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.

The Silence of the Lambs by Jonathan Demme

The Silence of the Lambs is a great horror movie directed by Jonathan Demme. The first thing that I want to analyze in this movie is the different ways that Demme creates suspense and mystery throughout his movie. The first way he created suspense in this movie was done at the beginning and again in the middle with the same effects during both sequences. At the start of the movie the viewer is left on the edge of their seat as we watch the main character, Clarice, walk through several security gates to speak with the crazy canabal killer locked away in a mental institute. Throughout this entire scene, Demme shows only Clarice's actions and a few other security guards but doesn't show the face of the killer until the very end. This type of suspense is repeated later in the middle of the movie when they find the body of a girl that was murdered and thrown into a river. When they finally open up the bag to examine the dead girl, we see close ups on all the characters standing around the body's faces but Demme again doesn't show us what they are all looking at until the very end. In my opinion this technique that he used to created mystery and suspense worked very well and made me really want to find out what these people were looking at.

Another time in this movie where I felt Demme did an amazing job of keeping the viewer on the edge of their seat was during the final scenes when Clarice is walking through the house in the dark with the second crazy killer right behind her with night vision on. This scene is quite hard to explain if you haven't seen the movie (why we are doing this assignment in groups I'm guessing) but it really shows just how vulnerable Clarice is as the second serial killer, Bill, waves his hand around her face in the dark without her even knowing it. You get a sense of the fear that must be going through Clarice's mind during this entire scene and the complete control that Bill has over her. In my mind this scene was the most suspenseful and interesting part of the entire movie.

The last thing I want to comment on is the great ending that I felt Demme put in to conclude this film. While it's kind of obvious that he's setting it up for a sequel, the ending really makes me think, and is one of those things that can give someone nightmares during their sleep. It's hard to explain why this ending is so great without completely ruining it for anyone who hasn't seen the film, so I won't, but if you have seen this movie I think you can relate. Overall I really enjoyed watching this movie and can't wait to see what happens in the next one.

Do the Right Thing

For this post I have decided to analyze and decide once and for all if Sal, the pizza store owner, was a racist. Up until the end of the movie when he let our the n-word, I felt there is no way that his character was meant to be a racist. After him calling Radio-Raheem the n-word I decided that I needed to re-evaluate whether or not he is a racist. To do this I think it would be best to take all of the reasons that people feel he was a racist and prove why they really aren't as they seem.

One argument that people in class had was that when Sal was talking to Peno about how he loved feeding the people in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood he referred to the them as "they" or "them" which some thought made Sal look like a racist. While at first glance this seems to be something that someone would use to make another group of people sound inferior or different, there really isn't another way to put it without using the word "them". If you really think about it there really wasn't any other way for Sal to make reference to the people in that neighborhood without using the word they and those kids.

Probably the best argument that people had for calling Sal a racist was when he used the n-word towards Radio-Raheem at the end of the movie. In my mind I really don't think that using that word was something he had been thinking of saying and planning deep inside his head, but instead the result of his anger and the reaction to what Radio-Raheem was doing. I don't think Sal really felt that way about the people that lived in the neighborhood but was reacting to the events happening right in front of him and was very angry at Radio-R. Therefore I don't think he really meant what he said when he lashed out at Radio-Raheem.

Overall I really don't think that Sal was a racist, but just a person trying to make a living in a rough neighborhood. He didn't show many other signs of racism throughout the movie and the ones that he may have shown can be proven to be misleading. In the end I do not feel that Sal was a racist and really enjoyed watching this movie.

Battle of Algiers

For this post I have chosen to read the review from the Washington Post about the Battle of Algiers by Ann Hornaday. I pretty much agree with a lot of the stuff that she is saying about the movie, the biggest being that there were no heroes in this movie. She writes about how,

"The escalating skirmishes and attacks seem to culminate not in victory but in a far more deflating sense of inevitability."

This is exactly how I felt after seeing the movie, while at first you feel like Ali is going to be the main character and that we are going to follow him throughout the movie, it turns into many different characters with no one side really being shown as heroic. This is done by showing the planting of bombs by both sides, instead of just he French or Algerians. The movie also doesn't try to make one side look like saints and the other look like terrible people, but instead makes them both look like they are doing what needs to be done to save their country.

Another thing that Ann wrote in her review was about how the film looks like,"it is what would today be called a mock-documentary, but there is nothing mock about it" I also agree with this and feel that Pontecorvo did a really good job of using a lot of hand-held shots and black and white picture to make this movie more documentary-like. By having it this way the movie is more believable and you feel like this is actually exactly what happened during that time. I don't think that this movie would be nearly as good without those two aspects.

Overall I enjoyed this film to a certain extent as I feel like it can teach us something about terrorism and look at both sides of the problem. While I felt the movie was boring at times, there were still some good suspense scenes that made it worth seeing.