A New Perspctive on Films: Strangers on a Train, Psycho

For this entry, I want to take you a ride to what goes on in my mind when I watch films. Personally, I'm not big on literature so movies are my escape from reality in a sense. The two movies that I can recall in my head clearly are Strangers On a Train and Psycho, both directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and fall under the genre Film Noir. Both are shot in black and white so you know that low key lighting is in effect. This lighting is so perfect for the Film Noir genre because the shadows are sharper and the natural light is sharper/bolder. The lighting could also signify something more poetic in such case if a shadow were to cast of a person making them appear larger than they already are, it shows the importance of the character. The lighting also goes hand in hand with mise-en-scene, the objects framed in a given shot. The way a light can be shined on a object shows the objects importance to the film. For example, in Psycho when the light is shined onto the newspaper in Crane's hotel room, what's inside the newspaper, the money, is the root of her paranoia and the curosity of Norman Bates. Alot of what I see in film, I question the purpose of it. You couldn't imagine the amount of questions that race throught my head when I watch ANY movie. Alot of this purpose has to do with the director's intent. The signifcance of director's intent is that it's imporant to know the purpose of a director putting something in a shot that catches your eye and understanding the poetic side of that object. This idea is the root of what mise-en-scene is all about. And with mise-en-scene, objects can be showed more than once, sometimes in a apparent pattern, and this idea of a recurring theme/object is known as a motif. Usually I notice motifs on the second viewing of the movie which are quite significant. The camerawork for these movies were very slow paced, alot of lingering shots, even when it came to moments of suspense, the pace still stayed the same. I guess Hitchcock relied on the score to do all the talking, due to it's frightening tempo that stays consistant. Alot of the audio was sweetned to acheive that level of suspsense in both thrillers. The slashing of the knife in Psycho was an obvious sound effect and the bang that came out of the tennis rackets in Strangers on A Train was louder than usual. What makes me so interested in movies is the characters that you can create. Hitchcock studied the human behavior, but mainly the fears we have in everday life. They evils we hide inside of ourselves or the very evils we try to runaway from. Me personally, I don't judge anyone else's opinions on the way they look at film. On any given day, I can have so much on my mind, but when it comes to watch a movie, my mind is blank and free. If you take a monster from a movie, many people will say "oh i've seen that before, it's not even scary". To that, I think of the makeup artists and the actors themselves who spend 9 hours in a studio just making the face of the monster, kinda like what Boris Karloff did for the orginal Frankentstein. If I see a action movie, I think of how ignorant the actor was before shooting the film, and how many hours it must have taken just to choreograph one scene of fighting. Filmakers test the viewer with imagination in their films, and it takes someone like me, who has a devotion to film, to recognize that.

Spaghetti Westerns

You could watch all of the Westerns that were made in America, but you would missed out on the other half of Westerns that were shot in European countries which brought the genre to new heights. The Western in itself is depicting the historic battles and stories that came out of American History with dynamic cowboys and symbolic shootouts. The Westren genre combines both stunning visuals/camerawork along with unique characterization of not only the hero, but the villian as well. The shot of Tuco anxiously searching for the grave with the buried treasure in the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly or the 3 way shootout at the cemetary not olny showed very interesting camera work but ancipation. This anticipation is very undermined by a general audience, but in my viewing, I felt it really brought the shootout to another level. Spaghetti westerns grew very popular in the beginning of the 20th century and from then on, people like Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone became well respected. The score of Morricone couldn't have fit more perfect for the scenes in the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Since alot of the movie was build-up and tension, the score had to be suspenseful yet setinmental, and Morricone brilliantly created that. The music was a important part of the Spaghetti Westrens just by the way it really emphasized the actor's emotion on screen. Simply put, the music made the audience more in tuned into the movie and when a movie is so poetic by doing that, you know that you've got a hit on your hands. You wo9uld think that because the Spaghetti Westerns were not filmed in the U.S. that it wouldn't capture the realism of the setting, but since areas like Spain have such an abudance of plains, mountains, and deserts, it's almost like your watching the Alamo happen all over again. These Spaghetti Westerns played a key role in the popularity of the Western genre in the U.S. so much so that actors that weren't making it in American cinema instantly moved to Europe where they became stars overnight. Though the Spaghetti Westerns began to die in the late 70's, one thing that passed on was the creativity and the innovation that came out of it. It really showed directors the importance of the placement of objects/actors in a single shot or how the music you put in can make or break your film.

Sherlock Jr. vs. Kung Fu Hustle

If you watch the works of Buster Keaton, you could see how he, as the protaganist, puts himself in a variety of traps and dangerous stunts. The purpose of these actions is to make the audience laugh but for the most part entertained. If you take that same ideas, you can ultimatley find that same quality of film in many kung-fu movies nowadays. Stephen Chow's "Kung Fu Hustle" is a type of movie that leaves you guessing what type of "genre" it falls into. This film parodies the cliches from kung fu movies dating back to Enter The Dragon by making action stars on the screen ones you wouldn't except seeing doing backflips. One thing I think that Stephen Chow and Buster Keaton share as directors is their undeniable devotion to their work. Both of them were willing to take a beating if it meant that a given scene was shot perfect. If Keaton broke his neck during Sherlock Jr., god knows what happen to Stephen Chow in 61 other jobs as an actor at a age of 42 years old. Viewers of Kung Fu Hustle should understand that this film isn't meant to be taken serious but that's the beauty of it. Here you have a film that shows you can take a traditional kung fu flick and put a comedic spin on it with slapstick humor and colorful characters. Keaton and Chow both used interesting techniques in terms of editing throughout their film (double exposure, trick camera angles, trampolines) which made there films all the more fun to watch. One thing that these directors shared was the ability for the audience to question whether the movie is a love story, a action extravaganza, or a knee-slapping comedy. For me, it doesn't matter if both of these movies had a set genre, because without all these elements of sub genres in their films, the movies wouldn't be as great. You could say that Keaton had a profound influence on Chow's films, but whatever the case, both movies blended action and comedy to it's highest point in cinema.