Question for Making Movies by Sidney Lumet

One movie that really caught my eye in regards to how lighting was used was The Godfather. The use of shadows was remarkable. While I have seen this movie many times, it took me a few views to fully realize how this changeds the movie. For example, there are very few times where you can clearly see the entire face of Vito Corleone. This gives him a mysterious, and darker appearance.
One example of a film that benefited from lens use was Lawrence of Arabia. While this film was not the most exciting for a teenager to watch, I was impressed with the incredibly wide aspect ratio. This gave the scenes in the desert the feel of being in the middle of nowhere, and added to the perils of surviving in such an environment. It gives the area a vast feel that can show close-ups on the characters while also embracing the depth that the view allows.
The one movie that I have seen that clearly displays use of stop to cause less light is The Spirit. It is an incredibly dark film, expressing many qualities of a film noir in the modern day film industry. While the film is not a black and white film, the darkness of the movie makes it almost seem black and white, and gives an incredible effect when the film uses bright colors such as red.
In the movie Black Hawk Down, the usage of yellow is very important to the film. Since the movie takes place in a desert-like environment, the yellow filter exemplifies the color. It gives the environment more depth and makes the African environment look even more harsh.

Tristra Shandy

I just finished watching Tristram Shandy, a so-called "film within a film". It is about a group of actors who are attempting to make a movie about a book about a man struggling to right his own autobiography. This film stars a number of British comedians, including Steve Coogan. As such, the humor is exceptionally dry, and I didn't quite understand a good deal of the jokes. I found some of the scenes to be slightly disturbing, such as the scene with the accident with the window and the scene with the giant womb. Often times it is hard to tell when the film is trying to be funny and trying to be serious, and it often jumps from the filming, to the actors off screen without warning.

However, this film does do a good job of thinning the line between the film, and the film about a film. It also does well when it creates parallels between the actors lives and the filming of the movie itself. Some of the scenes lasted much longer than was necessary, and a few became tedious to watch. I found it very difficult to watch this movie and it continued on and on for far too long. Overall, this was a film that I would rather not watch again. I found it tiring, boring, and not as funny as it attempted to be.

Kracauer Questions

1. Three more phenomena that the camera is attracted to are as follows...
Explosions. In general every major action movie has numerous eye-opening explosions, fires, etc, especially in the new age of cgi and advanced special effects. It is impossible for a viewer to look away from a film when these films display these bright, flashing explosions over the entire screen. My favorite example would be the Transformers franchise and director Michael Bay. Both of the films contain an unnecessary amount of massive explosions. Let's face it, nobody goes to see these films for the spectacular acting performances, nor do they contain an Oscar-worthy plot. These films prove that people flock to pretty explosions regardless of the quality of acting.
"Pretty" people. It is no coincidence that all of the actors that have played James Bond have been goodlooking, suave Englishmen. It is also no coincidence that every single film in the series has at least one gorgeous woman for Bond to fall in love with, or at least walk out of the water in a bikini. In this era, almost every film has a highly attractive character, if they didn't, very few people would go to the movies.
Superstar actors. Somewhat along the lines of the last example, people flock to movies that contain the hottest actors in Hollywood. A movie could be made with Brad Pitt just sitting on a couch, silent for the whole movie, and still make a profit, I guarantee it.

2. I believe that Kracauer's ideas still make perfect sense in the present day. While the phenomena that he states are not as common in film anymore, i.e dancing, the concepts still prove true with the cgi technology in use today. If there is a silence, and then some sort of loud, or fast-moving scene on a film, the camera will always be attracted to it.

Sherlock Jr.

I recently finished watching Sherlock Jr., starring Buster Keaton. This is the first silent film that I have ever watched in its entirety. This film has physical comedy that is unparalleled in any film that I have ever seen. This short film is about a young man who works at a movie theater, who is trying to marry the girl of his dreams. Things take a turn for the worse when he is framed for a crime that he did not commit. In his dreams, he enters the movie screen and becomes the world’s greatest detective.

The performance of Buster Keaton is absolutely hilarious. After looking at a massive list of the films that he starred in, I was impressed with his total body of work, and I am interested in watching more of his films in the future.

By watching this film, I believe I have turned myself on to a new genre of film. What makes Sherlock Jr. such a fantastic film is that is seems to transcend time itself. While some movies lose meaning and quality over the years, Sherlock Jr. has perhaps even gotten better over time.

The Purple Rose of Cairo

The Purple Rose of Cairo is definitely one of the more unique films that I have ever seen. It deals with what would happen if a character in a film broke the so-called fourth wall, and entered the living world. It also deals with how the other characters of the movie would react in this situation. The film does a good job of displaying the wide range of emotions that the main characters go through, as well as having some excellent comedic moments.

I enjoyed the performance of Mia Farrow as a young movie-goer who uses the theatre as a solace from her abusive husband. She struggles to choose where her heart lies when multiple men vie for her affections. I was also impressed by the performance of Jeff Daniels in his two roles in the film.

The only part of the film that I disliked was the climax. The entire film had an overall happy and enjoyable air about it, but the ending just catches you offguard and changes your mood instantly. Overall, a very good film and one that I highly recommend to all film fans.

First Blog Post

First blog post of all time, not much else to say.