he used these techniques to create his original mood and tone. These cinematic techniques are camera movement, lighting, and sound to create his cinematic technique.

Alfred Hitchcock (1899 – 1980), the “Master of Suspense”, was a English film director, who was well known for his use of suspense and psychological elements to shock and surprise his audience. Hitchcock was known for his use of recurring themes, motifs and plot devices, such as the use of birds, hand motifs, the audience as a voyeur, mothers, blonde women, and sexuality. He was also very technical in his editing, using filming techniques such as deep focus, point of view, close up and wide, tracking shots. Montage was also a technique he used frequently in his films. He believed that by using visuals, he could convey thoughts and emotions just as well as dialogue could.

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.

“Analyse, evaluate and compare the techniques used to dim the horror of the real life events discussed in the novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and the film Life is Beautiful.”

After watching and analyzing the action adventure film, Indiana Jones - “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” (2008) and the Sci-Fi thriller, The Matrix (1999) many cinematic elements attracted my attention. With three very distinct and ingenious directors, (Spielberg and the Wachowskis siblings) these two films exemplified extraordinary uses of lighting, framing, editing and sound techniques unique to its own genre.

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.

A cinematic technique used in the Tim Burton movies is eye level frame. Charlie and the chocolate factory, Edward scissorhands and The nightmare Before christmas all use this cinematic technique. “Charlie and the chocolate factory” uses this technique when charlie is sitting down with his family at night eating dinner, the camera frame is always at eye level when the family is taking to each other, making them all equal to one another. Tim burton uses this technique in “Edward scissorhands”, again they are all sitting together at dinner and the frame being used is eye level creating the feeling that no one is greater than the rest. Also using the cinematic technique is “The

Margot is calm, serious girl who enjoys studying. She is the oldest daughter in the family. Anne and Margot have a few family. Anne and Margot have a few arguments during their time in the Annex but sometimes they get alone well. and talk about a lot of things. Still March 12,1944 Anne writes in her diary. Margot spends most of her time thinking about her looney sister Anne. Margot doesn’t play at

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

I think that Tim Burtons work has multiple ways it can be interpreted, then again it also has many themes and purposes. The theme that stands out to us all straight away is the horror and terror factor in each of his pieces. This definitely the dominant theme in all his paintings, drawings and movies due to his use of darkness and the aspect of creepy and dark creatures. Also by his use of dark lightning it make people think about death, not belonging and also creates a gloomy atmosphere. However the purpose of these themes are to create a beautiful and mysterious yet dangerous surrounding in which the viewer feels comfortable in, but has the urge to explore and to look at for longer. Although almost every work of Tim’s collections are somewhat

For example, after Edward was caught breaking into the house to get money because the girl he liked asked him to, a high camera angle was looking down on him as his “parents” were talking to him. Edward’s parents were extremely disappointed in him for breaking into a house so the camera was looking down on him to show how embarrassed and bad he felt for breaking into a house. Tim Burton uses this cinematic technique many more times in this film. As another example, Edward was in a fight with Jim, Kim’s boyfriend, up in the creepy house Edward came from. As Jim was on top and beating Edward up, the camera looked down on Edward to show how weak and inferior he was to the bigger and stronger Jim who was punching him. Then after Edward stabbed Jim with his scissor hands and Jim fell out the window, the camera angle was high on Jim to show that he had fallen and died, showing he was the inferior to Edward and his hands. High camera angles create the desired effect of making different people look weaker or inferior. Tim Burton also chooses to use the technique of close up camera angle in other

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.

The intention of this essay is to discuss the romantic notion of a film director who has etched their own cinematic vision into the body of their film work, and whether the theory and practice is dead and an infringement of the spectator’s imagination and is it the spectator who finds meaning in the film. I will be closely looking at critical material, primarily André Bazin and Roland Barthes and applying them to several case study films directed by Christopher Nolan including The Following (1998), The Prestige (2006) and Inception (2010), to examine whether Nolan possesses the qualities of an auteur and if so, does that imply an ideological view of what the auteur resembles or an artistic one.