Yo' Jimbo and Big K

Going into this unit I wasn't sure I would enjoy watching these foreign films where I would have to read subtitles all the time and not understand exactly what being a Samurai was all about. After seeing Stray Dog I wasn't really looking forward to watching Yojimbo because I really thought the plot was very dull in Stray Dog and didn't see how this was going to be any different. After watching Yojimbo however I was pleasantly surprised to find a movie that I could really get into and actually care about what happens to the characters. The plot was 100 times better than the previous and I have now gained respect for Kurosawa's work. For this blog post I want to comment on one of the scenes from Yojimbo that really stuck out to me and I felt was a very interesting way to start a movie.

The scene that I want to comment on was the opening scene of the movie that involved a tracking shot of a Samurai walking down a dusty road. We don't know who the Samurai is and Kurosawa doesn't show us his face until later. Throughout this shot Kurosawa focuses on the back of Sanjuro's head and back while not letting us see his face or the expression he has on it. I thought that this was really a memorable scene in the movie because it showed us a mysterious main character that we would learn about throughout the film. By not starting off by showing everything, I was more drawn to Sanjaro as this scene seemed to have given his character a lot more importance.

I also enjoyed the battle scenes in Ran where we would see many men all in the same field on horses or feet. I really appreciated these types of scenes in the movie because after watching a lot of today's movies that involve big battles, ie. Lord of the Rings, I get tired of seeing computer generated people instead of actual men fighting. I think the way that Kurosawa did his battle scenes in Ran took a lot of planning and patience to be able to get them right and show us something really special. Just knowing that everything was actual actors instead of CGI characters made this movie's battle scenes in my mind better than those of Lord of the Rings or any other movie that uses CGI people (which I can't stand anyway).

Overall I can't say that I love all of big K's work and want to see a ton more of his films, but have come to respect his work and the movies that he was able to make with the technology he had at that time. It seems like he was a director that really cared what he produced and wanted everything to look as good as they could make it before releasing a movie - and this is what I think is needed most in becoming a great director of all time.

Philadelphia

Philadelphia is the third and final movie that our group chose to watch for our director assignment on Jonathan Demme. While this movie's genre/plot was not very similar to either of the last two movies that I've seen, there were some cinematographic elements that I found very similar in both movies.

One thing that I noticed Demme did a lot of in this movie was showing characters at different angles. For example he would always show Joe's face (Denzel Wacshington) at a higher angle making him look like he is confident in himself, while on the other hand Andrew was often shot from a higher angle showing his defeat from his illness, AIDS. One really good example of this was when Andrew is in the court room and is starting to get very ill. He eventually gets up and collapses in front of the whole court, the entire time his face was shown from a high angle all the way through the very end while he's lying on the floor with the people in the room trying to save him. Another example of the angles that Demme uses include whenever he would show the lawyers from the big law firm that he was suing. Whenever they would show them it would always be at a low angle, followed by a high angle shot of Andrew. This really made it look like he was helpless and would be unable to win the trial against such a powerful law firm.

Another really interesting thing I noticed Demme did later in the movie (around 1hr40 in ) was the scene after Andrew collapsed in the court room and following the scene of him looking like he was about to die in the hospital. This scene starts in the court room from behind the back of Joe (Andrews attorney) looking forward to the judge and witness. The camera then either did a tracking shot/pan shot from behind joe's head all around the back of the courtroom going behind the heads of all the lawyers there. During the whole shot we are listening to the witness speaking while not knowing whether or not Andrew is even alive or present at the trial. Even though in the end this isn't that important to the plot, I won't say what happens next to not spoil the movie for anyone reading this. But the shot that he used at this time was really a interesting way to build some suspense/questions as to what had exactly happened to Andrew.

In the end I went into this movie thinking that it was simply going to be another boring good lawyer vs. bad lawyers case that I really wouldn't be able to enjoy and simply wanting to watch it to get this blog done, but have since then realized that I really liked this movie and it points out some very strong "social commentary" issues about AIDS and being gay that are realistic issues in today's society. This movie was less about the action and suspense of a trial but rather an example of some of the un-justices that we still face in our society and how people need to keep fighting for what they believe in. I have also come to realize, after seeing two movies by the same director with D-Washington in them, that he is a very believable actor that just does a really good job of playing his role.

Alfred Hitchcock

Ever since I was little I had always heard old people talking about how Alfred Hitchcock was one of the best directors of all time and that all of his movies are simply amazing. Due to this I was going into the movie Rear Window with rather high expectations. In my mind Hitchcock was great at creating suspense and interest with the capabilities that he had. Obviously his budget wasn't near as high as a lot of the Hollywood directors that we see today but the movies he made were very interesting.

For this blog I want to comment on the second movie that we watched directed by him being Rear Window. I am choosing this one because I really enjoyed it and thought it was a pretty good picture. While the plot is quite simple and the story certainly doesn't move around very much, the sense of "neighborhood" and togetherness that he makes with all the neighbors in the apartments without them even knowing it is very interesting. Hitchcock shows us mainly an entire movie from the point of view of a man looking out his window because of a broken leg and what mysteries he discovers in his neighborhood. The entire murder case that unfolds throughout this movie is almost more of a side story to the love story that becomes of L.B. and Lisa. The attention to all the characters in this small neighborhood make the viewer really feel like he/she is almost a part of it and very interested in knowing what is going to happen next. He also makes some good suspense scenes such as when Lisa is in the house and from LB's perspective we see the killer returning to his apartment with us not knowing how she is going to get out of it. The mixture of suspense and story that Hitchcock puts into this film make it something that is really work watching and while it seems boring at first, once it gets going you start to enjoy it more and more.

The Manchurian Candidate - Jonathan Demme

This movie was yet another one of Demme's movies that I have come to appreciate. The way the movie starts reminded me somewhat of Apocalypse Now with its colors and great war scenes, and while it did get dull at some points in the middle, the last thirty minutes of this picture are truly something to enjoy. While this movie was completely different from the previous I watched, Silence of the Lambs, there were numerous characteristics of Demme's work that I noticed in both. One being how he creates suspense and the other the cinematography that is used in both movies.

Like in the previous movie I really enjoyed the way that Demme played suspense into this film. While there was in my mind quite a bit of boring stuff until I was actually intrigued, once it started to get good I was into the movie more than most other movies I've seen. The biggest point of suspense in this picture in my mind is when Denzel Washington is supposed to assassinate the president during the presidents victory party. This simple idea is played out for several minutes and a lot of suspense and mystery is put on whether or not he is going to do it and if he doesn't what's going to happen and what will happen to him. I think all these questions that I found myself asking myself during this sequence were really what makes the suspense so good. Because I don't want to ruin the movie for anyone that hasn't seen it, I don't want to go into any more detail as to what happens but the big twist that is put in the movie at this point is really eye opening.

As far as the cinematography goes the main thing that I noticed in both movies are a lot of close up shots of the actors faces. This occurs primarily when they are talking to each other but also throughout the movie by themselves and at other times. These shots add a sense of "better understanding" as to what is going through the characters mind and his emotions at that point in time. Demme would do this a lot with Hannibal in Silence of the Lambs making him look crazy and he also did it quite a bit with Ben Marco, the ex-army Captain played by Denzel Washington. There were also other close ups that involved the second most important character being Raymond Shaw played by Liev Shrieber.

With the cinematography and the way that Demme orchestrates suspense into his movies, I can't wait to see if the last film of his I choose to watch is similar, or falls short of my new found expectations of this director.