Avatar (semi-analytical) 9.5/10

I just have to lay this on the line before we do this: 1. Avatar is worth all the hype. 2. I'm not going into the political stuff because in reality that's your job as a viewer. So let's dig into this movie in a semi-analytical way. I'm basically going to roughly go over a couple things in terms of IMAX vs. Regular and Good and Bad 3D.

Basically the story of Avatar goes as such: bad guy humans go into a new planet cause Earth sucks. They find really really nice minerals on this new planet. The inhabitants live on a nice patch of minerals. The humans are made of stupid and try to move the natives by force. Sound familiar? If you haven't, it screams "NATIVE AMERICANS" I mean one of the scenes literally is a picture of the Trail of Tears. The mis en scene was great but it shoved that point down the audiences' throats. Anyways, I'm not here to talk about that. I'm here to talk about those two aspects cause of course you've heard that Avatar is great and most of the people are right. So let's go to the first topic IMAX vs. Regular Theater. I didn't know what the difference was and is it worth the extra four dollars to see avatar (or any other movie for that matter).

To start off with a more funny point, the first thing I noticed about the IMAX theater were the seats that it had. They were very comfortable, and I remember sinking into the seat and leaning back almost like it was a recliner. Although this is a good perk, it obviously doesn't make a great mark. Let's just say this makes fifty cents of the four dollar difference. The next part is the movie screen, the screen makes it so that even while immersed within the movie, there is more going on within the person's peripherals (this is assuming you're smart and took center seats). This part makes up maybe two dollars and fifty cents because it allows the viewer to HAVE to pay attention to everything! Scenic views are more expansive and the action scenes take more than just a passive view of things. IMAX makes everything not bigger but wider. The last part is the sound (this makes immersion complete in Avatar). The sound boxes are bigger--much bigger. Sometimes action scenes would literally make the fabric on my clothes quake because of the sound. The immersion here makes the viewing so much better. The surround sound and everything makes everything complete. So IMAX sort of wins over regular if you're viewing a movie that lends itself up to it (like Avatar and maybe Lord of the Rings). Watch it for GREAT movies because it is fourteen dollars to see it.

The next topic is more subjective than objective. My past with 3D isn't much but from what I know 3D has been basically these cheap gimmicks where things from the movie either pop out at the audience or they're cheap gimmicks where things basically "poke" the audience. I don't know--I don't really enjoy it because it's not the story that matters at that point but rather just the 3D. The three dimensional part isn't what interests me at all when it came to Avatar. There is an immersion factor that is played within the movie. The three dimensions makes the person almost a character within the story. To make a "better" comparison, the 3D in Avatar accomplished what Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield could not do. The experience doesn't make you nauseous and they fully immerse you within the movie. The 3D makes it so that you and the screen are not separated at all but rather that the screen comes to the audience and the pans aren't pans but rather just the audience looking around. The zooms aren't zooms but the audience looking closer. The 3D in this film is both revolutionary and phenominal. The CGI is fantastic the Na'avi are SUPREMELY lifelike. They seem almost like real people! Man has movie making come a long ways since the 90s.

Quick thing before I end: I'm giving it a 9.5 because there isn't much to look at other than the stunning visuals and well written story. This is what true Hollywood style filming is all about.

Sherlock Holmes (non analytical review) 8.7/10

It's been a while since I've gone to the movies, but all in all there is a first for everything! Reviewing this movie will be enjoyable because I'm starting off with such an aesthetically and thematically wonderful story. Most of my friends have been wondering whether the story would live up to both the books or to the hype in general and I say Watkins it has (yes I know that was cheesy but I had to do that)! The pemise of the story is that there is a mage that is on the loose and has awoken from the dead and is planning on a new world order. Will Sherlock Holmes save the day and the four lives that the mage (Adler) intends to murder.

Where the movie shines is both in the storytelling and the mis en scene. Within fights that Sherlock Holmes gets into, there are scenes that are what I might want to call "thought scenes" where Sherlock thinks about each one of his attacks, how much damage it will do, and at the end he says how long it will take the recipient to recover. With both humor intermingled within the fight scenes, the movie doesn't try to be completely serious and it also doesn't try to make it a comedic movie with action scenes.

Ultimately everything seems to make sense and things are revealed throughout the movie. I can't really explain it too well but then again if you want to see how the story progresses then you have to see the movie. It's a good movie to watch and an alright movie to analyze aesthetically. I give it an 8.7.

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (analytical review)

SPOILERSSS

Since many a person has seen the Lord of the Ring (LOTR) series let me just say that it is my favorite. I'm pretty biased, haven't read the books (though it is on my to-do list), and now that I look at it with a more analytical heart I find the editing, cinematography, and mis en scene all amazing as well. I guess a film class can really be an applicable class (and not just a waste of money). It's given the movie a more Christian perspective and the class has also given a deeper perspectives on why Peter Jackson did what he did in LOTR.

So I guess to boot I should answer all three of those questions. The reason I say that it deepens the story in terms of giving the story a deeper Christian perspective is because the cinematography and all the other technical aspects gives this to the active viewer and merely shows it to the passive. In the narration there is a dialog of how it was a "pity that Bilbo didn't kill Gollum when he had a chance." Gandalf then goes on in the dialog by saying one of my favorite lines in the first movie. "Pity? Men that have lived deserved death. Men that have died deserved life. Can you give it to them Frodo? Do not be too eager to give out death and judgement. Even the very wise can't see all ends." It shows the greater Christian perspective on how to treat others. It is not with contempt or judgement but rather see what is happening within their lives.

There is a shot that just makes me want to pause the movie and just let me view the scene. It is not one of the many gorgeous establishing shots during the course of the movie and it is not of Arwen, but rather it's of Boromir. Boromir, Boromir, how I love you because you embody the struggle of man, the fall of man, and the redemption of man all within one movie! During the end of the movie when Boromir is about to be killed (did I mention that there are spoilers?)he feels sorry for the fact that he has tried to steal the One Ring from Frodo. He is kneeling in front of the head Uruk Hai, the epitome of sin and what has become of an elf when dealing with an evil magic. This is where I want to pause because right as this happens it is the mis en scene that shows the symbolic nature of sin and what it does to men, it kills them and pierces them with arrows (kind of like what is said in the Bible). Then Aragorn comes and rescues him (he is the representation of Christ which is repeated over and over within the dialog. Aragorn is the "savior", the one who "cast himself in exile", and has the blood of the savior before him). He comes and tries to help Boromir and Boromir says that he would follow Aragorn "to the end. You are my brother, leader, and my king!" And it is at that point where he is redeemed and the light shines upon his face in an unnatural sort of way. Oh! So good!

Well time for the more technical parts: why does Peter Jackson do what he does. To start on the hows of Peter Jackson, the editing and cinematography are top-notch in this movie. The one big part about editing that I love are the point of view shots and the editing in the battle scenes. Peter Jackson does something that many did not do before which is to make it so that we are either in the view of the arrow coming or we are the arrow itself. This makes the battles more dramatic but it also enhances the way we see the battle. Another way how the point of view shots are great is how they do point of view shots from the water. They rock the camera almost as if we are stalking the fellowship and are preying on them, watching them in a more distant way. It makes us get into the eyes of the enemy and it is superb to see!

The places where the editing takes flight is during the battle scenes. The camera almost pans as fast as it can when it does certain establishing shots and whenever the Fellowship is battling other creatures the close ups and the cuts are milliseconds long. They aren't jarring, where the crowd is disturbed but it is almost to a point where the crowd wants all the faces to back off and just go away and the result is that the battle seems chaotic and in-your-face, which it is. Sorry for the run-ons but this is pretty exciting stuff for a nerdy boy like me. The camera almost shakes sometimes like they do as if the cameraman is running away from the creatures.

Anyways, now that I have left you that bit of information, I hope you should look at the LOTR series with a little more analysis and just to tell those that haven't seen it 1) shame on you for looking at the spoilers and 2) hope you enjoy this classic tale of good, evil, temptation, and redemption. Just remember that "even the smallest person can change the course of the future."

Taxi Driver (long essay)

Michael Giachetti
12/09/09
Taxi Driver
The movie Taxi Driver (directed by Martin Scorsese) “may be the greatest first person character study ever committed to film” according to an interview of Quentin Tarantino. Within the realm of film noir there is interplay with light and darkness and there is the classic main character. The main character within every film noir has a couple key components that are common within many (if not all) the antiheroes of the genre. The film noir anti-hero (or corrupted hero) is most known for their descent moralistically or in the case of Travis Bickle, mentally. The conventions used to display this mental ambiguity is via the mis en scene, cinematography, and editing. Most normal formal elements that are used in film noir are within Taxi Driver. The hero is most of the time in film noir is a washed up hero who is preconditioned to descend into darkness in order to let justice prevail. In the Maltese Falcon, Sam Spade was already cold and distant when he met with Mrs. Wonderly and he was already having an affair with his partner's wife. By the time his partner died he really didn't have any remorse, in fact he actually replaced his partner's name on their company the next day. In Chinatown, Jake Gittes is already a washed up detective who left Chinatown to get away from whatever the system let him down for. Most of the elements within film noir "create a fatalistic, hopeless mood. There is nothing protagonists can do; the city will outlast and negate even their best efforts" (Film Noir 235). In Chinatown the villain gets away with the woman and the whole scene is a mess in the end and the good guys lose (which is more or less realistic in one fashion). The last thing is that within the story it is common, which is that there is usually a detective who meets the femme fatale. She is either a liar or a temptress of some kind and through the course of the film she leads the man on a very dark path which he usually takes willingly. In Taxi Driver, Scorsese doesn’t have Travis Bickle descend in terms of moral ambiguity but rather turns Travis from oddball to “Killer.” Travis’s descension mentally is synonymous to a film noir hero’s descension morally.
Like many film noir heroes, Travis seems predisposed to becoming a psychopathic killer, being that he was in the marines, needs a lot of time to keep himself busy, and he’s a complete loner. The mis en scene, editing, and cinematography of the movie show to the audience many scenes that connote to his later and more troubling behavior. The lighting is a part of mis en scene that permeates within the film (because it is film noir) and connotes that Travis is psychotic beforehand or is predisposed to it. Near the beginning the audience sees darkness around Travis’s eyes and not only that but they are then later drowned in a red light. All the audience sees are Travis’s eyes for a good fifteen seconds. Eyes are a very striking thing and to cover them in darkness and red light poses an ominous picture. For most of the movie there is only darkness but within the first thirty minutes of the film (or the setting of the film) there is only darkness and every scene takes place at night. The reason is to show the darkness that is already brewing within Travis. Another aspect of mis en scene is the actual props and what they connote. Travis’s “office” or his apartment is a symbol more or less of what he is, which according to the screenplay itself,
“Is unusual, to say the least: A ratty old mattress is thrown against one wall. The floor is littered with old newspapers, worn and unfolded streets maps and pornography. The pornography is of the sort that looks cheap but costs $10 a threw - black and white photos of naked women tied and gagged with black leather straps and clothesline. There is no furniture other than the rickety chair and table. A beat-up portable TV rests on an upright melon crate. The red silk mass in another corner looks like a Vietnamese flag. Indecipherable words, figures, numbers are scribbled on the plain plaster walls. Ragged black wires dangle from the wall where the telephone once hung” (Taxi Driver 8).
At the beginning of the movie there is rain upon the city and all Travis’s voice over says is that “someday he wants the rain to wash all the scum away” and as much as this sounds noble out of context, it carries a more eerie weight within the movie as it foreshadows his own psychotic actions against the pimps. Also when he meets Palentine in his cab, the senator asks him “what’s the one thing in the world that bugs him the most?” and as they’re all in darkness he says he “flushed down the toilet” and cleaned by force almost. This is both a message of politics and how his antiheroic actions eventually clean some of the streets faster than the senator who always answers “it will take some time” to every one of his questions. Everyone is in the darkness and so everyone has bad intentions at heart.
The last part of mis en scene that connotes that he might have a problem is his Holden Caulfield impression when he enters into the pornography theater. He acts like Holden Caulfield because he acts the woman behind the counter not for candy or soda or a ticket but rather he asks for her name. Eventually he bugs the woman behind the counter enough that she is tempted to call security. It doesn’t prove that he is a psychotic pimp killing machine but it points to him being a little off-kilter. The facial expressions tell most of the story though and if the sound was off both of them did an excellent job in displaying the emotions of both confusion (since all Travis wanted was her name and all she wanted him to do was move along) and anger (since they were both frustrated). The scene within the theater is a striking scene of mis en scene, where he is surrounded in darkness (like usual) but at the same time he is not smiling and there isn’t a look of pleasure on his face at all. It paints a picture of this loneliness and his search for empty love. He is desperately lonely.
The editing also connotes that he is a lonely man that is in search of love of some sort. In a voice over he is saying how he met Betsy and how she is beautiful. The camera cuts to many different crowds of people and there are people walking everywhere. The audience is drawn. It is daylight for the first time and the audience wants to know what sort of woman would attract Travis? Cut from one crowd (there’s no one) cut to another crowd (there is still no one) and then the last cut she comes at the last minute. She comes “like an angel” out of the right side of the screen with a bright white blouse. Betsy comes out of no where and the camera follows her just as Travis’s eyes would (which is a nice use of cinematography). Travis begins to fill that empty void in his life with Betsy.
In many noir films the main character finds that there is temptation within the drug or the money or whatever is being offered to them. In the movie Brick, the temptation for Brendan in the end is to ditch Emily and stop investigating whatever is going on and just become Laura’s boyfriend. In The Maltese Falcon the temptation was money and to make much more money than his current job offered. He could be rich and have whatever he wanted. The temptation in Taxi Driver isn’t drugs or money but rather love. At first he was satisfying himself with empty love by going into the movies but now there is someone new, someone to go into the light for. For most of the movie the cinematography focuses on just Betsy’s face and so we are forced to make eye contact with her and try and sympathize with Travis. The amount of point of view shots whenever the audience sees Betsy or anyone else for that matter are the reason why this may be considered a great first person case study. The audience is supposed to empathize with the person they “know” the most.
The mis en scene between the two would be subtle. Whenever the two of them would go to a movie or to dinner, the camera would focus on the faces. This was to get a hold on the very subtle hints of displeasure within the two of them that came up from time to time. The weirdest part about this whole relationship (other than her accepting his offer for coffee) is that he was staring at her in the darkness of his taxi (which is weird to have amidst the daytime) with the cup that he was drinking from during the adult movie theater.
The breakup between Travis and Betsy is what drives him off the edge and begins his descent towards mental instability and psychotic rampages. Since Travis is already a weird guy, he of course thinks that taking a woman to an adult movie theater is the perfect way to woo her and of course (and understandably) she breaks up with Travis. As Travis talks to her for what seems to be the last time (according to the voice over), the camera shifts from him being in the light with a telephone to an empty and narrow hall leading towards the darkness outside. He walks into the empty hall and gradually walks away from the audience and into the darkness itself. In his own apartment all his flowers rot and are dead. The visual symbolism almost explains itself for how his love for her is dead and she is now viewed by him as just as cold as everyone else in the world. The smell of the flowers makes him sick and he starts to become a misanthrope.
At this point things start to roll and Travis begins to literally crack from the inside out. Within his cab, Travis is almost drenched in darkness and there is a shady guy in the back of his cab. He is a little bossy but the cuts grow more rapid as the screen moves from the shady man who’s going to kill his wife to Travis. The audience is told by the cinematography that we are to be slightly annoyed by the man since the camera is in a first person point of view. He is yelling at the audience to look at the light on the second floor and the camera hasn’t gotten there yet. The break up at this point brings about this more vocal embodiment of just how psychotic Travis will become.
Right outside the bar where Travis and Wizard both hand out, the two of them have a talk and the two of them are sopping in darkness and red light. The two of them have a conversation and the cutting and everything stops--the cinematography and the editing stops at that conversation. The director wants the audience to focus on the conversation and not anything else. “A man’s job becomes what he is” says the Wizard and according to an extra feature on the DVD version of Taxi Driver on the making of the film, the screenwriter Paul Schrader says that the taxi cab is a metaphor for loneliness and that it is a metaphor more specifically for Travis’s loneliness. Travis wants to get rid of this loneliness and doesn’t want it to become a part of him. He is starting to get some “crazy ideas.”
He finally descends when he meets Iris and has this instinct to protect her and feels that it is his calling upon earth to get this child back to her family. After almost running her over, Travis feels the need to stalk her (which seems to be his usual tactic) but this time even though he is in darkness he does not have his adult movie cup with him. After he goes to the weapons dealer Easy Andy and mentions the gun the psychopath had—a 44 magnum. As he takes out the guns the audience hears screaming children in the background which is foreshadows later events. As he practices before the mirror and does the famous and eloquent soliloquy “You Talkin’ to Me?” he says “you’re dead” and yet another girl screams in the background. The girls in the background symbolize the intense and yet shocking episode that will come later for Iris.
Darkness descends into the next scene as Travis pulls into a supermarket. Of course the small supermarket gets robbed and this is where the cracks turn from internal to external. As the robber points a gun towards the cashier, Travis whips out a gun says “look here” and then proceeds to shoot the robber in the face. Part of mis en scene is the musical numbers that play within the scene. In this particular scene there is a song called “Late for the Sky” which talks about why Travis does what he does. “How long have I been drifting alone through the night/How long have I been dreaming I could make it right” (1.18-19).
One of the most striking scenes within the whole screenplay is the dance that Sport has with Iris. There is darkness amidst a crimson light which pours everywhere. The crimson light gives the scene a darker lusty feeling and the jazz music that once served as background music for Travis’s love music now serves for this pedophile. The cinematography makes this more disturbing as well, which focuses on the hands. At first the audience is drawn to an insert of the record player. As the music plays the camera scrolls up almost seductively to a close up Sport’s face as he says “I need you.” As they dance, the camera doesn’t cut but rather it just leaves the audience there to view this more striking scene. Immediately the scene cuts to a series of shots. There is darkness all around except for a window where we see Travis shooting his guns. It’s almost looks like he’s shooting Sport (which makes for great foreshadowing).
The cinematography in the scene where Palantine is talking delivers Travis’s new haircut well to the audience. The camera drifts but doesn’t show the heads of anyone. We see Travis holding his pills but the audience still doesn’t see his head. The camera then tilts upward fast and the audience sees that he has a Mohawk. The physical transformation has been complete—his mental instability matches his physical difference in the crowd. Travis now looks like an individual within the crowd (there is even a point of view shot from Palentine’s perspective that shows everyone and then Travis in the back grinning with his new haircut).
The end of the movie is where most of the technical aspects of the movie go wild. There is a deeper and noticeable contrast within light and darkness within the last ten minutes of the movie. Everything looks more grainy as well. The light is more emphasized and the darkness is more pronounced. Everything is harder to see but at the same time everything that is full of light draws the audience in. After shooting Sport, he goes into Iris’s apartment and shoots the old man in the corridor. There are three rapid cuts that go up the stairs and seemingly follow the noises that the 44 magnum made at that shot. The director then cuts to an overhead shot of the corridor. Travis travels into the darkness at the end of the hall, shoots Sport and continues to shoot him even when he is dead. His descent into darkness is palpable. He shoots the old man but the old man climbs up the stairs, screaming that he’s gunna kill Travis (with his stump) and then things go into slow motion. The old man’s words are in real time but Travis is moving in slow motion and when they cut to Iris, she turns back in slow motion. As the old man tackles him into Iris’s room we cut from Iris to a close up of the old man to a close up of Travis’s boot to the knife to a close up of the old man getting stabbed in the stump. This is all to convey the scene of the fight and to get the audience into the fight and hope that Travis wins. The cinematography then allows the viewers to take a breather and to see the “overhead slow motion tracking shot” (106 Taxi Driver) which “surveys the damage” (106 Taxi Driver)
Unlike the regular film noir heroes where the hero seems normal at the end of the whole debacle they seem like the good guy, Travis is a psychotic killer who just happened to do the right thing. The only hint the audience gets that Travis is still not normal is at the end of the film there is a sudden boost in speed. As Travis pulls away his eyes quickly turn towards his rear-view mirror, the saturation of the colors brightens and there are weird noises in the background (like radio interference). But this doesn’t take away from the fact that this is indeed a film noir. According to the screenwriter Paul Schrader, film noir is a culmination of different stylistics. “The majority of scenes are lit for night” (Film Noir 235) which most of them are within the movie, “compositional tension is preferred to physical action” (Film Noir 235) which is true seeing that it was a gradual descent in Travis’s mind that brought him to the violence in the end. Before that there was no real physical violence within the movie. Some of the themes that go into film noir that are in Taxi Driver is that the heroes within film noir “emphasize loss, nostalgia, lack of clear priorities, and insecurity then submerge these self-doubts into mannerisms and style” (Film Noir 237). Within Taxi Driver Travis at first is devoid of having love and then loses love when he brings her into the adult movie theater. For a part of the movie travis goes to his friend Wizard and asks if he is in the right place. He doesn’t want to be a part of the taxi driving business for long. He wants to do something else which reflects him not having clear priority. The reason why this movie is such a remarkable one is because it shows the film noir style with modern day conventions and uses the new technology not to hamper his own creativity but rather to enhance his own dark and lusty feel. The movie Taxi Driver brings a genre long neglected and brought it back with a new fresh feel to it.

















MLA Citation

Schrader, Paul. “Notes on Film Noir.” Film Genre Reader lll (2003): 229-242
Tarantino, Quentin. “Tarantino on Taxi Driver.” Tarantino Takes Over Sky Movies. 16,
August 2009.
Browne, Jackson. Late for the Sky, 1974. Asylum Records, 1976.

Making Taxi Driver. Dir. Quentin Tarantino. Columbia Pictures Corporation, 1976.
Schrader, Paul. Taxi Driver. Columbia Pictures Corporation: 1976

Citizen Kane: Greatest or Overrated?

Greatness is only defined by the people around it. The people went into an uproar when the book One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest was published since the novel mocked the work ethic in mental hospitals. George Washington brought the United States independence and refused to be the new King of America, Abraham Lincoln, for whatever purposes were in his mind, brought about the freedom of the African slaves in the North and South. All of the greatest people and all of the greatest pieces of art evoked a reaction of either great shock (such as Picasso’s Guernica) or great jubilation (Franklin Delano Roosevelt bringing about the end of the Great Depression). All things great bring about a reaction equal to their greatness, one that brings about the true character of the surrounding culture and society.

The movie Citizen Kane is considered the best in my eyes because it has greatness that reaches far beyond its own timeline and culture. The movie made the powerhouse and divine king look like a lonely spoiled man who got everything he wanted. After Hurst was able to hear of the movie (he never actually saw it) he was bent on getting rid of it and not letting his reputation be tarnished. Citizen Kane reflected in many ways what the society around it was—there was no real freedom of speech. Only society dictated what was to be seen and what was to be heard. Citizen Kane was not to be heard at that time.
The societal aspect of the movie that transcends generations is that this whole issue of freedom of speech. If someone hadn’t known the past of the movie, they wouldn’t know of the film’s greatness (which is more or less the same way with anything great such as people or books). Citizen Kane is the best American-made movie.

Citizen Kane is the best American-made movie because of the humanistic aspects that are intermingled within the story and the themes that the characters embody throughout the story. The movie is more realistic than any other I have seen yet (or any that America has made yet). No one is able to see Kane for who he is, his life tragedies bottle into what his attitudes are (something movies don’t portray too much), and that people often look into another person and don’t instantly see them for who they are (something seen in romantic comedies in general). The complexities of humanity are portrayed spot-on within Citizen Kane.

Some younger critics within a film classroom might say that Charles Foster-Kane is more of an archetype and so is not relatable and doesn’t portray any meaning. They might say that he is only there to facilitate the story and brings about meaning through his more unorthodox actions (such as wrecking a room when his wife leaves him). His more unorthodox actions are intentional and also portray the biggest theme of the story: that everyone has limited empathy and views others in a more archetypal way. There needs to be a more in depth involvement to feel what Foster-Kane is feeling during the course of the movie. His feelings and “our knowledge is restricted principally to what Kane’s acquaintances know” (Bordwell 311). The reason why Citizen Kane is so great is because the script doesn’t feed the audience what the character is feeling and the film doesn’t explain Foster-Kane’s actions some of the time. The movie seems to encompass that theme of not being able to penetrate another human’s mind. Other movies don’t really delve into every step almost of a character and provide no explanation. Usually movies that tell a story of another’s life make the character a little more open to the audience or the specific scenes within the person’s life are more telling of what is emotionally happening with the main character allowing that interpersonal connection between the character and the audience.

The reason why I think that Foster-Kane grew up to be a more spoiled character that cares mostly about money and succeeding and retaining the things he is able to obtain is because Charles Foster-Kane is brought up in an abnormal environment devoid of love. Near the beginning of the movie we see Charles Kane being handed over to a man that is supposed to be a Foster parent to Charles. Through this we see that there are more parental negligence that culminate to what makes Charles Foster-Kane and to ignore that is to only prove what the movie is trying to prove (which is that since no one really knows the full story no one knows that all Charles needed was love or “Rosebud”). All the tragedies such as being born into a more negligent home and having a foster parent that only cared for his success and not for who he was (which is presented via the angry collage of grunts his foster parent has when he wants to own a newspaper).

But although the humanistic aspects are deep enough to display a theme just by the characters’ movements, maybe that alone is not enough to satiate the “Best Movie of All Time” title. The title for those with more experience with film analysis, exemplifies the most top-notch mis en scene, editing, and cinematography. Not only are the more technical aspects pleasing to the eye but they also convey the theme of the story which is something that is lacking in the Hollywood film business. I’m not even sure the great Alfred Hitchcock or some of the other more prominent film directors did this (but then again since Welles was an author maybe I am a little biased).

The mis en scene is the first part I’d like to focus on. If you have been reading my blog you should know what it is but for those that are newer to this ongoing blog, mis en scene is all about how a still shot looks to the audience. The still shot could be aesthetically beautiful but have no meaning (such as some scenes in Diving Bell and Butterflies—a great film by the way) or they could derive meaning from one shot. At the very beginning of the movie, there are literal still shots of this dark mansion beyond a mountain and a sign that says “No Trespassers.” This not only sets the movie in place and conveys the theme but it settles this eerie feeling into the audience and thus prepares us for a more tragic movie. The opening of Citizen Kane opens the window for whatever theme is coming our way aka “No Trespassers” are to come into Kane’s life. “By avoiding crosscutting or other techniques that would move toward a more unrestricted range of knowledge” (Bordwell 331) the theme is also conveyed by not letting us get any personal attachment to Charles Foster-Kane. The style or the mis en scene of the film “requires us to take each narrative’s version as objective within his or her limited knowledge. Welles reinforces this by avoiding shots that suggest optical or mental subjectivity” (Bordwell 311) and by doing this he causes the audience to have to search deeper. The lack of first person shots and voice overs causes the audience to not really empathize with his character as much as say his wife.

The other part is that even his best of friends is far away from him at the end of the movie. The mis en scene in the scene where Charles Foster-Kane writes a bad review for his own wife exemplifies this perfectly. Jedediah walks in as Charles is typing up the rest of Jed’s article. We see a shot that meshed two shots together. The first is with Jed being in the background. He is very far away, distant and in the light while Charles is very close to the camera and is very close up to the camera. The two juxtapose one another and provide a very breath taking dichotomy between the two. The two of them have a silent fight and try not to talk to one another during the course of the movie.

Light and darkness also play a crucial role in Welles’s mis en scene, which provides both foreshadowing and it sheds some light on the theme of the movie. When Charles is creating the Declaration of Principles he is placed within darkness for the whole time while his two cohorts and drowned in light. Although this doesn’t make sense in terms of how light works and how darkness works either, it displays a theme. Those that pick at the scientific realities of the movie (or any movie for that matter) are not asking the right questions. The real question is “what is this movie trying to convey to me as a person” or “how is this movie trying to change me?”

The cinematography within Citizen Kane also exemplifies “an external perspective on the action” (Bordwell 311). The cinematography of the movie serves the same purpose as the mis en scene which is to make the audience more objective than any character in the movie and to make a road block for those that want to empathize with Foster-Kane. The person facilitating the story, a journalist by the name of Mr. Thomson, is made almost anonymous and forgettable through the use of cinematography which is great for the audience. If this failed the rest of the story would have failed. The way they did this was by making him put “his back to us, he is tucked into the corner of the frame, and he usually in darkness” (Bordwell 312). Although this doesn’t contribute to the story, it certainly is a remarkable act to try and get the audience to forget about Thomson and not be interested in a certain character because of how they face and where they are placed.

The editing also provides the audience to have a couple laughs while also being able to analyze Kane in a more objective way as well. At first while the news reel is going on, they say that after losing a couple of the races and losing popularity he turns to things more simple and then they cut to Susan a morbidly stupid woman (but still a character more empathetic in the movie to that of Kane). Comedy though is not the only way that Welles used editing. In the scene where Charles Foster-Kane wrecks the room there are a limited amount of cuts and the limited amount of cuts make the scene seem more edgy and for once we are allowed to look at him and sort of wonder who he is and why he is doing this odd thing. Most of the time when there were long shots where there weren’t cuts, the focus was not on Kane but rather to those that were either talking to him or the focus was on Kane’s back.

As all these things come together they formed what I think is the best movie. It affected the movie industry back then because it shook what it meant to expose others. Newspapers only last for so long (and now they are a dying breed of communication) and movies last forever which is why I think Citizen Kane paved the way for more documentary or expose sort of films like Sicko and Bowling for Columbine. Of course they aren’t fictitious films based on real life but Citizen Kane is what opened peoples’ eyes to the power of film and just how much of an impact it can make on society.

Noir: Genre or a Time Period

Spoilers in multiple films will be in here.

Within the course of four films (the Maltese Falcon, Touch of Evil, Chinatown, and Brick) encountering the film noir genre has been interesting. Although Notes on a Film Noir by Paul Schrader says that "film noir is not a genre...It is not defined, as are the western and gangster genres, by convention of setting and conflict but rather the more subtle qualities of tone and mood...Film noir is also a specific period of film history." (230 Schrader) I beg to differ. I propose that the makings of noir in the way that Schrader describes it makes it a genre. There are conventions, expectations, and a general formula that makes up film noir. If noir was a time period in the history of film making it would have a distinct flavor to it. His argument is that "full lighting and close-ups, gradually undercut the German influence, and color cinematography was, of course, the final blow to the noir look" (240 Shrader). I still differ on that last part alone since I think Brick was definitely a noir and it had a high budget, full lighting, close-ups, and color. Also the mechanics of noir is still in Brick. In some ways Brick is more of a noir than Touch of Evil. Many of the elements of film noir are universal (which makes it a genre not a film time period).

The genre conventions(the characters, settings, props, and events) do make up the film and are repeated within the film contrary to what Schrader may think (and of course I being a sophomore in college know more than Paul Schrader)! The archetypes repeated within each film noir are the same in many, if not every, noir. The hero is most of the time a washed up hero who is preconditioned to descend into darkness in order to let justice prevail. In the Maltese Falcon, Sam Spade was already cold and distant when he met with Mrs. Wonderly and he was already having an affair with his partner's wife. By the time his partner died he really didn't have any remorse, in fact he actually replaced his partner's name on their company the next day. In Chinatown, Jake Gittes is already a washed up detective who left Chinatown to get away from whatever the system let him down for. There is a recurring theme with the main character which Schrader even addresses in his article which is that the heroes have "a passion for the past and the present but also a fear of the future. Noir heroes dread to look ahead" (Schrader 237). This is one way we are able to organize noirs like a genre. The setting is usually in the city and "lit for night" (235 Schrader). Both of these elements "creates a fatalistic, hopeless mood. There is nothing protagonists; the city will outlast and negate even their best efforts" (235 Schrader). Also within the story itself there are similar events that happen in all noirs, which is that there is usually a detective who meets a very beautiful woman but she is also a very dangerous woman (this is also known as the femme fatale). She is either a liar or a temptress of some kind and through the course of the film she leads the man on a very dark path which he usually takes willingly. The protagonist usually feels sorry or loves the femme fatale in some way that inhibits his ways of thinking. As he descends and his morality sort of diminishes he starts to also find out more about the femme fatale and all of her wily ways as well as he starts to find out about the case with the villains. He eventually descends so far into darkness that the audience might not be able to tell if the protagonist is good or evil. At the end of the movie the femme fatale and the protagonist have a falling out and the protagonist usually ends up taking up the path of goodness. The overall events all hover around the theme that there is no morality within justice.

Schrader not only describes in his own paper how there are certain conventions repeated in each noir (which makes it a film genre), but he also describes how there are certain expectations with each movie. There are aspects of each movie that allows the watcher to know whether the movie is noir or not noir within the first five minutes or so. The movie should have a feeling of "something is wrong" and that the main character should already have a dark side and not just be the classic ultra-pure archetype of a superhero. The making of a noir hero and the making of the setting (which is usually a dark setting either metaphorically or literally) and the events within the first five minutes (which is usually the meeting of the femme fatale or the actual event being told such as a murder) all point towards the genre of film noir. There is a style to noir, which makes it more of a sub genre but it is still a genre nonetheless and not just a style or a memento of an age long gone.

Brick

The first scene is a boy and a girl in the water presumably dead. We then take a trip two years back in time. Brendan is a school boy who right at the beginning of the movie. He gets a call from a girl named Emily who needs his help in some mysterious way. With the help of a kid called The Brain he hopes to get some information. Intercepting an invitation that was supposed to be from Emily, he is able to get to go to a party called Halloween in January.

In the party he is visited by a girl in red, also known as Cara, as he fixes himself a glass of sherry. They sit, they mingle, and she gives him a little bit of information ("coffee and pie oh my!"). Cara leaves for a couple seconds, asks him to wait, but he ends up getting out of the party altogether and following her. Some muscle-headed guy starts to yell at Cara and drives off. He ends up ditching the party.

Brendan then goes to see a man named Dode the next morning. Dode says at first that he has "enough on his plate without having to deal with a jilted ex." He asks where Emily is, Dode says "you better get it while it's good". Uh oh. We see that not only is Brendan smart and resourceful but is also a bad ass and a good slugger. He gives Dode a nice slug (it was actually so dramatic due to the shot if you love mis en scene). After that he asks Dode again where Emily is and slaps him around so badly. Basically she's with Dode and thinks that Brendan will only make things worse.

Turns out Dode was telling the truth. Dode meets up with Emily that afternoon and they hug and a letter is transferred between Dode and Emily. Brendan is overlooking the whole thing hidden in a hill. Later Emily and Brendan meet up and they have a talk about how Brendan judges people and Emily explains why she broke up with him in the first place. She came to say goodbye and he came to get her out of a tough spot with whatever is the brick or the Pin. At the end of the conversation they hug and Brendan ends up taking her notebook (where all of her letters are kept).

He finds one letter in particular. It's an uppercase A and midnight on the bottom. The Brain and Brendan try to figure out where this is pointing towards. This is the start of something big. The letter might be where the drugs are being taken and it's the upper crust of the whole thing. The A might be a random symbol, a symbol of the place, or it might be a drawing of the place. Hopefully Brendan can make this right and rectify all the wrongs.

In comparison to the rest of the noir films I have been seeing this was incredibly enjoyable to watch. Also it had some great cinematography, I felt that the characterization of the characters were very smooth (of course the reason I judged the others so harshly was because they weren't smooth and modern in terms of how they did it). Also I liked the way that the storyline progressed. It was more of a character driven story rather than a story driven by the plot.

I felt that the movie worked in many ways. I felt like the kid was just as resourceful as any other kid and that the Brain and Brendan had their vices and their strengths in whatever they wanted to do. There were also more modern themes which made the movie more interesting such as drugs being given to children and it seems to not also try and pose as a dark film even though it was. I felt that the earlier noir was trying to push too hard to try and be dark that it was almost forced. Even some of the dialog was forced. Also they actually made use of flashbacks something that the other noirs did not use flashbacks which made Brick so much better in my mind. I also felt that Brendan in many ways was smarter than the other guys in the Maltese Falcon and in Touch of Evil. The only problem I had with the movie was that it was in high school and they make it seem like as if these high school children are adults. They do address it though when Brendan is at leader's house and the mom comes and makes Brendan breakfast. It makes it all seem unrealistic.

Maybe it is the time period that these movies took place in but what I do know is that this movie is a good one to watch. I'd give it a 7/10 for educational value and a 9/10 for entertainment.