Triumph of the Will

After watching the film, Triumph of the Will (Triumph des Willens) directed by Leni Riefenstahl, I saw how Hitler could be glorified as a national hero. A central theme of unity was displayed profoundly in this film with Hitler as a symbol of a leader for Germany. Throughtout the film, there was back and forth shots between the crowd of peolple and Hitler and this showed how much influence that Hitler had on the people of Germany. Low angle shots and backlighting showed the importance that Hitler had to this movie. You could also notice that Hitler is always framed either by himself or with a highranked official, this is done mostly to direct the attention to the Führer. The intent of this director was not only to show Hitler as a glorified savior but it a clear example of German nationalism at it's finest. The opening sequence of the movie shows signs of Metropolis, with the flying helicopter and the use of minatures. Riefenstahl also experiments with aerial cinematogrophy in the shots where the crowd of German is seen at a overhead. The majority of the speeches by several German leaders had to do with the untiy of the German people. I can't help but notice how this shows early signs of the Soviet Montage era where the movie is set to favor the group rather than the individual. But my observation contradicts with the fact that Hitler potrayed throughout the movie as the idol for the German people to look up to. Tracking shots show the connection between him and the people of Germany. The use of telephoto lens added a sense of realism as if you were in that crowd when Hitler was making the speech.The music is another thing to notice as throughout the movie is always upbeat and and never dull. The crisp sounds of horns and the battering of drums draw your attention on whats going on. It also has an effect of making Hitler's speeches feel more powerful to the viewer. The music is by Richard Wanger's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Most of the lighting is ambient and at times, like the night rallys, was dark, spotlight was always shined on Hitler, due to his importance. Although you miss the wrong ideals that came out of Hitler in this movie, you have to appreciate it's film elements like it's creative cinematography and dedication to the German Expressionist era.

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.

La Ruta Natural

Innovation in cinema comes and goes ,but in the case for La Ruta Natural, it's shown subtley. Never have I seen narrative and visuals work so well with each other. The director was definatley conveying a hidden message, and by doing it with limited dialogue made the expierence all the worth while. Every shot in the movie had purpose to it whether it be to the plot or the overall theme of the film. The quick cuts in the beginning olny show how important the editing is to this movie. Not to mention, the story is told in reverse which means the editors had to make everything that was shot in reverse in post production. The character anaylsis of Divad is interesting considering his personality is one big question mark. We seem him drawn away from family values, and enter his own fantasy world where he reminices on the glory days hence the whole plot of the story. The flashbacks of his younger years show a side of happines that I think he trying to search for in this entire movie. The lighting was dark for most parts which olny contributed to the dark, omnious tone of the movie. It funny, the son is showned in two ways as a motif throughout this film. In the beginning, his picture is burnt and it shows his casket symbolizing sadness but when it shows the married couple in their later years, the tone of the son seems to bring joy in the couple lives as they are showned happy while constructing their son's bedroom. The wardrobe was essential since it had to do with the couple being in different time periods, and to me, the costumes fit the time period where they were. It's interesting how the audio in the background stays at the same pace within the movie. It signals how dull the character life is by slowly fading in and out throughout the movie. In terms of mise-en-scene, the image of the broken flower pot showed how well the couple in their older years got along by breaking such a delicit item. Theres alot of stuff going on in this movie that it's hard to give one spefic theme to it all. This is a movie that really makes you think about the things around you that you take for granted. When movies have impacts on the minds of their audience, it seperates them from the pack. La Ruta Natural blends surrealism along with some new age techniques to provide a plot structure that is very unsual to see in movies.

Intute-Film Posters

http://www.all-film-posters.com/

To be perfectly honest, the reason I picked this topic was I was rather interested in something I didn't know too much about. Right off the bat, I had a connection to the author of this article because I too have a bedroom surrounded with posters from movies I really enjoyed. Never have I ever stopped and took a chance to admire the rarity of this posters, especially for the vintage ones. To me, I think the older posters have more value to them is because you had guys like John Alvin and Richard Amsel spending a staggering amount of detail and hours illustrating the design of the posters. The time spent on drawing the poster out painting it truly showed through it's quality in some of the older posters such as Raiders of the Lost Ark and Star Wars: A New Hope. Now a days, the majority of the posters are done through computer graphics which requires a handful of time, but never the notion that people spent months at a time on a single poster. This same ideology can be transferred into film as well. A prime example of this is Jabba the Hut in the Star Wars series. In the original trilogy [4,5,6], you know that all of the characters such as Yoda, R2D2, and Jabba were made of puppets which took much detail to create. When you see the the prequels [1,2,3], much of the characters that you grow up watching were replaced by the wonders of CG. I'm not saying CG is bad or anything, it's just, in my opinion, the same when you compare the both examples. Switching back to the topic at hand, posters are way of showing not only the coming attraction of a film, but the reason that makes you want to go see this given film. I knew when I saw the poster for ZombieLand with Woody Harelson's face on the front, a certain drive was instilled in me that made my want to go see that movie. Well as you can see, posters have certain sentimental value to some people while other simply admire the creative sense that go into them.

Paranormal Activity

I decided to do a movie that was fresh from my mind and the more recent film i watched. Paranormal Activity, by director Oren Peli, is a film about a young couple, Micha and Katie, who document their expierences with paranormal activity occurring all around their San Diego house. The cinematogrophy in my mind was pulled off very well bringing back the handheld camera view to theatres. In my mind when Cloverfield tried to pull this off, it was ruined by seeing the actual monster. In this movie, it has you on your toes from scene to scene that you know something is going to happen but your not sure what it is or for that matter, what it looks like. The wide screen bedrooms shots were done so elegantly because as soon this shot came up, the audience knew they were in for a thrill ride. This was done by slowing increasing the hype [ex. footsteps, doors closing by themselves, mysterious sounds] from beginning to end. The editing believe it or not was also key for the progression of this movie. In order to move the stuff around the house without being seen, the blue screen effect was put into place so it would appear that for example that the chandelier would move by itself which I thought was an impressive move. The acting was another major priority in this film. By casting unknowns in this film distinguish them from well known actors , which made the audience believe these were ordinary people. For me, these two people made me believe we were simply watching the reality of a couple living in San Diego, and because of that, that's what makes the acting so believable and great at the same time. The camera movement was shaky due to the fact that the camera was either held by the woman or the man. Whenever something shocking would happen, the camera would shake due to panic of the character and this only contributed to the realistic factor that this movie had on the audience. In every horror movie, the lighting has got to be a important key factor. Throughout the whole movie, your trying to guess what this monster looks like. In only one scene, you see the shadow of the monster walk by the door which i thought gave respect to beginnings like Nosferatu. In many horror movies, you gonna have those moments where a random thing might pop out and try to scare you. With this movie, it uses that effect but with a new twist. Just when you think things are alright and nothing could possibly, something pops out leaving you frighten. The audio is a huge contributor to this and in some instances in the movie, there would be no audio at all. By hearing the footsteps and thumps all around the house, that put more suspicion in the mind of the audience. Whenever a horror movie can make you have a phobia of something [Jaws:water, Psycho:showers] and for this movie, the unknown, you know it established itself as one of the greats. This is definably one to check out if your fan of horror movies in general.